The Gamble in Everyday Life: How Marketing Turns Us All into Bettors

The other day, I was at Quickmart doing some regular shopping. On the wall, a large poster caught my attention: “Shop & Win. Grand Prize: A Car.” The rules were simple — spend at least 3,000 shillings, and you automatically entered the draw. Almost at the same time, Cadbury was running its own promotion. Buy two of their products, and you stood a chance to win prizes.

Now here’s the truth: I don’t even like chocolate, and I rarely buy drinking chocolate. But I found myself at the counter with two Cadbury items in hand. I also spent more than I had planned in Quickmart just to qualify for the draw. All of a sudden, I was no longer shopping for what I needed — I was gambling with my shopping cart.

And this is where the realization struck me: nobody is immune. We like to think gambling is only about betting shops, casinos, or shady lottery schemes. But everyday promotions, loyalty cards, and “win big” campaigns are simply socially acceptable versions of the same thing.

Promotions as Legal Gambling

When you spend money on something you don’t need, only because you might win something, that’s gambling. The car at Quickmart, the fridge in a supermarket promotion, or the millions promised in a lottery — it’s all the same logic. The house (or in this case, the supermarket or brand) always wins.

Psychologists have studied this deeply. The same triggers that betting companies use are at play here:

Scarcity and urgency: “Limited time offer!”
Hope and imagination: We picture ourselves behind the wheel of the car, not among the thousands who won nothing.
Loss aversion: We feel like we’ve missed out if we don’t at least try.
Dopamine and reward systems: The tiny thrill of entering a draw feels like a win in itself.

It is subtle, it is clever, and it works.

Hope as Both Fuel and Trap

Hope is powerful. In Kenya, hope has kept people alive through poverty, inequality, and instability. We live believing tomorrow will be better, that our effort will one day pay off, that mungu mbele (God first) will open doors.

But that same hope is also our Achilles’ heel. It makes us easy targets for manipulation. We’re sold dreams packaged as promotions, lotteries, betting odds, and even political promises.

Think about it:

Betting shops promise instant riches with “only 20 bob.”
Land-buying schemes tell you, “Deposit 10K today, and you might own a plot in Kamulu.”
Politicians campaign on “one million jobs” every election cycle.
Religious crusades promise miracles in exchange for donations.

It is all the same thing — dangling hope in front of us like a carrot.

So, What Do We Do About It?

The truth is, these schemes are not going anywhere. Supermarkets will keep running promotions, companies will keep baiting us, and betting shops are already a billion-shilling industry. The question is not how to make it stop, but how we can respond.

Here are a few guiding questions I’ve started asking myself:

Do I actually need this product? If I wasn’t chasing a prize, would I buy it?
What is the real cost of this “chance”? That chocolate I didn’t need was 300 shillings I could have saved.
What are the odds, really? For every winner smiling on a poster, thousands quietly lost.
What else could this money do for me? Instead of hoping for luck, could I take one small, guaranteed step with the same money — saving it, investing it, or just buying something I truly want?

The Bigger Win

Of course, I would love to win a car. Who wouldn’t? But even as I imagine myself driving it, another thought creeps in: Am I even ready for that responsibility? Insurance, fuel, parking, and maintenance would immediately follow.

Maybe the real win isn’t in hoping for a big prize that is statistically unlikely, but in refusing to be manipulated by systems designed to keep us hooked on hope.

At the end of the day, promotions, lotteries, and betting are all built on the same foundation — that we will always chase the chance of a miracle instead of building the life we want step by step.

The challenge is this: what would happen if, instead of gambling with our future, we invested the same energy in small, consistent, guaranteed choices?

That might just be the biggest prize of all.

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“Beware the bareness of a busy life,” Socrates once said. But what about the loudness of a distracted one? From matatus blaring vulgar music, to church keshas echoing through residential estates, to restaurants where conversation is a fight against speakers—it seems Kenya has made noise the background of everyday life. But what is this obsession with sound? What is all this noise trying to drown out? Noise as Culture, But Also as Coping Let’s be clear: noise has always had a place in Kenyan culture. Luo benga, Kikuyu folk tunes, Luhya drumming, Swahili taarab… music and sound are part of celebration, spirituality, and storytelling. But what we’re experiencing now is different. What we’re hearing now is not cultural expression—it’s emotional avoidance. The Psychology of Noise: What Are We Running From? 1. Noise and Loneliness We live in a time of increasing isolation. Nairobi apartments are filled with single occupants. Friendships are transactional. Family members drift emo...

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