Random (not particularly) fun fact about me: ever since I was a child, there are two subject matters in films, books, or real life that I always try to avoid because they cause me sufficiently painful emotional distress to contemplate that’s it’s just not worth it: gambling addictions and loveless marriages. I know there are a lot of horrible things in the world, but these two just dig at me in a weird way. For the record, nobody in my immediate family has a gambling addiction and my parents love each other very much.
The first time I ever saw a stranger playing slots as a child in a Vegas Casino – seeing that horrible zombie ritual, the methodical placement of the money into the machine, the pulling of the lever, the serotonin-inducing flashing lights, repeating endlessly until nothing remains of you – I just started crying. Genuinely it’s so messed up, it preys insidiously on otherwise beautiful aspects of human nature, and should probably be completely illegal. Even writing this right now I feel sick.
So anywayyyyys, Slots. Despite my moral, philosophical, and frankly gut aversion to this game, we’re doing this. Right off the bat though, just to demonstrate even further how problematic and irredeemable this game is, when I went to google to search for “online free slots” the most popular auto-finish provided by Google (our favorite “Don’t Be Evil” company) underneath is “online free slots real money.” God sometimes the world is hard to look at.
I played a slot game called “Treasures of Egypt” available on a site called FreeSlots, which is maintained by SimSlots Inc. copyright 1999. The game is ostensibly targeted at adults (18+), however there was not even an attempt to age-check when I accessed the site.
I argue that slot machines foster the “sensation” fun type almost exclusively through design elements, not mechanics, which is the root of the addictive behavior. The use of bright lights, sounds, and tactile feedback creates a stimulating experience that captivates players and encourages continuous play, leading to addiction. In fact, the game essentially has no mechanics. Of course, there’s the lever pulling (or button pushing in an online format), and a second mechanic of choosing which lines you want to play. However, the design makes pushing irresistible, and bad probability tricked me (and I expect most people) to always choose to play more lines (for a greater chance at a win), so I don’t even really consider this a true mechanic either. Everyone knows these machines exploit human psychology to foster addictive behavior. However, it’s interesting how the formal elements of game in the MDA model are tough to tie into this equation, since there don’t really seem to be mechanics at all in this game that foster any kind of dynamic fun. Therefore, my conclusion is that Slots is hardly a game at all, and is more like an human-exploiting addiction machine that cosplays as a game.
The visual appeal of the machines is carefully calibrated to enhance the sensation of excitement and potential reward, and removes choice in the game’s few mechanics. As Natasha Dow Schüll explained in her book, “The sense of magic and wonder that gambling machines provoke in their users has a great deal to do with the hiddenness and opacity of the ‘means and calculations’ by which they mediate chance.” From a probability perspective, it’s certainly still a terrible deal for you regardless of whether you play 1 line or 9, but you falsely believe your odds of monetary reward are now ‘better’ since you’re playing more lines, and you’re reinforced in this false belief by the design stimuli which are the bread and butter of this horror show.
The sounds of coins clinking, reels spinning, and celebratory tunes when a player wins, even if the win is small, create an auditory environment that reinforces the sensation of success. These sounds are designed to trigger a release of dopamine, which reinforces the desire to keep playing. I like how Schüll put it when she wrote, “The RNG runs on a computer chip, but people act like it’s casting a spell.” When I played, I found myself overstimulated by the sheer volume of noises and bright lights on my screen, and the physical act of pushing the button felt like the only natural thing I could do, and it needed to be done as quickly as possible.
Compared to other games of chance, slot machines are uniquely insidious in combining rapid ‘gameplay’ with highly stimulating sensory inputs, generating addiction. Unlike actual games such as poker, where players can use strategy and understand the odds, slot machines obscure the mechanics and probabilities, enhancing the illusion of control and randomness that drives addiction.
This isn’t a game. I feel unclean.
