Slot machines are depressing
You can sit down and plug quarters into a box for an hour or an evening. Lights blink and some corny animation does its best to distract you from the reality that the game is rigged, that the machine will always catch you in the end. You know this, of course—though maybe you hope that tonight one miserable quarter will change everything. And maybe you can cash out your miserable life for a more glamorous sort of emptiness.
At the end of the evening, the slot machine keeps the only promise it made. For the cost of a pocket of quarters, the evening has vanished. There is a little bit less of the future to worry about.
