Have trouble understanding your cat? As a slots player, you may have a leg up in knowing your cat and not even know it.
Colorado’s News 9 recently did a segment on what cats try to communicate with their owners, and you’ll be surprised to know that cats draw comparisons to slot machines.
Psychologist Dr. Max Wachtel spoke with the news channel about how, in contrast to dogs, cats don’t show their love very much. But when they do, it feels great — sort of like when you win in slots.
“In psychology, that’s referred to as intermittent positive reinforcement,” said Wachtel. “It’s the same thing that draws people to playing slot machines. You very rarely win, but when you do, it feels so good.”
He added, “It’s the same thing coming from a cat. You very rarely get that love. But when you do, it feels great.”
We’ve discussed partial slots wins before, and this is one of the casino’s biggest tricks to keeping us spinning the reels.
Studies show that partial wins and near-misses create false optimism that you can turn around your session at any moment.
We have no idea if the concept of partial wins applies to cats. Maybe this would be like when they show you affection for a few seconds before leaving.
But what Wachtel says about the cat’s rare affection and rare big wins in slots makes sense. After all, most of us don’t hit big payouts on slot machines very often. But when you do get lucky and hit a huge payout, every losing session feels like it was worth the effort.