Gaming the Poor

[pscot]

From today's Times

The casinos’ method is to induce low-income gamblers to make a huge number of small bets per visit, to visit the casino several times per month, or even per week, and to sustain this pattern over a period of years. The key to executing this method is the slot machine.

Most regional casinos are essentially slot parlors. Slot machines are nowadays sophisticated computerized devices engineered to produce continuous and repeat betting, and programmed by high-tech experts to encourage gamblers to make multiple bets simultaneously by tapping buttons on the console as fast as their fingers can fly. Natasha Dow Schüll, an anthropologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has written the definitive work on gambling-machine design, notes that as gamblers deepen their immersion, they become less interested in winning itself than in simply continuing to play.

Slots will accept bets in denominations as small as a penny — one reason they are attractive to small bettors. But even penny bets placed on each of multiple lines for each spin, after hundreds of spins, can result in large losses.

The goal, though, is not to clean out the gambler in a single visit; it’s to provide an experience that will induce the gambler to prolong the time spent on the device. The slots achieve this by carefully regulating the rhythm, tempo and sound ambience of the play, while doling out occasional small wins even as the players’ losses slowly increase.

One way these computerized pickpockets milk their customers is by generating “near misses,” whereby the spinning symbols on the machine stop just above or below the winning payline. The feeling of having come oh so close to a win prompts further play

[yeoman6987]

1. I find it boring

I have enjoyed the games overseas which seem more fun to me for some reason. I was playing one day at Maryland Live and winning pretty well. One of the employees came over to me and said, "Don't forget your awards card?" I did have one and did forget to put it in the machine. The moment that card went in the machine, I started LOSING and never won again......from that moment on, I refuse to go into a casino. I find that those cards are evil and I believe they are controlling how we win and lose from another room in the casino. I suppose it could be conspiracy theory, but it was too coincidental. I had been playing very well for quite a while WITHOUT the card.....actually winning nicely. UGH!

[pscot]

4. Historically, European casinos

have been playgrounds for the rich. Our casinos are Skinner boxes, scientifically designed and programed to fleece the poor and middle class.

[Jim Lane]

14. It was coincidence. Your conspiracy theory about the rewards card doesn't hold up.

First, it would be enormously difficult for a casino to get away with that. The design of slot machines is very tightly regulated. (As some people have noted, the regulation of slot machines is far more stringent than the regulation of electronic voting machines -- an interesting comment on America's priorities.)

Second, even if the casino could do that, why would it want to? If anything, it should work the other way. A gambler who inserts a rewards card is more likely to be a regular visitor, the kind that the casino wants to encourage by allowing him or her to win some of the time. If the casino could control individual outcomes like that, it would set a string of losses for the tourist who's just passing through, has no card, and will never return to this casino regardless of how this session goes.

One incident proves nothing. You would need thousands of hours with a card in, and thousands of hours with no card in, to draw a statistically reliable conclusion. I'm sorry you hit a losing streak but it was just bad luck.

[daleanime]

2. For too many retirees.....

with too much time on their hands.



And money that they can't afford to was.

[Arkansas Granny]

3. I've never been to a casino, but I know several people who go frequently.

They always talk about how much they won the last time they went, but they never mention how much money they fed into those machines before they got anything back. One couple wound up declaring bankruptcy after they had maxed out their credit cards and piled up more debt than they could possible pay back.

[Mnemosyne]

5. Only been in one and it was so stinking loud, left quickly. They had to drag my grandma out of one

in Vegas years ago. She was pissed.

[pscot]

6. My grandmother gambled away her house

She was addicted to the ponies. For a while there, her bookie was her best friend.

[Mnemosyne]

11. We weren't near any casinos in her older years, so she did bingo. And let me tell you, bingo

breeds violence. I went with her a couple times and those old ladies were stinking mean, even slapping each other once in a while.

Some grandmas aren't like other ones! What happened after your grandmother lost her home? Just curious, if too personal, I apologize.

[pscot]

13. She moved to L.A

to live with one of my aunts. It was never very hard to find a bookie in Chicago back in those days. She played a serious game of poker too.

[Mnemosyne]

15. It's always the ones you'd never expect. I am learning more each day that wisdom does not always

come with age. Sad to know some feel so, or are so, desperate when elderly. And then some are just plain greedy...

[pscot]

16. We are what we are

Paraphrasing Popeye. Some find it hard to reach out to others. But we need each other. Really, that's all we've got .

[Mnemosyne]

17. What would we do without us?

You great humans here make it easier to have hope for the future of this world.

[PADemD]

10. Went to an Atlantic City casino once.

The noise and smoke turned me off to ever visiting again.

Also, on the Seniors bus I got a glimpse of what a tattoo would look like on old wrinkled skin. Glad I never got one.

[Mnemosyne]

12. There was an old SNL fake commercial for tat remover that showed the cute tattoos aging.

Really, really glad I never did it either.

[8 track mind]

7. only go there for the food

Here in Las Vega$, good steakhouses and cafes reside in the casinos. The entertainment isnt that bad either. Otherwise, not much use for them.

Slot machines are in every business around here from 7-11's to pharmacies, all filled with people trying to make it big......

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. Huge casino complex opened here a couple years ago.

Supposedly owned/controlled by the local small Indian tribe.
they give free bus rides to seniors, from all around the area.
Important to note this place is next to the Inter-state off ramp, about 2 hours drive from any major city.
they have opened a miniature 6 flags type of playground for the kiddies, touting the casino as fun for the whole family.
Great priced buffet, I am told.
It is the only place of any interest for miles around, huge family draw. Open 24 hours a day.

Mr. Dixie dropped in a couple times.
I have never been. The noise and the crowds would drive me stark raving mad.

[tech3149]

9. Gambling and lotteries are nothing more than a stealth tax on the poor

I never had an interest in it. I almost never play the lottery but spent a year in LV one week years ago. That was a very informative week.
I had the scratch to waste just for the entertainment value but I saw people spend the entire day feeding those machines for hour after hour.
My basic rule is never bet on anything you don't have some influence over the outcome.

[unrepentant progress]

18. Another hand wringing oped about how dumb poor people are.

Another hand wringing oped about how dumb poor people are. Poor people don't understand how casinos are rigged, how they're designed to keep people coming back night after night, month after month (kind of like Farmville), etc., yadda, yadda, yadda. Same old casinos are a tax on the poor schtick we've heard a billion times before. Stupid poor people.

Has anybody ever looked at the demographics of casino visitors? Because, the trouble with poor people is that, you know, they have no money. So I'm thinking that poor people can't be the primary demo visiting casinos.

There's also the irony that people keep voting more casinos into their states and neighborhoods because casinos are supposed to bring sunshine, and rainbows, and giant pots of taxable gold.

Yet somehow that never quite seems to happen, and we keep getting told the answer is to build even more casinos. So who's really being gamed?

[pscot]

19. As I read it,the article was not an attack on poor people

but on gambling houses and machines designed to pick them clean, one penny at a time. Gambling is pernicious and addictive; preying on human weakness in the name of choice.

[unrepentant progress]

20. Social construction

Of course it wasn't an attack on poor people. It just framed poor people as being less capable of making informed decisions. Nope not an attack at all. Stupid poor people. Let's protect them. I know, let's build another casino, and use the tax revenues to fund a pamphlet for aspirationally challenged. Oh, and hey, better start another state lottery too.