A SPOONFUL OF SUGAR
The bells, whistles and soothing sounds of slots support make the discomfort of losing a lot more delightful
By Frank Scoblete
If you like the original film version of Mary Poppins, you are undoubtedly familiar with its excellent song “A Spoonful of Sugar.” The song lauds the salutary effects of some sugar placed in some horrible medicine some poor little ones had to take when they have been below the climate.
Sugar produced whatever awful concoction the poor little ones would have to swallow somewhat simpler to swallow. That was the thesis anyway. In brief, something undesirable was coming but it could be presented in not such a negative way.
Now in the globe of the slot machines, we can clearly see the sugar becoming spooned out to make the reality of what actually happens when you play the machines over any true length of time not so medicine- like.
Take a look at the globe of the slots in the casinos. The machines are colorful, with flashing lights of different hues, and music of each type. Add to these the incredible sound effects with which machines have been orchestrated, including the sound of coins entering the machines that no longer actually bother with coins.
Yes, all of these are additions to what is, really, a machine that could be as non-descript searching as most of the other machines on earth. And these machines have one particular aim in their style and programming— to take the players’ funds. Easy as that!
[Please note: Would slot machines lure in players if they weren’t coated in “sugar”? The lights, sounds, music and power seemingly spewing from these machines is the mating call of a device searching to squeeze the funds from its suitors. The entire activity can be boiled down to this: Mate with this machine and possibly, just perhaps, you will reproduce a lot more funds than you had ahead of. Then again…]
Slot players have to know that they are playing a game that has a property edge. They know that slot play is a losing proposition. They need to know this because only a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of players have truly beaten the machines. That segment of slot play will include players who hit monstrous jackpots or players who played after or twice, won, and quit correct then and there, never ever to play again.
And what of all the other slot players? Why do they hold playing? Can’t they see the danger in the game?
THE LURE OF THE SLOT MACHINES
Appear at the slot places of the casinos—aisles after aisles of these impressively colorful, musical, stunning machines offering you a likelihood to win some cash or a lot of money. Slot regions are welcoming to the players. They are not threatening at all.
I doubt players would flock to these machines if all their lights were removed, all their exciting sounds silenced, all what ever beauty attached to the machines stripped away, so that you now had just a metal and plastic contraption.
What if you added to this contraption a sign that showed how much cash it took from players over recent history. “I won ‘X’ amount of funds from players since final July!”
What if each and every machine had this data in big letters?
What if each machine explained in the simplest terms how the house edge will grind away at you?
What if pictures of the numerous losing players were displayed displaying their total losses for their careers?
What if giant billboards announced to the world how considerably income the huge losers lost? “Here’s Mary Kate, who was wiped out on February 14, 2022.”
Okay, you now have an location of truth, you might say. The sugar-coating of the machines, these lights, sounds, construction designs, no longer exist. What a player now sees is the genuine medicine of the machines—it is not a comforting sight, is it? There’s no spoonful of sugar sweetening something in this new globe of featureless machines, just the reality of what they do and how they do it.
The casino slot globe would shrivel up and perhaps it would even disappear. No a single would want what occurred to Mary Kate to take place to them. Massive billboards must show pleased folks, not desperate-appearing losers.
Of course, my above sugarless-spoon of a slot world would in no way come about. Casino managers are completely aware that they must make their slot kingdoms pleasant and comfortable worlds in which slot players play. No modern day casinos can survive if the slots are stripped of their charm.
THE Actual MEDICINE OF THE SLOT Globe
The actual medicine of the real slot world comes down to two words: property edge.
Yes, machines can be made quite and appealing. They can sound like so a lot entertaining. The whole slot location of a casino can be comfortable and so, so lovely.
Nonetheless, the residence edge is the complete truth of the matter.
All of the efforts of the casino are accomplished to distract from how the machines genuinely operate. No sign will state what a machine is actually doing. The casinos have helped make the slot machines the preferred of players more than each and every game in the home. Slots rule!
Mary Poppins would have made a great casino owner. All the very best in and out of the casinos!
Frank Scoblete’s website is www.frankscoblete.com. His books are obtainable from Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, e-books, libraries and bookstores.
