Day 237 - The reasons I enjoyed slots, and why winning was impossible
For a long time, slots did not make sense to me. I didn’t even know how they worked. Sure, I had seen the simple 3 reel single line classic slots you see on TV and in the movies, seemed simple, just line up three symbols. Yet, for a long time, as a gambling addict I never touched slots at all. I play poker, played blackjack, played every other table game, bet every sport, yet never touched slots. To me, it seemed like slots were the “scam” room of gambling. I thought that Slots were for the true degenerates, the ones who had totally lost their minds. The old ladies sitting on their ass for 12 hours at a time. That could never be me, right? Wrong.
I first started experimenting with slots when I had a very low balance and didn’t know how to spend it. If I had a few dollars on the betting site, why not dump it into some slot? Check it out? When I first did this I had absolutely no idea what was happening on the screen. I just saw my “bet” and if I won anything on each spin. Nothing made sense. The animations and lights, the sounds, the lines being flashed on screen, the bonus symbols…it was a whole new world in which I knew nothing. Usually I would exhaust my small funds very quickly and think to myself “Well, that was stupid, what even happened?”. Then, at some point you turn a one dollar bet into 20 dollars in one spin and all of sudden all I wanted to know was “WHAT HAPPENED? I WANT THAT TO HAPPEN AGAIN”. Pretty soon I was spending my entire balance in the slots, and I was learning the mechanics.
Novelty in gambling and how the gambler desires to KNOW and BEAT a game.
I fully believe that most gambler have more “fun” when gambling on things they don’t know. When I was sports betting I had more fun betting on sports I didn’t know very well then betting on sports I did. Why? Because if I didn’t know about a sport I felt that everything I DID find out, was super important. So If I was betting on some random tennis match and I read something about one of the players I would think that information was somehow hidden or secret, just because I didn’t know it before. Whereas, if I was betting on information I already knew, to me it felt like it didn’t matter. It is totally crazy, but perhaps this is a fault of humans in general. It is why people get into conspiracy theories. The knowledge one does have about a topic they know little is elevated to an irrational importance in order to make the person feel like they do know a lot about the topic. No doubt, in your everyday life you know people who do this ALL the time. We all know the person who sees one youtube video about something and thinks they are a genius about the topic. Or the person who has a “feeling” about something and how that means something is absolutely correct.
Gambling companies use Novelty to trick gamblers into thinking they are playing a “new” game, and in the absence of actual knowledge the gambler builds up the belief that they have some kind of secret ability. The less I knew about odds, slot mechanics, the participants in the sport the more I thought I could beat the game. This is why gambling companies always have new games, new ways of betting, new promotions. They want to drown you in novelty. This was the reason I initially got hooked on slots, I thought I could win at them. Everything I “learned”, just made me think I was gaining some edge, until I learned it all and realized I was never going to win, but at that point I didn’t even care.
Themes in gambling slots and how they hook you
There are certainly some general themes in slot machines. Let me go through a few of them.
Movement, Speed, Transition. Many slots are about things moving quickly, fast cars, fast animations, everything is going a mile a minute. Further, transition, so many slots focus on transitioning from one “stage” to another. The point of this is to make it seem like there is always something to chase, and you are chasing it quickly. It feels like you are going “fast” when playing many slots. Like you are always running from something…which indeed the addict is. Slots provided that vehicle of reality escape more then any other form of gambling because Speed and Motion are the themes of the games themselves. I loved the speed.
Accumulation. Many slots are themed such that you are always accumulating something. Many slots have little side games where every blue ruby for example gets you closer to a free bonus. Every wild that drops slows the game down, having a chance to “stack wilds”. The jackpots continue to accumulate regardless of your losses and wins. Then of course, the bonus itself.. the accumulation of 3 symbols to take you to the bonus. Every slot has this. I fucking loved it… sitting there waiting for that last blue ruby, or for the third bonus to slide in. I kept accumulating things, while my balance went to zero.
Superheroes, Historical fantasy. Many slots feature themes of either some historical fantasy (Zeus, Thor, Tomb Raider, Pirates) or superheroes. The reason for this is because it plays into the gamblers mind that they are in a fantasy world, were anything is possible. Further, they let you “live” in the game. They let you have a relationship with the game. You pray for Zeus to bless you, You feel like a pirate when hitting the hidden treasure bonus. Gambling companies do this to engage you with the game, to hook you in while again your balance goes to zero.
Basic and Simple. Many slots don’t use the above techniques, they are just very simple. Who would think a slot about bowling would be addictive? Well it certainly can be. Who would think a simple fruit machine with 5 lines would be addictive? Well it certainly can be. These themes act as a counter to the above ones… When my gambling mind feels cynical about the fancy slots, I come back here to the simple ones. If I think the fancy slots are scamming me, then maybe the classic simple ones are not. Of course, they are, and once I get cynical of those I am back to the fancy ones.
Why Winning is impossible
I don’t need to tell anyone that winning a slot with a return to player of 97% is flat out impossible given a long enough time line. What I will say is why the way I was playing, was never going to work, and I only realize this now.
My usual way of playing was depositing a couple hundred dollars, let us say 200$ and hitting a slot at about 2$ a bet. Now, basically I had about a 1/10 chance of that 200$ becoming 2000$.. everything else was it going to 0$. Well, that is not so bad right? If I was disciplined I would of lost money in the long run, but if I kept at 2$ a bet I wouldn’t lose all that much, or all that quickly. The problem was, now I had 2000$, and I put the bet up to 5$ a spin…and I tried to do it again, I tried to turn 2000$ into 20000$. So basically, I was trying to hit that 1/10 chance again… so basically.. I was trying to get a 1/100 in total. And on the very very few times I actually did hit that one in a hundred… I TRIED TO DO IT AGAIN. Now I was trying to hit a 1/1000. I never stopped. Further, because I was upping my bet every time.. when I did not hit, I didn’t just lose 200$ and could try again… I lost 2000$ and had to start over at the initial 1/10 at 200$ with 2$ spins. It doesn’t take a math genius to realize just how stupid this method of play was…just how impossible it was.
Further, when I put the bet up, I hated putting it back down… so I would play 5$ spins on a 200$ balance, having me lose my money even faster.
The addiction, is that I actually hit those 1/10s sometimes, I actually hit those 1/100s sometimes… and because of that I thought it was possible. I ignored my losses, and just held on to the possibility…. a possibility that was impossible.
I hope this little section about how I was trying to win helps those struggling to really break down their “strategy” in slots, because you will then see how impossible it is. Slots are designed to make us feel like there is no strategy…. we just keep spinning.. Yet, bankroll management, and bet sizes are the strategy… and I would imagine for most slot players, our strategy was terrible.