Word: game
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Almost every service station along the highways these days looks like a miniature Las Vegas. Banners, billboards and other ballyhoo urge motorists to win big prizes by matching Dino Dollars, playing Tigerino, collecting Presidential Coins or joining in scores of other games. There is not a casino in the world with the gall to offer odds as long as those that are standard in service stations and supermarket "games of chance." The Federal Trade Commission, which two weeks ago concluded a two-year study of promotional lures, found that in one food-chain game that touted...
...Money Game. Edwards, 42, is head of the University of Michigan's Engineering Psychology Laboratory. Since last July, he has been operating an ingenious gambling experiment called "Stakes & Odds" at the Four Queens Hotel in Las Vegas. With the full encouragement of the house and the Nevada State Gaming Commission, a computer has recorded the decision-making patterns of some 250 volunteers. The game that they are asked to play (with real money) has two parts: in the first, a player must select two bets, one good and one bad, from four that are offered him; in the second...
Unaffected by such emotional factors, a computer does better at the game than people do-which does not mean that decision theorists have contempt for man. In fact, Edwards has a profound respect for the logical abilities of the human mind. One of the inexplicable wonders of life is that a normal man can, with almost ridiculous ease, solve in an instant problems of theoretically great complexity. Take for example, ticktacktoe. Theoretically, in five moves alone this childishly simple game can be played 15,120 different ways. Nonetheless, man easily cuts his way through these impenetrable thickets of choice...
...odds may now be running out on the games themselves. The FTC has concluded that the games are prone to "manipulation and rigging," as any driver with a glove compartment full of useless tickets has long suspected. Typically, the major prizes are "seeded" at times and places where they will draw the most publicity. In Florida, the promotion manager of one oil company personally chose the two stations to receive winning tickets for the top prizes-two cars -and told dealers to issue them to a customer from a college or local company so that the good word would...
Hard to Drop. The game producers are the big winners. Since Joseph Segel, founder of the four-year-old Franklin Mint, sold his Mr. President game to Shell for $3.1 million last fall, the stock of his Pennsylvania firm has more than doubled in price and split 2-for-1. The dealers are among the games' most vigorous opponents. They find that the promotions are troublesome to handle, and almost impossible to drop if the oil companies flood the area with advertisements-as they often do. Increased gasoline sales do not always make up for the cost...