Slot Machines = blinking, beeping ROBOTS OF DOOM

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This article in the New York Times (registration required but free) is pretty fascinating. Apparently slot machines in America now take in more than a billion dollars a day! (Although they pay some of it back out) The newer ones are exponentially more sophisticated than their predecessors, and have videos and touchscreens and adaptive music which gets more intense as you're winning etc.... They now account for between 70-80% of casino profits, and they're legal in 30 states up from just 2 several years ago. They're essentially designed by behaviorists to create addiction in the elderly.

Does anyone here gamble? This seems like a whole phenomenon you never hear anything about.

― DougD, Sunday, 9 May 2004 12:34 (twenty-one years ago)

i play fruit/slot machines fairly regularly. the secret is to stop when you've made a profit. fairly obvious, i suppose, but true.

― don (don), Sunday, 9 May 2004 13:00 (twenty-one years ago)

the old tricks on fruit machines don't seem to work anymore

― ken c (ken c), Sunday, 9 May 2004 13:39 (twenty-one years ago)

you know those don't hold straight after a nudge and you win things?

― ken c (ken c), Sunday, 9 May 2004 13:39 (twenty-one years ago)

My mom has gained two flats in Florida, two Cadillacs and a Corvette from winning jackpots at slot machines in reservation casinos for the past 10 years or so. I've no idea how much she's lost but she *does* always quit when ahead, and always plays the same machine.

― suzy (suzy), Sunday, 9 May 2004 14:30 (twenty-one years ago)

haha i'm now getting the mental image of cars falling out of the bottoms of slot machines when you hit the jackpot.

― ken c (ken c), Sunday, 9 May 2004 14:58 (twenty-one years ago)

The "stupid tax" in full effect.

― D Aziz (esquire1983), Sunday, 9 May 2004 16:14 (twenty-one years ago)

...as judged by someone who'd know ALL ABOUT stupid. Thanks for that, D Aziz!

A smart thing my mom does to avoid tax: say you've won $5,000 on the slots on Wednesday. On Friday, Monday and Tuesday you go to the casino and write a cheque for $500 each time, which you cash but don't use there, and then it looks as if you've spent that money on gambling, which can then be recorded as 'losses' against your gambling 'earnings'.

― suzy (suzy), Sunday, 9 May 2004 16:21 (twenty-one years ago)

US tax inspectors to thread!

― ailsa (ailsa), Sunday, 9 May 2004 16:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Never fear Ailsa, the woman can dance rings around the taxman using the power of MATHS.

― suzy (suzy), Sunday, 9 May 2004 16:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Slot machines are nothing next to the entrancing power of video poker. It combines all the drunken fun of putting dollars in slots and pushing things and losing.

― adam (adam), Sunday, 9 May 2004 16:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Also poker.

― adam (adam), Sunday, 9 May 2004 16:45 (twenty-one years ago)

up the arse?

― ken c (ken c), Sunday, 9 May 2004 16:45 (twenty-one years ago)

eleven years pass...

this was a good read

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9156.html

― Tlon, Uqbar, Morbius Tertius (silby), Friday, 10 July 2015 05:59 (ten years ago)

found it via this article for a taste of the deeply discomforting madness

http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/6/8544303/casino-slot-machine-gambling-addiction-psychology-mobile-games

― Tlon, Uqbar, Morbius Tertius (silby), Friday, 10 July 2015 06:02 (ten years ago)

too close to home right now

― This is for my new ringpiece, so please only serious answers (Noodle Vague), Friday, 10 July 2015 07:51 (ten years ago)

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