Human brains are much more complex than many people might think. Back in 2006, a psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar noticed that, once people achieve whatever they have been craving for – be it a promotion, a successful relationship or even the million-dollar lottery, the feeling of euphoria disappears faster than they would like to admit.
Having gone through that euphoria, the people found themselves on the lookout again for something that could provide them with another high. What we observe in this situation is a process called hedonic adaptation – an ability of the mind to reset its level of happiness regardless of whether our circumstances change for better or for worse. But nowhere does it become more noticeable and well-designed than in games of luck. Slot machines represent one of those inventions that are built based on how our brains work.
In order to understand why it is possible to play for hours on a rather primitive piece of equipment, we first have to study the same chemical that governs people’s social lives: dopamine.
Dopamine Is the Anticipation Chemical
Neuroscientist Kent Berridge made a clear distinction between “wanting” and “liking” within the reward circuitry of the brain. It turns out that the chemical is responsible not for pleasure, but for the urge and craving, while there is a separate system that takes care of the actual liking.
Slot machines can be considered to be the machines that generate wanting in a guise of liking. Flashing lights, pleasant music, and rapidly changing symbols all make a person wait for something that isn’t guaranteed to happen because everything else about them – including sound, color, shape, is intended to increase the anticipation process rather than actual win.
In a fascinating experiment, neuroscientist Wolfram Schultz discovered a strange thing about dopamine neurons. They become the most active not in the moment when the reward is received, but in the period of anticipation of the result in the second or two before – the very interval from pressing the button to receiving the reward.
Why “Maybe” Is More Addictive Than “Yes”
When a reward is given not after each fifth try or every time but at some unpredictable moments—cause stubborn, and addictive behavior.
This is precisely how the payouts of a slot machine operate. Even in free slots you cannot ever be sure that the next pull of the lever will bring the winnings. The element of unpredictability is not some random inclusion of a game developer but an inherent feature of a game itself. Contrary to table games, slot machines are characterized by quick cycles, pauses in thinking, and lack of predictability of the results.
In addition to this cycle, there is also a phenomenon known as near-miss effect. When two out of three symbols correspond and the third misses the right position, the brain perceives it almost like winning while the outcome of the game is exactly the same as losing. Near-misses activate reward centers of the brain almost equally to actual winning, which helps understand why today’s software for slot machines produces more near-misses than random chance would allow.
The Illusion of Control
Give gamblers the illusion of a button to press rather than a lever to pull, let them make decisions about which line to play and suddenly they believe themselves to be more skillful, more in control than before. According to the results of psychologist Ellen Langer’s “illusion of control” study, the human tendency to overestimate one’s control over a random outcome increases if the player has any choice in their actions. The fact is that the modern slot machine features various hold buttons, bonuses selection and even bonuses rounds where players are forced to make decisions, but nothing influences the outcome of the game apart from pure chance.
While online and mobile slots eliminate the social component that one might enjoy in physical slot floor gameplay, this component is replaced with its virtual cousin, such as leaderboards, group bonuses, chat capabilities, and the vague feeling of camaraderie involved in competing “with” hundreds or thousands of strangers all at once. This is still satisfying our very old drive for a little companionship and socialization, even if it’s just the company of a machine-generated experience rather than actual human beings.
There’s another interesting aspect to chance worth mentioning—the narrative aspect. Humans are hardwired to see patterns in things and try to create a story out of random events. A string of spins starts to look like a story line—cold run, feeling of “it was due,” the amazing turnaround. Behavioral scientists refer to it as gambler’s fallacy—the idea that previous independent events have an effect on the outcome, and that persists in spite of intellectual understanding that it is not the case.
