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How slot machines are designed to be addictive

theguardian.com

141–150 of 201 posts

Re: How slot machines are designed to be addictive

#141
post #126
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I write this, I think you have a typo there; 94-97% payout on $1000 is $940-970. (But I am confident it is just a typo.) And you sort of state this, but I'd empasize that's per spin ; for a $1 spin, the casino expects to make 5 cents and give back 95 cents... but then they expect you to put those 95 cents right back in with high probability, meaning that you can now expect .9025 of the original dollar, which again…

The "right" way to gamble is to decide how much fun gambling is and how much it's worth to you and then spend that amount. Like for example I could go skydiving for $350 or play a few hours of blackjack and poker for that much and decide to choose the latter. So you spend that much to get the expected result. Sometimes you bust out quickly, sometimes you make money, just like sometimes you see a bad movie or concert…

Yep, same for me, my mum taught me as a kid that you should never aim to come out of a casino with money. Your wager is your investment in the fun of that experience, take £20 in to play an hour on the 1p/line slots.

In the same way I play the lottery, don't expect to win, but for me the cost is worth it for the moments of daydreaming I get from it.

Re: How slot machines are designed to be addictive

#142
post #113

Sadly, the article does disservice to a lot of actual mechanics of the industry. And the amount of hard work that goes on to actually makes these games addictive. It is not for no reason that these are called one-armed bandits. * This industry is highly regulated; but it rarely does help those really in need. If the regulations were very strictly implemented (player wager limits, player time controls, self-regulation…

[deleted]

Re: How slot machines are designed to be addictive

#143

It may be this stuff is true for current slot machines, but it isn't immediately obvious if you try one. In fact, current slot machines are an incoherent mess. When I played recently, I couldn't tell whether I had a near-miss or even a win until credits counted upward. I couldn't feel any excitement because I didn't know what was going on. It would have taken me several hundred dollars worth of play to even understan…

Perhaps you just aren't familiar with basic slot concepts? A typical slot player will sit down and first figure out the shape of the lines. Once you know those, it's trivial to notice when you got a near miss. Slot machines have complex bonus games sometimes, but the base game is almost always quite simple, as long as you understand the basic concepts.

There's no such thing as a near miss in this outside of our own perception.

A loss with is a loss no matter how close that last jackpot symbol was.

Re: How slot machines are designed to be addictive

#144
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked with data analytics in problem gambling for ten years, your dismissal of the addictiveness of these games is either uninformed or rationalized, most likely both. Recent research in Sweden shows that some 75% of online casino turnover are from what can be loosely described as moderate risk gambling (PGSI3+) and approximately 50% from problem gambling (PGSI8+). Similarly about 25% of regular (monthly) pla…

Human psychology studies are a tricky thing, where everyone only focuses on data which matches their preconceived notions. I'm sure that some university group has researched the cost of fashion addiction, music addiction, car addiction, holiday addiction etc. yet no-one is talking about the social cost of fashion/collections/other vices people may have. There was a large Casino court case in Australia a couple of mon…

The problem in identifying addition prone candidates is a problem of ethics. The primary behavior that defines "the gambler state", and many other forms of addiction, is a neurological disorder related to responses of dopamine flooding. This is a physiological condition in the brain that can be observed, validated, and analyzed against trends.

---

The addiction

In the most simple of terms dopamine is a brain hormone related to pleasure responses. If you eat chocolate and it tastes great your brain might get a small reward of dopamine. This is normal behavior and it is intentional so that the brain learns that pleasurable responses follow good decisions that result in rewards.

The part of this behavior that triggers addiction is that the dopamine response is not consistent. Planned and known wins result in small rewards. A surprise win results an observably larger reward. Again, this is proper human behavior intended to influence learning and decisions in the brain.

Addiction sets in when there is a disconnect between the dopamine cycle (the pleasurable stimulus from a win) and the resultant learning. A healthy person learns that the surprise win results in greater pleasure and modifies their behavior to find or achieve other surprises, because the current win is no longer a surprise and will no longer trigger the big dopamine rush. An person suffering from addiction, however, repeats the same behaviors in order to reproduce the same surprise wins because their brains haven't learned from the surprise. In their case their behavior is like-wise modified as influenced by the dopamine response, but instead of influenced in a direction for making future decisions they are stuck in a state of instant replay.

While the learning dysfunction is bad it isn't the primary problem of addiction. When the cognitive decision making is informed by a short-circuited response to a non-cognitive physiological condition of the brain the person won't know there is anything wrong or impaired. After all, either way there is a dopamine cycle and modified behavior. It is impossible to determine the impairment yourself because that very level of awareness and reasoning are influenced by this dopamine-learning cycle that is impaired in the first place.

That impossibility is the problem of addiction.

---

The ethics

People with the dysfunctional behavior are identifiable. The problem is what do you do with them. You already know they are subject to a hopeless cycle of instant-replay and can use that knowledge to bleed them dry. Their decision making on a very foundational and emotional level is hopelessly damaged.

On one hand you can ask them to give you everything they own, and they will if you ask them correctly. This isn't just gambling or addiction, but qualifies a whole host of behaviors associated with marketing generally and isn't necessarily wrong... immediately.

Ethically speaking there is nothing wrong with persuading or manipulating people. People encounter such choices numerous times everyday. The ethical part creeps on two fronts:

1. If you know somebody's basic decision making capability is damaged and you intentionally abuse that damage to your self satisfaction

2. If you know bombarding a person, whether or not in a state of reasonable deciding capacity, with messaging to influence that person contrary to their objectives or in excess of a reasonable period of messaging

In many cases things that are commonly referred to as vises intentionally violate those two identified points of ethics. The legal available of a service or product does not qualify the ethics around such.

Re: How slot machines are designed to be addictive

#145
post #113

Sadly, the article does disservice to a lot of actual mechanics of the industry. And the amount of hard work that goes on to actually makes these games addictive. It is not for no reason that these are called one-armed bandits. * This industry is highly regulated; but it rarely does help those really in need. If the regulations were very strictly implemented (player wager limits, player time controls, self-regulation…

>the low income, unstable jobs, low literacy, blue collar jobs or are already on social support.

The few times I've been to a casino, I was really surprised by the crowd. It wasn't exactly Casino Royale. Just a lot of people who came off as lower class to me (clothing, speech, mannerisms, etc) and/or retirees, who also weren't exactly living it up. Heck, I even saw a woman slyly shove a $5 prime rib into her purse for later. The entire steak too, and without a ziplock or anything. She just shoved it in there to eat later. She was also wearing a bedazzled sweater with a pair of dice. I suspect a lot of these people end up identifying with a 'casino lifestyle.'

There was also something depressing about the slot machines that had cute cartoon characters on them. I wonder what the emotional and intellectual age of the people playing are. They seemed more like children who have yet to have the maturity and education to understand risk and financial security than adults.

>This industry is highly regulated

I imagine its regulated like most regulations in the USA: by the whims of the industry itself. They'll tolerate gambling hotlines and will fund them because ultimately that keeps real regulation away. The same way cigarette makers tolerated labels but, of course, were never pulled from store shelves.

Re: How slot machines are designed to be addictive

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human psychology studies are a tricky thing, where everyone only focuses on data which matches their preconceived notions. I'm sure that some university group has researched the cost of fashion addiction, music addiction, car addiction, holiday addiction etc. yet no-one is talking about the social cost of fashion/collections/other vices people may have. There was a large Casino court case in Australia a couple of mon…

The problem in identifying addition prone candidates is a problem of ethics. The primary behavior that defines "the gambler state", and many other forms of addiction, is a neurological disorder related to responses of dopamine flooding. This is a physiological condition in the brain that can be observed, validated, and analyzed against trends. --- The addiction In the most simple of terms dopamine is a brain hormone…

>The problem is what do you do with them.

Apparently the casinos' response is to give them free food, drinks, flattery, personal attention, attractive host(esse)s, and comp them luxurious hotel suites with big windows overlooking crowded country music festivals.

Re: How slot machines are designed to be addictive

#147

Disclaimer: I design the machines and games for a living. 1) regarding near miss, with basic math knowledge you can easily calculate the odds of near miss. Eg. with 2 special symbols per 30 symbol reel, for a 3x5 reel game, you have a 1:5 chance of seeing the special symbol per reel, or once per spin for a 5 reel game. The odds of a 4 symbol near miss is (1:5)^4, which is 1:625, or once every 30 minutes. With a bank…

> Its not planned, it just works out that way Oh come on, this is some doublethink if ever I saw it. > Every 6th employee in the industry would also be addicted No- the employees would be out of a job if the addicts werent in there, they see both sides of the coin, winners and losers, and have a completely different perspective on gambling. If anything I’d expect employees to be more immune to addiction than anything…

> Your arguments 4 & 5 can be applied directly to hard drugs without modification.

That doesn't make them bad arguments. His arguments 4&5 are perfectly fine arguments, even when applied to hard drugs.

Re: How slot machines are designed to be addictive

#148

Disclaimer: I design the machines and games for a living. 1) regarding near miss, with basic math knowledge you can easily calculate the odds of near miss. Eg. with 2 special symbols per 30 symbol reel, for a 3x5 reel game, you have a 1:5 chance of seeing the special symbol per reel, or once per spin for a 5 reel game. The odds of a 4 symbol near miss is (1:5)^4, which is 1:625, or once every 30 minutes. With a bank…

> Its not planned, it just works out that way Oh come on, this is some doublethink if ever I saw it. > Every 6th employee in the industry would also be addicted No- the employees would be out of a job if the addicts werent in there, they see both sides of the coin, winners and losers, and have a completely different perspective on gambling. If anything I’d expect employees to be more immune to addiction than anything…

"I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way." -Jessica Rabbit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAnNvnViJpo

Re: How slot machines are designed to be addictive

#149
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If malfunction voids all pays and plays, and if the casino can legally not pay what the machine says it should, then it should also be on the casino to track down every single person who's ever put money into that machine and give them a full refund. If a machine has the kind of coding glitch that could cause this sort of payout, who's to say it hasn't been stealing from players all along?

i agree in principle with your argument, but i imagine the only way to properly track historical players of that machine is if they kept some sort of ledger or database on every single user of the machine, which probably means they'd need to store your personal information somewhere indefinitely. not sure too many gamblers would be cool with that.

blockchain slots? I like it....

Re: How slot machines are designed to be addictive

#150
post #126
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I write this, I think you have a typo there; 94-97% payout on $1000 is $940-970. (But I am confident it is just a typo.) And you sort of state this, but I'd empasize that's per spin ; for a $1 spin, the casino expects to make 5 cents and give back 95 cents... but then they expect you to put those 95 cents right back in with high probability, meaning that you can now expect .9025 of the original dollar, which again…

The "right" way to gamble is to decide how much fun gambling is and how much it's worth to you and then spend that amount. Like for example I could go skydiving for $350 or play a few hours of blackjack and poker for that much and decide to choose the latter. So you spend that much to get the expected result. Sometimes you bust out quickly, sometimes you make money, just like sometimes you see a bad movie or concert…

Yes, totally agree with this. This is the most appropriate way to gamble. The casinos are viewed as an entertainment industry, and that's exactly what people should treat them as.

For me, I realized years ago that even when I won, I didn't enjoy playing. That was an odd observation/realization to experience when it finally occurred to me. I was down in New Orleans for a bachelor party and we all won a bunch of money because the table was hot - everyone roughly made enough to pay for their trip. Which was great. But then I realized that even though I was thrilled that I just got a free trip, it occurred to me I didn't actually enjoy the experience (time spent) of winning the money. I derived little to no entertainment/pleasure from it as it was happening, even though the process was addicting. Luckily, we managed to all agree to leave while we were up big.

I think if most people actually sat down and thought about it, I think they would find the same true for them. Ever actually looked at gamblers when they are playing? They all look miserable. High stakes, low stakes, slots, table games, doesn't matter. Most of them look miserable yet remain there.

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