A few years ago, I wrote a column about a story I read in
The Economist magazine. It described a study done testing the impact
of near misses on a slot machine on the human brain. What the researchers found out was that near
misses generated almost an identical reaction in the brain as an actual
win. So, if bar-bar-plum (a loser) can
make the Player feel almost as good as bar-bar-bar (as winner), all the
manufacturers have to do is figure out how make near misses show up a lot and
Players will feel like their winning almost all the time. Fortunately, the regulations and the
technology do not make this much of a challenge. Slot machines can legally be programmed to
generate a disproportionate number of near misses relative to what might be
considered random. So, while they might
throw in some fruit salad once in a while as an ugly loser, most of your losses
will appear to be 'oh so close' to winners.
Now, a new study was released this week that says the
bells and whistles used on slot machines makes the Player feel like he is
winning even when he isn't. The days of
coins dropping out of the slot are virtually gone, so the casinos added sound
effects to the machine. When you used to
hit a cherry and get 2 coins back and heard klink-klink, this was simply not
the same as hearing 20 or 100 coins going klink-klink-klink. But, in the digital age, no one says the
sound effects has to mimic the actual win.
So, the casinos can have a simple 2-coin win sound a lot like a 10-coin
win. To prove the theory, the
researchers had slot Players play with sound and without sound. Those with sound had a stronger impression
that they were winning, even when they weren't.
While this latter concept can be used for video poker, it
holds a little less water because in most varieties of video poker there is no
such thing as winning but really losing.
While many hands in video poker result in a push - which may FEEL like
winning because your original wager is returned (i.e. Jacks or Better), there
is generally no hand that returns only a portion of your original wager. With the new generation of slot machines it
is not uncommon to wager dozens of coins.
Frequently, a 'win' will result in getting only a fraction of your wager
back. Did you really win? If you wager 20 coins and get back 5, is this
a win or a loss. Admittedly, I am the
first to argue that once you wager the money it is lost and any money you get
back is a 'victory'. This seems much
more applicable to table games where you play 30-40 hands/hour rather than a
slot or video poker machine where you can play hundreds of hands per hour and
repeatedly wagering 20 and returning 5 can quickly wipe out your bankroll.
So, what is a Player to do when faced with all of this
psychological warfare used by the casinos?
Ironically, you have to use your own type of science against them. The science of math. Yes, with the exceptions of some varieties of
video poker, the math says that in the long run you will lose. I've written many times that you need to look
at casino games as a form of entertainment.
The question is do you want your night of entertainment to cost $20-$40
or to cost $100-$200? I'm guessing that
you'll get a lot more value for your money if you spend less money. Most of the games in the casino are built to
allow the Player to win about a third of the time over a 3 hour session. This assumes that you learn to play each game
correctly and try to pick the right games/paytables to play.
While I strongly advocate for playing video poker, if you
wind up playing a jacks or better that pays 6-5 (Full House/Flush), you'll be
playing a game that has a payback below 96% and your chances of winning will
decrease considerably. In similar
fashion, playing a full-pay game has limited value if you don't learn the right
strategy. Casinos rely on these two
factors for games like video poker.
Slots have no strategy and inherently have lower paybacks, so they need
to come up with ways to essentially fool the Player into thinking he is doing
better than he actually is. Video Poker
doesn't need to create artificial near misses.
A deck of cards and a dealt hand do an amazing job of creating these in
its natural random fashion.
To combat the near misses and the bells and whistles of
the casino requires doing a little bit of homework to learn which games to play
and to learn the right strategy for those games. It requires some discipline to stick to
those strategies and to seek out the right games. Math can be your rock to the casino's
'psychological warfare' scissors.