I just returned from Las Vegas where we had gone to spend our 40th wedding anniversary. The one lasting image of this trip was the sound and sights of slot machines. They were everywhere- bathrooms, hotels, gas stations, restaurants. You could not enter a hotel to get to your room without running a gauntlet through a sea of these “one armed” machines. As a matter of fact, all the hotels placed their theaters or shows so that the only way to get to them was if you were willing to walk past rows and rows of these machines, each one singing a siren song of “money , money”. Each of these machines offers a seductive, though thoroughly elusive, “jackpot” and one could see old ladies seriously pulling the slot machine handles in hopes of a major payout.
It turns out that Americans spend more money on slots than on movies, baseball and theme parks combined. There is now casino gambling in 38 states, which use the revenue from gambling to help solve their bloated budget deficits. The main attractions at these gambling halls are the slot machines - there are close to a million of them in the United States, twice the number of ATMs.
Old-fashioned slot machines let gamblers pull the handle and hope for three of a kind. From the player's point of view, here's how it appears:
· The player pulls the handle.
· There is a clunk, and three reels start spinning.
· Then the three reels stop abruptly one at a time, followed by the payout (if necessary).
· There are lots of bells and whistles all the while this is going on with flashing lights as well.
The "stopping one at a time" part builds suspense. If the first reel stops on the jackpot symbol, then you have to wait for the next reel to stop to see if it is a jackpot, and then finally the third. If all three display the right symbol, the player wins and all hell seems to break loose with loud announcements and lights.
With the passage of time, the old fashioned mechanical slot machines have changed. The modern slots are computerized and are like high tech video games that play music and scenes from TV shows. You can play hundreds of lines at once and instead of pulling a handle, you can bet by pushing buttons, which means each bet can be completed in as little as three and a half seconds. It looks like great fun, but it can be dangerously addictive. And no machine is better for that than the "penny slot," the most popular game on the casino floor. Because the bets are small, you can place hundreds of them at a time. In the past the payout sound was of cents pouring into a basket – but now this has been replaced by a receipt that comes out with your payout. But while no cents pour out, the machines have retained the sounds all right!
Why would you play slots over other casino games? What do slot machines provide that you can't get from the other games? What do Video Slots offer that you can't get from anywhere else? The biggest reason would be happiness. While games such as Blackjack and Roulette may have a better edge than online slots, their players are also constantly stressed and worried. Going over whether hitting or not was the wrong or right move. Fretting about the cards or where the roulette ball ended up.
By contrast, online slots players are carefree and happy go lucky, relaxed and chilled. All you have to do in slots is be able to press a button. You can leave your brain at the front door and take it easy. This is why slots are now the casinos' top revenue maker and their massive success shows no signs of abating. It has grown to the point where casinos would probably be in major financial strife if not for the billions, which slots contributed to their coffers.
Not only is it easy to learn how to play slots but also slots allow the players to play without too much thinking and the games themselves are interesting. Who wouldn't want to play a game of slots that is themed to I Dream of Jeannie or Star Wars? Or maybe The Simpsons or CSI? The nostalgia element, which the different slot machine types provide, is very comforting and reassuring and make players feel at home. Unlike any other game, slots and online slots are able to capitalize on what is hot and trendy in popular culture and create a slots game tied around it. Recent examples are the Desperate Housewives slot machine which was very popular with the ladies as well as the World Cup themed slot machine which revolved around the recent Soccer World Cup. No other game has the flexibility which slots has. In addition the bonus round and secondary games give slots an edge which no other game has. Like you have won access to a secret confined room which has loads of treasure which can be won.
But there is a downside to the slot machine as well. Apparently these can become addictive- sometimes dangerously so! Researchers at the University of Waterloo in Canada measured how players respond physiologically while they gamble, and showed that the new machines can make them think they're winning even when they're not. The gambler almost always gets some money back: if he puts in a dollar, he might get back 50 cents. But the sounds and flickering lights trick his brain into thinking he came out ahead. It seems that the constant feeling of winning creates so much pleasure that regular players can slip into a trance-like state, a place often called the "zone”. One gambler said that when he's in the zone he couldn't remember his children's names!
There are of course the purists who claim that slot machines represent a regressive tax that penalizes the poor more than the rich while it may raise revenues for the government. "As a revenue raiser, it defies every principle. It's regressive. In other words, it takes far more money out of lower income people's pockets than higher income. It is cannibalistic. In other words, it eats other forms of revenue. When you have your citizens dumping two billion dollars down the slots they're not buying a new car, and you lose that tax," State Sen. Tucker said.
In recent years the venerable slot machine is undergoing a generational shift. For more than a century, since its invention by a German immigrant named Charles Fey in the 1890s, slot machines have required little more than cash, faith and an ability to pull a lever or push a button. But now, a new class of machines, aimed at attracting younger players who grew up with video games, is demanding something else — skill.
Adding an element of hand-eye coordination, however simple, is just one way slot makers are laboring to broaden the appeal of the insistently bleating devices that have proved so popular among older players. Besides new devices that provide an extra payoff for game-playing dexterity, manufacturers have developed communal games that link clusters of machines — which are proving popular with people under 40. Coming soon are slot machines with joysticks, which the industry expects to be particularly popular, and others that will allow users to play in tandem or against one another, much as they do in many Internet games. Industry surveys show that those 21 to 40 — people who came of age as dozens of states legalized casino gambling and cable television channels made celebrities of poker’s best players — have fewer moral qualms about gambling than baby boomers and their parents. Young people are heading to Las Vegas and other gambling hot spots in large numbers. The problem for the industry is that they spend much less time in the casinos than the older players.
But gambling, particularly playing the slots, still pays the bills. Slot machines are sometimes called “beautiful vaults” in the industry because they bring in nearly three-quarters of the roughly $60 billion in gambling revenue that American casinos generate.
Most of the $1 billion-plus that the roughly one million slot machines in the United States take in on a typical day is paid to winners. But about 5 to 10 percent, depending on the casino and whether it is a penny, nickel, quarter or dollar machine, stays with the casino. It is therefore big business indeed!
My wife tried the one cent machines but alas came away with a net gain of a paltry $30 on an investment of $15. Not bad but not great either.
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