Hello all and welcome to my blog!
My name is Armin Malakian, and I am a senior at BASIS Scottsdale. As a senior here, I've been given the incredible and unique opportunity to conduct research on any topic of my choice for approximately 10 weeks during my third trimester. I’ve chosen to focus on what I consider a fascinating topic that I’m sure everyone is familiar with in one way or another: gambling. Now I’m sure most of you reading this are not heavy gamblers, but when i refer to gambling, I really mean the basic principle of risk-taking that molds what we know of as gambling. To be more specific, I want to delve into what goes into creating slots machines, including both the statistics and programming behind them, as well as the designing aspect that makes the games so appealing and addicting to players that keeps them coming back for more, despite knowing their chances of winning are rather low. Here is where I will be relaying all of my experiences during my internship at Design Works Gaming, a company that specializes in 3rd party casino game development.
Throughout all my classes at BASIS, I’ve always found myself able to comprehend and succeed in the more math oriented classes, as all the lessons and concepts easily “clicked” in my head much more so than any other classes. Though I can’t really explain why, these classes simply appealed to me more and even during my final year at BASIS I am taking the AP Statistics course, which relates heavily to my research. This mentality fueled my desire pursue this topic, as slots machines feature a heavy amount of both statistics and programming, as well as many differing strategies behind the design process of the machine and game itself, including small aspects that many people would not consider such as sound effects and colors, but also deeper concepts that deal with how our brains interpret risk. The final result is a product that is able to create a profit for the casino. During my internship, I will be working along with a classmate of mine, Max Waaler, under the guidance of Brant Frazee, a senior game mathematician at Design Works Gaming.
I hope you enjoy reading along with me on all these adventures as I attempt to unfold what goes on Behind the Scenes of Casino Slot Machines.
