How Slot Machine Sounds Trick Your Brain

Tuesday, July 2, 2013 - 14:00 in Mathematics & Economics

Mandalay Bay Casino rustler2x4 Nice music doesn't always mean a real win. When you win a bet on a slot machine, the machine rewards you with a celebratory noise: that electronic string of notes saying, You're a winner! Here is, like, 30 cents, probably. If you lose the bet, there's usually not a noise. But here's the twist: modern slot machines let you bet on multiple lines, meaning you can still lose, even when you win. You might, for example, make a bet that recoups 10 cents of the 2 dollars you spent on the pull. When that happens, you still get the "winner" noise. A new study examined how that affects gambling habits. Researchers from the University of Waterloo took a group of 96 people and had them play two different kinds of slot machines: one machine played music for both wins and fake wins, while the other machine only...

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