Interesting Article from Vegas Sun Newspaper (Gambling Slot Addiction)

[doublediamonddlx]

All,

Came across this interesting article (3 sections) on Gambling and Slot Addiction from the Las Vegas Sun Newspaper.  Si Redd and Wizard of Odds were interviewed.  Check out the section on virtual slot machine.  Tracks wins/loss over length of spins, watching how virtual reels work (explained a lot better than Ive ever heard), and how the odds relate to payouts. Very cool to be done in FLASH.

Seemed to be a bit heavy on the 12 step recovery program and even newer medications available.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/gambling-addiction/

Enjoy,
DDD

BTW...hit a win of 300 credits within 30 spins on their slot.  Played again (another session of 100 spins) and lost it all.

[Ron (r273)]

Good article for newbies that don't really know the odds. Thanks for sharing.

Ron (r273)

[jay]

Excellent article -  thx for the contribution.

When you come across these articles - probably better to cut/paste in the forum than just to use the link as the links eventually die or go into some other pay-for-archive-hell.

[reho33]

We already are addicts here! We own the slots and can play them for hours on end.

[doublediamonddlx]

PART 1 OF 3: TONY’S STORY:

The pull of a drug, a push to the brink
Like many others, the lure of easy money drew Tony to the casino again and again — until he realized where his life was heading.
 
Leila Navidi

Tony McDew, at a bus stop on Spring Mountain Road across from the Fashion Show Mall, holds video camera that he has used to document his struggle with gambling addiction. While he was gambling, money problems forced him to ride the bus regularly.

By J. Patrick Coolican (contact)

Sunday, Nov. 22, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Bottoming Out

Starting with this story, the Las Vegas Sun explores problem gambling three ways — through the experiences of an addict, by examining what happens inside the brain of an addict, and by considering the role of slot machine designs in feeding gambling addictions.
The stories
Part 1: Tony McDew not only recognized that he had a gambling problem, but set out to document it with his video camera, hoping that sharing his experience could help others. When the jackpot hits, “It feels like you’re getting high.� And when it doesn’t? “You want to crucify yourself.�
Part 2: The mere sight of a slot machine can trigger a chemical response in the gambling addict’s brain in the same way the thought of cocaine stimulates a drug addict. Some researchers are exploring the use of drugs to treat addicts. Robert Hunter offers old-fashioned group and one-on-one therapy. Coming Monday.
Part 3: When designer Si Redd realized the overwhelming attraction of his video poker machine, he advised addicts to get help — and leave Nevada if necessary. Today the role of the machine in feeding addiction is debated. At some casinos in Canada, gamblers can tell slot machines to limit their play. Coming Tuesday.
Related Stories
In workplaces, even here, help can be hard to come by

Tony McDew has just hit it big on his favorite slot game, Max Action, which he likes to call Action Max.

“The numbers are still going up,� he says happily.

A bit later, he is standing outside the Palms, displaying crisp hundreds in front of the small video camera he’s using to film himself.

“Tony from Cali, here at the Palms. Sixteen hundred bucks, baby.�

McDew, 46, came here from California in 2003 after a divorce and, like so many before and since, sought a new life and maybe even a new identity.

He was a computer technician in Sacramento and when he moved here, he got hired as a salesman at Comp USA. He had trouble covering the rent while also trying to do nice things for his then-girlfriend.

And then a few lucky days at the casino got him to believe that gambling was a way to supplement his income.

“I was like, ‘wow, this is crazy.’ The coins come out, the machine trickles down and you hear all the noises, the bells and whistles, and I was like, ‘wow.’ â€�

McDew is drug free, but he says gambling has given him some idea of what drugs must be like: “It’s like you’re getting high,� he says.

Like most people who struggle with gambling, he loves — and hates — the machines.

McDew’s experience — an insidious need to gamble and a resulting downpour of debt — is well known in a city with 100 separate, regular meetings of Gamblers Anonymous.

A problem for many

According to a 2002 report commissioned by the Legislature ­­— still considered the most reliable — 2.1 percent of the Nevada population met the definition of “pathological� gamblers, who have a mental disorder characterized by a loss of control over gambling.

Another 3 percent were not pathological, but could still be classified as “problem� gamblers, a broader term referring to “patterns of gambling behavior that compromise, disrupt or damage� work and family life. Given Nevada’s current population and assuming similar rates of pathological and problem gambling, when the two groups are added, they total nearly 97,000 Nevadans, or a city more than one-third the size of Henderson.

McDew deluded himself, like so many others, into thinking he could beat the games, that there was a pattern he could master.

“What’s weird,� he says now, baffled, “is that I’m a technician� — he knows he should have known better.

The urges were powerful, though. “It’s like a trick. When you get in there, there’s no clocks, and time goes by, five, six hours. It’s like they kind of trick you into being there. The sounds, the bells, the whistles, the cocktail women trying to give you drinks.�

Soon McDew found a good job as an audiovisual technician at Mandalay Bay.

He was helping set up rock concerts, shows and big-time political rallies. McDew is an electronics junkie. His rented house in northeast Las Vegas looks like a spaceship inside, with a plethora of computers in various states of repair, camcorders, lights and stereo equipment. He loves Star Trek and Star Wars and seems to have a rich fantasy life.

He enjoyed his work and was making good money, buying electronics.

But there was never enough.

At some point, he began upping his bets, and more and more of it swirled down the gaming drain.

“It’s one of those things where you almost can’t control it,� he says.

Once, a paycheck was gone in one sitting.

“I was like, man, I can’t even get anything to eat. I felt like one of those people who wants to go kill themselves.�

He kept it a secret from his then-girlfriend, telling her that he was jumped and robbed.

“It’s like people when they get on drugs or are doing something they don’t want to talk about,� he says.

Casino co-workers would ask if he’d been playing. He would lie and say no.

This only worsened the isolation. “You can’t talk to anybody about it.�

Quitting was out of the question. He compared himself to a crack addict.

“Sometimes I get really crazy and lose everything. I’ve done that, where I don’t even have enough gas to get home,� he says.

In all, he’s spent $35,000 gambling, he estimates.

McDew’s openness about his experience as a problem gambler offers a glimpse into the lives of those 97,000 Nevadans.

He not only talks honestly about his story, he’s also filmed much of it.

Struggling to survive

He’s used his collection of cameras and video editing equipment to document his struggle to survive — like Dostoevsky’s “The Gambler� — while dumping paycheck after paycheck into the coffers of casino companies.

His home movies reveal a McDew who blends several strains of the American psyche — desire, compulsion, confession.

He hopes to create a reality show of his sometimes-chaotic life, one that would teach others to avoid his mistakes.

One day in June, not long after his big, $1,600 win at the Palms, McDew, or “Tony from Cali Reality,� as he calls himself, is on film, holding his camera at arm’s length, running down his losses.

The day before, he’d lost $800. He’s a frequent visitor to pawn shops and borrows from payday lenders.

He also has a car title loan; he pays $160 per month to prevent his car from being taken. By this time, he’s paid back the $800 principal many times over in interest payments, but still doesn’t have the title in his hands because he never manages to pay down the principal.

“It’s a rip-off. But I can’t complain because I made the mistake of getting involved in it,� he says.

McDew takes a computer to Super Pawn and gets $400 for it, hoping to eventually buy it back. Even if he’s successful, however, he’ll have to pay interest.

He calls his pawn proceeds “emergency money.� Being out of money to gamble is an emergency.

He uses the $400 pawn proceeds to pay his title loan interest, and heads back to the casino with $240. A lot of people in Las Vegas live this of cycle of borrowing, he explains.

The air conditioner in his van doesn’t work; he chooses the slots over getting it fixed, so on the way to the casino he cools himself with a spray bottle filled with water. It’s Tony from Cali’s Astro Van Air Conditioning, or the “bro-conditioner.�

“The more you make, the more you spend,� he tells the camera. “And right now, like I said, I spent $800 yesterday. Today I’m going to try to make some of that back.�

He enters the Palms, which ends that video segment. Inside, the ironclad laws of mathematical destiny take hold.

The next video clip opens with him back outside.

“Everybody, your boy Tony from Cali. Well, it didn’t happen. I ended up losing the $240.�

The next day, he’s back at Super Pawn and comes out with $600.

His list of collateral at Super Pawn at that moment, best as he can recall: three computers, a Behringer amplifier, two MIDI controllers, a stereo system, a video camera and tripod.

After settling a payday loan and an electric bill, he has $100 in his pocket for the Palms.

“I don’t really want to head back to the Palms. I’m starting to hate the Palms more and more. It’s just, with the recession and all the bills coming up, I just want to be able to do everything. And one of these days I’m hoping that maybe I will hit it big.�

McDew says he likes to confess to the camera because it’s therapeutic. If he were to tell others that he gambled his whole paycheck, “They’re going to look at you like you’re crazy. They’re going to disown you.�

On his way back to the casino, some of his shame comes spilling out, acknowledging his depression and referring several times to being embarrassed about his life and what he’s made of it.

“I’m not gonna go out and kill myself, hang myself, although I’ve thought of that because of some of the things I’ve done. You know, you want to beat yourself up, you want to crucify yourself, but you know you can’t do that.�

There’s a haunting, lonely quality to this part of the video.

Robert Hunter, a Las Vegas therapist in the treatment of addiction, says problem gamblers suffer the highest rate of suicide of any population subgroup. Unlike other suicide cases, which are often a statement of anger to family and community, gambling addicts take their lives in shame, Hunter says.

“It’s, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. My family deserves better.’ â€�

Back at the Palms, McDew loses again. He finds $6.12 in change to get gas.

‘I might as well quit’

In July, Tony McDew decided he’s had enough. He was on another losing streak, most of his possessions were held in hock — nearly $10,000 worth — and he barely managed to pay rent with a loan.

“I thought, ‘Oh, this is crazy.’ It just hit me.�

He finally pierced the fiction that has transformed Las Vegas from a dusty outpost to a giant city.

McDew recalls thinking, “I’m just never gonna get ahead. I’m never gonna get the money back I lost, so I might as well quit.�

He’s gambled just once since July.

It’s hard to know why some people fight powerful human urges while other relent.

Hunter recently met McDew and evaluated him. He asks McDew the 20 questions Gamblers Anonymous uses to guide people in discerning whether they have a problem.

Have you ever felt remorse after gambling?

Did you ever gamble to get money with which to pay off debts or otherwise solve financial difficulties?

And so on.

McDew answers yes to 14 of the questions, or twice the number indicating he could have a problem.

Hunter tells McDew that he has all the indicators of a problem gambler, and says quitting was a smart move. He compares him to a friend who was quite obviously an alcoholic in need of treatment, but was arrested for drunken driving and successfully quit cold turkey: Hunter’s friend danced right up to the line and managed to pull back without hurting himself or someone else.

As Hunter notes, McDew is — yes, this is surely ironic — quite lucky. Many problem gamblers need help to stop, and only after losing jobs, families, lives.

“Now, I don’t want to see a casino,� McDew says.

A new attitude

 
Leila Navidi

When Tony McDew was gambling, his favorite casino was the Palms. Tired of living on the edge, McDew had an epiphany in July: "I'm just never gonna get ahead. I'm never gonna get the money back I lost, so I might as well quit." He's gambled only one time since.
His new stance isn’t easy considering that he works in a casino and so much of the social life of Las Vegas revolves around casinos.

McDew moved to a section of northeast Las Vegas with almost no casinos.

He spends time with his electronics — he has recouped much of it from the pawnshop — or relaxing in the Jacuzzi tub he installed in his living room.

The metaphor is not lost on him — he’s replaced the aggressive stimulation of the machines with the serenity of a soak.

Occasionally he goes to Privé, the nightclub at Planet Hollywood, dressed in a gold lamé, 1980s party costume. With his giant gold chain, high-top fade haircut and cell phone that he’s made to look straight out of 1987, he’s like a character out of a funky comic book. He skates the line and goes in free, and the regulars love him, with hugs and high-fives. McDew doesn’t drink, so for these nights at Planet Hollywood, which no longer involve the slots, he needs just $2, for the bathroom attendant.

It’s all part of his new attitude toward life.

“Don’t live beyond your means. Enjoy your life. If you don’t have money to do certain things, just do whatever you can do.�

He offers a warning, hoping to prevent the suffering he’s experienced. “You can get hooked easily. I got hooked on $5.�

McDew’s awakening and turning away from gambling is as mysterious as the working of the brain itself, but he seems to have been affected by seeing how much farther he could go if he kept playing.

“I started to look at people less fortunate than we are. You see people who are homeless. It makes you appreciate what you have. Yeah, I don’t have a high-def camera. But I do have a camera.�

(I tried to download Tonys video but, it was 300 MB). 

[doublediamonddlx]

PART 2 OF 3: The Physiology:

Illness theory gaining ground for gambling addiction
Similar disorders found in alcoholics, those with a compulsion to gamble
 
Chris Morris


By Liz Benston (contact)

Monday, Nov. 23, 2009 | 2 a.m.

A growing collection of research has found that the most afflicted have the kinds of biological brain disorders that are found among drug and alcohol abusers.

Advances in understanding gambling addiction are the result of functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, which allows the brains of gambling addicts, non-addicted gamblers and nongamblers to be scanned and compared.

Before the relatively recent use of MRI machines, scientists could only view people’s behavior, dissect the brains of the deceased or study brain chemistry by drawing fluid from the body. Functional magnetic resonance imaging allows real-time study of the brain by measuring changes in blood flow as well as oxygen levels in the blood.

Scanning participants’ brains as they were shown various gambling-related images or while they gambled with real money revealed a remarkable symptom within the brain:

Dopamine, a chemical that regulates human behavior, including weighing relative rewards and anticipation of those rewards, flooded a part of gambling addicts’ midbrains called the nucleus accumbens. The chemical rush created overstimulated feelings of interest and excitement for the addicts — a reaction that did not occur among non-addicts.

Still unknown — the elusive mystery — is why gambling stimulates dopamine in some people.

Nonetheless, the scans provided the first biological evidence of what treatment providers had long known from working with the hardest cases: For addicts, gambling becomes all-important — eclipsing commitments to family and work. Like scoring drugs and getting high for the drug addict, gambling seems critical for survival.

Economist Don Ross at the University of Alabama and the University of Cape Town, who has studied how society’s reward systems influence human behavior, calls this phenomenon a “hijacking� of the brain’s reward system to create intense cravings and an obsessive focus on gambling.

The brain pulls off this mutiny by figuring out that, if it can identify and connect with an addictive target — say, a slot machine — it can produce its own jackpot — a flood of rewarding dopamine. Triggering that dopamine overflow can overwhelm brain circuits that normally moderate risky behavior, said Ross, a senior economist for the National Responsible Gambling Program, a public-private partnership in South Africa that funds problem gambling research, education and treatment.

These people, Ross says, seek out gambling not for pleasure — which would be a normal reaction to an entertaining pastime — but for the dopamine rush, which in turn creates a vicious circle where the person focuses more intensely on gambling at the expense of everything else.

In Ross’ studies, the dopamine rush among addicted research subjects occurred before any gambling and in response to cues indicating that gambling was about to occur, such as an image of a slot machine or the person’s favorite casino. That result appears to coincide with stories of gambling addicts who — much like the alcoholic who obsesses about wanting to have a drink — are preoccupied with anticipation for gambling.

Blaming her own brain

Carol O’Hare has not had a brain scan, but before she quit gambling, she called herself an addict.

By day, she sold computers, explaining the merits of Random Access Memory and performance speed to moms and dads. After 5 p.m. O’Hare would park herself in front of a video poker machine, medicating herself with the rhythms of choosing and discarding poker hands.

“My logical brain knew I couldn’t outsmart the machine,� O’Hare said. “But my logical brain fell off the track when the first quarter hit the slot. My illogical, addicted brain was driving the bus.�

Suspecting a cocaine addiction, her employer fired her, she said.

“I was like the Valium addict who wanted to make life go away,� she said. “Looking outside ourselves for relief is normal. But repeated attempts to avoid reality could be the beginning of a mental health problem.�

O’Hare would go on to become executive director of the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling, which operates a crisis hotline, in 1996.

Like many people who have wrestled with addiction, O’Hare doesn’t blame the object of her obsession. Rather, she blames her addled brain for the problem.

“If the substance created the addiction, then everyone would become an alcoholic. When I (gamble), triggers go off in my brain differently than for other people. I don’t understand why it happens to me. There could be a genetic component. But the determining factor is me, not the machine.�

Indeed, Ross says even the limited amount of MRI research involving small groups of gamblers indicates that pathological gamblers have a chemical addiction to gambling, which produces in their brains the same kind of “hyperactive dopamine response� found in people who abuse hard drugs.

“For the really chronic cases who must absolutely not gamble, we’ve cracked the code,� he said. “I’ve never seen a study where the problem gambler didn’t look like the cocaine addict. It’s really quite striking.�

Medication may help

Supporting these results is the groundbreaking discovery a few years ago that gambling addicts benefit from medication used for years to treat drug addicts and alcoholics.

One of the most promising is naltrexone, which blocks the release of dopamine and reduces the addict’s cravings.

Psychiatrists Dr. Jon Grant, who codirects the Impulse Control Disorders clinic at the University of Minnesota Medical Center, and Dr. Marc Potenza, who directs the Yale Problem Gambling Clinic at Yale University, are among a small group of researchers pioneering the use of drugs, combined with therapy, to treat gambling addicts.

The use of drugs to combat addiction is so new, Grant said, that no studies have yet compared the relative benefits of drugs and therapy.

“We often don’t know what will help people the most when they walk in the door,� he said. “And people have personal views about things that I think should be respected when they seek help. Some people don’t want pills and others don’t want to talk to a therapist.�

Grant, with a group of research experts from other institutions, is delving into other creative treatment methods besides medication. He co-wrote a recently published National Institutes of Health-funded study that tested a technique called “motivational interviewing� that leads addicts through imagined scenarios ending with the person not gambling.

One scenario might involve a gambler imagining himself driving by a casino without going in. In another, the gambler might go to the casino while repeating mantras that desensitize him to the experience, such as the likely result that he will not win money. Gamblers who participated in six one-hour sessions with a psychiatrist and then listened to tapes at home reinforcing these thoughts gambled less and had fewer cravings than people who simply attended Gamblers Anonymous meetings, the study found.

Much still a mystery

Many problem-gambling experts believe some people are somehow predisposed to addiction but disagree on how much of the problem is genetic versus environmental — which could involve a person’s upbringing, social influences or immediate surroundings, such as the proximity of gambling.

“It’s the $64,000 question: How does someone go from casual to pathological gambling?� said Howard Shaffer, associate professor of psychology in the department of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and director of its Division on Addictions.

According to some treatment providers, many compulsive gamblers appear to have poor coping skills. Problem gamblers in treatment commonly tell of turning to gambling as an escape from personal problems, family conflict or psychological trauma, such as the loss of a loved one — while others apparently led happy and productive lives before gambling them down the drain.

Any number of studies have found that compulsive gamblers frequently have other baggage, including abuse of drugs and alcohol, and mood disorders including depression, panic attacks and phobias, without being able to determine cause and effect.

A 2005 study co-authored by Nancy Petry, a psychiatry professor at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and one of the first recipients of federal funding to study problem gambling, found that problem gamblers were eight times as likely to have a personality disorder as the general population, including obsessive-compulsive disorder and anti-social personality disorder.

Such correlations could have implications for treatment, as people who gamble compulsively because they are depressed could benefit from antidepressants, while treating people for underlying problems such as bipolar disorder could help alleviate gambling binges that were caused by these problems, experts say.

Recent research on the brain and effective treatment methods has far-reaching social and political implications for the field of problem gambling, the casino industry and society at large.

Knowing that addicts are mentally ill rather than simply foolish, spendthrift or morally bankrupt could lead to major changes in the criminal justice system, said Bill Eadington, an economist and director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada, Reno.

“If indeed gambling is a disease that could lead to criminal behavior, like drug-related crimes, then putting people in jail might be the wrong approach,� Eadington said.

(Nevada passed a law this year, supported by the casino industry along with problem-gambling advocates, allowing state judges to send criminals with gambling problems into treatment instead of jail.)

Further research on the brain could help separate the addicts who can’t stop gambling from a much larger group of people who binge on gambling from time to time but whose lives aren’t destroyed by their obsession with it, Eadington said. Treatment programs could be mandatory for addicts, while the greater population of binge gamblers might benefit from problem-gambling awareness campaigns and gambling information that’s more targeted to them, he said.

“Addicts should be isolated and protected from the product like diabetics must be kept from sugar. If you’re diabetic we’re not going to give you a half-gallon of ice cream and encourage you to eat it. But in Las Vegas we might be doing that with problem gamblers.�

There’s much about gambling addiction that isn’t known, as many gamblers aren’t helped by the best treatment methods, many others relapse, and brain scan studies don’t tell the whole story about why addicts behave the way they do, said Dr. Potenza, who has conducted some of the few, small-scale brain scan studies available.

And yet the biggest hurdle of all — acknowledgment and an ethical obligation to help the afflicted — has been crossed, at least by people following this still-young field.

A sense of desperation

These newly uncovered theories involving dopamine seem like old news to Robert Hunter, director of the Problem Gambling Center, a nonprofit outpatient clinic dedicated to treating gambling addicts.

There are no pills at Hunter’s clinic — only old-fashioned group and one-on-one therapy.

During a group-therapy session last month, three patients said they had thought about suicide. One man had his arm in a sling after a botched suicide attempt involving a faked rock climbing accident. Another woman introduced herself to the group of 15 or so people with a flood of tears.

“I can’t take this anymore,� she said. “I need help.�

Some attended with urging from friends and family members.

Some said they had gambled a few days ago; others hadn’t made a bet in years but were sticking around to maintain a support network.

Some acknowledged a problem that feels bigger than themselves — too large, perhaps, for any one person to grasp.

“When you say you’re addicted to drugs people say, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry’ and they’re sympathetic. When you say you blew $80,000 gambling, people say, ‘What, are you an idiot?’ â€� a man said. “They don’t understand.â€�

[doublediamonddlx]

PART 3 of 3: THE MACHINES:

Could the game be partly to blame for addiction?
Some say features common in machines may lull players into crossing the line
 
LAS VEGAS SUN FILE

Si Redd, the late creator of the modern video poker machine, said he never imagined how popular the game would become. Many experts say the relatively simple machines may be more addictive, or appealing to addicts, than video slots with a lot of entertainment features.

By Liz Benston (contact)

Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Hoping to solve the decades-old mystery of why some people develop gambling problems, a growing number of researchers are studying the other side of the equation: the games that gamblers fixate on.

Casinos and slot makers have long been accused of fueling gambling addiction. When video poker became known as the crack cocaine of gambling, Si Redd, the founder of slot giant International Game Technology who created the modern video poker machine and who died in 2003, didn’t get defensive. Instead, he advised addicts to get help and move from Nevada, if necessary.

“Of course it hurts me when such things are said, I guess because it is kind of the truth,� Redd, then retired, told the Sun in 2001. “I never intended it to become that way, and I never could have dreamed of how successful the video poker machine would become.�

In fact, if the industry has learned one thing in its constant hunt for more popular slot machines, it’s that there’s no magic formula for what makes a machine successful. Some players prefer big jackpot games that pay back less frequently, and others like games that hit frequently, though in smaller increments, for example.

And researchers don’t know why many problem gamblers in Las Vegas tell addiction counselors that they succumb to video poker — a device that has changed little over the years relative to slot machines with catchy themes and high-tech features — while other gambling addicts, especially in other parts of the world, are drawn to other kinds of games.

Indeed, the role that various elements in a casino play in the addiction process — defined by experts as the relationship between a person and the object of his obsession — is up for debate.

Slot and video poker machines get the most attention from problem-gambling researchers in part because most people who seek treatment appear to be hooked on machines. That makes sense to some observers, who believe that slots, for addicts, behave like fast-acting drugs in that they allow gamblers to play rapidly and thus trigger rewards that more quickly reinforce such behavior.

Others say the implication that machines cause the problem is false.

“This focus on ‘things’ is taking us totally off base,� said Christine Reilly, executive director of the industry-sponsored Institute for Research on Gambling Disorders. “People drink excessively and don’t become alcoholics. Things aren’t addictive. But people want a quick fix and think if we ‘fix’ all the machines, we’ll fix the problem associated with it. It’s not that simple.�

The machines' tease

In general, the same elements that make games attractive to casual gamblers may also make them addictive to others, says Mark Griffiths, a psychology professor and director of the International Gaming Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University in England.

He is among dozens of researchers who have developed and tested multiple theories about how different elements and designs of machines influence behavior, including:

• Gamblers long ago gave up their buckets of quarters in favor of machines that operate with “virtual� money — racking up and deducting credits instead of hard cash and dispensing paper tickets that need to be redeemed for cash. It is cleaner, easier, saves the casino money — and is psychologically pleasing because turning money into credits has the effect of gently separating the gambler from his cash.

• Bonus rounds — when a player is rewarded with a free spin on a separate game within the primary one — indulge the player’s sense of involvement with a slot machine. Similarly, features allowing players to decide when to stop a spinning reel or the ability to “nudge� a symbol onto the pay line can give the illusion of control.

• Many slots come alive with the sound of a payoff even for “hits� that in fact only pay back a fraction of the amount wagered. Gamblers tend to report these as “wins� rather than a minimized net loss because they focus on winnings while ignoring losses, or the amount of money spent to get those wins.

• Sound effects, video snippets, celebrity voices, musical sequences and even certain colors add to the entertainment value of the machines.

It’s all about entertainment, the gaming industry says.

The industry view

Indeed, casinos and slot makers don’t want addicts because they create legal and financial problems for them, said Glenn Christenson, chairman of the industry-sponsored National Center for Responsible Gaming and former chief financial officer for Station Casinos, one of many gaming giants that donate money to treatment and research efforts.

“Most of the enlightened gaming companies, the vast majority of them, understand there’s no upside to pursuing problem gamblers,� Christenson said. “At some point there’s going to be issues with them that the industry doesn’t need. Companies feel they are better off being supportive rather than ignoring the problem. I’m not sure 30 years ago I would have been able to say that.�

Game designers like to consider themselves more a part of the movie-production business than the gambling business because their job is to create products that hold people’s attention.

Creating machines that entice gamblers to play longer might sound like a conscious effort to cultivate addicted gamblers. Slot companies don’t see it that way.

“This is a competitive industry. Our game designers are trying to keep the games fun and exciting and better than Brand X,� said Connie Jones, director of responsible gaming for International Game Technology.

IGT hired Jones, the first executive of her kind in the gaming industry, eight years ago to help demystify gambling machines to a skeptical public and disseminate problem-gambling research to governments legalizing gambling, among other groups.

By spending millions of research dollars on bells and whistles such as animated cartoons and sound clips, and creating hundreds of different games a year, slot companies aim to seek out the broadest possible audience rather than home in on any one niche, said Marcus Fortunato, owner of Dingo Systems, a Las Vegas company that develops slot machines for manufacturers worldwide. Compulsive gamblers, by contrast, appear to be drawn to simpler machines featuring such gambling basics as a hand of video poker or easily deciphered reels of cherries and 7s, as they probably don’t need more elaborate features to get their fix, he said.

Added Mike Shackleford, a Las Vegas-based mathematician and former actuary who analyzes and designs slot machines: “Slot companies don’t sit around their boardrooms and talk about how to make their machines addictive.�

Natasha Dow Schüll, a cultural anthropologist at MIT who has spent years interviewing gamblers, casino officials and slot manufacturers in Las Vegas in an attempt to uncover the pull of slot machines, agrees.

And yet Schüll, whose book documenting machine gambling and compulsive behavior, “Addiction By Design,� will be published next year, says machines play more of a role in the addiction process than the industry would care to admit.

“This isn’t like buying shoes,� she said. “These are potent and powerful devices that are effective in shifting your inner mood and state.�

People with gambling problems told Schüll of “zoning out� in front of a machine and gambling for gambling’s sake rather than for reasons that make sense to casual gamblers and are cited by manufacturers, such as the pleasure of winning something, however small, or the anticipation of a big jackpot.

Government's role

Although slot machines are regulated for randomness and a minimum payback for players, they aren’t subjected to consumer protection laws or warnings like alcohol, tobacco and other consumer products that affect behavior or personal health, said Schüll, who doesn’t advocate any particular regulatory approach toward gambling.

Some countries are tackling the problem more proactively by tinkering with the machines themselves — an approach the industry says is motivated more by politics and public relations than science.

Hit by a rash of class-action lawsuits by gamblers, the Canadian government, which owns some of that country’s casinos and slot machines, has in some areas imposed “smart cards� that allow players club members to opt into various “safety� features on the machines, including a record of what players have won or lost and the ability to set budgets and time limits.

Some Canadian casinos are using information tracked by the cards — data used for marketing purposes by American casinos — to identify problematic behavior and intervene on gamblers’ behalf. Some of these casinos use biometric software to match problem gamblers with photos on file, including people who have filled out paperwork to voluntarily ban themselves from the casino floor.

In Australia, where publicity about gambling addiction has fueled a politically popular “war against gambling,� governments have slowed down the speed at which machines play, limited the number of machines that can be offered and, in certain areas, prevented the further spread of machines.

Nova Scotia commissioned one of the few major studies on responsible gambling features such as pop-up reminder clocks, mandatory cash-outs and meters showing how much is spent in dollars and cents. It found that some features had little to no effect on the play of problem gamblers, though players reported losing track of time and money a smaller percentage of the time.

Some safety features — such as forced time limits — might have the opposite effect by prompting compulsive gamblers to gamble more or faster knowing they will shortly be cut off from the object of their obsession, said Bo Bernhard, director of problem-gambling research at UNLV’s International Gaming Institute.

It’s unrealistic to believe that people in the throes of an addiction can be swayed by warnings or other educational features on a slot machine — though the technology holds the potential to prevent people from developing gambling problems down the road, Bernhard said.

“This is a psychological disorder that needs to be treated by professionals, not a machine,� he said.

Added Jones of IGT: “If there was any solid, peer-reviewed research that identified specific game characteristics as harmful, all manufacturers would be required to avoid incorporating them into games. If IGT designed our games around speculation about what may be harmful, we would likely be out of business in short order.�

Still, education about how slot machines work — which includes debunking gambling myths such as “lucky� games — has an important place in the treatment of compulsive gamblers, according to some experts.

Clinical psychologist Robert Breen, who directs the Rhode Island Gambling Treatment Program at Rhode Island Hospital, is among several psychologists who have successfully treated gambling addicts by incorporating information about slot machine math into an abstinence-only program.

“But once that person is sitting in front of the machine,� Breen said, “they’re dead meat for the rest of the night at that point.�