Chapter 15 from The Spotted Ball, a True Story by Larry Cohen c 2025
“Humans don’t greet you. Machines do”
As mentioned in an earlier chapter, I had no experience with slot machines at the Hotel Embajador Casino since, at that time, slot machines were illegal across the country of the Dominican Republic. So, in 1987, when the laboratory I was working for sent a small group of us to Las Vegas for a convention, it was only natural that I would encounter these “one-armed bandits”
The first row of machines that I encountered were located right in the arrival lounge at the airport in Las Vegas. Humans don’t greet you. Machines do. I inserted a quarter in one machine and spun the wheels….nothing. We then proceeded to our hotel, the Bally’s MGM Grand Hotel, the same hotel that had caught on fire a few years earlier. I was told because of the fire, the name of the hotel was changed from the MGM Grand to Bally’s. In order to get to our rooms, we had to walk through or closely around the casino. There was no other way to get to our rooms but through the casino, a strategic device with intentional design.
Since I had to deliver a paper at this symposium, I stayed directly out of the casino as far as I could until our last day at the hotel and after I delivered my presentation.
In 1987, the slot machines were, by and large, still the mechanical types of machines. Coins had to be inserted. The coins needed were basically Silver Dollars forged in the same size and weight, but with the casino name and insignia stamped into them. I started out with $60 worth of these coins and managed to work the machine up to about $600, leaving when that amount had been reduced to $450. I never hit the proverbial “Jack-pot” but was satisfied taking about $400 back home with me.
At this point, my dear reader may conclude that I had a favorable attitude toward slot machines. On the contrary, I could see them for what they were. They used what the behaviorist psychologists would call “operant conditioning”, that is, one never knew if there would be a reward or not. This is the most addictive kind of conditioning there is. If anything favorable can be said about these machines is that it slows down losses over time since it is hard to increase one’s bets to the point of “burning it all” in a few bets. These days, the government runs its own slot machines in the form of cardboard scratch-off tickets, virtually the same as a pull at a slot machine and just as insidious. Allow me to explain.
To be continued…