Tonight I cleverly avoided a $5000 profit in Las Vegas

[Awsi Dooger]

My friend Larry was insistent on heading to the Las Vegas Hilton to check out the six Wild Cherry Pie dollar bonus machines. We have been going 50/50 on bonus machines lately, and hitting a remarkable amount of generous spins, including 10x, 10x, Triple Bar on a quarter machine at Stardust.

I decided to stay at the Frontier and see if TCU could complete its comeback from a 31-6 deficit vs. Southern Miss, to remain unbeaten and a BCS threat. An hour later my friend Larry returned via taxicab -- with a bulging wallet, nonstop grin and two Polaroids confirming his surreal good fortune.

Larry hit 3 Wild Cherry Pie symbols on the payline with 3 coins in (the maximum) for a cool $10,000. I've never even contemplated that hit, or seen anyone else get it. "Sorry man, you could have had half," Larry said. "I begged you to go."

For the past several hours I've been rationalizing that the spin was pure random, and a trip to the Hilton in my car would have altered the timing and changed everything. My insomnia indicates I'm not buying any of it.

At least I stumbled into a nice solo consolation prize at Treasure Island later -- Red 7, Triple Diamond, Triple Diamond on a Diamond Mine machine for 900 quarters.

[Don_G]

1. Look At It This Way

He's the one that has to fill out those nasty IRS forms.

[Awsi Dooger]

4. Yeah, he kidded me about that immediately

Opening up the crumpled forms they gave him for tax purposes, and emphasizing what a stressful hassle it was going to be, with all those zeros.

Larry tipped $500, a hundred each to the female photographer and four casino employees who assisted in the payout.

[Bronco69]

2. How long are you going to be there?

Maybe your luck will change. I go to Vegas about twice a year and I never win anything. I hit one jackpot for $1200 back in 1996, but as a rule I always spend the money I take with me.

[Awsi Dooger]

5. For some reason I live here

I do computer sports analysis, mostly statistics and trends on Excel, for the casino sportsbooks and some bigtime speculators. It's incredibly tedious, and I use the golf courses and bonus machines as necessary escapes.

[onebigbadwulf]

3. Damn you're the luckiest guy I've ever heard

The most I win from machines is 3 quarters or so.

The most I've won is a 40 dollar bet which quickly disappeared.


Vegas stings me.

[Awsi Dooger]

6. I would never play a slot machine at random

Most of the casinos still have several Vision, or bonus, machines. Apparently they were big profit goldmines in the late '90s, before I became aware of them, but now are at about 20% or less of the peak numbers.

Let's say a bonus payout is at 10. You walk by a machine and some unknowing tourist has abandoned it at 9. At that point you play the machine only until the bonus has been paid. It's simply a method to temporarily turn a 5 or 10% disadvantage into a theoretical small advantage with selective, intelligent play.

Luckily (?) I am a daily sports bettor and in good longterm standing with the casinos. Some of them, notably Park Place Entertainment (Bally's, Paris, etc.) frown on bonus players and exclude locals who pounce on those machines all day. It is incredible gall, literally trespassing people out of the casino permanently simply because of the machine they choose to play.

Lately the bonus machines have been extremely kind to me, especially Kool Kat and Slot Bingo, but sometimes it is a nightly waste of a few hours I could better utilize to catch up on my sports statistical research.

[mrbill]

7. if a frog had wings his butt wouldn't drag the ground when he jumped.

A trip to the hilton with your friend larry would have altered the sequence of things. You might have walked in and witnessed a tourist from iowa doing a happy dance.

[Awsi Dooger]

8. Does that include a Horned Frog?

That's TCU, hereby designated the $5000 Frogs.

And no happy dances here this week, mrbill, just Comdex and empty casinos. The casino employees annually loathe the computer convention, which used to number 250,000 visitors but post 9/11 and the dotcom boom is now down to an estimated 75,000 or less. And the techno tourists seem to vaporize at night. They return to their hotel rooms and laptops, with virtually no activity in the hotels at all.

The town doesn't start dancing again until the rowdy rodeo crowd arrives in early December, with cocktail waitresses nicely filling out western jeans and seemingly more cowboy hats than losing gamblers.

Still, I agree with your moment-in-time assessment. Many of my friends think the dormant machines will always produce the same sequence of spins regardless of time lapse, but slot mechanics have told me otherwise. Plus, my friend played a very ambitious setup on the cherry pie machine that I likely would have declined, even at 50/50. I forgot to mention he was $400 into the play, and banging it 3 coins at a time out of frustration when the miracle spin occured.

[GOPisEvil]

9. Please tell you you had Southern Miss...

...please...

Southern Miss has always been relatively tough. I remember when I was a student at Texas A&M, USM came to town a couple of times for a paycheck and an ass-whooping. Their quarterback was some guy named Favre, and he had a really good receiver whose name escapes me at the moment. They were good for about 2 miracle plays a game that made jaws drop. I knew then that if that Favre kid got a chance, and was surrounded by good players, he'd be REALLY good someday.

[Awsi Dooger]

10. Yep, -1 1/2 points in the first half

Cupcakes, 24-6. Sometimes these collegiate first halves feel like theft, but not exactly $5,000 worth. Ahhhhhhhhhh. It's 5:30 AM and no threat of sleep. Oh, of course, I'll just invent a winning megaparlay for Saturday. No problem.

GOPisEVIL, have you seen that Hail Mary play by Favre at Southern Miss that ESPN is replaying as one of the best ever candidates? It doesn't threaten the Stanford band classic from '82, but I had not seen it before and Favre really chucked that thing. Plus, he beat FSU in Tallahassee as a senior, always appreciated. I couldn't believe it when Atlanta gave up on Favre so soon.

My wagering friends love your Aggies this year. The Baylor bashing was the only game they have covered all season. Utah, Rutgers, Navy and LSU have each blown only one cover all year, but I think A&M is the only team with only one pointspread success.

On edit, nope you have underachieving company in Iowa St, according to my records. The Cyclones are 1-8 vs. the number heading into Saturday's struggle with Kansas.

[GOPisEvil]

12. *snarf* at least we're good for something!

I heard one week that Rutgers was the most active team in terms of betting. They had blown every cover all year (until VA Tech, I guess).

[BlueJazz]

11. In a strange way, Larry should share some of his money...

....If you had gone with him the events of the night would have been differently.
Even the time it would have taken to get in the door would have changed the events that led up to his winning.

In fact, he OWES you big time!! (OK, I just trying to make you feel better)

[Awsi Dooger]

13. "Don't you mean OUR money, Mr. Hand?"

Gad, at 6:30 AM and still sleepless I'm contemplating a Jeff Spiccoli argument for Friday afternoon.