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Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff to blow your mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Step right up, Step right up, ladies

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Speaker 1: and gentlemen, test your skills and test your wits against

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Speaker 1: the incredible one armed band at the fruit machine, the

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Speaker 1: Puggy of the three eyed savings buster. Yes, sir, ree,

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Speaker 1: you sink your coins, you pull the bar and dance

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Speaker 1: with Lady Luck. Remember that when you play a slot machine,

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Speaker 1: no strategy is required. The slot machine is controlled by

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Speaker 1: a mathematical algorithm program to deliver a set number of

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Speaker 1: winds the set number of losses. It's just you against

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Speaker 1: the godless predetermined mine of the machine. So step right

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Speaker 1: up and take your chances. How about you, sir? Right there,

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Speaker 1: why don't you step on up and try your hand

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Speaker 1: at the wom bandit here? Oh wow, yeah, I say this,

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Speaker 1: Look it sure does, sir. Just put your coin in there,

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Speaker 1: pull the bar to see what Lady Luck has in

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Speaker 1: store for you. Really, really, just one coin and I

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Speaker 1: could be rich forever. That's how it stocks. So you

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Speaker 1: just put in one coin and uh, we'll see how

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Speaker 1: the algorithm treats you. Okay, am I playing it right now.

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Speaker 1: You're playing it right now, that's right. So just pulled

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Speaker 1: the liver pull it yet there you go. Oh well

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Speaker 1: I didn't work out for you this time. Do you

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Speaker 1: have some more coins? Well, I sure do. I don't

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Speaker 1: want to lose out on a chance to get ritch.

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Speaker 1: All right, Well you might want to get a bucket

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Speaker 1: off them, so because this algorithm, it's a it's a

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Speaker 1: fickle guys. Okay, well let me go to them. Hey,

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Speaker 1: welcome to stuff to blow your mind. This is Robert

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Speaker 1: Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And that was just a

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Speaker 1: little sketch we put together to uh to set the

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Speaker 1: stage for our discussion of slot machines and the science

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Speaker 1: of slot machines and in fact that the science of

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Speaker 1: gambling behavior. Yeah, Robert, have you ever played a slot machine?

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Speaker 1: I have never played an actual slot machine outside of

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Speaker 1: interactions and video games, not gambling video games, but like

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Speaker 1: legitimate like Grand Theft Auto or of course Super Mario

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Speaker 1: Brothers too. So you're not betting real cash money on

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Speaker 1: these slot machines. Absolutely not the sort of virtual gambling

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Speaker 1: right well, especially like Supermried Brothers too comes to mind,

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Speaker 1: because if anyone my age may remember, in between each

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Speaker 1: level you played a little slot device and it was

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Speaker 1: all about winning extra lives. So that's the only slot

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Speaker 1: experience you have. It gives you a very skewed idea

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Speaker 1: of what a slot machine is because you could not

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Speaker 1: lose anything. You could only win extra lives, and it

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Speaker 1: paid out at a pretty high percentage. It was pretty

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Speaker 1: easy to to figure out when to press the button

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Speaker 1: so that you would at least get one extra life.

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Speaker 1: Oh but so there's some skill involved in the Super

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Speaker 1: Mario Brothers Too slot machine, and that's going to be

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Speaker 1: different than most slot machines in history. That's right as

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Speaker 1: well discussed. They've evolved into a very nefarious parasitic organism,

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Speaker 1: mechanical organism, if you will. I think slot machines are

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Speaker 1: very interesting because in this world of uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: unmanned planetary rovers, of robotic surgery machines, of all these

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Speaker 1: incredibly uh science fiction seeming machines that that occupy our

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Speaker 1: techno space, the slot machine exists as a really kind

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Speaker 1: of perfect mechanism that stands beyond all of that other

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Speaker 1: technology in that it has a job to do and

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Speaker 1: it does it so well you wouldn't believe it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean it in the industry has has pushed it

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Speaker 1: in this direction to where it just excels at one thing,

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Speaker 1: and that is making money off the gambler for the

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Speaker 1: house and ultimately encouraging you two in. In gambling industry terms,

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Speaker 1: play to extinction, which which is the idea that you

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Speaker 1: put some money in and you keep putting money in

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Speaker 1: until you can no longer put money in because you

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Speaker 1: don't have anymore, which is a tactic you you don't

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Speaker 1: even see all that much in a parasitic organism because

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Speaker 1: the parasite generally does not want to extinguish the host.

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Speaker 1: The host is its is its vessel. But as we're

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Speaker 1: discussing earlier, there are always more vessels for the slot machine. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you can look at the casino as a kind of

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Speaker 1: super parasite because it doesn't have to attach itself to

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Speaker 1: a host and then become dependent on it. It can

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Speaker 1: draw many hosts to itself and there's always more where

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Speaker 1: they came from. Yeah, it's and and they will bust

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Speaker 1: them in. They will attract those gamblers in with whatever

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Speaker 1: it takes. And you know, you instantly think of you know,

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Speaker 1: busses coming in with them, of travel deals, you know,

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Speaker 1: even like free room and board. I was looking at

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Speaker 1: a two thousand, twelveth study from Temple University, and they

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Speaker 1: pointed out that an average casino in Atlantic City could

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Speaker 1: expect to make eight dollars and forty five cents off

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Speaker 1: of every dollar they spent on their travel and parking

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Speaker 1: promotions for gamblers. So again, free bus rides, free parking,

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Speaker 1: UHI for every dollar they spend. And so it's a

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Speaker 1: much better deal though compared to the two fifty one

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Speaker 1: return on every dollar they spent on room, food and

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Speaker 1: beverage giveaways. But that's still pretty good, still really good.

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Speaker 1: So for every dollar they give away in free hotel rooms,

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Speaker 1: free buffet trips, and stuff like that, they get back

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Speaker 1: to one on gambling losses. Yeah, and so that's just

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Speaker 1: one early stat to just sort of drive home how

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Speaker 1: how the system works, how the gambling hyper organism works. Well,

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Speaker 1: let's look at the history of the slot machine. I

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Speaker 1: got curious about where this thing came from, and it

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Speaker 1: turns out the term slot machine could originally refer to

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Speaker 1: any coin operated machine, like a like a vending machine.

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Speaker 1: So it's got a slot where you stick the coin in,

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Speaker 1: it falls in and you get what you're looking for. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was slot machine. Is short for nickel and the

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Speaker 1: slot machine, which is probably the most Grampa Simpson thing

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Speaker 1: I've ever heard outside of the cartoon, because yeah, it

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Speaker 1: could be anything, could be gum cigarett et that right,

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Speaker 1: you would say, oh, you you know, you wanna know

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Speaker 1: the package. I'm go over to that nickel in the

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Speaker 1: slot machine and do what comes naturally and then yell

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Speaker 1: at a cloud. So yeah, and in the twentieth century

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Speaker 1: that that's sort of when we saw the shift to

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Speaker 1: slot machine referring to a gambling type machine. Though I

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Speaker 1: do think it's interesting to still in a way characterized

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Speaker 1: slot machines as vending machines because you could look at

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Speaker 1: them as a vending machine for thrills you put the

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Speaker 1: coin in because you're not going to be getting the

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Speaker 1: money back. It's almost no chance of winning money at

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Speaker 1: a slot machine. Yeah, and it has far too many

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Speaker 1: bells and whistles and flashing lights on it to really

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Speaker 1: be an investment machine. Like it's you know, to the

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Speaker 1: to the slot machines. In the slot machines defense, it is,

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Speaker 1: it does seem to position itself as an entertainment device. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So in the eighteen eighties there were some bars and

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Speaker 1: saloons in the United States that had early versions of

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Speaker 1: coin operated gambling machines, though I think generally they were

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Speaker 1: not much like the slot machines we think of today.

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Speaker 1: So they might be something like a tiny mechanical horse

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Speaker 1: race and that would give patrons something to bet on

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Speaker 1: and eventually shoot each other about. So like basically a

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Speaker 1: little automaton with racing horses that you would with that

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Speaker 1: money and maybe life and death over. Yeah, that's just

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Speaker 1: one example. But it would be some kind of electronic

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Speaker 1: or not electronic, but a mechanical machine that you could

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Speaker 1: use to gamble with, and the patrons might place bets

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Speaker 1: against one another or sometimes they could like collect payments

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Speaker 1: in the form of things like drinks or tobacco from

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Speaker 1: the saloon operator where the machine was housed. Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: was reading about this, and it almost seems to hearken

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Speaker 1: to a simpler time. It actually reminds me more of

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Speaker 1: like trivia nights. The encounter at bars now where with

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Speaker 1: a proprietor paid off winning customers with drinks or cigars

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Speaker 1: or or tokens for more refreshments, you know, which is

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Speaker 1: you know kind of like you go to these trivia

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Speaker 1: nights and if you win, oh you get like, you know,

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Speaker 1: twenty dollars in drinks or something. You know. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: to get people in the door, you know. And and

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Speaker 1: in these cases you weren't always necessarily playing against the machine.

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Speaker 1: In some cases the machine might be thought of more

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Speaker 1: like a complicated pair of dice. Now, the kind of

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Speaker 1: slot machines we really think of, the reels running through

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Speaker 1: their cycles and then eventually landing to line up. And

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Speaker 1: I'll talk about the specifics there in a minute. Where

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Speaker 1: did that come from? There is apparently some dispute about

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Speaker 1: what exactly counts as the first slot machine or who

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Speaker 1: should be given the title of inventor. But the first

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Speaker 1: major producer of the slot machines of the kind we

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Speaker 1: think of today was a San Francisco mechanic originally an

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Speaker 1: immigrant from Bavaria named Charles Faye, and in the eighteen

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Speaker 1: nineties he invented a series of machines, the first one

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Speaker 1: called the four eleven forty four machine, then the card Bell,

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Speaker 1: and then the Liberty Bell because it's all about freedom.

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Speaker 1: And there are also accounts that Faye said actually ripped

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Speaker 1: off the idea from another inventor named Gustav Schultz who

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Speaker 1: created a nickel slot machine called horse Shoes in the

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Speaker 1: early eighteen nineties I think eighteen nine three. And from

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Speaker 1: what I can tell, Schultz's machine only had one reel

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Speaker 1: at a time, so he really hadn't tapped into the

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Speaker 1: three real magic yet. I like how it seems like

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Speaker 1: either way, the roots that the of the slot machine

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Speaker 1: may descend back to Bavarian cuckoo clocks and uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: old German automatons. Yeah, it's beautiful. And also I've read

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Speaker 1: some interesting things about the the idea of intellectual property

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Speaker 1: in the origins of slot machines, because these early producers

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Speaker 1: and you know, manufacturers of slot machines were ripping each

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Speaker 1: other off all the time. But I mean, what could

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Speaker 1: you do about it? I want to take you to

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Speaker 1: court to you know, to sue your patent infringement on

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Speaker 1: my illegal machine. Yeah, so we should we should probably

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Speaker 1: really describe the slot machine for anyone who's not that

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Speaker 1: familiar with it. I mean, outside of course of our

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Speaker 1: you know, of our nival Barker's get an opening of

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Speaker 1: the epithete. Yeah, we assume you've probably seen one, but

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Speaker 1: just in case you haven't, it looks usually like this,

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Speaker 1: or at least traditionally like this. You've got a big

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Speaker 1: mechanical box in front of you, and it has a

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Speaker 1: coin slot and a lever and a series of reels

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Speaker 1: with images on them. Usually three reels, but though that

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Speaker 1: can vary in different machines of today. Uh. And they're

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Speaker 1: kind of like the number wheels on a combination lock.

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Speaker 1: You know, they can scroll through, usually vertically scroll through,

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Speaker 1: and when you pull the lever, the reels begin to

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Speaker 1: spin wildly before eventually slowing down and stopping, And the

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Speaker 1: reels are full of images, also referred to as stops.

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Speaker 1: And what you're looking for is which images line up

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Speaker 1: when the reel stop spinning, and they line up across

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Speaker 1: the line that's called the pay line. Typically, of course,

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Speaker 1: you want the three reels on the images to match,

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Speaker 1: though different machines have different payout combination schemes. Sometimes there's

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Speaker 1: one image that pays you something no matter what, every

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Speaker 1: time it shows up. And the question is what are

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Speaker 1: the odds of a match? So, assuming the images or

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Speaker 1: stops on all the reels are weighted the same, it

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Speaker 1: actually should be a pretty simple multiplication of probability. So

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Speaker 1: I came up with an example, Let's say you're playing

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Speaker 1: an Alien themed machine. It's a three reel slot machine

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Speaker 1: modeled after the cast of the movie Alien, So it

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Speaker 1: has eight stops per real, one for each of the

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Speaker 1: seven crew members of the Nostromo and one for the alien.

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Speaker 1: And the way you'd calculate the probability of of hitting

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Speaker 1: a jackpot of lining up three images on this would

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Speaker 1: be one eighth because there are eight stops, times one

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Speaker 1: eighth times one eight three times for the three reels,

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Speaker 1: which leaves you a probability of one out of five

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Speaker 1: hundred and twelve. So let's say you get that one

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Speaker 1: chance out of five hundred and twelve, you get three

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Speaker 1: Ripley's or something. If you do, the machine pays out,

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Speaker 1: usually by dumping the coins inside, either all of them

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Speaker 1: or some established sub that of them, into a place

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Speaker 1: where you can collect them and then promptly begin putting

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Speaker 1: them back in the machine one time. I love this

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Speaker 1: idea for a slot machine because it also involves essentially

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Speaker 1: a parasitic life destroying organism, and I know, wonderful uh

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Speaker 1: anthemomorphizing sci fi analogy. The implications of the parasitism did

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Speaker 1: not escape me when I dreamed this up. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: so the mechanical spinning reels on early slot machines did

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Speaker 1: not usually have the cast of alien in them. They

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Speaker 1: had images like playing suit symbols, so you know, like

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Speaker 1: playing cards, spade, club, heart, diamond, the classic iconography of gambling.

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Speaker 1: They also had horseshoes, stars, and bells. I was wondering

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Speaker 1: where did all the fruit come from? Yeah, because that

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Speaker 1: I think that even one cherries? What are they? Sometimes

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Speaker 1: grapes or plums or something pineapples? Why are these things

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Speaker 1: in the slot machines we think of today? Even I

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Speaker 1: think in the UK slot machines are often referred to

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Speaker 1: as fruit machines. Fruit machines. Well, I read an interesting

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Speaker 1: story about the origin of this. Apparently because of the

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Speaker 1: moral stigma of gambling in the early days of the

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Speaker 1: early nineteen hundreds, there were frequent attempts to ban or

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Speaker 1: eliminate slot machines, and there were lots of sneaky attempts

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Speaker 1: to circumvent this. So companies would come up with a

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Speaker 1: slot machine that wasn't exactly like the other slot machines

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Speaker 1: that came before, and somewhat trying to trying to find

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Speaker 1: a loophole around the law, or at least around the

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Speaker 1: easy enforcement of the law. And in nineteen o nine,

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Speaker 1: a company called the Industry Novelty Company built slot machines

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Speaker 1: but called them chewing gum dispensers, with the fruit symbols

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Speaker 1: corresponding to flavors of gum could win as your pay out,

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Speaker 1: though some of these fruit dispensing slot machines might also

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Speaker 1: sometimes pay out in coins. The year after that nineteen

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Speaker 1: o nine machines, in nineteen ten, the Mills Novelty Company

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Speaker 1: added a picture of a chewing gum pack to their

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Speaker 1: machine reels, and apparently this image morphed into the bar

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Speaker 1: or symbol that we all recognized today on slot machines. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's interesting. I was also reading how the the the

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Speaker 1: gum machine aspect of the slot machines also, if all,

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Speaker 1: allowed the machines to roll back into a more legal

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Speaker 1: form when laws changed. So, the San Francisco earth Quade

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Speaker 1: of nineteen oh six destroyed most local slot machine manufacturers,

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Speaker 1: and California banded the use of slot machines altogether in

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Speaker 1: nineteen eleven um and so to stay in business, the

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Speaker 1: manufacturers revamped the slot machines as gum vending machines. So

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Speaker 1: it's it's they're almost kind of like transformers, um shifting

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Speaker 1: in and out of acceptable forms. Right. So, of course,

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Speaker 1: the original machines were all mechanical. This was before the

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Speaker 1: days of electronics, and they'd have you know, mechanical systems

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Speaker 1: gears in place that would try to to pay out

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Speaker 1: the correct amounts to keep the probabilities in check. Later

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Speaker 1: that became easier when you had electro mechanical machines, especially.

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Speaker 1: I think adding electron onyx eliminated some of the possibility

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Speaker 1: that people could kind of mess with the machines and

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Speaker 1: machine right to add an element of skill that isn't

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Speaker 1: supposed to be there. Uh. There are stories, I don't

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Speaker 1: know how accurate they are that back in the old days,

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Speaker 1: if you knew how to pull the lever just right

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Speaker 1: and twist the machine just right, you could ensure a payout.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if that's true, but but apparently people

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Speaker 1: thought so. Though maybe people think that about the machines

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Speaker 1: today and they're quite wrong. Yeah, it's it's gonna say that.

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Speaker 1: You can easily imagine that in the sort of almost

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Speaker 1: magical thinking that goes into the theological nature of the gambler. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and of course, now the machines tend to be fully electronics,

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Speaker 1: so they've got computerized logic random number generators and they're

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Speaker 1: perfect now, so they manage payouts always within the correct

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Speaker 1: probability ranges. More widely today, computerized slot machines are a

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Speaker 1: subtype of electronic gaming machines. And what role do they

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Speaker 1: play in the gambling of today? Now? When you think

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Speaker 1: of a casino, chances are I bet you think of

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Speaker 1: a slot machine. Yeah, because you think of that just

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Speaker 1: that big like that big room that's filled with them,

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Speaker 1: just a perfect the grid of slot machines, and they're

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Speaker 1: various human hosts. Yeah, it's almost like a like a

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Speaker 1: grocery store aisle. People just line up to Now, have

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Speaker 1: you used one of these machines before? I actually have. I.

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Speaker 1: I have been to a casino once in Tunica, Mississippi. Uh,

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Speaker 1: And I didn't play the machines very much. I mean

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Speaker 1: I played a very little bit on them, but I

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Speaker 1: observed a lot of people playing the machines. And it's

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Speaker 1: very interesting watching the phenomenon of how people behave, like

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Speaker 1: their posture and their facial expressions while they're using slot machines.

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Speaker 1: I I know we're going to talk about this in

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Speaker 1: a bit that people often report that they understand that

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Speaker 1: the odds are against them on these machines and use

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Speaker 1: the machines for enjoyment and entertainment. But when you watch

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Speaker 1: people play them, very often you don't see much excitement

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Speaker 1: or or reaction. People very often appear sort of hypnotize.

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Speaker 1: They're locked in the zone, They're not blinking much, their

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Speaker 1: faces are kind of expression less, and they're just working

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Speaker 1: the machine. Yeah, it makes me wonder, like what my

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Speaker 1: face looks like when I'm playing a video game. I

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Speaker 1: thought about that too, But but but even then, I

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Speaker 1: know that I have at times found myself playing a

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Speaker 1: game where I asked myself, am I enjoying this? Or

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Speaker 1: is this just become a tedious thing that I have

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Speaker 1: to win at in order to call it a day?

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Speaker 1: And you forgot there was a life outside the game. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And I feel like maybe that's the mindset that one

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Speaker 1: can fall into with a slot machine. Yeah. Now, I've

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Speaker 1: never actually tried one out, not a real one outside

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Speaker 1: of the video games, but I have seen the rooms,

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Speaker 1: so I know a little bit of about what you're

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Speaker 1: talking about here. Well, maybe this will prevent us from

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Speaker 1: ever getting a good casino sponsorship on this show in

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Speaker 1: the future. But I can attest that they're not really

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Speaker 1: that rewarding. And I mean indeed, when you look at

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Speaker 1: the payback percentage, which again is tied. Yeah, I'm inant emotional,

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Speaker 1: and of course, of course materially they're not that rewarding

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Speaker 1: because when you look at the payback percentage, which again

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Speaker 1: is determined by an algorithm, um, you see varying levels

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Speaker 1: of payout. Like some of the sources I was looking at,

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Speaker 1: it was between seventy and Yeah, one of the main

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Speaker 1: studies we're going to talk about in this episode side

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Speaker 1: at nine percent. I've seen common percentages more like eighty

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Speaker 1: something percent to and in the US, I at least

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Speaker 1: get the sense that this often seems connected to state regulations.

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Speaker 1: I think some states say your slot machines in the

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Speaker 1: state need to pay between this number and this note.

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Speaker 1: They can only be so evil, um. But it's important

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Speaker 1: to note that any payback percentage under it implies that

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Speaker 1: people who play more at the slot machine lose more money. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So if you sat down and just continued putting infinite

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Speaker 1: amounts of money into this machine and never left it.

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Speaker 1: You would always statistically come out behind. You would play

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Speaker 1: to extinction exactly right. So what role do slot machines

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Speaker 1: play in the in the larger picture of the gambling

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Speaker 1: economy today. I think it's interesting that, according to what

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Speaker 1: I've read, slot machines used to be a sort of

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Speaker 1: entertaining diversion to keep people in your saloon drinking your beverages.

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Speaker 1: And then after that, after they were employed in casinos,

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Speaker 1: they seem to have served as a kind of low

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Speaker 1: stakes alternative to the traditional casino games, you know, the

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Speaker 1: table games like blackjack, craps, and poker. Slot machines don't

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Speaker 1: require any skill. You don't have to study probabilities, you

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Speaker 1: don't have to count cards, you don't have to learn

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Speaker 1: how to bluff uh. And you also you don't have

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Speaker 1: as much intimidating personal interaction, like you don't have to

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Speaker 1: square off against that scary, ice cold professionalism of the

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Speaker 1: blackjack dealer, and you don't have to worry about the

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Speaker 1: predatory menace of the other poker players who are trying

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Speaker 1: to get your pot. It's a great um gut gateway.

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Speaker 1: It's like I'm walking in here, I'm a newcomer. I

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Speaker 1: have no idea what gambling consists of. But here's this

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Speaker 1: machine where even if I humiliate myself, it's just between

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Speaker 1: me and the machine. Yeah, and it's so easy. You

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Speaker 1: just pull a lever or you press a button. Then

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Speaker 1: you watch the colors settle into place. And it doesn't

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Speaker 1: require a large bet at least not all at once.

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Speaker 1: It's it feels safe and cheap to start out at least.

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Speaker 1: But of course, now slot machines are huge business. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I was reading that it's estimated that slot machines generate

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Speaker 1: over se of the average casinos income, so more than

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Speaker 1: all the table games and roulette, blackjack, uh, you know, craps, poker. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they it's it's it's really like an evolution, this thing

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Speaker 1: that started off. It's just this mere diversion becomes the

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Speaker 1: driving uh force in in casino economy. Yeah, and I

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Speaker 1: wonder what the explanation for that is, Like, is there

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Speaker 1: just something inherent to the slot machine model that is

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Speaker 1: very alluring, or is that that slot machines as machines

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Speaker 1: have been improved and improved until they're just the most

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Speaker 1: perfect place to gamble in a casino. Essentially, are are

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Speaker 1: slot machines of today more advanced than the blackjack tables

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Speaker 1: of today. Yeah, I think they are. I mean, because

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Speaker 1: it's it's so, it's so dependent on the technology in

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Speaker 1: the in the delivery of the user experience. I can't

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Speaker 1: help but think of it in terms of of done.

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Speaker 1: Since I'm reading, are re reading done right now? Update

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Speaker 1: to the listeners. I'm almost done with done. I've got

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Speaker 1: like fifty pages left, probably gonna finish it tonight. Oh excellent. Well,

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Speaker 1: I can't help but think of this in terms of

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Speaker 1: the the whole prohibition against thinking machines and the doing universe,

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Speaker 1: the Barian Jahad where you know, they wipe out um

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Speaker 1: Theking machines, and it's it's it seems as much my

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Speaker 1: interpretation of it, it seems as much about like destroying

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Speaker 1: a machine like way of thinking and using machines to

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Speaker 1: be human. But but in that world you can't have

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Speaker 1: thinking computers anymore. So instead you have mentats. You have

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Speaker 1: humans that are essentially human computers that can you know,

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Speaker 1: can compute large numbers and various factors inside their own head.

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Speaker 1: The blackjack dealer is a mentat, Yeah, he or she is,

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Speaker 1: and also a mentet is the card counter who walks

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Speaker 1: into the casino and then is asked to leave the

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Speaker 1: casino when it's revealed that they are winning through pure

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Speaker 1: logic and through mental ability. So it's so that's that's

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Speaker 1: not allowed. The human um uh perfection of thought is

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Speaker 1: not allowed within the casino. But the slot machine is

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Speaker 1: the mechanical, the electronic perfection of thought, and that is

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Speaker 1: of course allowed by house rules to do its Damach, Well,

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Speaker 1: you can't count car. It's at a slot machine. That's true.

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Speaker 1: There's no way to beat the machine. And this is

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Speaker 1: something that's going to come up in the research we

410
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Speaker 1: sit in a bit. People who think they have a

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Speaker 1: way to beat the machine are wrong. Some people might

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Speaker 1: think this way, but they're wrong. You can't beat the machine.

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Speaker 1: It is a mindless, completely unchangeable algorithm. No way of

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Speaker 1: pressing the button, no ritual you can perform, or or

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Speaker 1: a way you can jiggle the bottom of the machine.

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Speaker 1: Nothing's gonna change it, you know, real quick. I do

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Speaker 1: want to mention that that when it comes to payback

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Speaker 1: on a machine, that the idea of the jackpot uh

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Speaker 1: wasn't invited until nineteen sixteen UM, and that that's when

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Speaker 1: we have this idea that the machine will spit out

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Speaker 1: all of its coins if you get that that very

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Speaker 1: lucky combination. And of course, multiplying on the idea of

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Speaker 1: the jackpot, you've got these modern conceptions of something like

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Speaker 1: the super jackpot. Multiple machines are all contributing to this

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Speaker 1: huge number that eventually somebody's gonna win. It's kind of

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Speaker 1: like playing the lottery. You know, it's a small investment

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Speaker 1: and it's maybe not even a medium sized payout. Maybe

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Speaker 1: maybe you could get that gigantic payout that will set

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Speaker 1: you up for life. Yeah, and that just plays into

430
00:24:10,480 --> 00:24:13,639
Speaker 1: the nefarious nature of the machine, right, that you have

431
00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:19,560
Speaker 1: this this almost legendary mythological payout that's possible by manipulating

432
00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:21,840
Speaker 1: this one device. Yeah, I mean, I wonder how high

433
00:24:22,040 --> 00:24:26,399
Speaker 1: these uh, these super jackpots can get. Um, there was

434
00:24:26,480 --> 00:24:29,359
Speaker 1: one in two thousand three, according to my notes, that

435
00:24:29,760 --> 00:24:33,840
Speaker 1: paid out at nearly forty million dollars, so not bad. Yeah,

436
00:24:34,119 --> 00:24:36,240
Speaker 1: and uh, of course then again you think of that

437
00:24:36,320 --> 00:24:40,120
Speaker 1: payout and that sounds huge, but remember that the machine

438
00:24:40,480 --> 00:24:43,720
Speaker 1: never really loses, so just imagine how much money it

439
00:24:43,880 --> 00:24:47,680
Speaker 1: guzzled for that to be an acceptable payout, which also

440
00:24:47,760 --> 00:24:50,160
Speaker 1: then of course adds to the mythology of what kind

441
00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:53,760
Speaker 1: of payout the average gambler might expect. Well, it's just

442
00:24:53,840 --> 00:24:57,240
Speaker 1: another version of thinking, man, how can this casino afford

443
00:24:57,320 --> 00:25:00,440
Speaker 1: to give me a free room and a free buffet? Yeah,

444
00:25:00,640 --> 00:25:05,000
Speaker 1: because you're you're paying a triple for it at least. Yeah. Well, anyway,

445
00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:08,320
Speaker 1: we've we've reached a point in the history of gambling

446
00:25:08,320 --> 00:25:11,200
Speaker 1: where slot machine play is now considered one of the

447
00:25:11,280 --> 00:25:15,880
Speaker 1: most addictive forms of gambling. It is powerful, it's insidious,

448
00:25:16,119 --> 00:25:19,639
Speaker 1: it knows exactly how to work us. We're not playing

449
00:25:19,720 --> 00:25:23,480
Speaker 1: the slot machines, they're playing us. One great example is

450
00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:26,760
Speaker 1: that we we looked at one study that showed that

451
00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:30,320
Speaker 1: we don't we're not even aware that we're losing necessarily

452
00:25:30,359 --> 00:25:33,280
Speaker 1: when we play certain slot machines. Right, that's right. Yeah,

453
00:25:33,320 --> 00:25:36,439
Speaker 1: there's a two thousand eleven paper titled Losses Disguised as

454
00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:39,399
Speaker 1: Winds in Modern multi line video slot Machines. And this

455
00:25:39,520 --> 00:25:43,320
Speaker 1: was published in the journal Addiction. And so the main

456
00:25:44,200 --> 00:25:46,720
Speaker 1: none of this is that so your novice player, you

457
00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:49,119
Speaker 1: walk in, you check out one of these slot machines,

458
00:25:49,160 --> 00:25:51,320
Speaker 1: and then all these bells and whistles and lights and

459
00:25:51,440 --> 00:25:54,960
Speaker 1: cartoon characters and pharaohs. You know, what have you just

460
00:25:55,080 --> 00:25:58,480
Speaker 1: flashing at you? And uh, And it's giving you, you know,

461
00:25:58,520 --> 00:26:01,560
Speaker 1: a sense of emotional arouse all when you win. But

462
00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:05,280
Speaker 1: it's also giving you a sensitive emotional arousal, arousal even

463
00:26:05,440 --> 00:26:09,359
Speaker 1: when you're losing money, because for instance, let's say you

464
00:26:09,440 --> 00:26:12,040
Speaker 1: put in I probably have the amounts here wrong. But

465
00:26:12,160 --> 00:26:14,800
Speaker 1: let's say you put in fifty cents into the machine, right,

466
00:26:15,359 --> 00:26:19,400
Speaker 1: and then uh, and then woe celebration. Lights are flashing,

467
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:24,359
Speaker 1: horns are are are are blaring because you just won cents. Yeah,

468
00:26:24,720 --> 00:26:28,520
Speaker 1: you actually you lost money, but the machine is celebrating

469
00:26:28,560 --> 00:26:31,560
Speaker 1: it and giving you an emotional arousal based on your loss.

470
00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:33,720
Speaker 1: Was disguising your loss as a win. And then you

471
00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:36,440
Speaker 1: keep going because now you're just more invested. So you

472
00:26:36,520 --> 00:26:38,920
Speaker 1: have these machines that allow you to make five bets

473
00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:41,840
Speaker 1: at the same time, and say you win on one

474
00:26:41,920 --> 00:26:44,639
Speaker 1: of them and it pays back double. You're you're still behind,

475
00:26:44,840 --> 00:26:48,400
Speaker 1: you're still losing, but you you won something. Yeah, You're

476
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:50,480
Speaker 1: you're doing pretty good, you know, Yeah, so you just

477
00:26:50,560 --> 00:26:53,560
Speaker 1: put some more coins in. But another type of study

478
00:26:53,560 --> 00:26:55,800
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about, and this sellectually referred to

479
00:26:55,960 --> 00:26:58,760
Speaker 1: some older studies that I think are sort of foundational

480
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:03,080
Speaker 1: in the the history of gambling studies is about the

481
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:06,800
Speaker 1: irrationality of gambling, what's going on in the mind of

482
00:27:07,080 --> 00:27:11,440
Speaker 1: the gambler. So here's the situation. Unless you are incredibly

483
00:27:11,600 --> 00:27:15,679
Speaker 1: skilled at a perhaps certain type of game where your

484
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:17,760
Speaker 1: skills give you an edge over the odds. This might

485
00:27:17,800 --> 00:27:20,800
Speaker 1: be something like poker, where you're playing against other players,

486
00:27:20,920 --> 00:27:23,080
Speaker 1: not necessarily against the house, where the odds are set

487
00:27:23,119 --> 00:27:25,679
Speaker 1: against you. Though even in this case this is going

488
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:28,000
Speaker 1: to be somewhat debatable. You probably think you're a better

489
00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:30,880
Speaker 1: poker player than you actually are. You're probably not really

490
00:27:30,960 --> 00:27:33,840
Speaker 1: the nintat threat that you think you are. Not You

491
00:27:33,920 --> 00:27:36,960
Speaker 1: are not the through fear how out of poker. Walking

492
00:27:37,040 --> 00:27:40,720
Speaker 1: into a casino is almost never a good investment, unless

493
00:27:40,760 --> 00:27:42,960
Speaker 1: you're just planning to scam a free buffet and not

494
00:27:43,080 --> 00:27:47,480
Speaker 1: playing games. There's a reason casinos make money. As we've said,

495
00:27:47,520 --> 00:27:50,520
Speaker 1: the odds are always against you. The long term probabilities

496
00:27:50,680 --> 00:27:54,080
Speaker 1: always favor the house. But slot machines are a really,

497
00:27:54,400 --> 00:27:58,440
Speaker 1: really especially unlikely way to get a payoff. And furthermore,

498
00:27:58,600 --> 00:28:02,160
Speaker 1: this should not be news to anybody, because everybody knows

499
00:28:02,320 --> 00:28:05,800
Speaker 1: the odds are against them. Yeah, it's not a secret

500
00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:09,400
Speaker 1: that the slot machines are a poor use of your

501
00:28:09,520 --> 00:28:12,040
Speaker 1: your time and money. Yeah. Yeah. And so if your

502
00:28:12,080 --> 00:28:15,920
Speaker 1: goal is a gambler is to, let's say, knowingly, spend

503
00:28:15,960 --> 00:28:18,359
Speaker 1: a little money just to have an experience, you know,

504
00:28:18,480 --> 00:28:20,920
Speaker 1: maybe to feel the thrill of a risk and chase

505
00:28:21,040 --> 00:28:23,800
Speaker 1: the ghost of a win, that might make some sense.

506
00:28:24,119 --> 00:28:26,480
Speaker 1: But if your goal is to make money, and for

507
00:28:26,600 --> 00:28:29,480
Speaker 1: many slot machine players and gamblers in general, this does

508
00:28:29,560 --> 00:28:33,120
Speaker 1: seem to be the goal, you are acting irrationally. There's

509
00:28:33,160 --> 00:28:36,399
Speaker 1: not there's not a different perspective about it. The odds

510
00:28:36,440 --> 00:28:39,200
Speaker 1: are against you. It's a mathematical truth that you are

511
00:28:39,280 --> 00:28:42,760
Speaker 1: being irrational and you're going to lose. So what is

512
00:28:42,840 --> 00:28:45,760
Speaker 1: the thinking of a slot machine player look like who's

513
00:28:45,800 --> 00:28:49,280
Speaker 1: in this situation? Historically studies have looked into this, but

514
00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:51,880
Speaker 1: it's kind of a difficult problem because how do you

515
00:28:52,080 --> 00:28:55,360
Speaker 1: judge what's going on in a gambler's head while he

516
00:28:55,560 --> 00:28:59,280
Speaker 1: or she is gambling. This is especially difficult because you

517
00:28:59,360 --> 00:29:03,680
Speaker 1: can't necessary fairly expect people to reflectively self report their

518
00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:07,320
Speaker 1: attitudes and thought processes accurately. You know, if you ask

519
00:29:07,400 --> 00:29:11,280
Speaker 1: people after a gambling session, you know, did you expect

520
00:29:11,360 --> 00:29:15,320
Speaker 1: to win. They might be rationalizing losses by saying no, no,

521
00:29:15,520 --> 00:29:18,160
Speaker 1: I know, it's just for entertainment, or they might not

522
00:29:18,320 --> 00:29:22,680
Speaker 1: even realize what cognitive processes are governing their behavior while

523
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:25,239
Speaker 1: they're sitting at the machine. Yeah, and it's almost kind

524
00:29:25,280 --> 00:29:27,200
Speaker 1: of like if you were to quiz somebody about their

525
00:29:27,280 --> 00:29:30,920
Speaker 1: late night browser history in the in the light of

526
00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:33,080
Speaker 1: the waking day, you know that, because they're going to

527
00:29:33,120 --> 00:29:35,000
Speaker 1: be a little removed from who they were when they

528
00:29:35,040 --> 00:29:39,040
Speaker 1: were browsing those particular sites. Uh, there's kind of you know,

529
00:29:39,640 --> 00:29:43,720
Speaker 1: a like a depressurization, uh, to some to various experiences

530
00:29:43,760 --> 00:29:46,920
Speaker 1: in life where you you kind of let yourself become

531
00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:50,480
Speaker 1: seduced by, say the lights and the environment at the casino,

532
00:29:50,920 --> 00:29:53,840
Speaker 1: and and being the gambler as opposed to the individual

533
00:29:53,880 --> 00:29:56,480
Speaker 1: who's just you know, quizzed about his or her gambling

534
00:29:56,520 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 1: on the street the next day. And that's not even

535
00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:02,000
Speaker 1: factoring in any feeling the shame or regret you might have. Sure,

536
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:05,040
Speaker 1: and I mean, yeah, I think it's worth thinking about.

537
00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:07,600
Speaker 1: Is really being in another state of mind? I mean,

538
00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:10,520
Speaker 1: can you always remember exactly how you were thinking when

539
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:14,200
Speaker 1: you were on drugs? There have been several studies that

540
00:30:14,360 --> 00:30:17,520
Speaker 1: used a method that tried to get it the thinking

541
00:30:17,680 --> 00:30:20,040
Speaker 1: the cognition of of people who were in the act

542
00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:22,480
Speaker 1: of gambling by using a method we might call the

543
00:30:22,640 --> 00:30:27,000
Speaker 1: speaking allowed approach. And one often cited study of this

544
00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:30,960
Speaker 1: kind is from and it's called Irrational Thinking among Slot

545
00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:34,680
Speaker 1: Machine Players from the Journal of Gambling Studies by Michael B.

546
00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:37,400
Speaker 1: Walker of the University of Sydney. So this is an

547
00:30:37,440 --> 00:30:40,080
Speaker 1: older study, but I think the results are still interesting

548
00:30:40,120 --> 00:30:43,120
Speaker 1: and worth talking about because it's often cited in the field.

549
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:47,920
Speaker 1: So the experiment was researchers recruited twenty seven university students

550
00:30:47,960 --> 00:30:51,920
Speaker 1: who regularly played one of three types of electronic games.

551
00:30:52,080 --> 00:30:54,560
Speaker 1: So you had people who played slot machines, you had

552
00:30:54,600 --> 00:30:57,880
Speaker 1: people who played video poker they called video draw poker,

553
00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:01,760
Speaker 1: and then they played another group played what they called

554
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:05,560
Speaker 1: video amusement games, which from what I could tell, I

555
00:31:05,720 --> 00:31:09,240
Speaker 1: think just meant video games like arcade games without a

556
00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:12,959
Speaker 1: gambling component. That makes sense because yeah, we would keep

557
00:31:12,960 --> 00:31:15,239
Speaker 1: thinking about like slot machines versus video games. That makes

558
00:31:15,280 --> 00:31:18,760
Speaker 1: sense that that would be uh, that would be the comparison. Yeah,

559
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 1: And so the participants broke down as nine slot machine players,

560
00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:25,920
Speaker 1: eight video poker players and nine video amusement players, assuming

561
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:29,600
Speaker 1: that just means like arcade game players, and all the

562
00:31:29,680 --> 00:31:33,400
Speaker 1: players played each of the three types of games for

563
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:36,920
Speaker 1: twenty or thirty minutes, starting with their preferred game for

564
00:31:37,040 --> 00:31:40,160
Speaker 1: thirty minutes. So slot machine player played slot machines for

565
00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:43,120
Speaker 1: thirty minutes uh, and then went on to play the

566
00:31:43,160 --> 00:31:45,600
Speaker 1: other types of games for thirty or twenty minutes. And

567
00:31:45,680 --> 00:31:48,640
Speaker 1: they were instructed to explain their thoughts out loud to

568
00:31:48,800 --> 00:31:52,960
Speaker 1: a microphone tape recorder while they were playing. The exact

569
00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:56,000
Speaker 1: instructions were and a quote, we want to know how

570
00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:58,400
Speaker 1: you're playing the game. We want you to talk all

571
00:31:58,480 --> 00:32:01,160
Speaker 1: the time, so we know what you are thinking about

572
00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:03,720
Speaker 1: while you were playing the game. When you are ready,

573
00:32:03,800 --> 00:32:08,000
Speaker 1: we will begin recording. So they recorded them talking while

574
00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:11,320
Speaker 1: they were gambling or playing the video game, and then

575
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:15,000
Speaker 1: afterwards they listen to these to these recordings, and they

576
00:32:15,120 --> 00:32:18,840
Speaker 1: categorized all the statements that people made into five different types.

577
00:32:19,440 --> 00:32:22,280
Speaker 1: One was descriptive, so this is the player just describing

578
00:32:22,480 --> 00:32:26,840
Speaker 1: what's happening. One is rational, and this is a statement

579
00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:30,560
Speaker 1: of strategy that is correct or optimal with respect to

580
00:32:30,640 --> 00:32:33,560
Speaker 1: winning in relation to the structure of the game. That's

581
00:32:33,600 --> 00:32:36,680
Speaker 1: how they described it. The other one would be irrational,

582
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:39,640
Speaker 1: So this is a statement of strategy that is incorrect

583
00:32:39,920 --> 00:32:43,240
Speaker 1: or is or it's an attempt to influence the outcome

584
00:32:43,280 --> 00:32:45,680
Speaker 1: of the game in a way that won't actually work

585
00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:49,719
Speaker 1: the way that they said is inappropriate. Um. The other

586
00:32:49,920 --> 00:32:52,320
Speaker 1: is emotional, that's just expressing feelings. And then they had

587
00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:56,400
Speaker 1: a category for other like nonverbal vocalizations for I guess

588
00:32:56,440 --> 00:33:00,640
Speaker 1: when you just say like so irrational example, that would

589
00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:02,360
Speaker 1: be like if I were to say, all right, it's

590
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:04,200
Speaker 1: gotta it's gonna pay out, it's gotta pay out, like

591
00:33:04,400 --> 00:33:06,880
Speaker 1: next next time, I've just lost so much, it's I've

592
00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:08,640
Speaker 1: got to win the next one. Yeah, that that'd be

593
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:13,800
Speaker 1: a great example. Another example of irrational thinking was anthropomorphizing

594
00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:17,800
Speaker 1: or personalizing the machine, so saying things like come on baby,

595
00:33:18,120 --> 00:33:22,320
Speaker 1: or come to mama, or you owe me, or you

596
00:33:22,520 --> 00:33:25,120
Speaker 1: pay me and I'll pay you. Those were all quoted

597
00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:27,080
Speaker 1: in the study. You pay me, I'm going to reset

598
00:33:27,120 --> 00:33:30,480
Speaker 1: the tellective to bargain. Yeah, exactly, you can't bargain with

599
00:33:30,520 --> 00:33:34,880
Speaker 1: the machine. Let me reprogram you with my mind. Um. So,

600
00:33:35,040 --> 00:33:38,200
Speaker 1: once the statements were categorized, the results indicated that the

601
00:33:38,360 --> 00:33:43,040
Speaker 1: highest rate of irrational statements were produced by slot players

602
00:33:43,280 --> 00:33:47,600
Speaker 1: playing slot machines, and the lowest were amusement gamers playing

603
00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:51,640
Speaker 1: their video games. So people were much more likely to

604
00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:55,600
Speaker 1: produce irrational statements if they were regular slot machine players

605
00:33:55,840 --> 00:33:59,840
Speaker 1: playing slot machines. Currently interesting, like, I'm thinking back on

606
00:34:00,120 --> 00:34:02,080
Speaker 1: video game playing that I've done in the past, and

607
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:05,200
Speaker 1: I can definitely remember times where it stops being fun

608
00:34:05,320 --> 00:34:07,640
Speaker 1: and it begins about it begins to be just about

609
00:34:07,680 --> 00:34:10,640
Speaker 1: like beating the level, and even uh, you know, applying

610
00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:13,840
Speaker 1: some level of irrational and emotional thought to it, you know,

611
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:17,520
Speaker 1: and and and anthropomorphizing the game in ways that go

612
00:34:17,680 --> 00:34:20,680
Speaker 1: beyond merely getting into character or story. Yeah, though much

613
00:34:20,719 --> 00:34:23,839
Speaker 1: more often the people playing regular video games were making

614
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:26,799
Speaker 1: rational statements about strategy. They're saying like, oh, I think

615
00:34:26,840 --> 00:34:28,880
Speaker 1: I need to jump on that thing, or you know,

616
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:31,920
Speaker 1: it's something that's actually rational with respect to what's happening

617
00:34:31,960 --> 00:34:34,320
Speaker 1: in the game. And I'm just going to read a

618
00:34:34,440 --> 00:34:37,600
Speaker 1: quote about their results. So they said, out of all

619
00:34:37,680 --> 00:34:40,840
Speaker 1: the statements made by slot machine players when playing slot machines,

620
00:34:41,280 --> 00:34:46,040
Speaker 1: thirty eight percent were categorized as irrational. Furthermore, eighty percent

621
00:34:46,200 --> 00:34:49,359
Speaker 1: of strategic statements made by slot machine players while playing

622
00:34:49,400 --> 00:34:54,440
Speaker 1: slot machines were categorized as irrational. Though I think one

623
00:34:54,520 --> 00:34:59,560
Speaker 1: interesting uh qualification of this is what rational statements about

624
00:34:59,600 --> 00:35:02,840
Speaker 1: strategy g could you make while playing a slot machine?

625
00:35:03,200 --> 00:35:05,080
Speaker 1: Because I mean you can you can make a few.

626
00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:06,919
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess you can just say, I guess

627
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:10,200
Speaker 1: I'll play double bets this time, as long as you're

628
00:35:10,239 --> 00:35:13,279
Speaker 1: not indicating that you think you are controlling outcomes when

629
00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:15,640
Speaker 1: you're not, or something like that. But and so many

630
00:35:15,640 --> 00:35:18,200
Speaker 1: of those irrational statements are going to play directly into

631
00:35:18,280 --> 00:35:21,279
Speaker 1: the mythology of the slot machine. You know where it's

632
00:35:21,600 --> 00:35:23,880
Speaker 1: where the mythology of the slot machine is that if

633
00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:26,799
Speaker 1: you you double down and you keep playing, that it's

634
00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:30,040
Speaker 1: going to pay off. Yeah. And so another study published

635
00:35:30,080 --> 00:35:32,600
Speaker 1: in two thousand in the Journal of Psychology was called

636
00:35:32,680 --> 00:35:36,360
Speaker 1: Predictors of Irrational Thinking and regular slot machine players, and

637
00:35:36,440 --> 00:35:39,760
Speaker 1: it followed up on these results testing more slot machine

638
00:35:39,800 --> 00:35:43,000
Speaker 1: gamblers with that same talk allowed method. Though I think

639
00:35:43,040 --> 00:35:46,759
Speaker 1: it's worth mentioning at this point that both of these

640
00:35:46,760 --> 00:35:51,920
Speaker 1: studies called out the potential limitations of the talk allowed method,

641
00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:55,279
Speaker 1: like the requirement to talk aloud about a game, since

642
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:59,440
Speaker 1: it's an unnatural activity could be skewing results or subjective

643
00:35:59,480 --> 00:36:02,800
Speaker 1: attitude and the participants. You always want to be careful

644
00:36:02,840 --> 00:36:05,680
Speaker 1: about these kind of things that you might be getting

645
00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:10,879
Speaker 1: incorrect feedback because of the test conditions, but at least

646
00:36:11,080 --> 00:36:14,240
Speaker 1: with that qualification in mind. Uh. This study was generally

647
00:36:14,320 --> 00:36:17,640
Speaker 1: consistent with the previous findings, and they showed that strategic

648
00:36:17,760 --> 00:36:21,560
Speaker 1: statements made about slot machine gaming were very often irrational.

649
00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:26,759
Speaker 1: Of all statements made were irrational, and seventy percent of

650
00:36:26,840 --> 00:36:30,920
Speaker 1: all game related or strategic verbalizations were irrational. And then

651
00:36:30,960 --> 00:36:34,399
Speaker 1: I thought this was really interesting. They offered different categories

652
00:36:34,520 --> 00:36:39,520
Speaker 1: of irrational statements and showed what percentage of irrational statements

653
00:36:39,560 --> 00:36:42,080
Speaker 1: they made up. So one category they had was like

654
00:36:42,320 --> 00:36:46,600
Speaker 1: superstitious rituals, hypotheses or predictions. So this is would be

655
00:36:46,680 --> 00:36:50,160
Speaker 1: like I gotta run my, my, my, my rabbit's foot right,

656
00:36:50,160 --> 00:36:52,480
Speaker 1: had I need to lit the machine before I play it? Right?

657
00:36:52,840 --> 00:36:56,080
Speaker 1: These are all just false strategies of thinking you can

658
00:36:56,200 --> 00:37:01,000
Speaker 1: influence the outcomes of the machine or or addictions based

659
00:37:01,080 --> 00:37:04,719
Speaker 1: on things that that had no validity. Say so like

660
00:37:04,840 --> 00:37:07,080
Speaker 1: the gambler's fallacy I think would be part of this,

661
00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:09,160
Speaker 1: and like oh if I've just lost a bunch of

662
00:37:09,239 --> 00:37:14,040
Speaker 1: times in a row, I'm do. And this was of

663
00:37:14,080 --> 00:37:16,200
Speaker 1: all irrational statements, so this is a lot of them.

664
00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:19,279
Speaker 1: Another one that I thought was really interesting was the

665
00:37:19,360 --> 00:37:23,480
Speaker 1: category called inappropriate rationalization of near misses. And the way

666
00:37:23,520 --> 00:37:26,359
Speaker 1: they explained this was they said, these statements classified as

667
00:37:26,360 --> 00:37:30,279
Speaker 1: irrational implied the player believed the machine was cheating or

668
00:37:30,440 --> 00:37:34,240
Speaker 1: stopping them from winning by not providing all the winning symbols.

669
00:37:34,800 --> 00:37:37,000
Speaker 1: And that's that's interesting because it kind of gets to

670
00:37:37,080 --> 00:37:39,239
Speaker 1: the heart of it. But it's like the machine. Yes,

671
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:41,759
Speaker 1: the machine is cheating you, but it's cheating you in

672
00:37:41,880 --> 00:37:45,080
Speaker 1: a very systematic way, not in this clumsy way that

673
00:37:45,120 --> 00:37:48,720
Speaker 1: you're attributing right exactly, So they're calling out capricious cheating

674
00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:53,160
Speaker 1: when actually it's very methodical cheating. The other big category

675
00:37:53,400 --> 00:37:58,400
Speaker 1: was personification of the machines of all irrational statements, and

676
00:37:58,560 --> 00:38:01,080
Speaker 1: this is what it sounds like. It's any statement where

677
00:38:01,160 --> 00:38:03,680
Speaker 1: the players trying to make a bargain with the machine

678
00:38:03,960 --> 00:38:07,320
Speaker 1: or attribute thoughts or emotions to it, or sometimes like

679
00:38:07,800 --> 00:38:12,239
Speaker 1: yelling insults at the machine. These were also classified as irrational.

680
00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:15,319
Speaker 1: And then the other twelve percent were statements that were

681
00:38:15,480 --> 00:38:19,279
Speaker 1: belief in personal luck. Yes, though A thing I thought

682
00:38:19,400 --> 00:38:22,319
Speaker 1: was interesting was they said they didn't find any references

683
00:38:22,560 --> 00:38:25,920
Speaker 1: to personal skill, So at least the gamblers weren't saying

684
00:38:26,040 --> 00:38:29,320
Speaker 1: things that suggested that they thought skill was involved in

685
00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:31,960
Speaker 1: the playing of slot machines. Yeah, tell them almost more

686
00:38:32,040 --> 00:38:36,320
Speaker 1: like a religious act, Like the slot machine becomes this,

687
00:38:36,640 --> 00:38:41,279
Speaker 1: uh this, uh, this this metaphor for our interaction with

688
00:38:41,520 --> 00:38:44,960
Speaker 1: the world and with our life. Yeah. I think that's

689
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:47,000
Speaker 1: definitely a good way of putting it there. There are

690
00:38:47,160 --> 00:38:50,040
Speaker 1: hidden forces at work, and so they were looking for

691
00:38:50,200 --> 00:38:54,000
Speaker 1: correlated predictors of irrationality in this study. They're like, okay,

692
00:38:54,040 --> 00:38:56,680
Speaker 1: are there are other conditions that if these hold, you're

693
00:38:56,760 --> 00:38:59,520
Speaker 1: more likely to see irrational behavior sitting in front of

694
00:38:59,560 --> 00:39:02,640
Speaker 1: the slot machine. And uh So, one thing they look

695
00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:05,719
Speaker 1: for and did not find as a correlation between the

696
00:39:05,800 --> 00:39:08,880
Speaker 1: percentage of winds and irrationality. So it doesn't matter how

697
00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:12,239
Speaker 1: much you win, that doesn't change how irrational you are.

698
00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:16,600
Speaker 1: They did find a correlation between risk taking in irrationality.

699
00:39:16,680 --> 00:39:19,279
Speaker 1: The players who bet more at a time and took

700
00:39:19,400 --> 00:39:23,960
Speaker 1: higher risks generated more irrational statements in general. Uh, though

701
00:39:24,040 --> 00:39:28,200
Speaker 1: not necessarily when analyzed specifically with regard to strategic statements.

702
00:39:28,320 --> 00:39:31,760
Speaker 1: Just the general statements. But from both of these studies,

703
00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:34,920
Speaker 1: there's an ongoing tension between the fact that slot machine

704
00:39:34,960 --> 00:39:39,960
Speaker 1: gamblers often seem to display irrational behaviors while they're in

705
00:39:40,040 --> 00:39:41,800
Speaker 1: the act. So you're sitting there in front of the

706
00:39:41,840 --> 00:39:46,200
Speaker 1: slot machine gambling and you're being irrational, but then when

707
00:39:46,239 --> 00:39:49,680
Speaker 1: you're not in the act of playing, you report rational

708
00:39:49,760 --> 00:39:52,960
Speaker 1: attitudes towards the activity. So after you get out of

709
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:55,839
Speaker 1: the casino and you're giving a survey, you know you're

710
00:39:55,880 --> 00:39:59,480
Speaker 1: you're answering questions about the act of gambling. You will

711
00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:02,400
Speaker 1: say thing things that indicate you realize it's pure chance,

712
00:40:02,800 --> 00:40:05,439
Speaker 1: you're likely to lose, you're not likely to win money.

713
00:40:05,600 --> 00:40:09,080
Speaker 1: You have no way of influencing the machine. I don't know.

714
00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:12,640
Speaker 1: I think that's interesting, like the disconnect between our cognition

715
00:40:12,760 --> 00:40:15,960
Speaker 1: while we're playing and our cognition when we're not playing. Yeah,

716
00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:17,960
Speaker 1: I mean, it's almost like you're in source old, right,

717
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:20,279
Speaker 1: It's like talking to the sailor who gets dragged into

718
00:40:20,320 --> 00:40:23,479
Speaker 1: the water by the siren every day and on the shore,

719
00:40:23,560 --> 00:40:26,200
Speaker 1: he's like, yeah, I know that she's part fish and

720
00:40:26,719 --> 00:40:29,480
Speaker 1: that she's basically just hypnotizing me and trying to drag

721
00:40:29,560 --> 00:40:32,840
Speaker 1: me to a watery death. Um, I know all that stuff.

722
00:40:33,280 --> 00:40:34,759
Speaker 1: Why do you wind it when we have to drag

723
00:40:34,800 --> 00:40:37,080
Speaker 1: you out of the water every day? Why? Why? Why

724
00:40:37,160 --> 00:40:39,439
Speaker 1: does it if you continue to control you though? Yeah,

725
00:40:39,560 --> 00:40:42,000
Speaker 1: there was an interesting paper that I just looked at

726
00:40:42,080 --> 00:40:45,520
Speaker 1: briefly from two thousand ten that referred to exactly this disconnect,

727
00:40:45,560 --> 00:40:48,239
Speaker 1: to this going back and forth between modes of cognition,

728
00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:51,759
Speaker 1: and referred to it as double switching. But that's of

729
00:40:51,880 --> 00:40:54,400
Speaker 1: course just looking at the mind of the gambler. Another

730
00:40:54,560 --> 00:40:59,239
Speaker 1: element that very much comes into gambling is looking at

731
00:40:59,560 --> 00:41:04,359
Speaker 1: not crely the mind, but the perceived mind of the machine. Yes,

732
00:41:04,560 --> 00:41:07,440
Speaker 1: this is really interesting, And there's a two thousand fifteen

733
00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:10,440
Speaker 1: study just came out from the University of Milano but Coca,

734
00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:17,640
Speaker 1: from researchers Paolo Riva, Simona Sacchi, and Marco Brambilla. And

735
00:41:18,040 --> 00:41:20,720
Speaker 1: there's actually a great quote in here that invokes another

736
00:41:20,800 --> 00:41:24,719
Speaker 1: mythological creature. They say it is possible that similar to

737
00:41:24,880 --> 00:41:28,880
Speaker 1: how in ancient mythology, challengers perceived the sphinx as possessing

738
00:41:28,920 --> 00:41:32,200
Speaker 1: a human like mind and intelligence, the gambling industry is

739
00:41:32,239 --> 00:41:36,160
Speaker 1: selling customers a challenge against a mind rather than just

740
00:41:36,320 --> 00:41:39,239
Speaker 1: a machine or a computer algorithm. So it's the best

741
00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:42,640
Speaker 1: of both worlds. It's like you get to combine the

742
00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:46,360
Speaker 1: safety and low stakes and and kind of comfort zone

743
00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:50,000
Speaker 1: aspects of the slot machine with the thrill of playing

744
00:41:50,040 --> 00:41:54,360
Speaker 1: against another player in poker. Right. Yeah, it's um And

745
00:41:54,760 --> 00:41:57,279
Speaker 1: so we've we've mentioned personifying the machine already, So this

746
00:41:57,400 --> 00:42:01,800
Speaker 1: paper is not the first to discuss us anthropomorphization and

747
00:42:02,080 --> 00:42:04,160
Speaker 1: uh and slot machine gambling. No, like I said, in

748
00:42:04,239 --> 00:42:07,759
Speaker 1: those earlier papers, they found personifying the machine was very common. Yeah,

749
00:42:07,800 --> 00:42:09,800
Speaker 1: but this is the this is the first to really,

750
00:42:10,080 --> 00:42:15,320
Speaker 1: um look at how anthromorpism plays into the excitement engagement

751
00:42:15,440 --> 00:42:18,239
Speaker 1: level and how it affects, uh, how much money you

752
00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:21,160
Speaker 1: end up losing in the venture. Yeah. I know I've seen,

753
00:42:21,320 --> 00:42:23,480
Speaker 1: especially based on some of the stuff you dug up,

754
00:42:23,600 --> 00:42:26,680
Speaker 1: that past designs of slot machines have very much tried

755
00:42:26,760 --> 00:42:30,640
Speaker 1: to suggest humanity in just the look and feel of

756
00:42:30,719 --> 00:42:33,759
Speaker 1: the machine. Yeah, the like the paper mentioned, Oh yeah,

757
00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:36,920
Speaker 1: you'll you'll see these slot machines and they'll have pharaohs

758
00:42:37,000 --> 00:42:39,839
Speaker 1: and women and muscleman on them, and that's all well

759
00:42:39,880 --> 00:42:42,080
Speaker 1: and good. But I was not expected to find what

760
00:42:42,239 --> 00:42:44,839
Speaker 1: I found when I was looking in Getty images uh

761
00:42:45,239 --> 00:42:49,960
Speaker 1: a nineteen two. Uh, I believe image of a blonde bombshell,

762
00:42:50,440 --> 00:42:53,440
Speaker 1: which is essentially imagine a kind of a Marilyn Monroe

763
00:42:53,560 --> 00:42:56,440
Speaker 1: looking pin up mannequin. And then it's just a slot

764
00:42:56,520 --> 00:42:59,480
Speaker 1: machine that they slide into her torso and she's just

765
00:42:59,600 --> 00:43:02,600
Speaker 1: stand ing. It's horrified. Yeah, it's she's just standing in

766
00:43:02,719 --> 00:43:06,200
Speaker 1: a I believe it was a Death Valley, California bar

767
00:43:06,520 --> 00:43:10,360
Speaker 1: gas station or something. Now, is this a a sexualized

768
00:43:10,440 --> 00:43:12,560
Speaker 1: figure of a woman that just happens to have a

769
00:43:12,680 --> 00:43:15,000
Speaker 1: lever poking out of it? Or is the lever like

770
00:43:15,160 --> 00:43:17,200
Speaker 1: her arm or something? Oh, no, it's just a lever.

771
00:43:17,360 --> 00:43:21,400
Speaker 1: It's like it's it's it's like it's it's almost as

772
00:43:21,440 --> 00:43:23,160
Speaker 1: if you were to take like a corpse and just

773
00:43:23,360 --> 00:43:26,719
Speaker 1: like slab of gambling machine in the middle. You know,

774
00:43:26,840 --> 00:43:30,800
Speaker 1: It's just it's not an artful um convergence of the

775
00:43:30,920 --> 00:43:34,200
Speaker 1: female form and the gambling machine. It's very rough and

776
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:37,359
Speaker 1: heavy handed and uh and yet seems to call out

777
00:43:37,400 --> 00:43:40,279
Speaker 1: to you and say, hey, play this gambling machine, woman,

778
00:43:41,600 --> 00:43:45,200
Speaker 1: let us transparently manipulate your brain. Yeah. You know. Also,

779
00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:46,960
Speaker 1: I was I noticed in one of the sites we're

780
00:43:47,000 --> 00:43:49,560
Speaker 1: looking at that had a lot of like retro slot

781
00:43:49,600 --> 00:43:53,160
Speaker 1: machine collectibles. Uh, the guy there was sent a selling

782
00:43:53,239 --> 00:43:57,040
Speaker 1: a bandit head from a one arm bandit. What a

783
00:43:57,200 --> 00:43:59,080
Speaker 1: bandit head? Yeah, you can buy it for a hundred

784
00:43:59,080 --> 00:44:01,920
Speaker 1: and fifty bucks on e Bay, but it's explicitly claiming

785
00:44:01,960 --> 00:44:04,239
Speaker 1: to rob you. Yeah, it's the one armed bandit. So

786
00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:06,080
Speaker 1: let's just go ahead and put this, you know, this

787
00:44:06,440 --> 00:44:08,360
Speaker 1: head on top, like a paper mache head with a

788
00:44:08,400 --> 00:44:11,479
Speaker 1: cowboy hat, and then you can go duel with it. Yeah.

789
00:44:12,000 --> 00:44:14,400
Speaker 1: But the thing is that, the thing about anthropomorphization and

790
00:44:14,440 --> 00:44:18,759
Speaker 1: anthropomorphism in general is that it permeates everything we do, right. Yeah,

791
00:44:18,920 --> 00:44:21,359
Speaker 1: and it's uh, and it's paradoxical at times, like it's

792
00:44:21,400 --> 00:44:23,719
Speaker 1: the it's at once. It's the force that makes it

793
00:44:23,880 --> 00:44:27,120
Speaker 1: easier to kick a garbage can because you think it's

794
00:44:27,120 --> 00:44:30,160
Speaker 1: a person, you know, like you make that garbage can,

795
00:44:30,239 --> 00:44:32,520
Speaker 1: you personify it as a somebody you're mad at, and

796
00:44:32,520 --> 00:44:34,680
Speaker 1: you kick it. But also if you draw a face

797
00:44:34,760 --> 00:44:36,799
Speaker 1: on a garbage can, it makes it a little harder

798
00:44:36,880 --> 00:44:39,439
Speaker 1: to kick the garbage can because it's you've you've given

799
00:44:39,480 --> 00:44:42,319
Speaker 1: it some sort of like innocent personhood. Oh, I mean,

800
00:44:42,600 --> 00:44:45,920
Speaker 1: I bet you treat your computer like a person. Sometimes

801
00:44:46,080 --> 00:44:48,759
Speaker 1: you don't really think it has a mind and emotions,

802
00:44:48,880 --> 00:44:51,279
Speaker 1: but sometimes it feels that way when it's slow, when

803
00:44:51,320 --> 00:44:54,600
Speaker 1: it's lagging, when it's causing you problems. This person is

804
00:44:54,760 --> 00:44:58,160
Speaker 1: messing up your day. They are so annoying. Yeah, I mean.

805
00:44:58,200 --> 00:45:00,360
Speaker 1: And it's also, of course a huge part, if not

806
00:45:00,600 --> 00:45:04,480
Speaker 1: the key, part of our religious thinking. In our religious worldviews,

807
00:45:04,480 --> 00:45:09,640
Speaker 1: where we attribute consciousness to the universe, we anthropomorphize the universe. Yeah,

808
00:45:10,200 --> 00:45:12,680
Speaker 1: either in the form of a single deity or in

809
00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:17,120
Speaker 1: an array of deities representing various personified aspects of reality. Well,

810
00:45:17,160 --> 00:45:20,200
Speaker 1: I think that's something that complicates this view of looking

811
00:45:20,239 --> 00:45:23,920
Speaker 1: at slot machines as as agents or as people. Again,

812
00:45:24,360 --> 00:45:27,680
Speaker 1: nobody really thinks the slot machine is a person, but

813
00:45:27,800 --> 00:45:30,080
Speaker 1: they can start thinking in those ways. And then there's

814
00:45:30,080 --> 00:45:33,960
Speaker 1: also a complicated interplay between the ghost of the person

815
00:45:34,040 --> 00:45:36,799
Speaker 1: you imagine is in the slot machine and this sort

816
00:45:36,840 --> 00:45:41,680
Speaker 1: of larger universal ghost, you know, lady Luck, the mind

817
00:45:41,800 --> 00:45:44,560
Speaker 1: of the universe that's handing out wins and losses. And

818
00:45:44,640 --> 00:45:47,680
Speaker 1: to what extent is that the machine itself or is

819
00:45:47,800 --> 00:45:51,000
Speaker 1: that this third external force that's watching over the both

820
00:45:51,080 --> 00:45:54,840
Speaker 1: of you. Yeah. Indeed, so the researchers in this two thousand,

821
00:45:54,880 --> 00:45:57,279
Speaker 1: fifteen study. This is what they did. They have first

822
00:45:57,360 --> 00:45:59,680
Speaker 1: they did they did four experiments in total, but the

823
00:45:59,719 --> 00:46:02,320
Speaker 1: first three were with a small study, so like a

824
00:46:02,440 --> 00:46:06,320
Speaker 1: very small sample size, really a quality quasi study. Participants

825
00:46:06,360 --> 00:46:09,279
Speaker 1: were a group of fifteen regular slot machine players in

826
00:46:09,320 --> 00:46:12,440
Speaker 1: a group of fifteen non regular slot machine players. And

827
00:46:12,520 --> 00:46:16,000
Speaker 1: then what they did is they primed the individuals before

828
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:20,719
Speaker 1: they interacted with these machines. So all the anthropomorphization is

829
00:46:20,760 --> 00:46:24,720
Speaker 1: taking place here, it's not. It doesn't involve any physical anthropomorphization.

830
00:46:24,760 --> 00:46:28,080
Speaker 1: There no heads, they are no mannequins. It's all about

831
00:46:28,120 --> 00:46:31,120
Speaker 1: priming them with with a description. Yeah they're they're just

832
00:46:31,280 --> 00:46:35,360
Speaker 1: given text. But the text actually proved pretty interesting and

833
00:46:35,400 --> 00:46:37,640
Speaker 1: how it affected the way they thought about the game

834
00:46:37,680 --> 00:46:39,560
Speaker 1: and the relationship with the machine. I think we should

835
00:46:39,560 --> 00:46:42,400
Speaker 1: actually read out the text because I think the differences

836
00:46:42,440 --> 00:46:46,520
Speaker 1: are interesting. Okay, this is the anthropomorphizing priming text from

837
00:46:46,560 --> 00:46:49,880
Speaker 1: Steady One. Remember that when you play with a slot machine,

838
00:46:49,920 --> 00:46:52,640
Speaker 1: you don't need to implement any particular strategy. Indeed, the

839
00:46:52,680 --> 00:46:55,960
Speaker 1: slot machine can decide whether you will win or lose

840
00:46:56,000 --> 00:46:59,600
Speaker 1: a series of bets anytime she wants. Sometimes she may

841
00:46:59,719 --> 00:47:02,280
Speaker 1: choose to make fun of you leaving you empty handed

842
00:47:02,360 --> 00:47:05,360
Speaker 1: for several bets. Other times she might want to reward

843
00:47:05,480 --> 00:47:08,080
Speaker 1: you with a win. In any case, the slot machine

844
00:47:08,120 --> 00:47:11,360
Speaker 1: will always choose what will happen. You just have to

845
00:47:11,440 --> 00:47:14,879
Speaker 1: start playing and see what happens. So some people got

846
00:47:14,960 --> 00:47:18,040
Speaker 1: that one other people got remember that when you play

847
00:47:18,040 --> 00:47:21,840
Speaker 1: a slot machine, you don't need to implement any particular strategy. Instead,

848
00:47:21,880 --> 00:47:24,680
Speaker 1: the slot machine is controlled by a mathematical algorithm that

849
00:47:24,840 --> 00:47:27,399
Speaker 1: is programmed to deliver a certain overall number of wins

850
00:47:27,480 --> 00:47:30,160
Speaker 1: and losses. Based on this algorithm, you can win or

851
00:47:30,200 --> 00:47:32,680
Speaker 1: lose a series of bets in any case. The outcome

852
00:47:32,760 --> 00:47:34,840
Speaker 1: of each turn of the reels is always run by

853
00:47:34,880 --> 00:47:37,560
Speaker 1: a computer algorithm. You just have to start playing and

854
00:47:37,640 --> 00:47:40,920
Speaker 1: see what happens. So both are saying essentially the same thing, like,

855
00:47:41,040 --> 00:47:43,479
Speaker 1: there's a there's a force here, there's already in play,

856
00:47:43,880 --> 00:47:46,600
Speaker 1: and you cannot win against it. But in one case

857
00:47:46,840 --> 00:47:49,520
Speaker 1: it's she, and then the other case it's it. Yet

858
00:47:49,560 --> 00:47:52,520
Speaker 1: they found that that an anthropomorphized description of the slot

859
00:47:52,560 --> 00:47:56,400
Speaker 1: machine increased gambling behavior and reduced winnings. And winnings, of

860
00:47:56,440 --> 00:47:59,800
Speaker 1: course decreased because the gamblers were gambling more on the

861
00:48:00,000 --> 00:48:03,520
Speaker 1: to promorphized machines. Another moral about gambling, The longer you play,

862
00:48:03,600 --> 00:48:05,799
Speaker 1: the more you'll lose. Yeah, And that that's all it takes.

863
00:48:05,880 --> 00:48:08,200
Speaker 1: Just get the individual playing more and they will lose more,

864
00:48:08,360 --> 00:48:11,399
Speaker 1: playing to extinction. Yeah. So the first study they did

865
00:48:11,520 --> 00:48:13,239
Speaker 1: was more about just the time you invested in it.

866
00:48:13,520 --> 00:48:17,960
Speaker 1: It wasn't the Yeah. The second study, that one involved

867
00:48:18,160 --> 00:48:21,800
Speaker 1: real money or points, and study three tested the emotional

868
00:48:21,880 --> 00:48:26,320
Speaker 1: experience of the game okay um. Study three provided initial

869
00:48:26,400 --> 00:48:29,360
Speaker 1: evidence of a link between anthropomorphism of slot machines with

870
00:48:29,480 --> 00:48:33,920
Speaker 1: the participants emotional experience and their actual gambling behavior, but

871
00:48:34,120 --> 00:48:37,800
Speaker 1: specifically found that slot machine anthropomorphism increases the experience of

872
00:48:37,920 --> 00:48:42,440
Speaker 1: positive emotions, which leads people to gamble more. Now the

873
00:48:42,560 --> 00:48:45,040
Speaker 1: fourth study, this is where they took what they learned

874
00:48:45,040 --> 00:48:46,600
Speaker 1: from the first three and they applied it to a

875
00:48:46,719 --> 00:48:50,000
Speaker 1: much larger grede, this time two individuals, and they use

876
00:48:50,120 --> 00:48:54,960
Speaker 1: candies instead of money or points or anything. So this

877
00:48:55,160 --> 00:48:57,759
Speaker 1: is a key. Though unlike Study three, study four did

878
00:48:57,880 --> 00:49:01,680
Speaker 1: not provide support for their high offices that priming participants

879
00:49:01,719 --> 00:49:06,680
Speaker 1: with an anthropomorphic slot machine intrinsically results in a stronger

880
00:49:06,760 --> 00:49:11,239
Speaker 1: emotional reaction except for low arousal negative emotions. Such as

881
00:49:11,280 --> 00:49:14,880
Speaker 1: fatigue so tired, Yeah, so, And the researchers aren't exactly

882
00:49:14,960 --> 00:49:18,160
Speaker 1: sure why this is why they weren't able to repeat

883
00:49:18,320 --> 00:49:20,160
Speaker 1: the same effect and steady four that they kind of

884
00:49:20,160 --> 00:49:23,279
Speaker 1: study about the emotions right about the emotion. Uh, they

885
00:49:23,360 --> 00:49:25,200
Speaker 1: think that it might be because of different measures they

886
00:49:25,239 --> 00:49:29,240
Speaker 1: were using um between three and four, So more studies

887
00:49:29,320 --> 00:49:33,640
Speaker 1: required there. But the anthropomorphization, the personification of the slot

888
00:49:33,680 --> 00:49:38,120
Speaker 1: machine definitely did affect playing, like the length of playtime

889
00:49:38,239 --> 00:49:42,439
Speaker 1: and the losses as a result of the length of playtime. Yes, yeah,

890
00:49:42,480 --> 00:49:45,040
Speaker 1: And that's one of the key take homes here. Uh,

891
00:49:45,160 --> 00:49:47,520
Speaker 1: you know, along with just some of the key points

892
00:49:47,600 --> 00:49:49,960
Speaker 1: that came out of the paper that people exposed to

893
00:49:50,000 --> 00:49:53,000
Speaker 1: a humanized slot machine lost more points compared to people

894
00:49:53,080 --> 00:49:57,920
Speaker 1: exposed to non humanized slot machines. That anthropomorphization resulted in

895
00:49:58,040 --> 00:50:01,040
Speaker 1: greater loss of slot machine payouts. The people primed with

896
00:50:01,120 --> 00:50:04,319
Speaker 1: the humanized slot machine lost more slot machine payoffs because

897
00:50:04,360 --> 00:50:08,080
Speaker 1: they went on playing longer. And the theory is that

898
00:50:08,200 --> 00:50:12,520
Speaker 1: it's all about emotional arousal, which increases focus and engagement,

899
00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:16,080
Speaker 1: forcing gamblers to gamble more. That was the interpretation that

900
00:50:16,360 --> 00:50:19,120
Speaker 1: they applied to their emotional results. Though there was, like

901
00:50:19,239 --> 00:50:22,359
Speaker 1: you said, there was some discrepancy in the emotional results. Yeah.

902
00:50:22,600 --> 00:50:24,960
Speaker 1: And then the final like take home from this study

903
00:50:25,160 --> 00:50:27,960
Speaker 1: is that the other side of the coin is that

904
00:50:28,800 --> 00:50:32,640
Speaker 1: just as you can potentially prime somebody with the anthropomorphizing

905
00:50:33,120 --> 00:50:35,759
Speaker 1: UH text and make them gamble more, that this might

906
00:50:35,800 --> 00:50:38,320
Speaker 1: be a way to to UH to treat gambling behavior.

907
00:50:38,400 --> 00:50:40,840
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Yeah, So if you're trying to discourage people

908
00:50:40,960 --> 00:50:43,560
Speaker 1: from spending their life savings on the slot machine, it

909
00:50:44,160 --> 00:50:47,360
Speaker 1: perhaps could help or at least mitigate the effects, just

910
00:50:47,480 --> 00:50:50,279
Speaker 1: to constantly remind people that it's a machine working by

911
00:50:50,320 --> 00:50:53,359
Speaker 1: an algorithm. Yeah. Like, of course, the casinos don't want

912
00:50:53,360 --> 00:50:55,520
Speaker 1: to do that. They want you to play to extinction.

913
00:50:55,960 --> 00:50:58,680
Speaker 1: But I don't know. I think the idea is maybe

914
00:50:58,760 --> 00:51:03,000
Speaker 1: that a law could would require casinos too, I don't know,

915
00:51:03,160 --> 00:51:07,719
Speaker 1: emphasize the impersonality of slot machines. Yeah. Like imagine I

916
00:51:07,800 --> 00:51:10,960
Speaker 1: think of the legislation that takes place around cigarettes and tobacco,

917
00:51:11,200 --> 00:51:13,359
Speaker 1: right you often, you know, it's about like let's make

918
00:51:13,440 --> 00:51:16,160
Speaker 1: make it less sexy, make it less appealing, put a

919
00:51:16,239 --> 00:51:19,400
Speaker 1: big scary warning on it, I mean, realistic warning on

920
00:51:19,520 --> 00:51:22,040
Speaker 1: it about the the ill effects. What if that was

921
00:51:22,080 --> 00:51:25,960
Speaker 1: applied to a slot machine where you cannot anthropomorphize it.

922
00:51:26,360 --> 00:51:28,759
Speaker 1: It has to be less flashy, and there has to

923
00:51:28,800 --> 00:51:31,360
Speaker 1: be a big, big plate on the front of it

924
00:51:31,520 --> 00:51:34,279
Speaker 1: that tells you this is all about the algorithm and

925
00:51:34,520 --> 00:51:37,440
Speaker 1: you're not gonna win. Surgeon General's warning, there is no

926
00:51:37,640 --> 00:51:41,759
Speaker 1: fickle god or god us inside this machine. One of

927
00:51:41,800 --> 00:51:43,880
Speaker 1: the other interesting things about the study, though, was that

928
00:51:44,080 --> 00:51:47,120
Speaker 1: it only looked at verbal priming. Like we said, so

929
00:51:47,360 --> 00:51:51,080
Speaker 1: people were either given as a verbal description saying it's

930
00:51:51,120 --> 00:51:54,120
Speaker 1: just an algorithm, or a verbal description saying she wants

931
00:51:54,200 --> 00:51:56,919
Speaker 1: to reward you. Sometimes she takes your money the other times.

932
00:51:57,920 --> 00:52:00,239
Speaker 1: It would be interesting to see the results of dual

933
00:52:00,320 --> 00:52:03,160
Speaker 1: priming along these lines, like a machine that just looks

934
00:52:03,239 --> 00:52:06,480
Speaker 1: like a flat, blank machine, or a machine that's like

935
00:52:06,640 --> 00:52:09,640
Speaker 1: our like our Marilyn Monroe machine, it's very much dressed

936
00:52:09,719 --> 00:52:13,120
Speaker 1: up to look like a human and given given expressive

937
00:52:13,239 --> 00:52:15,759
Speaker 1: visual emotions. Yeah, where I was looking at some some

938
00:52:15,920 --> 00:52:19,560
Speaker 1: YouTube clips, which is various slots and a lot of them.

939
00:52:19,600 --> 00:52:21,680
Speaker 1: How like one I was looking at like it wasn't

940
00:52:21,719 --> 00:52:24,279
Speaker 1: just fruit and symbols rolling by, but also like a

941
00:52:24,880 --> 00:52:28,960
Speaker 1: barbarian woman with a panther, you know, like what, Yeah,

942
00:52:29,239 --> 00:52:31,799
Speaker 1: like she's uh like, like the top half of her

943
00:52:32,040 --> 00:52:33,960
Speaker 1: like ends up sinking up with the bottom half, so

944
00:52:34,080 --> 00:52:37,160
Speaker 1: it's essentially like a bikini woman is one of the

945
00:52:37,960 --> 00:52:42,680
Speaker 1: the icons on the slots. Another interesting finding I thought

946
00:52:42,800 --> 00:52:45,000
Speaker 1: was that they pointed out in their discussion section that

947
00:52:45,360 --> 00:52:48,720
Speaker 1: while they were able to get in all cases anthropomorphic

948
00:52:48,880 --> 00:52:52,680
Speaker 1: thinking elevated by priming people with this with this pro

949
00:52:52,880 --> 00:52:59,359
Speaker 1: anthropomorphization text, anthropomorphization was present in both groups. So even

950
00:52:59,400 --> 00:53:01,520
Speaker 1: the people who were given the text that says it's

951
00:53:01,600 --> 00:53:04,800
Speaker 1: just an algorithm, is just a machine, still showed some

952
00:53:05,080 --> 00:53:10,080
Speaker 1: anthropomorphic thinking. They still attributed some beliefs and feelings and

953
00:53:10,560 --> 00:53:13,920
Speaker 1: thoughts to the machine, less than the other route, but

954
00:53:14,000 --> 00:53:16,680
Speaker 1: there were still some there, and that suggests that there's

955
00:53:16,680 --> 00:53:20,120
Speaker 1: an inherent tendency to personalize the machine, even when you're

956
00:53:20,280 --> 00:53:24,120
Speaker 1: discouraged from doing so. Yeah, all the machines are doing

957
00:53:24,200 --> 00:53:27,880
Speaker 1: when they throw on ahead or or any colorful imagery

958
00:53:28,000 --> 00:53:31,719
Speaker 1: is they're just they're they're just encouraging the pre existing tendency,

959
00:53:32,800 --> 00:53:35,959
Speaker 1: you know. The idea about these different ways of viewing

960
00:53:36,040 --> 00:53:38,200
Speaker 1: the machine makes me think of something I've read about

961
00:53:38,200 --> 00:53:41,959
Speaker 1: in the philosopher Daniel Dennett's writings before, where he talks

962
00:53:42,000 --> 00:53:45,800
Speaker 1: about the idea of the the three major stances that

963
00:53:45,920 --> 00:53:49,279
Speaker 1: we take in reference to external objects, which are the

964
00:53:49,400 --> 00:53:53,960
Speaker 1: physical stance, the design stance, and the intentional stance. And

965
00:53:54,040 --> 00:53:58,040
Speaker 1: it's a way of understanding and predicting what, uh, what

966
00:53:58,239 --> 00:54:01,600
Speaker 1: third party objects are going to do. And so if

967
00:54:01,680 --> 00:54:04,879
Speaker 1: you say, see rocks rolling down a hill, you tend

968
00:54:04,920 --> 00:54:06,239
Speaker 1: to think of this and what he would call the

969
00:54:06,280 --> 00:54:10,440
Speaker 1: physical stance, it's just it's just acting by physics, and

970
00:54:10,719 --> 00:54:12,560
Speaker 1: you can pretty much predict that they're going to keep

971
00:54:12,640 --> 00:54:16,719
Speaker 1: rolling downhill. When you look at an uh, maybe an

972
00:54:16,920 --> 00:54:20,160
Speaker 1: organism or or an object or something, you can think

973
00:54:20,200 --> 00:54:22,600
Speaker 1: about it in terms of the design stance, So like

974
00:54:22,680 --> 00:54:26,600
Speaker 1: an alarm clock is designed to act a certain way,

975
00:54:26,800 --> 00:54:31,000
Speaker 1: or an organism is designed by evolution to to achieve

976
00:54:31,040 --> 00:54:34,480
Speaker 1: a certain purpose, and you can think about it in

977
00:54:34,560 --> 00:54:36,759
Speaker 1: those terms because they have goals in mind, and it

978
00:54:36,880 --> 00:54:39,279
Speaker 1: sort of simplifies the factors we need to take into

979
00:54:39,320 --> 00:54:43,080
Speaker 1: consideration when predicting behavior. And then the third stance is

980
00:54:43,200 --> 00:54:46,200
Speaker 1: the intentional stance. That's how we think about agents. So

981
00:54:46,320 --> 00:54:49,120
Speaker 1: it would be like a person or a thinking or

982
00:54:49,160 --> 00:54:52,360
Speaker 1: a thinking animal. It it has things it wants to do.

983
00:54:53,360 --> 00:54:56,400
Speaker 1: And I think the idea is that you can apply

984
00:54:56,680 --> 00:54:59,600
Speaker 1: all three stances to something like a slot machine, like

985
00:54:59,760 --> 00:55:02,480
Speaker 1: it is governed by underlying physics, and if you wanted

986
00:55:02,520 --> 00:55:04,840
Speaker 1: to get really detailed, you could look at the physics

987
00:55:04,880 --> 00:55:07,960
Speaker 1: of all the electronics inside and how they determine what

988
00:55:08,120 --> 00:55:10,360
Speaker 1: the machine does. You could look at it in the

989
00:55:10,440 --> 00:55:13,279
Speaker 1: design stance, whereas it was made by a person who

990
00:55:13,520 --> 00:55:15,640
Speaker 1: eat your money, to eat your money, and it does

991
00:55:15,760 --> 00:55:18,080
Speaker 1: that very well. Or you could look at it from

992
00:55:18,120 --> 00:55:20,239
Speaker 1: the intentional stance and you could say it is an

993
00:55:20,320 --> 00:55:23,680
Speaker 1: agent that wants to sometimes reward you with with with

994
00:55:23,840 --> 00:55:27,280
Speaker 1: happy happy money times, and other times it will punish

995
00:55:27,320 --> 00:55:29,520
Speaker 1: you for your hubers. What I love about this is

996
00:55:29,560 --> 00:55:33,879
Speaker 1: that both the physical and the intention model are wrong here,

997
00:55:33,960 --> 00:55:37,160
Speaker 1: like only the design view is the one that actually

998
00:55:37,239 --> 00:55:40,960
Speaker 1: gives you a realistic idea of what this machine is

999
00:55:41,000 --> 00:55:42,879
Speaker 1: going to do to you. Well, I think you could

1000
00:55:42,920 --> 00:55:46,160
Speaker 1: say that the physical stance is not necessarily wrong, it's

1001
00:55:46,239 --> 00:55:49,600
Speaker 1: just unnecessary, Like there's no reason you would need to

1002
00:55:49,719 --> 00:55:52,360
Speaker 1: look at the physics of what every electron inside the

1003
00:55:52,400 --> 00:55:55,400
Speaker 1: machine is doing to understand it. Yeah, but but I

1004
00:55:55,440 --> 00:55:58,000
Speaker 1: think it that the physical doesn't give you a clear

1005
00:55:58,120 --> 00:56:00,440
Speaker 1: mind of what it's going to do to Yeah, what

1006
00:56:00,800 --> 00:56:02,960
Speaker 1: if it is designed like the design is, it doesn't

1007
00:56:03,000 --> 00:56:06,919
Speaker 1: give you the t the teleology of the slot machine. Yeah,

1008
00:56:07,880 --> 00:56:10,920
Speaker 1: so that's that's interesting. But yeah, so the idea here

1009
00:56:11,000 --> 00:56:13,440
Speaker 1: is that we we can be primed to regard a

1010
00:56:13,480 --> 00:56:17,000
Speaker 1: slot machine within the intentional stance, but ideally, if you

1011
00:56:17,080 --> 00:56:19,759
Speaker 1: want to have people not spending so much money on

1012
00:56:19,840 --> 00:56:22,160
Speaker 1: slot machines, you want to remind them to think about

1013
00:56:22,239 --> 00:56:25,480
Speaker 1: it through the design stance. The design stance is is

1014
00:56:25,719 --> 00:56:28,840
Speaker 1: such a mood killer for slot machines. You know, whenever

1015
00:56:28,960 --> 00:56:31,400
Speaker 1: you're made to think about what the slot machine is

1016
00:56:31,600 --> 00:56:36,960
Speaker 1: designed to do, it kills the magic. Yeah. Yeah, you

1017
00:56:37,239 --> 00:56:41,960
Speaker 1: you see through the facade to the nefarious purpose. Yeah.

1018
00:56:42,080 --> 00:56:46,040
Speaker 1: Another thing the anthropomorphization makes me think about is the

1019
00:56:46,160 --> 00:56:50,680
Speaker 1: future of electronic gambling, especially when combined with future generations

1020
00:56:50,719 --> 00:56:54,320
Speaker 1: of artificial intelligence. Yeah, what happens when the slot machine

1021
00:56:54,719 --> 00:56:58,640
Speaker 1: is not just in engaging in passive anthem amorphization, but

1022
00:56:58,719 --> 00:57:01,560
Speaker 1: also but I like act of personification to where it's

1023
00:57:01,600 --> 00:57:04,600
Speaker 1: actually it's talking back to it's engaging with you. It's

1024
00:57:04,719 --> 00:57:08,600
Speaker 1: it's essentially a chatter box trying to to get you

1025
00:57:08,680 --> 00:57:11,320
Speaker 1: to gamble more through conversation. Yeah, I mean imagine the

1026
00:57:11,440 --> 00:57:16,600
Speaker 1: perfect AI chatter bought, uh you know, slot machine off

1027
00:57:17,240 --> 00:57:20,840
Speaker 1: or whatever it's it's it's the Lady Luck slot machine

1028
00:57:20,880 --> 00:57:24,120
Speaker 1: and she chats oh so charming lee while she takes

1029
00:57:24,160 --> 00:57:26,240
Speaker 1: your coins one at a time, or these days, I

1030
00:57:26,240 --> 00:57:28,400
Speaker 1: don't know if it's often even coins. I think you

1031
00:57:28,520 --> 00:57:31,480
Speaker 1: get like you know, in the casinos of today, you

1032
00:57:31,560 --> 00:57:33,560
Speaker 1: might get like a card as a certain amount of

1033
00:57:33,600 --> 00:57:36,080
Speaker 1: credits on it, and it's slowly deducts, just a little

1034
00:57:36,120 --> 00:57:41,560
Speaker 1: bits at a time, a little bits at a time. Well,

1035
00:57:41,600 --> 00:57:46,480
Speaker 1: there you have it. Slot machines, the design, the purpose,

1036
00:57:46,800 --> 00:57:48,520
Speaker 1: a little bit of the history, and of course are

1037
00:57:48,760 --> 00:57:53,560
Speaker 1: our scientific exploration of slot machine usage in gambling behavior

1038
00:57:54,240 --> 00:57:58,720
Speaker 1: from psychological scamble. So hey, we would love to hear

1039
00:57:58,800 --> 00:58:00,640
Speaker 1: from any and all of you on this. I know

1040
00:58:01,600 --> 00:58:03,880
Speaker 1: their individuals out there to listen to the show who

1041
00:58:04,000 --> 00:58:06,440
Speaker 1: have history with slot machines. Some of you may even have,

1042
00:58:06,760 --> 00:58:10,920
Speaker 1: uh you know, have past problems with gambling addiction and

1043
00:58:11,040 --> 00:58:13,440
Speaker 1: therefore have some some feedback you want to give us,

1044
00:58:13,720 --> 00:58:15,680
Speaker 1: uh some personal accounts you want to share with us

1045
00:58:16,080 --> 00:58:18,360
Speaker 1: and uh and if you want us to share it

1046
00:58:18,440 --> 00:58:20,840
Speaker 1: without using your real name, just leave leave a note

1047
00:58:21,080 --> 00:58:23,760
Speaker 1: to that effect and we will honor it. You can

1048
00:58:23,840 --> 00:58:25,600
Speaker 1: find us at stuff to blow your mind dot com.

1049
00:58:25,800 --> 00:58:28,200
Speaker 1: That is the mothership. That's we'll find all the episodes,

1050
00:58:28,640 --> 00:58:30,920
Speaker 1: podcast videos, blog post, you name it, as well as

1051
00:58:31,120 --> 00:58:34,360
Speaker 1: links out to our social media accounts such as tumbler, Facebook,

1052
00:58:34,400 --> 00:58:36,280
Speaker 1: and Twitter. We are blow the Mind on all of those,

1053
00:58:36,640 --> 00:58:38,040
Speaker 1: and if you want to get in touch with us

1054
00:58:38,080 --> 00:58:40,160
Speaker 1: with any of those stories Robert mentioned, or any other

1055
00:58:40,240 --> 00:58:43,280
Speaker 1: feedback about the idea of electronic gambling slot machines and

1056
00:58:43,360 --> 00:58:45,880
Speaker 1: how our brains work, you can email us at blow

1057
00:58:45,960 --> 00:58:51,000
Speaker 1: the Mind at how stuff works dot com. For more

1058
00:58:51,040 --> 00:58:53,680
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff

1059
00:58:53,680 --> 00:58:54,360
Speaker 1: works dot com