According to a survey by Harrah’s a while ago, about 81 percent of all women casino gamblers played the slot machines, while only 66 percent of the men did so. The table games are dominated by men with craps having about a 90 percent male majority and blackjack and roulette seeing smaller male majorities, but majorities nevertheless.
The slots are still a woman’s world as they have been since the casinos started placing them on their floors.
Obviously women like playing the machines and many of the machines are geared to this female enjoyment. Note the number of new machines each year that have movie titles, television titles, or star titles as their branding. Most of these machines are clearly aimed at women – although the Clint Eastwood and comic book machines are obviously geared to men.
Why women prefer slots to table games in such a huge majority is not truly known with certainty. Maybe the tables seem more competitive, combative and judgmental. After all, no one tells you how to play the slots but many blackjack “experts” have no hesitation telling other blackjack players how to play their hands or scolding them that they just played a hand incorrectly. Whether the blackjack “expert” actually knows how to play is irrelevant – he thinks he knows how to play and that is enough for him to lambaste anyone who plays differently.
You will not get this kind of game interference at the slot machines. Other slot players don’t care whether you play one coin, two coins, or three coins or whether you are superstitious or happy or depressed or clinically insane. Most slot players exist in a world of their own, only occasionally interrupted by the screams of some other slot player who has just won a big one and can’t keep from yelling her good fortune to the world. Slot players rejoice when other slot players win and then they quickly go back to doing what they love to do – playing those machines.
While slot play is overwhelmingly the game of choice for both women and men, savvy slot aficionados recognize an interesting peculiarity in their slot-playing brethren. Slot players lose interest in all types of machines relatively quickly. They will play a given machine for a period of time and then abandon it. One slot player said, “I love the Elvis machines but I never won on them so I quit playing them and moved on to Betty Boop.” And what happened? “I didn’t have much better luck on Betty so I dumped her too.”
Like bad marriages, slot players and slot machines divorce rather often. Slot players are the Elizabeth Taylors of casino gamers – always looking for the perfect match and never finding it. This is probably due to the fact that most slot players lose most of the time on all of the machines. By switching machines so frequently, they hope to switch their luck. Unfortunately, the machines are not programmed to increase your luck. They are programmed to increase the casino profits.
Casino executives know of the brittle relationship of slot player to slot machine and that’s why each and every year you will note how many new machines make their way onto the casino floors. All casino gaming shows such as G2E (Global Gaming Expo) are dominated by new machines. There may be no difference in payouts between Betty Boop machines and Shirley Temple machines but they look different and sound different and the slot player will jump from one to the other hoping they are actually different.
The first law of slot machines is “keep them coming” because new machines will be tried by players. You will not see this same jumping around at table games. Craps players don’t abandon their favorite game because, win or lose, they love the game. Blackjack players are loyal as well. You will not see many new table games at gaming shows and while some new table games have gotten a foothold in the casinos but compared to the number of new machines out there, the number of new table games is infinitesimal.
The paybacks on slot machines make them tough sells. Most have edges over 5 percent and many have edges over 10 percent. These are big edges and in league with the high speeds with which slot players attack the machines, they add up to frequent and often large losses. Very few people will stay in a marriage where they are abused and slot players don’t want to stay at machines that have been cuffing them around for any period of time. So onto the new machines with hope burning in their hearts. Slot players are like a country and western song, “I Keep Losing My Love but I Never Give Up!”
Of course, if slot payouts were really generous, say 99.5 percent (the casino having a half percent edge in that case – an edge similar to a blackjack basic strategy player), then the chance is fairly good that the slot player will stick with such a machine come hell, high water, or new slot inventories. Getting some kind of return on a gambling investment is the best way for casinos to keep their players playing. The second best way is to offer new machines. The casinos prefer to offer new machines.
There is really no end in sight to the slot revolution that has taken place in the casinos. In 1984, in both Atlantic City and Las Vegas, the slots made more money than the table games for the first time ever and their growth since then has been nothing short of phenomenal. While 50 percent of all marriages end in divorce, most divorced people still want to get remarried. And slot players still want to play the machines even after they have divorced numerous previous machines. It’s the way of the slot world.
All the best in and out of the casinos!
Visit Frank’s web site at www.frankscoblete.com . Frank’s latest books are Confessions of a Wayward Catholic!; I Am a Dice Controller: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Craps, and I Am a Card Counter: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Blackjack. Available from Amazon.com, Kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores.