{"id":5361,"date":"2017-03-14T09:17:25","date_gmt":"2017-03-14T16:17:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamblingwithanedge.com\/?p=5361"},"modified":"2017-03-14T17:27:08","modified_gmt":"2017-03-15T00:27:08","slug":"talking-like-woman-talking-like-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/talking-like-woman-talking-like-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Was She Talking Like a Woman or Talking Like a Man?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Using stereotypes to say \u201cwomen are this way and men are that way\u201d in today\u2019s political climate is a formula guaranteed to generate multiple negative comments. Rightfully so. There is very little interesting where you can say that every female (or every male) is a certain way. There are always exceptions.<\/p>\n

With that said, there are also tendencies that appear to be there. A tendency doesn\u2019t mean a certainty. For example, I can correctly say that in general men tend to be taller than women. And that\u2019s true on average — but we recognize there are some taller and shorter examples of each sex.<\/p>\n

What brings this up is something that happened to a friend of mine, Reuben, who is also a competent video poker professional. He was playing at a casino whose name he doesn\u2019t want me to publish, and playing a game that is still around. He said that if I wrote about it, I could call it $5 Multi Strike — just to give it a name — but in fact it was a different game.<\/p>\n

He was playing two machines at a time — which happened to be the only two $5 Multi Strike machines in the casino. He believed that the game plus the slot club plus whatever promotions were going on gave him enough of an advantage to justify him being there.<\/p>\n

He rarely played two machines at a time. It often announces \u201cI am a pro\u201d to a casino which tends to reduce your longevity there. But in this particular casino, he had run unlucky and to date was a big loser — even though he had always played games with positive EV. Since he figured this casino wouldn\u2019t make him as a pro, he could play more aggressively than he otherwise would.<\/p>\n

After playing a while, a woman he had never seen before came up and asked if these were the only two high-denom Multi Strike machines in the casino. Instead of his usual \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d which is generally the smart answer in cases like this, he told her that yes, he believed they were.<\/p>\n

The woman then asked, \u201cHow long do you intend to play?\u201d Reuben said he hadn\u2019t really decided yet. It depended on how much he lost and how quickly. Which was nonsense, of course. Reuben was planning on playing until midnight, which was when the promotion ended. She looked at the machines longingly for a while and then left.<\/p>\n

Reuben speculated that she was waiting for him to offer her a machine. After all, in Reuben\u2019s experience, women tend to be more empathic and less direct in their requests. Had it been his wife instead of a stranger, his wife would have expected him to realize that she wanted a machine — and hence, given one to her because it was the polite thing to do.<\/p>\n

Still, keeping both machines was the desired goal and if this lady wanted a machine, she was, at a minimum, going to have to explicitly ask for one. Whether Reuben would have said yes or no wasn\u2019t a certainty. He would have made a decision when necessary — but not before. There are often extenuating circumstances one way or the other.<\/p>\n

Reuben considered the possibility that the woman would go to the slot shift boss and complain that she couldn\u2019t get a machine and one guy was hogging both of them. He didn\u2019t want that to happen, although it was largely out of his control. He preferred to be a \u201clow maintenance\u201d player. It doesn\u2019t take too many incidents for some casino employees to conclude this player is \u201calways\u201d causing trouble. If he developed that unwanted reputation, close calls down the road (such as whether to pay him in a sticky button situation — or whether to allow him to remain even after he starts winning) might not go his way.<\/p>\n

If the slot shift boss came over and asked for a machine for the woman, Reuben\u2019s answer would have been an immediate, \u201cOf course.\u201d He likely would have added, \u201cAll she needed to do was to ask me, but she never did.\u201d The last four words were absolutely true. The first nine — maybe. But the slot shift boss couldn\u2019t know that.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible the woman believed she shouldn\u2019t have to ask. She possibly believed even a guy should have been able to understand she wanted a machine. It could seem to her to be common courtesy that should prompt Reuben to give up a machine. That definitely was Reuben\u2019s best guess as to what his wife would believe were she the one wanting a machine.<\/p>\n

One thing that Reuben felt was a bit of a safety cushion this time was that the slot shift boss was a man. Right or wrong, he believed a male shift boss would be more sympathetic to \u201cshe never actually asked\u201d than a woman shift boss would. Reuben\u2019s actions would likely have been the same with any boss, but he would expect the aftermath to be gentler on him when the boss was a male.<\/p>\n

Could Reuben\u2019s stereotypes and assumptions based on them have been way off? Of course. No player or boss acts exactly like you expect him or her to.<\/p>\n

Is he smart to use such stereotypes and assumptions in his decisions? Absolutely. You are frequently called on to make decisions based on incomplete information, and sometimes stereotypes give you some extra information that is useful.<\/p>\n

Would Reuben be called prejudiced or sexist if he verbalized his thought processes? That too. You can\u2019t please everybody, and people will use whatever ammunition against you that you give them. Often, it\u2019s better to make your decisions quietly and not discuss why you made them.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"youtube\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Using stereotypes to say \u201cwomen are this way and men are that way\u201d in today\u2019s political climate is a formula guaranteed to generate multiple negative comments. Rightfully so. There is very little interesting where you can say that every female (or every male) is a certain way. There are always exceptions. With that said, there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[2,15,6],"tags":[522,218,1436,719,521,1437,172,1435,196],"yoast_head":"\nWas She Talking Like a Woman or Talking Like a Man? - Gambling With An Edge<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/talking-like-woman-talking-like-man\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Was She Talking Like a Woman or Talking Like a Man? - Gambling With An Edge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Using stereotypes to say \u201cwomen are this way and men are that way\u201d in today\u2019s political climate is a formula guaranteed to generate multiple negative comments. 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