To accentuate the illusion of control, some slot machines are designed so that players can manually terminate the spinning of one or all reels rather than wait until they run their full course—either by pressing a STOP button, by pressing the SPIN button a second time, or by touching one or more reels on the video screen.34 Although game outcomes are determined at the precise instant that the SPIN button is initially touched, gamblers using such “stop” features seem to feel they have an effect on outcomes and are known to persist at play for significantly longer periods than they otherwise
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