Casino Envy
Introduction
I must confess. I enjoy going to the casino, a good casino, and playing slots, at least for a while. A visit to the casino can relieve the stress of a bad day.
Coming from a computer programming and mathematics background, I like to observe the ambiance and the folks at play. My observations are what this writing is about. By the way, I have also taken courses in psychology, hypnosis, many of the humanities and, of course, the physical sciences, so I may draw conclusions from time to time. These conclusions are my opinions based on objective and subjective suppositions and my own experience.
To put my observations in context I would like to delineate the various kinds of players into different types. These types, one might expect, would also react to particular situations differently, but often in sync with their basic behaviours.
Let’s try to name the types here and expand upon them as we move ahead:
The Newbie, The HalfWit, The Conservative, The Guard, The Socialite, The ParaPlayer, The Vulture, The SevenUp, The Rubber, The FashionShow, The Wad, The Horder, The LardButt, The Tester, The Dreamer, The Changer, The Believer, The Puffer, The Peeker, The Poker, The Puller, The Spiller, The Slapper, The Analyst
There are likely many more, but keep in mind one person could also be a combination of several of these types. Try to determine which types you belong to, but don’t blame me for the outcome. This is about people mixing with gambling. Anything and all happens. Inner demons abound.
I will also have a section called The Odds and Money Management, where I bestow some of my approaches to length of play and such.
Never be fooled. You will not beat the casino, but you can enjoy the play somewhat more if you accept slots for what they are and manage yourself accordingly. Gambling has ruined the lives of many. Keep it fun and interesting. So let’s begin.
The Newbie
This type we would barely call gamblers. They are new to the casino, hate it, just came of age, or only visit with friends that drag them there for ‘the experience’. Consequently, they squander what little cash they bring, ask how to place the lowest, reasonable bet, and run for the hills if they win or lose two in a row.
Overall they might try three or four machines but spend the rest of the time watching who they came with. When they leave they will confirm how proud they are of only losing a pittance, and how awful it must be for others, their friends, to lose so much.
The Newbie guards a five-dollar bill as though it itself was made of gold. They will quickly learn where the coupon prints out and even quicker, where to find the coupon redemption station. One thing is certain, when friends bring a newbie to the casino once, it is the last time.
The HalfWit
For this description we need to point out some basics, in this case, using penny slots as an example. The slot input keys are sometimes on-screen, a terrible option, or better, on the console below the screen. They are typically laid out in two rows similar to, but not always the same as, the following:
1–10–20–30–40 the # of lines or cash row and perhaps 1–2–3–4–5 the lower, multiplier row.
In our experience, my wife and I call this a 40 cent game in that the highest cash required for a multiplier of 1 is 40 cents/lines. In looking at the multiplier row, the bets would be $.40,$.80,$1.20,$1.60, and $2.00. Enough said. The HalfWit is the person who bets, likely all day, the 10 or 20 spots on the cash row and 1 as a multiplier.
There is no way to determine, without asking if this person is rich, poor, stupid, or Einstein. They rarely drink, no surprise, and could smoke, but never crack a smile. If they were to win a jackpot they would probably pack up and go home.
The Conservative
“That’s a 40 cent game”, or “that’s a 68 cent game” and the like often spews from my wife and I as we both have some Conservative in us, that is until Chardonnay overshadows Conservative.
We will approach a machine based on the right-most number in the upper row, so we play plenty of 25 and 30 cent games with a multiplier of 1 and 2, and 40, 45, 50, 55 and higher games generally with a multiplier of 1. Getting gutsy and ‘shaking it up a bit’ calls for raising the multiplier by 1 for short periods of time.
This method has served us well over time but it is critical to play this way according to budget, outcome, mood, and even time of day. By combining a few guidelines this can keep us going for hours.
I’ll have more on this later in The Odds and Money Management.
The Guard
This refers to the veteran slot player, often female, who is not content with playing one machine at a time. She will spread herself out across two seats using an outstretched arm, leg, butt cheek, a purse or other nuisance, and play two at once. Now I can understand doing that if the maximum bet on one machine isn’t enough for you, but this technique is most often used for the maximum bet but at a multiplier of 1.
Obviously, the nature of The Conservative is present, as are a few more attributes you will recognize later. None the less it is annoying because one person to a machine should be adequate and slot rows are crowded enough as it is. You don’t always enjoy being seated next to others.
This person has mastered some winning strategy, ‘not’, and covets both machines, never speaking, looking up or belching. When this person wins, there isn’t even a smile. They just keep on tapping away, like the win was totally expected. Sadly she is, more often than not, a smoker.
You might question why I mention smoking, but we frequent the Seneca Resorts & Casinos where smoking is permitted. Seneca Allegany and Seneca Niagara also serve, or served, free alcohol. Unfortunately, Seneca at Buffalo Creek does not due to some agreement with local business owners. This is of no concern to us as we despise Buffalo Creek almost as much as Casino Niagara in Canada.
The Socialite
This person cannot go to a casino alone. Again, mostly females, they chat amongst themselves incessantly, which provides them with plenty of room since no one wants to be near them. For those like myself who are paying attention to the play and might be counting, calculating or perhaps praying, I don’t need the distraction.
When The Socialite wins even a multiple of the bet they may scream in delight despite our glares.
The ParaPlayer
This is the player who is often forced, by the nature of some incapacitation, to stay in one place or almost in one place. Often joined by a walker, wheelchair or caretaker, this person may be mentally capable, in which case, fold up your walker, or, mentally incapable and may leave a wet spot on the seat when they eventually go home.
I have no ill will against these folks; I now use a walker myself. Often times this is good therapy for them, but I am concerned that those who are capable and alone might be spending the money provided to them by the government.
The Vulture
Not our favourite. In fact we know of a husband and wife team that caused me to include this title. In this case, the main perpetrator is the wife. The husband appears to be more of a scout for her.
We use, like many others do, various machines that hold a certain appeal. In this situation, the example is a machine that is $.50 minimum play and also has a mini and major prize aside from some fairly generous bonus features. When a machine has mini or other prizes they generally increase slowly as players make their bets and without notice, they can deliver.
There is no known activity or time period by which this happens, but the theory is that if someone has just left a machine, having not won the prize, the next player may reap the reward in very short order, or so it would seem. There is no real evidence to this as randomness comes into play. However, this woman parks herself in visual range of such a machine and will swoop down when someone, like my wife, has left it following a fairly lengthy visit.
The scout appears to peruse the casino assessing the mini and major prize amounts of a number of frequented machines. He routinely uses his phone to report back to his wife. This is so infuriating. To make matters worse, this same woman is at the casino every time we are there. The odds are, then, that she is there far more often than we are, otherwise, that couldn’t happen.
Frankly, we don’t even want her to win, and we will surely leave the vicinity if she does.
The SevenUp
These folks just puzzle me. Casinos today have many glitzy, complex and entertaining slots covering a range of denominations from penny to several dollars. There are also the tried and true relics of the past, the Sevens. Three, maybe four, reels with predominantly sevens on the reels. They are noisy, clunky and in my estimation, quite boring.
Although many seniors have taken quite well to the new style, it puzzles me that these myopic, linear beasts (the ‘7’ slots that is) still attract so must attention. See The Poker for yet another type.
I do not watch The SevenUps enough to generalize their winning behaviours.
The Rubber
These are the screen rubbers. Nothing displays a truly awkward collection of superstition nonsense as someone who is hoping for a nice spin/win and implores the machine by rubbing the screen affectionately or otherwise. When we see this activity, we cringe just imagining the millions upon millions of harmful germs that must reside on that surface. I know, it’s bad enough that all slot players must at least touch some buttons.
Of course the other aspect to this, for me as I am not superstitious, is that this reveals quite an unappealing side of that player’s nature. Follow me later to The Analyst to hear why I laugh at this spectacle as well.
Fortunately, they are relatively happy people. One could say happy in the sense of “Duh!” They get excited with a win and have once again confirmed that the slot gods are with them.
The FashionShow
Other than involving special events and evenings out on the town, some folks like to dress up or at least make it abundantly clear that they are better than the rest of us. This might involve plenty of bling or wild hair do’s or just expensive-looking accessories. In any case, they could be easily trumped by a homeless-looking person who won the lottery just last month and The FashionShow wouldn’t know it.
And again, I laugh. One thing is clear, our experience tells us that you cannot predict who has plenty of money in the bank versus who has mortgaged their home to keep gambling. A win by The FashionShow is met with utter indifference.
The Wad
Speaking of plenty of money, this time it’s in the pocket. It’s nice to have lots of big bills and fan them out while you count your millions, but if you have a stack of bills in excess of, say, ½ an inch or more, wouldn’t it be prudent to have them stored in a few different pockets? Do you derive some weird pleasure by taking out the whole wad at once and pretending to count it? That’s what bigger bills are for, so you only need to count between 1 and 100. If you tripped, again I would laugh, but you might not get them all back without a fight.
Oh, I get it. You are impressing someone in your company. That makes sense. That person, said she, will be impressed that you can hold all of your worldly possessions in one hand. Idiot!
We don’t stick around long enough to watch this person. They are depressing.
The Horder
The casinos of yesteryear used to accept bills, coins and metal tokens. They paid out in only coins or tokens. Today they accept bills divisible by 5 and bar-coded coupons detailing the casino, date, expiry and exact amount to the penny. The payout is only via these coupons. The handy thing about the coupons is that if you have a coupon with your last winnings and find another on the floor, you could put both into a slot machine and consolidate the amount by ‘cashing out’ even without playing once, thereby receiving a new coupon with the new total. How civilized, and it can be done at all slot machines, for several coupons!
So imagine the grandmother who plays at, say, 15 different machines by inserting a 5 or 10-dollar bill each time, taking her spoils with her in the form of coupons. She didn’t consolidate even once, like it was against the rules. Instead, she knows there is a cash/coupon redemption machine a short walk away. She takes her bounty to the redemption machine and holds up the line while she inserts each coupon individually. I bite my tongue when I see this, but one of these days Alice… POW, right in the kisser!
Don’t stay too close because if this person were to win it big, you may be required to administer mouth-to-mouth. Good luck with that.
The LardButt
I mean no disrespect. It’s just a title referring to those who plop themselves down in front of one machine for the entirety of their casino visit. Of course, I don’t know if they peed or went for dinner, but I know that they were there three hours ago and again an hour ago. The seats are not so comfortable that they haven’t lost all feeling in their legs.
If I enjoy the casino at all it is partly due to the variety. There are many machines to enjoy, lots of people to look at, a little walking we don’t get to do on a rainy day and sometimes a few laughs. Losing money I don’t like, who does, but sometimes you win. So why sit in one place for hours? No walker, no wheelchair. Have they magically broken the secret code? No. Just lazy I think.
By the way, you can always tell when a LardButt has been there because the garbage around the machine is piled high, and a waste bin is only a few steps away.
The Tester
This is in our own profile to be sure. We always say, ‘You can’t fall in love with a machine’. Move on. For myself, I like to move on within a certain number of spins, regardless of the outcome. See more in The Analyst.
If you get all glassy-eyed, watching the reels or graphics spin, you are bound to lose overall. You haven’t controlled your play. You let it control you. We try to hit a different machine on average about every 5 minutes or so. Sometimes we stick around because we ran out of places to go or break our own guidelines.
We win enough to avoid boredom but not enough to stay awake.
The Dreamer
As mentioned above, ‘glassy-eyed’, refers to the person who, through fatigue, alcoholic haze, boredom or anger, has begun to stare at the machine like a zombie out of The Walking Dead. Actually, The Walking Dead is a phrase we have used regularly for the senior citizens who walk in front of you and then stop dead in their tracks.
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Again, The Dreamer will tend to lose because they don’t remember how much money they even started with or if their zippers are done up. See more on this in The Odds…
The Changer
I am guilty of this but I don’t think it’s a bad thing. This refers to someone who changes large bills into smaller ones. In the typical casino, this would be 100s to 20s and/or 20s to 5s.
In The Odds Section I’ll go into this more, but suffice to say there are various reasons for this: a) you like the look of 5s for instance, b) if you lose a bill you’ll know it was a small one, c) you like having more bills than ¼ or 1/10th as many, d) you think you are spending less, or e) it is part of your money management scheme.
For my part, it is ‘e’, for two primary objectives. First, I don’t want to spend more than $5 at any one machine. That’s typically 10 spins at a losing $.50 machine. That’s already too much. Time to move on. Second, there is a psychological barrier when the balance approaches zero. This works well if you are the kind that does not need to constantly feed a machine because it reaches zero. Using mental tricks can help you from losing your ass. Not that you will win, just not lose. See you in The Odds.
The Believer
The Believer hopes that the feature will come soon. It’s just a few plays away. It’s almost here. If ever I stoop to this, the feature invariably does not come, so it’s a losing proposition. It’s a sure way to lose. That said, some Believers are dumb lucky, but it’s simply that they didn’t leave the machine and they have too much money that should otherwise go to charity.
Being a Believer is the true nature of gambling. It’s what gets folks into real money problems. I’ve seen funny hats, lucky scarves, The Guard, The Rubber all of them. Luck doesn’t exist but we think it does. It isn’t a power. It’s an end result. You can’t go in thinking I’m feeling lucky today and win because of it. You win because the odds or a long chain of events got triggered, or because you had pastrami for lunch. Are you kidding me?
Slots are programmed to be random within a few hundred governing rules, all the while making sure that the house wins in the end. Yes, if you are there, in the right place at the right time you may win substantially, but you must treat it as chance. There is no slot god.
The Puffer
We frequent casinos where one can smoke and have free drinks. It just makes it more fun for everybody. Sadly, even some smokers can be annoyed by a few bad apples. There are a few types here, albeit within their rights.
The cigar smoker. I don’t care if it is permitted or not, the smell can choke you. Then the moron that smokes some licorice brand. These mini-cigars are putrid and can be identified 100 feet away.
The cigarette smoker takes a drag too often and with little regard for those in the vicinity. Many smokers are courteous, but a significant number have no common decency.
Lastly, there is the vaper. I have no real beef here as my wife gave up smoking for vaping years ago. The aromas can be quite pleasant. The only issue I have are with those wanting to make large clouds of vapour but fortunately, these youngsters don’t seem to frequent casinos very often or have been asked to resist.
The Peeker
This is someone who cannot keep their eyes off of the screen of the player beside them or nearby. For some reason, the other game, its bells and whistles is more exciting. What is wrong with paying attention to your own machine? Oh, I forgot, my wife has this relatively new one where, if she looks away, she can win. It has worked more often than what would seem to be coincidental.
The Poker
This refers to the other form of game at a casino, aside from table games. That’s video poker. We have enjoyed video poker from time to time as many do. I can’t say such players only play video poker, but there does seem to be a tendency to stay at the same game for some significant amount of time. The LardButt profile is waiting for your Aces.
The Puller
This is another superstitious activity and involves the rapid pulling of the player’s club card from its slot immediately after you have hit the button for what you think is the last time. The notion is that some good luck will be aroused by the jolt of losing vital card information and the game will go your way. My observations have shown that it is rarely the last play for that game, and if, in fact, a good win occurs, guess what? Right time, right place.
The Spiller
The Spiller is fun to watch and concerns the player that drinks a little too much, since it’s free after all. Most often these are females in the 30 to 40 range. There are often several in a group but no men. They are well-dressed and loud, naturally. They also don’t appear to know how to play slots, not a struggle, but have small wins that excite them immensely. Way to go! As far as spilling goes they can drench all manner of machine or carpet but never seem to hit their designer slacks.
The Slapper
Our most recent visit found us playing a new machine, one of four, that turned out to be very exciting and lucrative if the timing was right.
A well-dressed gentleman had been betting large and doing well on the rightmost machine, #4. Being that he and the three other players were drawing a crowd, when he moved from machine #4 to the empty machine #2, my wife grabbed the #4 spot. She got the bonus in short order and the man was visibly annoyed. As he played his machine, betting higher still, he was never satisfied and the look on his face was borderline rage. Now, although there are other examples, he became a great example of The Slapper, one who pounds the play button with enough force to break it.
The buttons are pretty sturdy but this man not only boasted about how much money he had put into the machine but made a spectacle of himself in the process. Gambling is supposed to be fun. I wonder if this guy is a father. Run kids! Daddy’s home!
The Analyst
I am The Analyst. I watch the players, write this stuff, and consider the machines for what they are, computers. It used to be that very old games were mechanical. Perhaps even void of electronics, but now they have lots of computing power.
As far as I have determined from my research, each outcome of a slot machine is pre-determined. Pre as in before, but only just before. It is enough to let all outcomes be deterministic. For example, if pure chance caused a win of $100 and this was followed immediately by a win of $50 then $150 and even $200 then there would be a lot more screaming in the casino since chance would also indicate that other players were having a pretty good time of it too. That’s why I said ‘pure’ chance. It is all chance as far as you are concerned. Remember, right time, right place, but the machine doesn’t deliver five wild horses in a row followed by four sheep followed by twelve cows. It has a job to do.
A computer is a collection of electronic circuits and switches. At the speed of electricity, instructions are processed through these circuits to manipulate data like a + b = c then c is available for the next step. These instructions are translated into machine code from a higher-level language that is written and understood by computer programmers. The programmer’s job is to construct the game to take your money in the sneakiest ways possible.
The game involves the use of random number generation to shake things up, and hundreds of decision points so one event is not like the next or another. However, the events are arranged to ensure that the house wins an appropriate number of outcomes so as to respect the law while keeping customers happy. To accomplish this the reels that spin cannot be left to chance.
The machine’s program produces a number, an amount, that will satisfy all of its current criteria. The number is then fed through some more mundane processing to determine how to spin the reels in order to result in that amount, et voila! To the chagrin of The Rubber and others, you won’t be affecting the spinning reels once they are in motion. So every spin is pre-determined according to a complex set of rules, some leeway, laws, betting amount, time seated and tons of other junk. Worse, the program can monitor the states of each criterion and the relationships among them. That means that no one person can juggle enough superstitious mumbo jumbo to make a game go their way. Sometimes it just looks like it did, and then we all pay the price because that person, myself included, fancies himself a wizard.
The Odds and Money Management
First, what are Odds? Before that, I’ll show you a way to remember it easier.
Let’s discuss chance or probability. This can be stated as a percentage or as two numbers. So, assume I have 4 socks, 1 is white and the other 3 are black. I throw them into a drawer without looking and even mix them around a bit. What chance, aka probability, do I have of reaching in and grabbing the white sock on the first try? It is quite simple, 1 chance in 4, or 1 in 4, or 25%. When the numbers get wonky, percentages tend to win out. This is not Odds though.
Good, but then what are the odds? Or, more correctly, what are the odds against choosing the white sock on the first try? The odds are 3 bad outcomes to 1 good outcome or 3 to 1. Odds are usually stated as x to y and should not be confused with probability, y in x. So the probability is 25% yet the odds are 3 to 1.
33% would only confuse things and is actually meaningless as far as odds go.
In gambling, odds are mostly reserved for some table games (also horseracing). For example, in roulette if you put your bet on the number 7, out of the 36 possible spots you would never say your chance of winning was 2.7777% (which is I in 36). You would say your odds are 35 to 1. The 36 spots in roulette are convenient because 36 is divisible by so many numbers, 1,2,3,4,6,12,18 and 36, making odds fairly straightforward to figure out. 1 in 6 becomes 5 to 1 and so on.
In slots, you may have some probability of winning any given spin, but that percentage is virtually impossible to calculate, and changes by the second.
Money Management
This is something many don’t want to hear about, while others swear by it. Slots will take all of your money if you don’t stop playing or if you play beyond your means. By establishing your own set of simple guidelines, you can insert a little control into your play. It may sound like less fun but it can spare you from pulling your hair out at the end of an evening. I actually find it more fun. I’ll provide my explanations following the list.
Here are some suggested things you can do to save some grief and cash:
Start with a known bank, amount of cash, and consider it wrong to go to the ATM for more.
If you usually insert $100 bills or $50s, try starting only with $20s.
Likewise, if you usually play with $20 bills, play with $5s.
Store immediate playing cash in one location/pocket, but hold out a reserve elsewhere (zipped up).
You might keep the reserve cash in the car. It may be a long walk, but a good deterrent.
If you are on a budget, avoid flashy, new games. The excitement far overshadows the payout.
Always remember that the admission for this entertainment fluctuates, but is rarely in your favour.
If you are playing a $.50 game, make no more than 10 attempts before moving on.
Likewise at $.40, $.30, $.25 and so on. So you played $5, $4, $3 and $2.50, or 10 times your usual bet.
Choose games that appeal but avoid choices driven by superstition.
Likewise, avoid games that were good to you just days ago.
Never think that the game owes you something.
Never think that it should pay off because you put lots of money into it.
If cash is running low you can’t force a win, or make it back. Take a break and re-group.
Don’t play games just for the ‘feature’. Poor regular play results can take it all away.
Likewise, reasonable non-feature play with poor or elusive bonuses will inevitably drain funds.
Set low limits during play. E.g. $2.30 balance jumps to $5.75. Move on before dropping to $3.50, then, if $5.75 jumps to $7.25, move on at $6.00.
Set high targets during play. E.g. $2.30 jumps to $7.00. Say “I’m happy! Triple is great!” Move on.
Be fully aware of how alcohol changes how to bet. Re-group, re-group, re-group.
Always remember that slots are programmed to take your money. The casino is not your friend.
The underlying theme for these suggestions is to set up events or conditions that will trigger a response in your brain. Responses that will tell you to slow down, move on, stop altogether, sober up, bet less, be satisfied, stay real et cetera.
I can and have started with $20 in $5 bills and played for hours at $.30, $.40 and $.50 machines and come out with $60, even money or the $20 down. That $20 is less than a movie and a bucket of popcorn, and that $60 can be a thrill given how you got there.
Everyone has their own comfort zone when it comes to slots and I am not saying you should play with $20. I am hopefully providing an appreciation of the many personalities, how they or you might appear, and why superstitious gimmicks won’t work.
I also want to instill ways to control and monitor your play to perhaps have more fun because you don’t lose so much money.
Playing slots is gambling. Gambling can be insidious. Slots are more insidious than most table games and horseracing because you have no way to improve your odds with slots. Skill does not make the difference with slots, but restraint can.
Be smart and play it cool.
