From Casino Novice to Golden Rooster King: A Neuroeconomic Journey in Game Design

I didn’t set out to win big—I set out to understand why people keep playing when they know they shouldn’t.

Growing up in Chicago’s South Side as the child of Haitian and African immigrants, raised by the Wesleyan Church but wired to empirical logic, I learned that gambling isn’t sin—it’s syntax. The slot machine? It’s a drum. The spin? It’s a beat.

My three bestselling slot games weren’t built on chance—they were engineered with Skinner boxes calibrated to dopamine pulses. Each lever pull was timed to match the syncopated rhythm of Afro-Caribbean street celebrations—R$1 bets mimicking samba steps, wins timed like carnival flares.

I tracked players’ eye movements across 200+ sessions. Heatmaps showed where gaze lingered: not on payouts, but on near-misses—the illusion of almost-winning was the real hook.

The ‘Golden Rooster’ wasn’t just a game—it was an anthropological field study disguised as entertainment. Players didn’t chase jackpots; they chased rhythm. They danced with the machine because it felt like home.

I don’t sell dreams. I sell structure. And if you play one round after midnight—with R$50 budget and zero guilt—you’re not losing.

You’re finally dancing with the rooster.