How Slot Machines Have Changed Over the Years
Slot is a game of chance that relies on randomness. But it can be addictive, and a bad one can even make you sick. And that’s why casinos put so much thought into everything they do to seduce you and get you to spend money.
In the old days, you yanked on the lever and either all the cherries or lucky 7s lined up and you won some money, or you didn’t. But computer technology allowed for a whole new type of machine, and it really took off in the 2000s when machines began to offer multiple lines of symbols with different chances of winning.
Today’s machines use a pseudo-random number generator to generate all the possible combinations of symbols on each reel. They also synchronize audio-visual stimuli with the result, and it is thought that this combination produces the “conditional reinforcement” that increases gambling persistence. In fact, however, a careful look at the results of the experiments by Kassinove and Schare and Strickland and Grote indicates that the extinction procedure used to evaluate the function of the putative conditional reinforcer in these studies was actually counterproductive.
But the most important change came with advances in payment systems. Unlike a coin slot, where you have to physically feed coins into the machine, you can now swipe a credit card or a bill in a machine. And that means you can play for a lot longer — up to 1,200 spins in an hour, Schull says.