I was out walking for exercise and my iPhone rang. Had I looked at the caller ID, I would have seen “UNKNOWN,” usually a tip to avoid answering, but I was busy doing nothing at all important so I hit the green button and heard a recorded voice saying, “Now is the time to refinance your home because . . . ” I never found out what the specifics of the offer were. I hung up after nine words.
I find such calls mildly irritating. They take up a few minutes of my day, but to me they’re not a big deal. However, I’ve been around other people who slam down the phone in anger and loudly curse the machine making the call, “Why don’t you take your &%#!@& offer and shove it up your dial tone?” Or something like that. As though the machine making the phone calls cares.
The machine is dialing numbers according to a list, or perhaps according to a formula. When the last person hangs up, for whatever reason and with whatever emotion, the next one is called. Whether the current person places an order or not, the next call will be made as soon as the current one hangs up or perhaps is transferred to a real person. The machine will keep on calling as long as it has numbers to call and it’s within the hours prescribed for it, which might be something like 10 a.m. through 8 p.m.
A video poker machine is like that. When a new hand is triggered (which might be by hitting the deal button), the machine looks at its internal clock (in nanoseconds), checks one other “seed” (which is required for a random number generator to work, varies by manufacturer, and isn’t important to this discussion), and deals the cards. Sometimes people will say, “The machine is in a cold streak.” Nonsense. The machine is just dealing cards. The fact that you haven’t won in a half hour is totally irrelevant to it. One lady I knew said things like, “Sixes are running today,” and usually when she played accordingly, it didn’t help.
Others will say, “I hit two royal flushes yesterday so it’s making up for it now.” Nonsense. The machine is just dealing cards. Or, “Because I’m (pick one or two: on a winning streak, on a losing streak, fat, Armenian, over-drawn at the bank, using a slot club card, divorced, voted for Trump), the machine is . . . ” Nonsense. The machine is just dealing cards.
I think that people ascribe human emotion or motives to video poker machines because these people are trying to understand their results. They lost today and they won yesterday so it must be because . . . They’ve lost six times straight, so the reason must be because . . . Or perhaps they use the machine’s “behavior” as a good reason to change machines, or denomination, or change games within a machine. Or instead of trying to understand their results, perhaps these people are attempting to assign blame. Such as, “It was not really my fault. The machine was colder than a witch’s elbow. Nothing I could do about it.”
Perhaps surprisingly, the last explanation above is one that I might use. AFTER a session is over, it is possible to assign descriptive terms to that particular session. You can say it was “hot” (meaning that you won), “cold” (meaning that you didn’t), “so so” (meaning it was so so), or whatever. MIDWAY though a session, you can describe what the session has been so far, but there’s no way in the world to predict how the rest of the session is going to go. The “best guess” of what the future will bring is the average of what this type of machine under these particular conditions (i.e., dollars, NSU Deuces Wild, at a casino that pays .25% cash back, on a day when double points are being offered, during a month when you get a jacket if you hit a royal flush) typically offers over a million hours of play, given your particular skill level. You ARE PRETTY SURE the “best guess” will be high or low this time. You just don’t know which (i.e., Will it be higher or lower than normal this time?), and by how much, until after you are finished.
To make your next year of play better than your last year of play, you can choose better games (e.g., if one returns 98.9% on average and another returns 99.6% on average, the second is “better” than the first), stick to the good game once you’ve identified which one is best, practice that game on a computer or by studying a Winner’s Guide for the game, play at casinos with good slot clubs, and do most of your play only during good promotions. Doing these things will help you. Believing in such things as “The reason this machine started to pay off is because it was on a dry spell and the dam finally broke,” won’t.
Never miss another post
Superstitious people will make excuses and blame anything else except their own ignorance for anything, good or bad.
Going back to the phone analogy, I reject ALL calls to which I do not recognize the number.
The final simile is actually slightly different. It was spoken with great effect in the 1970 film “Joe” with Peter Boyle. It’s super-cold outside, and he says to the other guy that “It’s colder than a witch’s . . . ” For the final word, take the letters I T T and rearrange them, and you’ll have it. It’s definitely not “elbow”.
Outstanding point of view. I know it has been written in the past before than prolonged losing streaks can cause non-confident players to cast doubts in all sorts of things.
Hindsight is 20/20. If a player knew if a machine was HOT or COLD, they should always have the ability to avoid COLD machines. There are some people who believe in this that will feel moving around machines after being down a small amount of hands will be the remedy, but have not shown any relative proof that this will improve their results.
As far as the unwanted phone calls, unfortunately some organizations where a person provides contact info, will sell their clientele data to others so that is how it spreads.
Remember, it’s bad luck to be superstitious!
my mother is incredibly superstitious in the manners bob described. i’ve explained to her how it all works a dozen times to no avail. if it makes her feel better to move to different machine i go along for the ride….but only because it makes her more optismistic at the moment.
i will ‘waste’ $20/day on video keno, at times, to sit next to her and her friend in order to spend time with her when she is wanting to play that mindless game. she explains to me the different ‘lucky’ patterns that can be made with 6 number selections. again, i tried to explain to her it makes no difference what numbers you pick. so i put in my obligatory $20 and told her i was going to close my eyes and pick numbers. after i heard 6 beeps i opened my eyes and began playing. after maybe 10 plays on this quarter machine i hit all 6 for $400. she couldnt believe it….called her husband, etc, etc. but i’ll bet i didn’t change her thinking on it one bit! if it makes her happy to put in ‘lucky’ designs i tell her to ‘go for it’!
‘Wasting’ pocket change (however it’s defined in your particular circumstances) on video keno to be with someone important to you strikes me as a very good use for your money.
Mooski: That was good!
This is my first time on this site and I read this article first due to the catchy opening lines. When I read the last comment about ‘wasting’ $20 to spend time with someone important (‘mom’, in this case) I had the same thoughts as the article’s author (Bob).
Good for you, ‘robert’. I hope that many others take the time to spend time like this with loved ones while we still have them. Much like a video poker machine, you never know when life deals you the ‘royal flush’ or a ‘nothing hand’.
Our ape brains (which is what they are, with only SLIGHTLY upgraded software) are hardwired to perceive patterns, to the extent that they will construct nonexistent patterns out of actual randomness. It’s a classic case of cost/benefit. If there really IS a pattern to some desirable event happening (the tasty deer always arrive at the watering hole at dusk, it usually rains when it gets cloudy and the wind blows), it’s beneficial to perceive and follow it; the only downside to being wrong is that you wind up wasting your time (the deer arrive at the watering hole when Oog rubs his lucky rabbit’s foot; it always rains when Thak’s bunions hurt).
I’m sure that was on purpose.
You better believe that if I had a great day playing VP yesterday, I will: park in the same “lucky” parking spot, play the same “hot” machine, and wear my “winning” shirt, today.
Does it matter, of course not. But I have to park somewhere, wear something and pick a machine anyway.
Soon after reading this post, I read elsewhere a quote by someone called Gustave Flambert (in the book Beautiful Evidence by Edward Tufte). I abridged it somewhat. I think this is so very aligned with what Bob is sharing that I feel I need to add it here.
“The rage for wanting to conclude is one of the most deadly and most fruitless manias to befall humanity….
…What arrogance and nonsense! I see, to the contrary, that the greatest geniuses and the greatest works have never concluded.”
This wisdom has not found its way to those who are able to conclude that “sixes are running today”.
I did wear a luck shirt and played craps until I was escorted back to my room.
Yeah,I guess it was lucky.$800 worth.
GREAT ‘Vegas shirt that I got on Fremont Street.
It had 2 Franklin’s screen printed sticking out of the shirt pocket!
A casino patron: “Hey where’d ya get that shirt?”