Some time ago, while hanging out with old friends, I had an interesting moment. One of my friends is the type of person who plays slot machines by observing certain patterns while playing, and think he feels that it influences the outcome. At that time, he was playing Gates of Olympus, and before purchasing a feature, he manually spun the reels until he found an interesting pattern. I really didn't understand what he was seeing or doing. I just watched him for a moment, and he even seemed to be able to predict when lightning would strike, and he seemed to truly understand what he was doing, some times I did see it make a profit, and some times it didn't.
However, I wasn't focused on what he was doing; I felt it was all about luck, so personally, I just played slots without paying attention to any particular patterns. So, what about you? Are you one of those people? or are you just a casual player like me? If so, please give your reasons.
Casinos want you to see patterns and will actively engineer algorithms that are designed to give the look of patterns. Everyone's mins is built to look for patterns, it's a human instinct and can be used for many different reasons. We tend to find comfort in order and being able to decipher the world around us. Patterns give us an idea that we have some degree of control or might be able to guess what is coming next - it might get us to spin the slots one more time (or ten) which would make the casino that little bit richer in every gambling session. Beware of thinking you see patterns because it might be intentional and misleading - if a casino is truly honest then their random number generation shouldn't allow it.