Slot Machine Reward Psychology

1. Slot Machine Reward Psychology Course
2. Slot Machine Reward Psychology Techniques
3. Slot Machine Reward Psychology Jobs

Any dog owner will tell you that we can use a food reward as a motivation to change a dog’s behaviour. But humans are just as susceptible to rewards too.

When we get a reward, special pathways in our brain become activated. Not only does this feel good, but the activation also leads us to seek out more rewarding stimuli.

Slots Psychology. What makes slot machines so attractive? Experts say that, unlike traditional table games, slots can be designed specifically to take advantage of basic human psychology and thus maximize their appeal.

• There are many variables, but the main power of slots is rooted deeply in human psychology. Slots take advantage of basic human instinctsto maximize their appeal. Slot machines are able to seduce us on multiple levels. Slots naturally catch our attention because they are flashy.
• Partial Reinforcement and Gambling. This is applicable in the case of gambling at a slot machine, and feeling unable to stop. When a person gambles at a slot machine, they’re unaware of when they will win a certain consequential amount of money, how much money and time they will need to spend to achieve that, or even if they will ever win.

Humans show these neurological responses to many types of rewards, including food, social contact, music and even self-affirmation.

But there is more to reward than physiology: differences in how often and when we get rewarded can also have a big impact on our experience of reward. In turn, this influences the likelihood that we will engage in that activity again. Psychologists describe these as schedules of reinforcement.

It’s not (just) what you do, it’s when you do it

The simplest type of reinforcement is continuous reinforcement, where a behaviour is rewarded every time it occurs. Continuous reinforcement is a particularly good way to train a new behaviour.

But intermittent reinforcement is the strongest way to maintain a behaviour. In intermittent reinforcement, the reward is delivered after some of the behaviours, but not all of the behaviours.

There are four main intermittent schedules of reinforcement, and some of these are more powerful than others.

Fixed Ratio

In the Fixed Ratio schedule of reinforcement, a specific number of actions must occur before the behaviour is rewarded. For example, your local coffee shop tells you that after you stamp your card nine times, your tenth drink is free.

Fixed Interval

Similarly, in the Fixed Interval schedule, a specific time must pass before the behaviour is rewarded. It is easy to think about this schedule in terms of work paid on an hourly basis – you are rewarded with money for every 60 minutes of work you complete.

Variable Ratio

For the Variable Ratio schedule, rewards are given after a varying number of behaviours – sometimes after four, sometimes five and other times 20 – making the reward more unpredictable.

This principle can be seen in poker (slot) machine gambling. The machine has an average win ratio, but that doesn’t guarantee a consistent rate of reward, so players continue in the hope that the next press of the button is the one that pays off.

Variable Interval

The Variable Interval schedule works on the same unpredictable principle, but in terms of time. So rewards are given after varying intervals of time – sometimes five minutes, sometimes 30 and sometimes after a longer period. So at work, when your boss drops in at random points of the day, your hard work is reinforced.

It is easy to see that rewards given on a variable ratio would reinforce behaviours far more effectively – if you don’t know when you will be rewarded, you continue to act, just in case!

Psychologists describe this persistent behaviour as a resistance to extinction. Even after the reward is completely taken away, the behaviour will remain for a while because you aren’t sure if this is just a longer interval before the reward than usual.

Do rewards have a ‘dark side’?

You can certainly use these principles to shape someone’s behaviour. Loyalty cards for supermarkets, airlines, and restaurants all increase the likelihood of our continued use of those services.

Marketers can also use reward to their advantage. If you can make someone feel anxious because they don’t own a particular product – maybe the latest or greatest version of something they already have – when the person buys the new product, the reward comes from the reduction in anxiety.

Want more help around the house? Start off with praising your partner/kids every time they do the desired behaviour, and once they are doing it regularly, slip into a comfortable variable ratio mode.

And of course, sometimes rewards can result in addiction.

Addiction used to be seen in the context of substance use, and there is indeed substantial evidence for the role of reward pathways in alcohol and other drug addiction.

Obviously, the nature of addiction is complex. But more recently, there is evidence of addiction that can be based on behaviour, rather than ingesting a substance.

For example, people show addiction-like behaviours related to their mobile phone use, shopping and even love relationships.

Pokémon GO rewards

Recently the world has watched the introduction of the mobile game Pokémon GO. Cleverly, this game employs multiple schedules of reinforcement which ensure users continue to feel the need to “catch ‘em all”.

On the fixed ratio schedule, users know that if they catch enough Pokemon they will level up, or possess enough candy to evolve. The hatching of eggs also follows a fixed interval, in this case it’s distance walked.

But on the variable ratio and interval schedules, users never know how far they need to wander before they will find a new Pokemon, or how long it will be before something other than a wild Pidgey appears!

So they continue to check the app regularly throughout the day. No wonder Pokemon GO is so addictive.

But it’s not just Pokemon masters who fall prey to online reward schedules.

Checking our emails at various points of the day is reinforced when there is something in our inbox – a variable interval schedule. This makes us more likely to check for emails again.

Our social media posts are reinforced with “likes” on an variable ratio schedule. You may be rewarded with likes on most posts (continuous reinforcement), but occasionally (and importantly, unpredictably) a post will be rewarded with much more attention than other posts, which encourages more posting in the future.

Now, if you will excuse us, we just need to click “refresh” on our inbox. Again.

Near Misses

This week we are mainly going to discuss slot machines throughout three articles and then have a fourth article highlighting another WoO promotion.

As with anything else involving gambling, slot machines are all about Math, but, they are also about Psychology. One of the most important components of slot machine design is not just making sure the Math yields a House Advantage within a certain range, (that part is easy) but also about making sure that the player is having fun playing the machine while bucking the House Advantage.

In so doing, the slot machine designer must tap into the Psychology of the players, and one of the most important ways to do this is to design a machine with, 'Near-Misses,' which make it appear as if the player almost hit a jackpot. These near-misses accomplish two things: First of all, they make it appear, Psychologically, as though the player is close to getting a jackpot, secondly, they must happen frequently enough to make hitting the jackpot SEEM much more likely than it actually is.

We're going to throw up a completely fabricated slot machine here called Golden Goose Eggs, and this will be a single line game with thirty reel assignments for each of the three reels. The reel assignments will be as follows:

Golden Goose Egg: 2, 2, 5

Golden Goose: 5, 5, 2

Three Bars: 4, 4, 2

Two Bars: 4, 4, 4

One Bar: 5, 5, 5

Cherry: 10, 10, 12

Not only are the reels assigned this way, but, the Cherries are also going to be designed such that each reel is only going to have two different physical spots representing the Cherry and there shall be a Golden Goose Egg above the Cherries on Reels 1 & 2 with a Golden Goose below as well as Golden Goose Eggs BOTH above and below the Cherries on Reel 3 and also above the One Bar, in one instance, on Reel 3.

The probabilities, pays, and contributions to the return are as follows:

Three Golden Goose Eggs: 0.00074074074 * 200 = .148148148

Three Golden Geese: 0.00185185185 * 100 = .185185185

Three Three Bars: 0.00118518518 * 75 = .088888888

Three Two Bars: 0.00237037037 * 50 = .11851851851

Three One Bars: 0.00462962962 * 25 = .11574074074

Three Cherries: 0.04444444444 * 5 = .222222222222

The overall return on a bet is going to be 0.87870370247, thus the House Edge is about 12.12963%. The House Edge is probably actually a little high for such a simple game, especially given the low hit rate which is just north of 5%, but this works just as an example.

If a player is going to get, 'Hooked,' to playing this machine, so to speak, it is going to be because of the seemingly frequent appearance of the Three Golden Goose Eggs which would yield a $200 Jackpot per dollar bet. It is important to remember that, every time a player sees Two Golden Goose Eggs on the Payline, there is a reasonably good chance the player will see a Third Goose Egg on one of the other reels either above or below the Payline.

Slot Machine Reward Psychology Course

Remember, every time a player hits a Cherry on the Center reel on Reel 3, the player is going to see a Golden Goose Egg both above and below said Cherry. Also, if the Cherry is just above appearing on the screen, then a Golden Goose Egg will appear on the screen in the top spot on the third reel, if the Cherry is just below appearing on the screen, then a Golden Goose Egg will appear on the bottom part of the Third Reel.

Now, what we're going to do is situate the Cherries two reel spots away from the One Bar symbols, when we can. Effectively, this is going to put a Golden Goose Egg between the Cherry and the One Bar symbol, which means, if either of those results hit, there will be at least one Golden Goose Egg appearing on the third reel.

Effectively, this makes the probability of hitting a Golden Goose Egg 5/30 on the third reel, that's unchanged, but the probability of one appearing on the screen without hitting is now 17/30!

If we combine the probability of Golden Goose Eggs landing on Reels 1 & 2 with the probability of Golden Goose Eggs being visible, but not hitting, on Reel 3, the probability of such an occurrence is 0.00251851851 or 1 in 397.06.

For our next trick, we're going to design the First and Second Reels the same way with respect to our two Golden Goose Eggs. We're going to wedge them below two of the One Bar symbols and above two of the Cherry symbols. However, this Reels are going to have a more accurate visual representation.

This means that if a One Bar symbol lands on the payline, there will be a Golden Goose Egg below it and if a Cherry lands on the Payline, there will often be a Golden Goose Egg above it. The result of this is going to be a 2/30 probability of appearance, per reel, without it being on the Payline.

This way, the probability of it appearing on EITHER Reel 1 or 2 as well as one Reel 3 with two of them on the Payline is: 0.00148148148.

The new combined probability of at least Two Golden Goose symbols appearing on the Payline without hitting is: 0.00399999999

That represents Odds of 1 in 250 on a Jackpot with a probability of 1 in 1350.

Okay, now we can throw in the probability of a Golden Goose Egg being visible on either Reel 1 or Reel 2, but not on the payline, while one is on the Payline for either Reel 1 or Reel 2 and one is visible on Reel 3, but not on the Payline. The probability of that result is 0.00503703703 or 1 in 198.53, approximately. There's also a 0.00251851851 or about 1 in 397.06 probability that it will be visible on all Reels, but not hit any of the Paylines.

0.00251851851+0.00503703703+0.00399999999 = 0.01155555553

Thus, there is a total probability of about 1 in 86.5384617298 that Three Golden Goose Eggs will be somehow visible without that 1 in 1350 result hitting, and that's if I didn't miss anything.

The point of this little thought experiment is that we go our entire lives watching objects in motion and our brains are trained, by our surroundings, to believe that the closer an object comes to hitting a desired target, the more likely it is to actually do it.

Slot Machine Reward Psychology Techniques

Imagine learning how to shoot free throws in basketball. For all but the naturally gifted who intuitively project an object in an accurate parabola with the desired amount of force, it is going to be a process. With modicum physical ability, you're going to get closer and closer to accurately making free throws until your percentage is significantly better than it was.

This is how our minds are trained to believe and behave by our surroundings. This is also the reason why some people claim to be able to, 'Predict,' when Free Games are, 'Due,' by the behavior of the slot machine. When we see things get closer and closer to happening, or better yet, getting close to happening with great frequency, we tend to believe that it is closer to happening within the next few attempts.

The most important thing for a slot player to understand is that the slot machine is specifically designed to take advantage of the player's Psychology and get into the player's head. It is also important to recognize that slot machines do not do this in spite of being fun, it is the fact that they do this that makes them fun.

Slot Machine Reward Psychology Jobs

Think about it: How many players have you seen leaving a machine saying, 'This machine isn't even pretending it's going to hit,' or, 'This machine doesn't even look like it's going to hit,' or some other variation of that complaint?

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