How pokies keep you playing longer than you meant

Nobody walks into the pub thinking, "Tonight I'll lose $200 on the pokies."

And yet Australians lose billions of dollars a year on them. (Look up what your council area loses.)

Pokie players aren't silly. The machines are built, very carefully, to keep you sitting there. Each trick is small. Small enough that you don't notice it working on you.

So let's open one up and have a look.

The machine always takes its cut

Every poker machine is set to pay back a fixed share of the money that goes in, over the long run. In NSW the law says at least 85%. In Victoria it's at least 87%.

Sounds fair enough. The catch is that the same money goes round and round. Put $100 in. Whatever comes out, put it back in. Keep doing that and, on average, you walk away with nothing. The machine doesn't need a big win off you. It just needs you to keep pressing the button.

Wins that are really losses

Your bet gets spread across lots of lines. On plenty of spins one line pays a little, say 40c back on a $1 bet. You've lost 60c.

But the machine flashes and plays the same happy music it plays for a real win. So a losing night feels like a winning one. This trick is so important it has its own name: losses disguised as wins.

So close!

Two jackpot symbols land, and the third stops just above the line. Argh. Nearly had it.

You didn't, though. It's a loss like any other. That "almost" feeling makes you want another go, and reels can be built so it happens far more often than plain chance would give you. There's more on this in near misses.

It's fast

One game takes a few seconds. New machines in Victoria have to take at least 3 seconds a game, and older ones can be quicker.

Even at 3 seconds, betting $1 a spin pushes $1,200 an hour through the machine. There's no gap to stop and think. And the faster you play, the faster the machine's cut piles up.

Credits instead of dollars

The screen shows your money as credits, and your bet as lines and credits per line. Losing 500 credits doesn't sting the way losing $5 does.

Notes go straight in, too. Topping up takes seconds, and before you know it you've spent more than you meant to.

Music for wins, silence for losses

Wins are loud and bright. Losses make no sound at all. Over a session you hear and see the wins far more than the losses, so it feels like you're winning more than you are.

In studies, people who played with the sound on remembered winning more often than they really had.

Free spins that could come any time

Bonus rounds and free spins turn up when you least expect them. Rewards you can't predict are the most habit-forming kind. It's the same pull that keeps people checking their phones.

Hoping the next feature is just around the corner keeps people playing through long losing runs.

No machine is ever "due"

A machine that hasn't paid for ages is no closer to paying. Every spin is random and has nothing to do with the one before. But people who believe a machine is "due" or "hot" stay longer and bet more. That one gets its own guide: is a number ever due?

If you're going to play anyway

Pick an amount before you leave home. Bring that much in cash and leave the cards behind.

Whatever goes into the machine, count it as spent. Don't feed your "winnings" back in.

Give yourself a time limit and take breaks. There are no clocks in gaming rooms, and that's no accident.

And if you catch yourself trying to win back what you've lost, that's your cue to get up and go. Chasing losses only digs the hole deeper.