A slot is a narrow depression, notch, groove or opening, as in a keyway in machinery or a slit for a coin in a vending machine. A slot also means a position in a group, series or sequence: He slotted the new filter into place.

Slot games generate the bulk of casino profits, so they’re a key revenue driver for casinos. But many players don’t play them to win. They play to pass the time or to relieve depressive or anxious symptoms. Whether these feelings are real or imagined, they can have devastating consequences for casinos and their customers.

To better understand why people play slots, researchers recently developed two novel psychophysiological measures of reward reactivity. Unlike other psychophysiological measures involving cumbersome electrodes and wires that may reduce ecological validity, these measurements are unobtrusive, allowing participants to simply interact with their favorite slot machine as they normally would.

The results show that both measures of reward reactivity are strongly associated with how much players enjoy playing slots. They also reveal that the amount of money won is a less important predictor of enjoyment than is how often a player wins. However, winning big is still a major motivation for many people. To determine why, researchers looked at how players’ arousal levels change as the size of their jackpot increases.

A small number of people who are particularly skilled at gambling are able to sustain high-level arousal for long periods of time. These gamblers are known as “super-arousers.” In the study, researchers found that super-arousers have higher levels of dopamine than non-super-arousers in their brains. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that helps regulate mood, so it’s no surprise that people with high dopamine levels are also more likely to be happier and enjoy life.

Interestingly, the study also found that the higher the jackpot size is, the more the participants in the study enjoyed their slots. These results suggest that the happiness of slot players is more related to their ability to control their emotions than their level of success at the game.

In addition, the researchers found that problem gamblers experience a greater degree of dark flow during slot-machine play than do non-problem gamblers. They speculate that the reason why is because problem gamblers’ mentations in daily life are dominated by habitual bouts of mind-wandering, whereas their slots play involves exogenous reining in of attention by the attention-capturing sights and sounds of the machine.

This study demonstrates that understanding why people play slots is a complicated matter. The findings suggest that it is important to keep in mind both the arousal and reward aspects of slot-machine play when designing strategies to reduce problem gambling. The authors acknowledge that further research is needed to fully appreciate the complexity of the problem and its potential solutions. They also point out that the current focus on the psychological arousal of slot-machine play distracts attention from more-important factors, such as the impact of a player’s personality and cognitive style on enjoyment.