Ever heard of the weaponisation of the brain?
Let’s look at a real-life example and see how destructive this kind of neuroscientific warfare can be.
South Africans, many already facing financial struggles, are spending R75 billion a year on online betting and gambling. It’s now the 12th-highest household expense, higher than medical aid and savings.
The sad part is, these platforms took something extraordinary – our understanding of how the human brain processes rewards – and turned it into something dark. They know that near misses activate the same neural pathways as real wins. They know that losses hurt more than gains, so we chase.They know that micro-doses of unpredictable rewards are enough to trigger dopaminergic pathways, so addiction follows.
And they understand behavioural science, too. They use the availability heuristic to make sure gambling ads are always visible. They remove friction from deposits to make betting instant. They tap into our natural drives for mastery, hope and control to keep us playing.
Sure, we can villanise them. We certainly consider their behaviour grossly unethical. But the question is, can we actually stop them? Pick n Pay CEO Sean Summers said earlier this week that government ought to ban digital ads from these companies. That would be a strong start. Reducing advertising means weakening the availability bias that keeps gambling front of mind.
Next, we can tackle the rest:
Add friction through cooling-off periods and deposit limits.
Slow down games to reduce dopamine hacking.
Make odds transparent so decisions can engage logic again.
Reward restraint instead of risk.
Every barrier that stands between our brains and their weaponisation is a step toward protecting people, rather than exploiting them.