As an occasional player, I have shied away from slots for a couple reasons. First, a penny slot meant, at one time long ago, that you would play a penny. As the article points out, the average play is now $1.90. (in reality, I didn't see penny slots - but I saw nickel or dime slots)

The second reason is that I like the simplicity of a quarter machine that takes a quarter and shows the results on a single line - none of this 13 or 21 lines and trying to figure out visually if you really won. If I got 3 of a kind on an old machine, I knew I won. Now it gets so complicated that I have to take the machine's word for it. Similar to this: all these new games try to re-invent the wheel to keep us entertained, and it's near impossible to figure out what wins.

As a result, I have switched to quarter poker machines where I know the payouts and can process the display without needing to consult the instructions.