Someone help me understand how this game is supposed to work.

I’ve been watching US Season 1, so my thoughts relate only to this season.

This show obviously falls in the vein of games like Among Us, Secret Hitler, and even The Mole. However, unlike these other games, there’s one thing that is missing - a clear difference in motivation between the Traitors and the Faithful. Throughout the game all competitors are invested in maximizing the amount of money in the pot, so from a purely gameplay-based standpoint, there is no real “evidence” that someone might be a Traitor.

Thinking back to the first banishment vote, what rationale could anyone have had that someone may have been a Traitor? I will acknowledge that as the game progresses, there are mounting interpersonal conflicts and group dynamics that give some justification for how the house votes, but at the end of the day, the Traitors were a) randomly selected, and b) given no real reason to behave differently than the Faithful (e.g. like in The Mole).

Maybe there’s some nuance I’m missing? Or maybe these issues get addressed in other seasons/versions of the show. Curious what others think.