Why a Slot Machine Near Miss Is Not Almost a Win
We all know the feeling of a near miss when gambling. For instance, if, when playing online baccarat, you lose with seven against eight, it can feel agonizingly close, and something similar happens very frequently when playing slots.
Imagine two jackpot symbols landing perfectly on the first two reels. The third spins for a little longer before the jackpot symbol appears just above the payline. It feels completely different from a screen filled with unrelated symbols. You were almost there.
However, from a mathematical point of view, you were not. The Vegas myth about near misses suggests that landing just one symbol away from the jackpot means you’re close to winning. In reality, a near miss is still a loss, regardless of how close the final symbol appears to the payline.
The Reels Do Not Nearly Land on a Winning Result
The important thing to understand is that the spinning reels are primarily a way of displaying the outcome.
Modern slots use a random number generator (RNG) to determine results. Once you press the spin button and the game generates the outcome, the animation shows you that result. The reels are not physically slowing down and narrowly failing to reach a jackpot in the way a ball might narrowly miss a target.
Therefore, a jackpot symbol appearing immediately above or below the payline has no special mathematical significance. It may look much closer to a win than three completely different symbols, but both outcomes pay the same amount: nothing. Things become slightly more complicated because the symbols you see on the screen do not necessarily tell you how likely each result is.
Slots can use virtual reel positions, meaning there may be many more possible stops behind the game than you can see on the animated reels. Different symbols can effectively occupy different numbers of these positions. A common low-paying symbol may therefore be selected far more frequently than a jackpot symbol, even if both appear the same number of times on the visible part of the reel.
This also explains why looking at the physical distance between symbols tells you very little about the odds. A jackpot symbol being one position away visually does not mean the RNG was one number away from choosing the jackpot.
More importantly, it says nothing about the next spin. That spin produces another random result. The machine is not getting warmer, moving closer to paying, or becoming more likely to produce the combination you just missed.
Why Does a Near Miss Feel So Important?
Most of us will already have experienced the sense of encouragement from a near miss, even if part of us knows that there really isn’t a reason to be encouraged. However, there is a very understandable reason for this. In many activities involving skill, getting closer really does mean something.
Suppose you are learning to throw a basketball. Missing the basket by a few inches is much more encouraging than throwing the ball several feet wide. The near miss shows that you are improving, and repeating roughly the same action may eventually produce the result you want.
Unfortunately, this logic does not hold when playing a random game. Research into gambling has repeatedly found that people nevertheless react differently to near misses than they do to ordinary losses. One study using a simulated slot game found that near misses were actually less pleasant than complete misses, but they also increased people’s desire to continue playing. Brain activity associated with the near misses also overlapped with some of the circuitry activated by genuine wins.
Other experiments involving online slots found something similar. Participants reported greater motivation to continue after near misses than full misses, started subsequent spins more quickly and, in one experiment, increased their next bet.
This does not mean every player reacts in exactly the same way, and research into the strength of the near-miss effect has produced some mixed results. However, there is plenty of evidence that an outcome that looks close feels different from an ordinary loss even when the two results are mathematically equivalent.
The National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG) encourages responsible gambling and provides resources for people who may be experiencing gambling-related harm.
Even Rats Can Fall for Near Misses
Surprisingly, it seems that rats suffer from the same problem. In a 2011 experiment, researchers created a simplified slot-style game for rats using three flashing lights. When all three lights were lit, the rats could press a lever and receive a food reward. Pressing the same lever without all three lights lit resulted in a time penalty instead.
The rats nevertheless became more likely to behave as though they had won when two of the three lights were lit. In other words, the equivalent of a slot machine near miss increased their expectation of receiving a reward. Researchers also found evidence that dopamine was involved in the response.
The key takeaway from the Vegas myth about near misses is simple. It is normal for two jackpot symbols and a third stopping just beyond the payline to feel more encouraging than an obvious losing combination, but feeling close and actually being close are two very different things, and you should make sure not to confuse them.
