https://www.amazon.com/Addiction-Design-Machine-Gambling-Veg...
I admit to not knowing how they work, but do they typically have any more interaction than "pull lever, sporadically receive reward"?
I also fondly remember booster pack draft games - very fun and the "in" price is completely worth the time spent.
Slots give you exactly nothing except an empty wallet in most cases. At least if you play poker or blackjack you can interact with other humans...
This is the 101 explanation of the science at work. It's basically a conditioned response to dopamine caused by pulling the lever. At it's most basic level, if you are gambler, you pull the lever and get a neurotransmitter reward.
The moral of the story is that if there were no profit motive on the part of the casinos, eventually gamblers could be conditioned to sit at a slot machine that has had the payout slot removed, thus explaining the woman playing "no payout" slots on her phone. I've often joked that my dogs must ask themselves sometimes, "he tells me to sit and my butt just hits the ground. Why? What's wrong with me?" One might get the same response from the woman were she able to give you an honest answer. Like my dogs, she has probably long since forgotten why she even plays slots on her phone.
The training will probably come in handy for the human pup, too. As I watched the one set of friends who would tolerate a comparison between their offspring and dogs, and how they raised their kids, they probably got tired of me pointing out, "oh, so it's just like training dogs..". :-) I wish my old man was a little more into that whole "positive training" thing.
I have played slots in the past when killing time in vegas (e.g. waiting for a flight), and I've always found that it's a really boring way to slowly spend $100.
I also have literally no idea wtf is going on on the screens of those things. At least with blackjack and craps, I know the odds and how the mechanics of the game actually work.
The first time I was in Las Vegas I sat down and figured out the odds for everything, and I discovered that the odds for the crap table were something like .493. If I bet a dollar, it would only cost me 1.4 cents. So I thought to myself, “Why am I so reluctant to bet? It hardly costs anything!”
So I started betting, and right away I lost five dollars in succession—one, two, three, four, five. I was supposed to be out only seven cents; instead, I was five dollars behind! I’ve never gambled since then (with my own money, that is). I’m very lucky that I started off losing.
They give the player a semblance of control over the game, but in the end the math still works out just like a regular slot.
No real point here, just an interesting difference between the fundamental payout systems two extremely similar yet almost overwhelmingly different types of machines use.
Also of note is that fruit machines use a 'full hopper' system of payouts, in which the machine will only give out small wins until the 'hopper' (which is really just a number set by the establishment's owner) is full, at which point the relatively big payouts start happening - again, compared to the usual system of American slot machines of "this machine will pay out 9X.X% of what's put into it". This system means that you can infact 'outplay' a fruit machine - by not playing it until you think the hopper is full (or close to it).
I've had many a cheap night out by watching punters on fruities and picking the right moment - and that look of pure defeat on the bloke's face who just abandoned the machine is priceless too (although I usually buy 'em a drink if they witness it, so as not to add insult to injury)