Psychology, Design and Economics of Slot-Machines

6 writes "Technology isn't just about design and hardware; sometimes it's about psychology, politics, sociology, and economics. The website of Stanford design prof Michael Shanks is hosting a student project by William Choi and Antoine Sindhu, a fascinating online course about slot machines. From the site: 'Much research has been devoted to studying gambling behavior from various points of view, including the psychological, social, economic, and political bases and implications of gambling ... [just the same,] focusing on slot machines reveals and inspires the study of many sociological issues that have come to express themselves specifically and notably on these machines. Here, we examine a number of these issues, attempting to link slot machines to them in an effort to better understand and explain them.'"

Comments

Oh, it's a student project

[Animats]

It's a student project, and it shows. The article is superficial. The first two sources listed are Wikipedia and HowStuffWorks. There's a page on the Simpsons. You get the general idea.

Considerable work has been done on gambling psychology, but they didn't find it. There's an online Journal of Gambling Issues, with papers like Slot machine structural characteristics: Distorted player views of payback percentages. There's an annual trade show, Global Gaming Expo, and even an institute of higher learning devoted to the subject, the International Gaming Institute, part of (inevitably) the University of Las Vegas.

Their "experimental work" consisted of playing "freeslots.com". They didn't even notice that the "free slots" programs are set to have an expectation greater than zero when played in free mode. In fact, it's quite difficult to lose at "freeslots".

Industry analysis of player psychology has gone way beyond the stuff mentioned in this student paper. The big breakthrough was when slot machines started accepting player affinity cards. Today's casinos have the player's entire history, at the per-click level, on file, and considerable effort goes into mining that data. Some studies have compared what players have thought they won versus the casino's history of their track record. Many players don't even know that they're losing, let alone how much.

If you want to read about this subject, start with Super Casino, an 1999 inside look at some major Las Vegas properties.

Re:Oh, it's a student project

[stonecypher]

The idea that casinos operate under "minimal government regulation" is so ridiculous as to be completely laughable.

No, it isn't. You should see the regulations other companies have for gambling machines - they specify the entire payout structures, the hit likelihoods, the amount of noise the machines are amount to make, the volume of brightness allowed to be put out in lumens, all sorts of stuff. All the American gaming services do is require regular random testing of the machines, honest posting of stats, no rigged machines, and a cap on expected draw. America has about the most open and liberal market possible while still intending to verify the honesty of a proprietor.

Just because it's hard to regulate gambling honesty doesn't mean that we're doing a particularly overbearing job of it. In general, it's not appropriate even as a professional to suggest that one country's regulations are or are not strict until you have experience with the regulations of other countries (as usual, Canada doesn't count.)

Casino gambling is one of the most highly regulated industries in our nation.

Nonsense. Again you are confusing your lack of personal experience with something more strict with that there is nothing more strict. Neighborhood banks go through regulations that make casinos look positively lax. The local UPS hub has an on-site police force (and no, your 20-dude goon squad in casino floor 3 isn't a police force, I mean an actual went to the real police acadamy people with badges that mean something in court type police force;) that's there for a reason. Your local airport guys are rolling their eyes right now. Any place that sells chemical fertilizer (not dirt) is pretty pissed at you right now. A gas station goes through more verifications per-machine than a casino does, though given how many more machines a casino has than a gas station, the validity of that point is ... curious.

Then you get down to places with real security - prisons, power plants, dams, stock exchanges, CDC Level 3+ quarantine sites (there's at least one in almost every major city and one at most strong medical schools,) ports of call, military bases, missile silos - you say gambling's securer than those places around the people who keep them secure, you're likely to get a punch in the mouth.

'Course, if by "regulated" you meant investigated by the government, well, then you obviously have no experience in finance, transportation, the fuel sector, alcohol, tobacco, pornography, television decency, abortion, cosmetic surgery, car sales or cell phone region mapping. Indeed, if you take a good solid look at it, casino regulation is pretty much on par with other industries making that amount of money. You want something better regulated, you move up the dollar chain, you get religious ethics involved or you make a genuine stab at the public health.

Frankly, prostitution is a better regulated Nevada state industry than gambling is; that's why they can spot disease trends across small brothels but not theft trends across major casinos on the same street. You seem to think that any enforcement in a casino is government enforcement. The vast bulk of it isn't. No government agency says that a casino has to look for cheaters. They're doing that themselves because it's in their financial best interest. Gambling regulation is just a set of rules saying how far they're allowed to set the statistics, how long they're allowed to milk a given customer, and a lot of random sampling to make sure people are telling the truth.

You want real regulation, you look at the drug war. That's regulation that works better than casino regulation, and everybody being regulated is fighting it as hard as they can, unlike casinos, who cooperate quite openly.

People always want to be a winner

[CrazyJim1]

I was thinking today: If someone wins at a slot machine, they tell other people and get them interested in the trip to a casino. Now when people lose, they don't go bragging like they do when they win so negative publicity is low. It's always,"Hey I bought a motorcylce with my winnings." or,"I played all day on one dollar."

Psychology of slot machine users: Depressed

[thc69]

The last time I was in a casino, I realized that out of the thousands of drones sitting at machines, not a single one was smiling. Aren't they there to have fun? Must be something like grinding and farming in an MMORPG...lots of unpleasant time spent "having fun".

I repeat: Thousands of people. Zero smiles. Legions of bleary-eyed bleak-souled drones.

I have no moral problem with gambling, and it doesn't bother me that there are four casinos within two hours drive of my house...but I just can't understand why any of those people are there, doing that. They sure don't look like they're having fun. (And, you may ask, why was I there? Restaurants.)

Re:Psychology of slot machine users: Depressed

[Paulrothrock]

The wife and I went to a casino in Atlantic City. I took out $20 and left my bank cards in the car so that I couldn't take out any more. Five minutes at one slot machine and I was out of dough. I looked at my wife and asked "Okay, so now what?" It wasn't fun at all.

Now, sitting down at a table with a bunch of friends and playing cards is one thing, but pushing a button on a machine like a rat? I can do that at home for free.

If you go to Atlantic City, make sure you check out the Ripley's museum. It's the only good thing in that god foresaken town.

Re:Psychology of slot machine users: Depressed

[Le Marteau]

not a single one was smiling. Aren't they there to have fun?

Why is it required that one grin like an imbecile while 'having fun'? For example, look at a biker on a Harley Davidson. They generally look like someone took a mighty big piss in their corn flakes that morning. But I bet they sure are 'having fun' or however you would insist on phrasing it.

hahahaha

[yoha]

Wikipedia is cited as a source

Re:This article is not based on facts.

[Graff]

In fact, intentionally displaying "near misses" is illegal in pretty much every single gaming jurisdiction. Actually there is a very easy way of legally doing this. You set up the wheels so that certain wheels have more of some symbols than others.

Suppose there are 3 wheels and 3 symbols - a, b, and c. The wheels have the symbols in the following amounts:
wheel 1: a a b c c
wheel 2: a a b b c
wheel 3: a b b c c

In other words, two wheels have two copies of symbol "a" and one wheel has one copy of symbol "a". The same goes for the other symbols.

You now have a much greater chance of getting 2 of any symbol than you do of getting all 3. This is just a simple example, there are many more ways of setting up the wheels so that you get a large amount of "near misses" and are goaded into playing the machine more. It's not illegal to set up the wheels in this manner, what is illegal is pre-deciding the result of a random spin of the wheels. This kind of setup is just obfuscating the chances of getting a certain layout of symbols.

You're calling them crazy?

[Afecks]

You're calling other people crazy yet you've found a way to turn this discussion into anti-Microsoft hate propaganda yet again like the countless others. You're not even talking about how great something is, you're talking about how much it sucks, constantly. If you hate it so much why do you focus on it to the point where you can't have a normal conversation about anything BUT this single topic?

This is fairly common

[heinousjay]

It's what happens when people build their entire persona around a single idea. The best thing to do with people who exhibit a singular focus is to ignore them, lest you get sucked into their psychological pathology inadvertently.

Re:Variable Ratio Conditioning

[chimpo13]

A rat is an animal with a fairly limited number of interests, say: survive (eat/drink/not get killed) and reproduce.

That's not true at all. You are assuming rats only live to survive and reproduce in a way that's different from people. People use architecture and books as a way to survive and reproduce. Architecture can be looked at the same way as peacock feathers -- chicks put out to people who build (or live) neat buildings. By Whatshername the author of Harry Potter, by writing books, she's increased her chance of finding a good mate.

People are animals and our interests interest us more than rat interest. I'm sure rats have tastes that increase their ability to mate, the same way people do. Rats push bars for food to increase their reproductive ability. People push bars for money for the same -- to get laid.

I hope that makes sense.

Re:This article is not based on facts.

[Graff]

I think grandparent post is talking about the machine doing something shonky like:
1. Generate a random number.
2. Convert that random number to a game outcome.
3. If outcome is 'player loses', display a non-paying 'near miss' on the lines played, or even a paying 'near miss' on unplayed lines. Probably but I wanted to point out that there are legal ways of being intentionally misleading when it comes to slot machines. Yes the law is says that you can't do the steps you outlined but there are many ways of still misleading the slot machine player that don't fall under the law.

The method I described is only one of many ways that a slot machine manufacturer could influence a player in a way that favors the casino. An example of another way of being misleading is to have additional symbols that closely resemble the winning ones. Then when these symbols come up you are tricked into getting the initial elation of winning a big prize. If these misleading symbols also payout for small prizes then you are further rewarded for playing and are more likely to continue to play. These small wins can be tailored to have a win rate which is less than the loss rate but only a careful player would ever notice this fact.

The article is a bit hamfisted with some of the information and conclusions it presents but one thing definitely rings true - the casino tailors the environment to best work on the psychology of the players in order to get them to spend more money and get addicted to gambling. This can be seen in every aspect of the casino environment, from the structure of the games to the ancillary entertainment provided by the casino to the food and the comps systems used.

The key to countering this is to make all your decisions before you enter that environment. Decide how long you are going to stay, how much money you are willing to lose, what exactly you are going to do at the casino, and so on. Also take a good, hard look at the reason WHY you are going to the casino in the first place and whether there is someplace else less risky that would satisfy that reason. If it is for entertainment maybe you would be better off going to dinner and a movie for the price of $50 per person rather than the casino for the price of $200 per person.

There's nothing wrong with casinos, what's wrong is going to them blindly and randomly and getting addicted to the "thrill" of the casino experience. It's like any other activity - moderation is good, excess is bad.

Re:The near misses are not "programmed."

[GoodbyeBlueSky1]

Over two days, I decided to "track" the play on a given slot machine, by attempting to jot down the results. How did you do this without attracting attention? I feel like many casinos would threaten to break your knees if they saw you doing that, despite the fact that as you say it wouldn't help you win. It still looks "weird" and surely the billion cameras in the ceiling could see you.

Re:Variable Ratio Conditioning

[KDR_11k]

Or, in some circles, as an MMORPG.

Re:Cherry Dribbling

[Mprx]

The house isn't playing against an individual customer, it's playing against all the customers. The only way they can make money with >100% payout is by using it as a loss leader to attract them to worse paying gambling.

Re:This article is not based on facts.

[stonecypher]

Just like a real slot machine, we found that the online simulator had a very high frequency of "near misses."

I work for a company that makes video and mechanical slot machines. This quote is just plain wrong. In fact, intentionally displaying "near misses" is illegal in pretty much every single gaming jurisdiction.

... no, what's illegal is rigging the machine to control the distribution of its end results. Carefully arranging the faces on the dials such that nearly every wheel combination walks across an almost-win on its way to stopping is actually quite easy - it's a simple mathematical distribution when you remember that the wheels aren't moving at the same speed.

The problem with talking to professionals is that if you say something that's similar to something illegal, they assume that's what you mean, and tell you it's not possible. Believe it or not, some people do understand that you can't rig gaming machines. That does *not* mean that you can't build the gaming machines to have all of the perceptually important parts of a rigged machine.

it creates the illusion that you have "almost" won.

It is simply the perception by the player.

Yes, that's what he said.

Re:Cherry Dribbling

[Knave75]

If it's quarter slots no, if it's $1M a pull, possibly. That statistics work in the long run, and often the games are setup so the machines will be retired before they achieve their theoretical payout.

What I should have said in the grandparent post was that a billionaire playing slots that had a payout of 98% would inevitably lose money if he played long enough. This was as opposed to the comment that claimed that a "bigger bankroll" could somehow be used to improve the probability of winning. Obviously, one pull of the slot machine could easily be a winner, so there is no point in talking about short-term results. Now, however, what do you mean by "games are set up so that they will be retired before they achieve their theoretical outputs". Are you saying that there are slot machines out there that pay more than 100%, but, by taking off the casino early, we somehow lower the amount that they pay out such that it falls below the theoretical payout?

That would not work of course, if you took a group of 2000 machines with a 102% payout, and removed them from the casino after 5 months (or whatever arbitrary time that is before the machine achieves its theoretical results), some machines will have paid out more than 102%, while other will have paid out less. Overall, the aggregate amount that the machines underpaid would probably be very close to that which was overpaid.

As you said, statistics work in the long run, and casinos only think in the long run. A casino would never hope to make a profit from a machine that gave a 102% payout, no matter how long that machine was in service.