Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Slot Machine Sleight Of Hand

Do you think that when you "almost" win a jackpot, the machine is "due?" Think again. It's all part of the designed illusion to entice you to stick around. The Ottawa Citizen has a great article that explains the operation of modern slot machines. The good thing about newer machines is that there is the potential of huge jackpots. The bad thing is that there are a lot more losing plays.

The sea change in slot machines came with the Telnaes patent in 1984. His description of the invention says it all: "It is important to make a machine that is perceived to present greater chances of payoff than it actually has within the legal limitations that games of chance must operate."

What does that mean? Well basically, when you play, the microprocessor in the machine determines if you win some, lots or nothing. What's so bad about that, right? Well...there's a kinda bad and a really bad. The really bad you won't see in North American casinos, but the kinda bad you will.

The kinda bad is that modern machines program the non-winning symbols (usually blanks, but they count as symbols) to show up much more than winning symbols. For example, lets say the machine you're playing has 3 strips with 22 symbols on each strip, half of them blank. Assuming random chance, you would think a blank would happen 50% of the time on each strip, which would be correct. What if you knew the blanks were programmed to happen 90% of the time on each strip? The visual representation, however, lets you make the logical mental assumption that each symbol has an equal chance of occurring. Nope.

The really bad is when you play, the microprocessor determines if you win some, lots or nothing. If nothing, then the microprocessor tells the machine what symbols to stop on. That's not really bad. The really bad is that the microprocessor programs a loss to look like an almost win to make you think you just missed. That's really bad. Again, no North American jurisdictions allow this kind of machine. However, even with the kinda bad, you tend to get a lot of "near misses."

So why do this? So you will play longer. Read "play longer" as "lose more money."

"Near-misses create an "Aww, shucks" effect that keeps slots players glued to their stools. Studies have shown that frequent near-misses lead to significantly longer playing times. As one researcher put it: 'The player is not constantly losing, but constantly nearly winning.' "

So, if you know that, and keep that in mind while playing, you hopefully will continue to enjoy playing, but not get caught up and let your play get away from you.

Add to Technorati Favorites

No comments: