Page 8 - Jackpot Magazine South ~ November, 2025

PLAY TO WIN
Thanksgiving is lucky, but slot play is chance
“Just like the turkey, the best luck of all is the luck you make for yourself.”
~ Unknown
Thanksgiving might be considered a lucky holiday. If you think about it, we are lucky to gather, lucky to eat, and lucky if the gravy doesn’t run out before it gets passed our way. Some think luck isn’t random. Maybe it is made from gratitude, generosity, and a seat at the table — all attributes of Thanksgiving, after all.
But, when it comes to gambling, specifically playing the slots, is there such thing as luck? We’ve all heard the following or some version of the following:
“I know a woman who is the luckiest person at the casino. Every time she plays the slots, she wins! She never loses. Amazing!” Or, “I know a woman who is the unluckiest person at the casino. Every time she plays slots she loses. She has never been ahead
at any time in her playing. Amazing!”
Now most of us tend to
be skeptical of such claims,
as we should be, but there
are certainly players who
seem to have had remarkable good luck at the slots. So why are they so lucky? And what about those poor souls who have had miserable luck at the slot machines? Why are they so unlucky?
Gaming enthusiast Frank Scoblete, author of several books, including I Am a Dice Controller: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Craps!, wrote about the reality of Lady Luck in a column for Jackpot!
He answered the questions on luck by explaining no one is lucky and no one is unlucky. The winner has not had good luck. The loser has not had bad luck.
Scoblete wrote,
“You know why?
There is no such thing
as luck, good or bad,
when it comes to slot
machines. At least there is no such thing if we think of luck as being some force outside of ourselves that chooses us for good or bad gambling tidings. Which means there is no ‘Lady Luck,’ no ‘Dame Fortune,’ no ‘Nemesis.’ Sadly no rabbit’s foot, no amulet, no herbs, spices, symbols or mystical mandalas can turn the head of the entity that distributes luck.”
So why do some people win and others lose when playing slot machines? Isn’t that luck? How is it that some people have done much better at the machines over time than others? If it isn’t luck, what can it be?
Scoblete says, it is merely chance, just blind chance.
Take this as an example: What if we had a million slot machines all geared to being played simultaneously. We put mannequins at each machine and those mannequins can only do one thing — press the play
button.
So a million machines are played in an
instant. Yes, some of those mannequins will win on those spins and many more will lose. Are the mannequins who won lucky? Are the ones who lost unlucky?
Let’s have each mannequin switch to another machine and again we go through a million spins and see what happens. We can keep switching mannequins from machine to machine to machine until the mannequins face thousands of decisions at thousands of machines. What will we see?
There will be some mannequins who are ahead. There will be many mannequins behind. They did not
have anything to do with whether they won or lost; they just happened, by chance, to be at machines that won them money. The losing mannequins just happened to be at machines that took their money.
Yes, when someone has, by chance, been lucky as were some of the above mannequins, there is a distinct tendency to think that luck was bestowed on them by some secret or spiritual force. That does not happen.
So why are players so convinced that luck actually exists? First, if we take a look at the long history of mankind we see that good and bad fortunes were meted out by the gods or spirits. Life was often thought to hinge on the benevolence or malevolence of such gods or spirits. The fact that these ideas still exist is not hard to believe.
But, luck is pure chance.
Now, most slot players don’t walk through the slot aisles carefully observing players. That’s the job of gaming writers. What I’ve noticed is that many players have trinkets that can give them good fortune. Such beliefs then make them feel blessed when they win and take such wins as affirmations of their worth. The losers, well, their self-worth just isn’t as high as the winners. Of course such thinking is silly.
So, when sitting down to eat that turkey, stuffing, cranberry and yams with the little marshmallows on top, keep in mind slot machines are a game of chance, not luck. Leave the luck for hoping the good buttered rolls get passed around the table and have a happy Thanksgiving.
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