The Impact of Near Misses: How Casinos Keep You Playing

Casino games run on chance and uncertainty, something that revs up our imagination and stimulates us to play. The effects of winning and losing, at a surface level, are easy to imagine. But beneath the veneer of a winner's high or a regretful loss, the emotional psychology of casino games is extremely multi-faceted. For instance, a near miss is technically a loss if you are looking at each round based on the result. But in that moment it doesn't have the same impact as a complete or damning loss.

Instead, near misses can trigger our brain to release dopamine and entice us to keep playing. The brain lights up, the game has got your full attention, as you have come so close to hitting the big win. It can build up a powerful urge to try again, as you may feel the big win is just around the corner.

Defining Near Misses

Now there is a lot to be analysed about near misses. Such as whether casinos scientifically engineer their games to have more near wins or whether any laws forbid casinos from deliberately rigging machines to produce more near misses. Before going into all of that, let's really define the phenomenon, as the lines can get pretty blurred as far as what constitutes a near miss or close loss.

The simplest example is a near miss in slots, when you are one symbol short of winning the big jackpot. For instance, landing Cherry-Cherry-Bell in a classic three reel slot machine. You need 1 more Cherry to form a line of three Cherries, an obvious near miss.

Is it though?

As with slots there are so many times when you can swap 1 symbol in a line to get a win. The slots are designed to have many different payouts, and a vast number of random outcomes. It gets even more complex if you look at slots with bigger grids, wild symbols, and more tiered payout structures. For example, 5-reel machines where you can still make payouts if you land 3+ matching symbols along a payline, or even 2+.

In those instances, if you land 4 symbols, it wins, but there could be a 4th symbol that is just displaced by 1 row. You could count this as a near miss, as the payout difference may be anything from 2x up to 5x or more. Or in the case of scatter symbols, you land 2 out of the required 3 to trigger a bonus round. Especially in those slots where, when you land 2 scatter symbols, the last few columns spin a little slower to build up the tension. It is just another facet of the complex slots psychology.

Near Misses in Games Outside Slots

Slots are really quite complex to analyse, and what exactly constitutes a near miss can vary tremendously between one game and the other. We don't think about the near miss when almost getting 3 symbols in a sequence as much as when it is 4 out of 5, or 5 out of 6. The more meaningful the potential win could be, the more the near miss is felt.

A phenomenon that is also apparent in other classic casino games.

Roulette and Blackjack

There are many bets you can use in roulette, covering anywhere from 1 segment up to half the wheel. And no one is stopping you from placing multiple bets in one round. When the ball lands on a segment just outside your covered areas, it is a near miss. Near misses in roulette are more painful when you are using a higher value bet, such as a straight up, double, or corners.

For blackjack players, near misses are a bit more difficult to define. These games are made more complex by the addition of the element of control. Your decision can influence the outcome of a hand of blackjack, and in some cases it can also work against you. Here is a quick example:

• You are drawn 2 and 6 (Y: 12), the dealer's face-up card is 8 (D: 8)
• Hitting, you draw an 8 (Y: 16), then hit again and draw a 3 and then stand (Y: 19, D: 8)
• The dealer flips the face-down card to reveal a 6 (Y: 20, D: 13)
• They draw a 7 and win (Y: 20, D: 21)

If you stood on 16, the dealer would have drawn the 3 (D: 16), and then drawn the 6, going bust on 22. It is quite complex, but the idea is that your decisions led to a narrow defeat, or a close miss. The more common example of a near miss is when you draw and go just over 21, or land on 20. You could still win on 20, but if the dealer wins by hitting the blackjack, it steals your thunder and can spark that urge to try again.

Video Poker

Video poker is another complex game that can produce near misses. All video poker optimal strategies place heavy emphasis on higher ranking poker hands. And if you are close to hitting one, they would have you toss the cards that don't fit the hand and hold onto the ones that could form the high payout. On paper, this strategy could also improve a video poker game's RTP. There is a lot of room for near misses in video poker. And gambler's remorse as well, when you throw away already formed lower ranking hands to take a gamble on the higher paying hands.

Legality and Near Misses

Naturally, gamblers who experience near misses may question whether these are intentional or not. They produce the desired effect on players, in getting them to play more. A big scandal erupted in the late 1980s when regulators brought a case against Universal Co. to the Nevada Gaming Control Board.

They asserted that the slot machines supplied by Universal were specially programmed to make more near misses. The Japanese company Universal Co. Ltd. produced over a hundred thousand slot machines in Las Vegas and New Jersey that were part of the investigation. Regulators deemed these machines misleading because they contained devices that misled players. Specifically, they took advantage of near misses and the case deemed that they programmed their machines to show more near misses than statistically probable.

It was quite an interesting lawsuit, as the full case acknowledged that 3-reel slot machines often have more winning symbols on the first two reels than the third. But the controversy surrounded Universal's use of making misleading impressions further up on the payline (first columns and not last). The vote ruled against Universal, and over 120,000 slot machines had to be reprogrammed.

Now there haven't been many similar high profile cases about near misses. But it did show us that to some extent, lawmakers know about the impact of near misses, and that, yes, a certain amount is tolerated. However, to win over public trust and enforce game integrity, developers cannot rig games to make more near misses than statistically probable.

Secondary Decision Outcomes

The law forbids casinos from using Secondary Decision outcomes. These are basically bonus games or side bets offered during regular gameplay. For example, casinos might offer a bonus picking round, a coin toss gamble, or a pick red/black card feature. When casinos offer these games, they cannot predetermine the outcomes.

Any gamble or wager offered cannot have a fixed result if it is presented as a random bet. So, secondary decision outcomes are illegal, and these games are not rigged by casinos. They can still feel like near misses though, especially when they look like 50-50 shots.

RNG and Gaming Integrity

When online games are tested for fairness, operators hand them over to third party auditors. The operators can tweak a game's algorithms and payout structure to their liking, and then the auditors must test these games. These third party auditors run hundreds of thousands of simulations on each individual game to see whether they use proper RNGs. Using these tests, they can determine whether the game is fair to play or not.

Odds of Near Misses Occuring

The great issue here is that whether we like it or not, there are more “near win” scenarios than winning scenarios. The probability and odds indicate you are more likely to have a near miss than the win itself. In video poker, there are only 4 Royal Flush hands (10, J, Q, K and A of Diamonds/Hearts/Clubs/Spades), but if you were to take out just one to make the flush or the straight, there are far more than 4 scenarios.

• Missing 1 card of the suit, breaking the flush: 3x possibilities for each of the 5 suited cards = 15x
• Missing 1 card of the sequence, breaking the straight: 8x possibilities for each of the 5 flush cards = 40x
• Missing 1 card that breaks the flush and the straight: 24x for each of the 5 royal flush cards = 120x

There are 4 Royal Flush combinations in total. Compare that to 15 combinations where you hit a straight, but not a Royal Flush. Or, 40 cases, you make a straight, but one card breaks the flush that would make the Royal Flush. And these pale in comparison to the 120 hands where you have 4 Royal Flush cards and the last card is off suit and off rank.

And this goes for all other games too. In slots, there may be several paylines through which you can form higher payout sequences. But there are loads more near misses for every exact win.

Other Psychological Elements Casinos Can Use

Near misses are, therefore, inevitable during gaming and something you shouldn't get excited or carried away by. The odds of hitting a near miss are higher than actually winning. The games are designed this way, and casinos don't need to rig their RNGs or programming. The near misses occur naturally and can have the desired effect on players without needing additional reinforcement.

No, instead casinos actively use other mediums to get you to play more. Bonuses and promotions are especially prominent at online casinos. With their resources, there are all kinds of bonuses online casinos can lavish on players. Just some examples would be matched deposit bonuses, bonus spin offers, bet and get promos, and even loyalty rewards. These all work to incentivise gamers and get them playing. The house always has an edge, in every casino game you play, and so they don't need to rig their games to make money.

Instead, they just need people to come back and play more. This is why it is highly important to always stay in control during your gaming.

How to Stay Safe and Play Responsibly

At licensed online casinos, you will have access to safer gambling tools. These help you monitor how much money and time you spend gaming. You are fully encouraged to use them, to avoid overspending or playing for hours on end. Near misses, just like wins and losses, all alter your dopamine regulation and can keep you in the loop. All of these phenomena trigger emotional responses that urge you to play more, albeit for very different reasons.

When you win, you reinforce the risk taking behavior, and it also makes you want to try again to test your luck further. A loss is followed by remorse, but also by the desire to have another go. It can even be just to chase your losses, a common gambler's fallacy and a very dangerous habit to form. Near misses can produce a dopamine hit. And we often get buzzed on the idea of what we nearly won. Instead of looking at it for what it was. A loss, and nothing more.

Therefore, it is also useful to take breaks as often as possible. This helps you stay fresh and avoid falling into these typical fallacies and biases. Ultimately, there is no avoiding near misses. Just bear in mind how often they can occur; and hopefully, they won't have the same impact on you.