First a warning: A business associate, with whom I gave an interview in the past, has published an article on a US software provider that he has caught rigging their games. He said, “It’s actually likely to be all their games, but we caught them on VP.” http://thepogg.com/skybook-cheating-video-poker-amigotechs-software/ I don’t know how many readers here play online but, although I have never done so and don’t know much at all about this particular gambling area, I thought I needed to share this information.
Now for some reads I found interesting.
The geography of gambling: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/08/14/how-close-everywhere-in-america-is-to-a-casino/
A gambler’s brain: http://time.com/3518071/gamblers-get-less-of-a-buzz-from-pleasure-study-finds/
Can casinos help a gambler control his gambling? http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/10/23/innovative-program-limit-gambling-proposed-for-mass/jgMmffATGbZBsH3RAvIu2I/story.html
A book recommendation: I rarely read a novel any more – mostly non-fiction – but a publisher sent me a book recently that he thought I might like since part of it is set in Las Vegas. I did like Deadly Odds, not only for the Vegas connection, but it was a good suspense story. As when I am watching movies that have a Vegas locale, I was looking in this book for mistakes that show the author had never spent much time there. I could not find any false or unlikely descriptions . Obviously, the author, Allen Wyler, had spent quite a bit of time here even though he lived elsewhere. I recommend this book to those who like fast-moving thriller crime stories, full of espionage, terrorists, and computer hackers.
Thanks Kevin, for your opinion. I actually like the medical statistics listed and when the article was discussing types of addictions I was thinking about the 1.1 million smokers in the world and how that affects the gaming industry, not really about rewards and brain types, just medical facts and test markets. There are a large amount of people that classify going to the casino as entertainment, (Shows, eating and drinking).We enjoy knowing the math of the trip, but life isn’t always about the statistics. If that indicates the casinos, can LEAD us to where the pellets are.. then I believe people are absolutely aware of that.
And Thanks Jean, for the articles.
Mo, such studies have been done and replicated many times. The phenomenon of intermittent rewards as it applies to human gamblers is very well known. If we understood randomness at a fundamental level, no one would play a slot machine. It’s because we’re so poorly equipped to understand it that casinos make as much money as they do.
The flip side of this is what is known as “pattern-seeking behavior.” That’s why casinos put prominent display boards next to roulette tables and baccarat games showing recent results. Our chimpanzee brains, perceiving a possible reward, will frantically search for a pattern in this random data, even though any apparent pattern would be meaningless: Chimp brain: “Ooh, look, red has come up eight times in a row! Let’s rush over there and put all our bananas on red!” Human, educated brain (hopefully!): “So what? It’s still a lousy bet. It doesn’t mean a thing that red has come up eight times in a row.”
A very large part of learning not only how to be an intelligent gambler but also how to handle life in general is realizing that our brains are, in fact, very, very poorly equipped to deal with the modern world. Our thought processes are riddled with cognitive biases that urge us to make incorrect decisions. One of those cognitive biases is the fact that we persuade ourselves to ignore those biases! One can actually see this, Mo, in the tone of your response. Whenever someone tells us that our thinking is fundamentally wrong in some way, our usual reaction is denial and hostility rather than self-examination. Casinos, believe me, take full advantage of this! They are masterful applied psychologists.
One example of the proper thinking in a casino would be if you, in fact, see something like that eight-reds-in-a-row phenomenon and you really, really want to put a Benjamin on red, just ’cause. Maybe you stifle the urge and then the next, ninth spin is also red!! OH NOOOOO! That’s the wrong way to look at it. If you place a $100 bill on any spot on the roulette wheel, you’ve just lost $5.26 REGARDLESS OF THE ACTUAL RESULT. In other words, you’ve just paid $100 for something that is only worth $94.74.
The above applies to “feeling lucky,” “hot streaks,” “cold streaks,” “I never win here,” “I always win here,” and all other manifestations of chimpanzee-brain pattern-seeking behavior. (I should probably add that if you don’t believe in science due to your faith, belief set, etc., then this discussion is futile.) Remember, what makes us human is just a series of very minor modifications to the chimp brain. The same drives and urges rule our behavior as they did three million years ago,
Kevin: If the author’s article didn’t mention anything about why brains are so insidious, is the FOOD pellet thing your opinion???!!!
MO
The Wasatch front–the urbanized strip in Utah that includes Salt Lake City, Logan, Provo, Ogden, etc.–is probably the most casino-deprived major urban area in the lower 48 (Alaska and Hawaii don’t have casinos). Still, slot-starved Utahns can go roaring west on I-80 to Bendover, a mere two hours away on one of the most desolate, boring stretches of road in the world. The Highway Patrol hits the jackpot here as the natural inclination is to save one’s sanity by roaring along at 85 mph.
The article on a gambler’s brain didn’t mention why gambling is so insidious–the phenomenon of intermittent rewards. You pull a slot machine handle; sometimes you get something, sometimes you don’t. But the brain tells you to keep trying, because SOMETIMES it’s worth it. However, the brain is very poorly equipped to figure out whether it’s actually worthwhile, based on the frequency of reward. Wild chimpanzees figure out whether it’s worth it to expend effort to find food that is sometimes there and sometimes not. But put them in a cage with a lever to pull that sometimes opens a door and gives them a food pellet and sometimes doesn’t, and they’ll keep on pulling the lever over and over, even if you drop the frequency of the reward to one time in a hundred pulls or less. If they start to become disinterested, you can get them to pull the lever again for another half hour or so by giving them one food pellet. I wonder if Bally or IGT funded that study. Gamblers’ brains–which, being human, are just slightly modified chimpanzee brains–are very poor at handling the concept of randomness. That’s why so many people have trouble understanding what happens in a casino, and thus spend way too much time trying to get their food pellets.
The casinos are already very generously helping us to control our gambling by tightening machines and table game odds and raising the prices of rooms and food to stratospheric levels. Thus, we run out of money and can go home much sooner, thereby controlling our gambling! In fact, I suggested to a casino manager that to simplify matters, security should just meet a customer at the door, grab him by the ankles, flip him upside down, and shake him until all his money falls out. They should then drop him, scoop up all the money, and stuff a buffet ticket in his mouth. The manager’s eyes lit up in wonder at the possibilities.