A slot machine is a gambling device with spinning reels that produce combinations of symbols upon initialization. When these symbols line up on the paylines, a player wins a monetary prize. Slot machines were popularized in the United States during the ’20s and ’30s. During this time, the first electromechanical slots were introduced and many of these machines had multiple payout schemes and jackpots. Some had three or five coin multipliers, while others had multiple varying payouts depending on the number of coins inserted.
A newer type of slot machine is the virtual reality slot, which uses a headset to immerse players in a 3D casino environment. While not yet a mainstream product, this technology promises to increase player engagement by making the graphics more realistic and interactive.
While the arousal produced by win-and-loss events on slot machines is undoubtedly enjoyable, it may not be the only reason that people enjoy playing these games. Research has shown that a significant proportion of slot-machine players gamble as a means of coping with painful emotional experiences, such as depression or anxiety (Abbot & Volberg, 1996; Getty, Watson & Frisch, 2000). It is possible that the attention-capturing, intermittent rewards produced by slot play help to distract these players from the negative aspects of their lives and thereby provide them with a form of relief. Dixon et al.’s findings that PRP and force measures of reward reactivity are correlated with positive affect and that they account for greater unique positive affect variance than dark flow suggest that these are additional routes to slot enjoyment.