You own a small casino in Las Vegas. It has 50 standard slot machines. Identical in appearance, they're identical in the function. They have exactly the same payout ratios. The things that cause the payouts are exactly the same. They occur in the same percentages. But there's one machine in this group of slot machines that, no matter where you put it among the 50, in fairly short order, when you go to the machines at the end of the day, there will be 25% more winnings from this one machine than from any other machine. What is different about that heavy-winning machine?
Whatâs different about that machine is people have used modern electronics to give a higher ratio of near misses. That machine is going bar, bar, lemon. Bar, bar, grapefruit, way more often than normal machines, and that will cause heavier play. How do you get an answer like that? Easy. Obviously, thereâs a psychological cause: That machine is doing something to trigger some basic psychological response. If you know the psychological factors, if youâve got them on a checklist in your head, you just run down the factors, and, boom!, you get to one that must explain this occurrence. There isnât any other way to do it effectively. These answers are not going to come to people who donât learn these mental tricks.