People develop systems around gambling. Most are placebos – they don’t do anything, but they sometimes still make people feel better because they think it’s done something. That’s the category of today’s question:
I see people play 20 bucks at a time, because they think the machine will think each time they cash out and put in another 20 the machine will think it’s a new customer. They think it increases their chances. Does it?
Gloria C.
Nope, this is one of those placebos. Cashing out and putting in fresh money doesn’t do anything, whether positive or negative.
Slots aren’t influenced by who’s at a machine or how long that person’s at a machine. It’s not influenced by a players card either, which would probably get in the way of some peoples’ attempts if it actually mattered, because we’ve seen people doing this while a players card was in the machine.
A slot machine does keep track of how much money is in the machine, to ensure you can properly get credited when you cash out and that you have enough money to make a wager, but it doesn’t keep track of whose money it is, or offer outcomes based on who it is.
The outcomes that are awarded when we spin are solely governed by the random number generator, which is working within a set of outcomes that are the same chances regardless of if we just put $20 in or have been playing off the same $20 for an hour.
So no, it doesn’t do anything but change the timing. And since we don’t know what the other outcome would be if they just kept playing on the same $20, we’ll never know if it would have been better or worse. In the long run, it’ll be the same, and that’s why we say it’s a placebo – it’s something we think is doing something, but ultimately won’t have any long term impact, pro or con.
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