If you’ve ever thought of going to a casino and winning enough money to retire to a tropical
island where you would have someone attractive stand over you and gently wave palm fronds
to cool your body, while you lie on a beach chair and sip a fancy cocktail with the azure
hued surf gently crashing into the white sandy beach---[narrator clears throat] sorry to
burst your bubble, but chances are that’s not gonna happen.
Pure and simple, casinos are designed to strip you of your money.
Yes, they want you to have a fun time so you’ll visit again, but not too fun of a time that
you go home with a lot of prize money.
Let’s look at some of the things casinos do to get you to stay, hang out and lose your
hard earned dough.
From the moment you walk in, the tricks have started, casinos are a sensory overload.
Bright colors, flashing lights on electronic gaming machines and music stimulate your senses
and invite excitement and a want to participate.
However, if you keep looking around perhap you notice something odd; there are no windows.
In fact, minus the entrance to the casino-there is no natural light.
Often the casino doors are heavily tinted to minimize the sunlight outside too.
If you can’t look outside, you lack visual awareness that time is passing.
For the same reason, casinos don’t have clocks.
Time flies when you’re having fun, except casinos would prefer that you forget that
time is flying.
Some casinos go as far as painting their ceilings to look like daytime skies further adding
to the temporal discombobulation.
They’re hoping to trick you into thinking that no matter what time it really is, it’s
an appropriate time to be gambling.
Upon further investigation of a casino’s decor, you might notice that the lighting
is subdued.
Soft, maybe even a little dim to create a cozy laid back ambiance.
The background music is the same: soft, easy, unobtrusive.
The lighting and background music remain the same day or night--another time trick.
Casinos want you to feel relaxed and like you’re hanging out among friends.
The mellow, pleasant background decor doesn’t detract or draw your attention from roulette
or the flashy gaming machines.
The carpet in casinos tends to be vibrant with gaudy patterns.
In many cases, it’s designed not to be visually restful, meaning that you’ll keep your eyes
off the floor and where they belong--on your video poker game.
It’s harder to drift off and get sleepy looking at bright, busy patterns; this might
give a tiny edge to you choosing to stay in the casino instead of going home or to your
hotel room.
Also the ugly patterns are handy in helping to hide stains.
In well run casinos, it’s always very tidy.
If there’s ever a drink spill or any kind of mess, staff quickly materializes to clean
up and resolve the issue.
Casinos never want to spoil the illusion that this is a happy fantasy place where you can
relax and let loose.
Vomit, sticky soda spills and crumpled napkins belong in the real world, not here.
Something else helping to keep you awake and on the gambling floor is the extra oxygen
casinos pump into the air.
High levels of oxygen keeps us feeling refreshed and alert allowing us to gamble longer.
Casinos have hvac systems with heavy duty air filtering and purification technology
to minimize the smells of cigarette smoke, alcohol, human funk and maybe even the desperation
and misery that may pervade the air.
However, many casinos have taken it a step further and pipe vaporized aromatic oils and
even pheremones into the air to invoke feelings in guests.
Many places have custom signature scents meant to mimic a particular thing such as a Polynesian
island or a citrus grove.
Scent is another simple thing to add to the ambience and promote a subconscious sense
of comfort and ease to once again cause you to stay longer and spend more money.
Some researchers have wondered if a casino’s scent creates a pavlovian response in regular
customers.
Since you subconsciously associate the scent with the casino, when you come to the casino
the smell primes you to gamble and just maybe you end up spending more time than you had
initially planned at the casino.
As of yet, there’s no reliable method to study this theory, but it makes sense to us.
If the smell of baking oatmeal cookies can make you nostalgic for rainy afternoons spent
with grandma--miss you Nanna--then a scent can subtly encourage you to gamble.
Like a certain furniture/meatball store, casinos tend to be maze-like, even disorienting.
There are no straight asiles leading to exits.
Instead you must trek curving pathways which conveniently take you past strategically placed
gaming sections to reach an exit.
As you wander through the rows of flashing slot machines on your quest for an exit, they
hope to lure you into one last spin...or maybe several last spins.
There’s always the chance you’ll turn back and spend a few more hours and therefore
a lot more money in the casino.
You might notice that the cashier’s booth where you exchange chips and tickets for cash
is usually deep in the casino.
It’s a strategic design choice just like the exits.
Once again you are forced to walk by many different types of gambling opportunities
to your way to cash out.
The same for the restrooms and eateries.
Another tactic is that often the cashier’s booth is minimally staffed so there’s a
long line to cash out.
Would it be more fun to wait in line or to pay a nearby slot machine and keep your eyes
open for when the line gets shorter?
Once you have your winnings, you might notice that the cashier has given you the largest
denomination of bills possible.
So if you want to have one final crack at an electronic gaming machine on your way to
the exit, you’ll have to bet with a $5 or $10 and not a $1.
Let’s talk about money for a second.
In the majority of casinos, it’s easy not to use money at all.
Some games require chips, and electronic gaming machines take digital credits.
Many casinos let you load money onto a card that is used for digital games.
Sometimes they encourage you to do so by offering bonus credits depending on the amount loaded
on to the card.
When you’re spending digital credits or playing with chips, it can be easy to lose
track of how much money you’ve spent, lost or won.
When you leave or win at an electronic gaming machine, it prints a ticket with your remaining
balance.
This is another way to dissociate gambling from spending real money.
It becomes easier to feed the ticket into another machine rather than go through the
hassle of exchanging it for cash.
Many casinos offer free or heavily discounted drinks and snacks.
Trust us, casinos aren’t doing this to be hospitable.
Alcohol consumption creates loss of inhibitions and compromised decision making.
In the short term, it can also stimulate exhilaration and social outgoing.
That means you’re more likely to be excited, enthusiastic, make poor bets and spend more
money.
Whatever the casino loses on liquor they make up on your poor decisions.
Furthermore, if the casino provides you with snacks, you won’t get hungry and leave.
Some casinos offer free perks such as complimentary meals, hotel rooms, event tickets and access
to exclusive lounges.
However, make no mistake.
Free perks are a careful calculation.
The truth is that whatever casinos give away in perks, they make that back hundreds times
over from the same people awarded the comps.
Some casinos have hosts that roam the gaming floor on the lookout for patrons who are nearing
their quitting point.
For example, if a host sees a patron have a big loss or maybe being rough with a video
poker machine in frustration, they may zoom over and make encouraging chit chat, offering
a voucher for a free meal or drink.
Basically offering the patron just enough of a break to dispel tension; chances are
the patron will resume gambling afterwards.
Sometimes perks are earned through casino loyalty programs where with every dollar played
you earn points.
Cool, you scored a free $50 surf and turf dinner with your points, but if you were to
add up how much money you lost earning the points for the dinner, you spent $1,000.
Sometimes receiving a free perk can subconsciously invite you to gamble.
Free items can ease the sting felt by losing money, even making you feel like you’ve
balanced the scale or even come out on top and ‘beat’ the casino at their own game.
Your perceived ‘win’ of perks can cause you to stay and gamble even more, because
you have not walked away empty handed.
The slot machines might be the most dangerous section on the gambling floor.
Everything about them is trying to captivate you.
The flashing lights, ringing bells and cheerful, celebratory music stimulates the reward center
in your brain.
Slot machines are powered by highly sophisticated computers driven by complex algorithms.
Most have a feature called the ‘near miss’.
This means the jackpot or any other big prize symbol appears to fail to line up by just
one character on a carefully calculated certain percentage of spins.
This gives you the impression that you almost won and therefore you’re likely to play
again.
However, you are no closer to having won than if the desired symbol had not appeared on
the reel at all.
Ever so often, a slot machine will pay out a paltry sum of money in order to entice you
to keep going.
Most slot machines are multi‐line, players can wager on more than one line per spin.
Often players place the maximum number of bets on each spin.
This strategy means a player can win on some lines while losing on others, gaining back
less than their original wager.
These events are known as “losses disguised as wins.”
You’re winning, the machine is cheering you on, your brain's reward center is lighting
up, but you don’t come out ahead.
Nevertheless, studies have shown that most players prefer the multi-line slot machines
and often place the max bet because the chance of winning something, even if it's a small
return is so pleasurable.
We’re not saying that you shouldn’t visit casinos if that’s what you like to do.
Go enjoy the experience for what it can be: a fun social outing with friends where you
test your luck and maybe your card playing skills and even win some dough.
But be realistic about what’s happening--ultimately the house always wins.
And now that you've reached the end of our video, why not keep the watch party going?!
Plan on winning the lottery sometime soon?
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