It's more than that. In a game like roulette, probability has no memory. In slots, the payout must come eventually, and playing losing rounds only brings you closer to that. There are slots players just waiting for others to go bust so they can swoop in.
Also, one would hope that those that are so addicted that they are fine to just haul-off and piss themselves would be able to think ahead and simply wear a diaper.
The payout is always less than the take, but the parent is correct. In most areas (of the US at least) casino slot machines are pretty tightly regulated to have to pay out a certain percentage of the take.
To give an example, slot machines in Nevada must pay out a minimum of 75% of the take. Additionally, no programming/odds updates or machine resets may be made to the slot machine until the machine has sat idle for a minimum of 4 minutes; and if an update/reset is being made the machine _must_ clearly display that this is occurring.
So the sick thing here is that each loss does in fact bring you closer to the winning spin. One of the only real strategies of slot machines (in the sense that there can be a strategy to a game of luck) is to stand around idling watching other people lose, then after someone leaves a machine with a bad run you immediately drop in to the spot and start playing the same machine.
I had a family friend in the 90s who had a small team of friends who would keep track of progressive slots all over America. When the jackpot got big enough that they knew they could win it by going and pumping cash into the machines non stop, they would all book tickets and just sit in casinos for sometimes days straight pumping away. This mans 9-5 job was a federal judge on the DC circuit.
>To give an example, slot machines in Nevada must pay out a minimum of 75% of the take.
Machines plural - which means a machine that just paid out (in a casino with a large group of machines) can theoretically pay out again before a machine that has a string of losing spins.
The takeout is configurable. With older machines they have to be manually set at the machines, but with more modern machines it is controlled by a server. The period of time while the takeout remains unchanged is referred to as a cycle. Casinos are generally free to change the takeout so long as it is a minimum of the regulated amount. Then there are the regulations requiring idle time at the machines like I mentioned in my previous comment. Additionally, the casino may need to notify the gaming commission prior to making a takeout change depending on local regulations.
Not all slots are connected to one big pot, but a few (the progessives) can be. In which case yes, the takeout requirement is applied to the set of the machines rather than a single machine. So if you had four machines that are fed 250K each and one machine hits for 750K and no other machine hits then that would comply with a 75% takeout. This is majorly oversimplified, but I think you should get the idea.
Worse yet with progressives is they may even span multiple casinos. So that grand prize someone is grinding for and wasting their money on... it may never hit at that casino.