It definitely will affect your gaming experience. The pulling lever stuff will give you some satisfaction despite the slots outcome. Even changing your ordinary PC keyboard into a mechanical keyboard will be more enjoyable for gaming and typing. I'm skeptical about it at first, but after I bought one, I will not use an ordinary keyboard anymore. The feel and the sound are just too stimulating. I think it would be the most reasonable thing to improve your gaming experience as no one would build such a mechanical lever only for playing slots online.
I think so too, if the OP is used to playing real using a machine, then when playing online it will feel different, but along with the adjustment from time to time I think he will get used to it, and will not experience any problems at all.