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Slot machines

Summary of the qualities of slots that make them addictive

  • Their other qualities (listed here) allow them to occupy your attention. which cures boredom, loneliness, unhappiness.
  • They don't require much thought to play.
  • There's no learning curve that limits your initial winnings.
  • You can win very large amounts of money in a very short span of time.
  • They have themes that draw people in by having a connection to a television show, movie, or brand that a player has an emotional connection to.
  • Players are often introduced to the game by their friends.




Articles

  • Dated
  • Undated
    • FuckGambling.com
      • There are a lot of very interesting anecdotes in here that are worth pasting in here.
      • When you play a slot machine, there is a fraction of a second between the time you hit the button, and the time you see the outcome.  That fraction of a second when the outcome is unknown, is the "hit".
      • I personally think that most people start to gamble because of being bored, lonely and unhappy. Gambling "solves" almost every problem, because gambling is so intense, it inevitably makes you forget everything.
    • SlotsGeek - Why people choose to play slot machines
      • Believe it or not [winning a jackpot] is usually how most people get hooked on slots. Anyone who says they don't like slots has never won a jackpot.
      • People enjoy playing slots because they do not require 100% focus to play and win. You can sit there and think about your day or what you plan to do next while you spin away for the jackpot. It's not very thought intensive.
      • [unlike other games] you can walk up and insert a few bucks into a machine and [quickly] walk away with a few thousand
    • Riveted: The Science of Why Jokes Make Us Laugh, Movies Make Us Cry and Religion Makes Us Feel One with the Universe
      • http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/08/11/why-slot-machines-are-so-addictive/
        • It turns out that intermittent reward reinforces behavior even more strongly than reliable reward. … Slot machines have another insidious aspect to them—one can feel like one is getting better at them. To understand this, let’s take a familiar example of a child trying to hit a tree with a thrown rock. When the kid throws a rock and it hits the tree, she gets a surge of positive feeling. This is the brain’s internal reward system. It rewards all of the ways her muscles moved, so that in the future she will be more likely to hit the tree again. However, if she fails to hit the tree but comes close to hitting it, there is still reward, albeit not as much. She perceives that she is getting closer to the target, getting better at the task. More like that, the brain says. It feels pretty good to almost hit the tree.

          The same thing happens to her when she is an adult using a slot machine, even though in the slot machine case this behavior is irrational. When she gets two “bar” results but not the third, she feels (subconsciously, of course) that she got “close” to the desired result. Her brain assumes she is getting better at the task, so there is a self-generated reward, as Catharine Winstanley found in a brain study. It feels good to get close, even in a slot machine. It is completely irrational because the slots are random, getting two “bar” results is not really “close” to getting three, and of course how one pulls the bar has no effect whatsoever on the outcome of the machine. It’s completely different from throwing a rock at a tree, but our minds cannot make this distinction.



Descriptions of how people got addicted

  • Winning a jackpot
    • https://www.gamblingtherapy.org/en/addicted-slot-machinehelp-me
      • the problem started when i am on vacation with friends to the neighboring country(Singapore) , that allow us to enter. $25 that i bring turn into $7500,wow!! easy money,i manage to leave the casino happily with that money.Since that "lucky" day, i couldn't stop thinking about slot machine. I wanted to play so badly but i cant find a place to do so.
    • 2016.08.23 - YouTube - MI Healthy Mind - Beating the Odds: Overcoming Gambling Addiction
      • This was a very interesting video. The guy really turned his life around, it made me feel hopeful for the future.
      •  Summary:
        • 6:30 - He and his wife went to Las Vegas and they both won a few thousand dollars.
        • 7:00 - He then went down a few thousand dollars, and he felt "I just want to get even and then I'm going to stop".
      •  Comments:
        • I live in Las Vegas, NV a job brought me here. At first, I was a conservative gambler. When I got paid, I will spend no more than $100. Last year in September, I went to the casino to see a movie. I played slots for a little before the movie and broke even. After the movie, as I was walking out I said let me play this slot one more time. Lo and behold, I got a bonus round and won almost $800. That is when my gambling problem begin. I've been chasing that exhilaration ever since, and it has cost me a lot financially.


Self-exclusion



How to stop gambling


  • 2016.03.20 - YouTube - How to stop playing on slot fruit machines and roulette machines FOBT
    • This was a good video from an English guy who was apparently fairly seriously addicted and wisely chose to make a strong effort to quit (apparently successfully).
    • Summary:
      1. Main problem is stopping playing on them so solution is to not start. When you have the urge think of something you could have bought with the money you have lost and reasons you don't want to start.
      2. Get addicted to something else . not drugs. show pool game.
      3. Realise that these games are built to be addictive, they have psychology professors and brain scientists working on them to make them more addictive. That's why they play melodic music to sooth your mind and put you in a trance like state.
      4. Don't go out with much money in your wallet or purse. So don't feel need to sell it
      5. Self exclude yourself from the betting shops or places where you play these machines. Easy to do with some firms others make it more difficult
      6. Accept your losses- view them as an expensive entertainment fee. Realise that the more you play the more you will lose and that chasing your losses will make you lose more money
      7. Tell yourself that playing these games will destroy you as it has done with so many other people. More people commit suicide because of gambling than anything.
      8. Take each day as it comes and realise that the first few days will be the most difficult.
      9. If you are gambling with friends tell them you no longer want to go and avoid going.
      10. Try Hypnosis - works for some people. Fee £60-£80 - you'll lose that in one session easily.