page_title: Slot machine
section_title: Problem gambling and slot machines
hierarchical_section_title: Slot machine / Problem gambling and slot machines
caption_attribution_description: English: A very exciting and fun antique slot machine to play! This is a 5 cent antique slot machine. The bonus machine is more fun to play then all the other slot machines. Observe the letters at the top right of the machine. When the entire word BONUS is spelled out the machine will pay out 18 coins. This unique trick is to encourage players to play longer. The letters are raised by hitting the corresponding letter in order on the first reel. These letters are printed over the usual classic slot machine numbers.
context_page_description: A slot machine, known variously as a fruit machine, puggy, the slots, poker machine/pokies, fruities or slots, is a gambling machine that creates a game of chance for its customers. Slot machines are also known pejoratively as one-armed bandits because of the large mechanical levers affixed to the sides of early mechanical machines and the games' ability to empty players' pockets and wallets as thieves would.
  A slot machine's standard layout features a screen displaying three or more reels that "spin" when the game is activated. Some modern slot machines still include a lever as a skeuomorphic design trait to trigger play. However, the mechanics of early machines have been superseded by random number generators, and most are now operated using buttons and touchscreens.
  Slot machines include one or more currency detectors that validate the form of payment, whether coin, cash, voucher, or token. The machine pays out according to the pattern of symbols displayed when the reels stop "spinning". Slot machines are the most popular gambling method in casinos and constitute about 70% of the average U.S. casino's income.
context_section_description: Natasha Dow Schüll, associate professor in New York University's Department of Media, Culture, and Communication, uses the term "machine zone" to describe the state of immersion that users of slot machines experience during gambling, in which they lose a sense of time, space, bodily awareness, and monetary value.
  Mike Dixon, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of Waterloo, studies the relationship between slot players and slot machines. Slot players were observed experiencing heightened arousal from the sensory stimulus coming from the machines. They "sought to show that these 'losses disguised as wins' (LDWs) would be as arousing as wins, and more arousing than regular losses."
  Psychologists Robert Breen and Marc Zimmerman found that players of video slot machines reach a debilitating level of involvement with gambling three times as rapidly as those who play traditional casino games, even if they have gambled regularly on other forms of gambling in the past without a problem.
  Eye tracking research in local bookkeepers offices in the UK suggested that, in slots games, the slot-reels dominated players' visual attention and problem gamblers looked more frequently at amount-won messages than those without gambling problems. 
  The 2011 60 Minutes report "Slot Machines: The Big Gamble" focused on the link between slot machines and gambling addiction.
caption: Mills Novelty Co. Horse Head Bonus antique slot machine
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