Near misses fuel gambling addiction

Having worked in the slot machine biz, I can tell you that a good number of slot machines are set up to create the "near miss" situation a lot more often than is statistically possible. And it comes down to the granddaddy of modern slot math: the IGT/Telnaes patent (US 4,448,419).

The idea is simple: if you have three reels on a machine with 11 symbols and 11 blanks in between those symbols, there are only 10,648 outcomes (22 x 22 x 22) when there is an equal chance of stopping somewhere on a reel (local gaming laws usually dictate this to be "fair" to the player). Assuming one combination is the "jackpot" position, that still only means you can pay out less than 10,648 times what you got in...if you want to stay profitable.

Telnaes proposed a radical change: let's make the reels virtual, which a much higher number of stops per reel (say, 1000). Then let's map those positions to spots on the physical reel. Voila! Now you have a billion possible outcomes. You can award higher jackpots. The gaming board is happy since the virtual reels are still evenly spaced.

The gaming companies eventually realized those mappings don't need to be equally spaced to be legal. So now every one of those losing outcomes can be mapped to BAR-BAR-space, if you want. Oooooh, so close. You almost had it. But in reality, you were miles away.

Sounds similar to a recent comment that someone made on HN about how irregular rewards are more addicting than regular rewards.