Time To Ban The Feature Buy!

sledge13

Senior Member
Joined
Jul 10, 2014
Location
York
Tracemonkey and other respected posters on here have made great points about the danger of these new "buy feature" slots.

Started by Btg and seem to be increasing, I have blocked my play due to the disgraceful Extra Chilli, made to just play on a slot players weakness and take money fast and actually rub it in to lose when buying a feature?!?!!? and most of the time! how is this even allowed?

Push Gaming are also guilty with Wild Swarm, to just keep pushing for that final level 5, which then just switches off and procedes to rip the player for an age.

Please fellow players time to boycott these people and their slots, they have zero respect for the players and deserve the same back.
 
For every seasoned slotter shunning these practices there'll be another 10 new ones to take their place.

It's going to take some governing body to put a halt to proceedings, and I won't be holding my breath for that one :cool:
 
how about banning slots that encourage you to gambling to get a better feature when it consistently pays worse than lower features.

TED im on about, the oone before BIG money ALWAYS pays worse than other 3 bonus rounds yet its hard to trigger. and always in that bonus round even with these mythical wilds added and mutliplier you NEVER hit any base game wins.
 
There is no doubt these buy features are causing RG issues for some, the number of threads I have seen on another forum like "Extra chilli ruined my life" etc.

I was watching Rocknrolla a few weeks ago buy and lose six gambles in a row on stream, he increased the bet by £50 each time. I felt the pain watching that! :oops:

L&LJan announced earlier a new game with a buy feature and I can see these becoming more frequent over time as slot developers run 2 years behind in development.

Just like smoking, one you start (buying a feature and gambling it) you won't be able to stop!
 
I agree - the Buy Feature is most appealing to the compulsive impatient gambler = the ones most likely to slip into dangerous addiction IMPO :mad:

I remember the earliest form of this I saw was Hot Ink by MG: this was one of their slots where you could buy a re-spin on just ONE reel, while the others were held.
The big temptation, which I succumbed to myself in 2013, was when you had wild on 4 reels, and so re-span the other reel at ENORMOUS cost.

Can't remember what I was betting in the base game - but definitely no more than £2/spin.
With wilds on 4 reels I was re-spinning at £76.22 a pop! :eek:
Maybe not quite as crazy as it sounds, as the minimum return was $48, but then the max was £167.40, and it wouldn't take too many poor spins chasing the big ones to knock a serious hole in your balance.

At least with Genie Jackpots, Extra Chilli and the like, you CAN win more than 2x your total buy stake... but you can also win 0.00 :(

HotInkMadness_Feb13.JPG

KK
 
There is no doubt these buy features are causing RG issues for some, the number of threads I have seen on another forum like "Extra chilli ruined my life" etc.

I was watching Rocknrolla a few weeks ago buy and lose six gambles in a row on stream, he increased the bet by £50 each time. I felt the pain watching that! :oops:

L&LJan announced earlier a new game with a buy feature and I can see these becoming more frequent over time as slot developers run 2 years behind in development.

Just like smoking, one you start (buying a feature and gambling it) you won't be able to stop!
Yep I have posted on that thread your on about. It actually drove me to Gamstop. Lost thousands on it.
 
Can’t help thinking this whole industry is riddled with hypocrisy. I mean on one hand you have all the gambleaware paraphernalia and on the other hand you have feature buys at a £1,000 a pop being passed fit for purpose. It’s a bit confusing as to who’s winning the war here.
 
Can’t help thinking this whole industry is riddled with hypocrisy. I mean on one hand you have all the gambleaware paraphernalia and on the other hand you have feature buys at a £1,000 a pop being passed fit for purpose. It’s a bit confusing as to who’s winning the war here.
Which is why this was time for me to go away from it in terms of feeding into it in monetary terms. A total sham.
 
Yep I have posted on that thread your on about. It actually drove me to Gamstop. Lost thousands on it.

It's a shame if this slot actually drove you to quit. Were you managing fine before Extra Chilli came out?

Glad you went ahead and used Gamstop. Even if it's just a 6 or 12 month break, it will give you a chance to sort things out :)
 
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Ok so I partook of Genie Megaways with some VS winnings, £40 leftovers to see what the deal is. Proceeded to throw caution to the wind and rattled the £10 bonuses off.

Well blow me sideways, what an absolute disgrace. I've seen some things, but that....

Locked Reels is the only workable one, the 'Unlimited Multiplier' should be locked up by itself! The sticky wild bonus is passable, but the point remains that two, maybe three of the bonuses are ponzis. Really not a good implementation, for any number of reasons, but the speed of losing has to rank up there. Grim stuff :eek2:
 
Is it dangerous? Yes
Is it useful? Also yes!

The option to bet $10 to buy a feature instead of betting $10 on a spin on any other slot is a very very good thing.

I agree with you that the option to gamble the feature you bought (and lose it all) in Extra Chilly is too much. But the ban is wrong. The ban is a bad thing.
A forced max bet limit < 2% of the balance, combined with SOW and the option to buy features at a much smaller cost (normal min bet down to $0.01) is exactly what this needs.

Forced max bet limit < 2% of the balance and min bet 0.01 is what we should be asking IMHO.
 
I posted about this on one of the BTG threads a while back, specifically how the MD of BTG bangs on about RG then introduces shit like this. This is as far from responsible gaming as you can get in my view. Of course I was told how wrong I was on that thread by certain members, but hey ho :)
I wouldn't be too sure about the UKGC not doing anything at some point either, I think the fact Skybet remove feature buys from their slots speaks volumes. Skybet like money, they wouldn't remove features like this unless they had good reason to.
 
Is it dangerous? Yes
Is it useful? Also yes!

The option to bet $10 to buy a feature instead of betting $10 on a spin on any other slot is a very very good thing.

I agree with you that the option to gamble the feature you bought (and lose it all) in Extra Chilly is too much. But the ban is wrong. The ban is a bad thing.
A forced max bet limit < 2% of the balance, combined with SOW and the option to buy features at a much smaller cost (normal min bet down to $0.01) is exactly what this needs.

Forced max bet limit < 2% of the balance and min bet 0.01 is what we should be asking IMHO.

I'm all for RG, but am struggling to understand how that would work, so if I had £10 in my account, I could only bet in 20p's? Or do you just mean for feature buys? Which would mean a balance of £5k to buy a £100 feature?
 
Simple solution, set your bet limits to something below $10 and you can't buy the feature. Raising it has a cool-off period, so you can't go on tilt whenever you feel.

Somebody not able to control him/herself from buying it all the time indicates they have in general a gambling problem already, which has been there before and for which they should seek help.

I see the "buy feature" as a natural development, people are getting increasingly impatient in our times. Everything has to be now and "pronto", and BTG has supplied the tool that accomplishes that on a slot.
 
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Maybe I'm not a real gambler or something but I don't understand why it's more dangerous than chasing losses on Roulette by playing Black/Red.

In my opinion if you don't even have enough self control to not buy features on slots you shouldn't be playing slots to begin with. Asking others to take down "tempting" features because you can't control yourself isn't a solution. That's like asking the bar down the street to stop selling hard liquor because you can't handle it.
 
I have said earlier in another post, 12 feature buys between $120 and $160, the largest return was $29, majority were $12 and under, fucking disgraceful.....I am off the BTG for good
 
Maybe I'm not a real gambler or something but I don't understand why it's more dangerous than chasing losses on Roulette by playing Black/Red.

In my opinion if you don't even have enough self control to not buy features on slots you shouldn't be playing slots to begin with. Asking others to take down "tempting" features because you can't control yourself isn't a solution. That's like asking the bar down the street to stop selling hard liquor because you can't handle it.

Well bad example. Because on roulette you dont have the chance to hit 20,000x that everyone is dreaming of so its nowhere near as attractive.

But yeah have some self control. Still hate bonus buys.
 
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Well bad example. Because on roulette you dont have the chance to hit 20,000x that everyone is dreaming of so its nowhere near as attractive.

It's not about attractiveness and temptation isn't an excuse. If you can't control yourself you shouldn't play, period. If you need help there are ways to block yourself from playing. Don't put the responsibility for excessive behaviour on slot designers. That's like putting the responsibility of your eating habits on Burger King.

It's very bad to ask others to take the responsibility for your actions and this is true outside of the gambling world as well.

Now do I like a bonus buy feature? No I don't. I think it ruins the slots which is why I don't play them. I know one thing though: if the bonus buys aren't popular they will stop making them. That's the best kind of regulation.
 
Slots are inherently designed to take advantage of our psychology. From wikipedia: "As stated earlier in this article, a variable ratio schedule yields reinforcement after the emission of an unpredictable number of responses. This schedule typically generates rapid, persistent responding. Slot machines pay off on a variable ratio schedule, and they produce just this sort of persistent lever-pulling behavior in gamblers. The variable ratio payoff from slot machines and other forms of gambling has often been cited as a factor underlying gambling addiction."

Add in all the flashy lights, the giant wins every few thousand spins to make us hope, and how bad people are at intuitively grasping the probabilities behind the games, these all work together to prey upon people's addictive tendencies. We should ban slots altogether. Anything that pays at more than 1:1 odds should be banned.

Actually, even 1:1 bets can have the same problems. Tons of people have lost their savings and even ruined their lives on sportsbetting and other casino games. As said above, these still have the same unpredictability that our minds can have trouble intuitively understanding. We should actually just ban gambling altogether so that people will no longer suffer.

Or maybe... we can try to emphasize responsible gambling measures that don't involve taking away the freedoms of everyone else?

The same type of arguments above are part of the reason that gambling is a nightmare in so many places, people forced to deal with increasingly restricting rules or dealing with casinos licenced out of impoverished caribbean countries or semi-sovereign native american groups with a weird criminal/violent history because all the reputable companies are forced out of the picture.

It's just surprising to me that 90% of the people here seem to be happy with the response "just ban it!" Is that really the direction people want to go? Maybe a little more effort into responsible gambling measures that don't involve just banning things or limiting people to betting 50 cents? How about casinos that make people choose between responsible gambling options when they create their account? Let them set max bets, deposit limits, game types, or "no thanks, maybe later." Another small screen and a few clicks, seems simple enough. How about a warning when people click the trigger feature that wins aren't guaranteed and the feature is high risk, with an option to hide the warning in the future?

Sure, it's never going to be perfect, people will always find a way to stupidly blow their money, but I don't think outright bans are the way to go. The logic being used by people above sounds the same to me as the ones who want gambling banned altogether.

Now, I would say, if features are misleadingly designed to imply that the big prizes are way more likely than they actually are, that could be a problem, though it would be tough to address. For example, if free spin feature payouts are determined in advance rather than from random reels, so those "near misses" never had a realistic chance of actually hitting, I think that's a pretty dirty practice.
 
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Is it dangerous? Yes
Is it useful? Also yes!

The option to bet $10 to buy a feature instead of betting $10 on a spin on any other slot is a very very good thing.

I agree with you that the option to gamble the feature you bought (and lose it all) in Extra Chilly is too much. But the ban is wrong. The ban is a bad thing.
A forced max bet limit < 2% of the balance, combined with SOW and the option to buy features at a much smaller cost (normal min bet down to $0.01) is exactly what this needs.

Forced max bet limit < 2% of the balance and min bet 0.01 is what we should be asking IMHO.

Reply below also in Buffalo Rising thread...

That would be kind of unworkable... Because your max bet would constantly change after every spin. The only workable solution would be Max Bet of no greater than 2% of your deposit. That way if you deposit £100 you can only bet at £2 for the entirety of the session. If you deposit again with a lower amount while you still have funds greater than 1x max bet, the initial max bet limit applies. If you make a higher deposit, the higher max bet would apply.

Something like that could work... But the % of balance would be quite confusing... If you put in 100 you could only bet at 2 once then your bet would have to drop....

Are there any sites that allows players to set a stake limit?
 
It's just surprising to me that 90% of the people here seem to be happy with the response "just ban it!" Is that really the direction people want to go? Maybe a little more effort into responsible gambling measures that don't involve just banning things or limiting people to betting 50 cents? How about casinos that make people choose between responsible gambling options when they create their account? Let them set max bets, deposit limits, game types, or "no thanks, maybe later." Another small screen and a few clicks, seems simple enough. How about a warning when people click the trigger feature that wins aren't guaranteed and the feature is high risk, with an option to hide the warning in the future?

Sure, it's never going to be perfect, people will always find a way to stupidly blow their money, but I don't think outright bans are the way to go. The logic being used by people above sounds the same to me as the ones who want gambling banned altogether.

In part you're right and in part I agree with you... Saying "ban it" just takes it away from those that are responsible to help the minority that are irresponsible.

However if something is found to encourage irresponsible gambling then that is difficult to defend, especially when combined with high rates of loss.

For example, I doubt a gambler who had lost way more than they could afford and who had only 50 quid in their account would do one spin at £50. But on Extra Chilli they could buy a feature for £50 gamble and lose the lot in one go. Why? Because the psychological pull is much stronger... It plays on the "you are more likely to get your losses back" heart strings. So I would argue (maybe wrongly) that feature buys are more likely to encourage problem gamblers.

But I'm also a big believer in "no one is forced the gamble and they have to be responsible for themselves". I'm torn.

I have nothing against feature buys per se... But a feature buy where the initial buy is expensive and the feature itself is normally poor and therefore people feel they HAVE to gamble to get a decent return... To me that's dangerous. But equally I have no idea how you legislate against that other than an outright ban... And even that is probably quite hard to legislate for....

As I've mentioned before I'm between a rock and a hard place here ... I totally understand why BTG have done it (and they aren't the first... Reflex did it many many years ago on a B2 game which had a fishing theme... Can't remember the name) and as a game designer myself I would be very likely to do it myself. But also as an advocate of RG I have to reconcile this with not wanting people to gamble beyond their means. I want people to have fun and lose what they can afford to lose and to keep coming back.

Getting someone to lose everything and GamStop is of no benefit because that player is likely lost forever.

I don't want to ban them - I think there are better ways to go about it (like players being forced to set a max stake limit). But if we as an industry aren't careful I can see the UKGC taking a sledgehammer approach to this at some point.
 
I don't want to ban them - I think there are better ways to go about it (like players being forced to set a max stake limit). But if we as an industry aren't careful I can see the UKGC taking a sledgehammer approach to this at some point.

That's a good point from a pragmatic point of view. There are potentially different perspectives between 1. player 2. industry and 3. regulator.

There are probably always going to be difficult questions regarding the best ways to balance responsible gaming and freedom, but my somewhat cynical belief is that the problem gamblers tend to find a way to blow their money no matter what you do. So restrictions tend to not have much value to problem gamblers - sometimes even harming them by driving games underground and out of regulated jurisdictions that ensure payouts and fair games. While the recreational players end up losing their freedoms.

I am absolutely in favor though of casinos taking a pro-active approach in encouraging players to set their own responsible gaming limits. It's an incredibly minor hassle for someone to just say "no thanks," while it puts it front and center for those who want it. I'll admit that even people who aren't addicts can sometimes make pretty huge mistakes, and something like this should be moderately effective in stopping that. They won't lose their life savings in minutes if they set their limits at account creation. Now, if they go to 6 different casinos over the course of 20 minutes to get around their own self restrictions and blow their savings anyway, I don't think there was anything the casinos could have (or should have) done to help them.
 

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