Slot machines have become casinos’ bread and butter. But they were not always. If you are interested in slots, you should know the following facts about them.
- ‘Time on Device’ is the number one metric that casinos are concerned with. Casinos and slot machine manufacturers have figured out that the number one predictor of a game’s profitability is the average amount of time a gambler spends on that device.
- Slot machines are the only casino games with unknown odds. All other casino games have a house edge that can be calculated if you know two things: the payoffs for each bet and the odds of winning each bet. But in slots, you have symbols that pay off at a specific rate when you get certain combinations of those symbols on the screen at the same time in a line. But you have no way of knowing the odds of getting a particular symbol on any particular spin.
- Slot machines make up about 85% of the standard casino’s revenues.
- Modern progressive slots often have jackpots that can be compared to lottery sized jackpots.
- The slot machines today have little in common with the original ones. Slot machines were initially made up of a few mechanical parts. Modern slots are made of over 1200 individual components put together by 300 people or more.
- Gambling machines’ growing fame has been the result of multiple factors. Some of it has to do with the economy during the Reagan and Bush administrations. These two administrations cut federal funding to most states during the recession. The governments of those states had to find ways to generate revenue without raising taxes directly. Legalizing and taxing proceeds from gambling was an easy method to do it.
- Slot machines are legal in 41 states today. In the year 2000, slots were legal in only 31 states. They have since been legalized and regulated in 10 additional states. Other states are considering legalization, too.
- Slots are more prevalent in Japan than in the United States. It would seem like 800,000+ slot machines in one country would set a world record. But it does not. The number one country for slots is Japan. They have close to five million slot machine games in the country.
- Slot machines have become more popular with locals than with tourists. This sets another example of how the gambling landscape in the US has changed since its inception.
- Slot machines don’t really get ‘hot’ or ‘cold’. One of the gambler’s fallacy is that a slot machine gets hot or cold. The belief is that a game which is paying out a lot is somehow ‘hot’ and will continue to payout. Alternatively, if a game does not pay out much, it will continue to be ‘cold’ and will be less likely to payout.
- The majority of the members at Gamblers Anonymous meetings gamble exclusively on machines.
- Slot machine gamblers can become addicted gamblers three to four times as fast as other types of gamblers. Numerous studies have shown that the nature of slot machines contribute to the rapidly addictive quality of these games. The easy availability of such games also adds to this figure.
- Online slot machines work the same way as land-based machines.
- The nature of slot machines contributes to their addictive quality. It is a solitary game. You are not dealing with other people at all when you are playing slot machines. You are in action more or less continually. The average slot machine player places 600 wagers per hour. These rapid turn of events stimulate and de-stimulate the brain much faster.
- Slot machine systems and strategies don’t work. You will find plenty of salespeople on the internet who claim to have some inside insight into how these games work and how you can win at them more often. But they are all equally worthless.
- Slot machines are similar to “Skinner boxes”. B.F. Skinner was a behavioural scientist who learned through his experiments that animals are more motivated by a box that gave out periodic rewards than by a box that gave out constant rewards. You will see the obvious application of this to slot machine technology. If you won on every spin, you would be less motivated to play than if you won on occasional spins.
- The most popular games are riding on the coattails of another intellectual property. You can find plenty of slot machines with original themes. Lucky Larry’s Lobstermania is an excellent example of such a game. But you are more likely to find games which are based on other intellectual properties.