Experienced video poker players (you may have seen one hunched at a terminal at a bar or gas station, waving fingers over a touch screen in a blur that rivals the best typists) can complete up to 1,200 hands per hour; the rate of play on video slots is similar, up from about 300 games per hour a couple of decades ago. If you wager a quarter on a game, you may “win” fifteen cents—this loss registers as a win with flashing lights, which get integrated with the dopamine reward circuits in your brain. What gamblers call “the zone,” the industry calls “continuous gaming productivity.”
