By definition, gambling is risking money on games of chance. That means that the player has little or no control over whether they win or lose. Yet, many gamblers believe that they have ways to predict or control the outcome of their favorite casino games.
Most people have a hard time accepting that things are out of their control. It’s natural for us to come up with ways to believe we’ve found a way to affect something that’s actually random. Psychologists call this the Illusion of Control.
A close relative is the Illusion of Correlation. In that case, we think we’ve identified an outside factor that’s controlling the randomness, which would allow us to predict the outcome.
Either way, these two types of cognitive bias can lead you to believe that you can beat a casino game when you can’t.
Momentarily indulging these beliefs during a game can be harmless fun. For instance, roulette can be more entertaining when you’re changing your bets each spin, trying to “predict” where the ball will fall.
However, those cognitive biases can also be harmful, if they start to affect your decisions about whether to gamble, how much to bet, or when to stop.
Casino games are often designed to encourage this kind of “magical” thinking. Here are some of the tricks to watch out for, so you don’t fall into the trap of thinking you have more control than you really do.
Meaningless Statistics
A casino or other type of gambling company can’t advertise to you that winning is a matter of anything other than luck. Regulations explicitly forbid that.
However, it can provide you with the sort of information some players think will help them win. What you do with that information is up to you.
Depending on the product, that information might be slightly useful or entirely meaningless.
For instance, if you’re betting on sports, the teams’ statistics are meaningful, although the most obvious things—like the teams’ average scores—are already baked into the odds. Pro sports bettors rely on more subtle trends that don’t show up in the sort of stats most sportsbooks provide.
Historical winning numbers for the lottery might also be of some use, but not in the way you think. Usually, you’ll want to avoid numbers that are likely to be popular. That’s because unpopular combinations reduce the chances that you’ll have to split the jackpot if you win.
At the other extreme, some roulette games show stats on “hot” and “cold” numbers. This is entirely useless and misleading, as past spins do not affect future spins. The odds of each number coming on the next spin are exactly the same, regardless of what has or hasn’t come up recently.
Fake Choices
Some casino games, like blackjack, offer some meaningful choices. Even in those games, however, playing perfectly usually just means losing less on average. Other games, like slots, don’t give the player any choices that change the chances of winning.
In a previous Casino School lesson, we discussed the spectrum of choices that you’re likely to encounter.
At one extreme of that spectrum are choices that are entirely fake. Video lottery games are the worst offenders on that front, followed by certain slot titles.
If one of these electronic games asks you to pick between hidden symbols to determine your prize, it’s a fake choice. The machine has already determined what the prize is going to be before you select anything. There’s no point trying to figure out a system that will result in a better prize, because you’ll get the same thing no matter what you choose.
Such games often have a disclaimer in the rules, along the lines of: “All results are determined by chance, even when it appears that the player has been offered a choice.”
Near Misses
If you’ve played any casino games at all, you’ve probably had the experience of “almost” winning.
Excitement is the main reason people gamble, and near-misses are definitely exciting. Inevitably, the people designing casino games try to make them produce as many near-misses as possible, because that’s what makes for an engaging product.
Unfortunately, those near misses can lead some players to believe that a big win is coming soon. Problematic habits can be the result if you tend to play longer or bet more after experiencing a string of near misses.
Most regulators do not allow casino operators to offer games that create near-misses artificially. For instance, a slot machine can’t choose to stop the reels in a near-win position after determining that the player has lost. However, slot designers can set up the probabilities to make it happen more often naturally.
For instance, if a game requires bonus symbols on reels 1, 3, and 5 to trigger a bonus game, there may be a greater number of those symbols on reels 1 and 3, and fewer on reel 5. That would produce more two-out-of-three results and fewer actual bonus rounds than an even distribution.
Video lotteries and e-Instants are exempt from this rule. Those products are considered digital “tickets,” so they determine the prize first and display results to match. Just as the lottery can print whatever symbols it wants on a losing scratch ticket, the digital equivalents can display near misses as often as the developer wishes.
Perceived Persistence Slots
Like any industry, gambling companies are always looking for ways to innovate. This includes looking for new “engagement features,” which often boil down to additional ways to activate the Illusion of Control.
One recent trend is what insiders call “perceived persistence” slots. These play off of another trend, called “true persistence,” which players might have encountered previously.
Both types of slots have visual features that change from spin to spin. The difference is that in true persistence slots, these have a real effect on gameplay and the player’s chances of winning. They may even put the machine in a favorable state, where the next spin will be statistically profitable.
With perceived persistence, the change is purely cosmetic but might fool the player into thinking that a win is more likely. This often takes the form of a piggy bank, pot of gold, or similar image over the reels, which “fills” gradually and “bursts” when a bonus or big prize triggers.
Some designs tie this together with near misses, showing the filling animation each time the bonus fails to trigger, then showing the bursting animation when it finally does.
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