Every so often, readers send me tales of big wins, back-to-back
jackpots, comebacks--their best days at the casinos. Those are the days
every player likes to relive.
Then there are the days we'd like to forget. I don't hear about these as
often, but they happen to everyone. Let's face it: Losing sessions on
the slots are a lot more frequent than winning sessions.
Once in a blue moon, a reader looking for a sympathetic ear will e-mail
me to share the story of a day when nothing went right.
A fellow named Hal sent just such a story.
"I'd always heard that the $5 slots paid more than the dollars or
quarters," he wrote. "So I decided to take one big shot at the $5 games.
Instead of going every week and taking a couple hundred to play the
dollar slots, I decided to make one trip at the end of the month, and
bring a thousand.
"I have to admit I was a little nervous, but I put five $100 bills in.
It took that much to get the 100 credits that I like to start with. I
bet two coins at a time. Betting $10 on a slot machine sure seemed like
a lot, but I figured that if I hit the 7s, or even the triple bars, even
once, I could win a few hundred dollars. I mean, the jackpot would have
been nice. But a middle-sized win or two was really all I was looking
for.
"Well, the win never came. It can't have taken more than 15 minutes. I
never got anything bigger than three mixed bars, and by the time I got
that, I only had half my money left. When that first $500 ran out, I put
in another $300, figuring again that one middle-sized hit would get my
money back, and if I lost it, at least I had $200 left to go play
dollars or quarters. If anything, my money went down the drain even
faster. I hadn't been there half an hour, and already most of my money
was gone.
"I decided to get out of there with what I had left, and take it as a
lesson that I'm not cut out to be a $5 slot player. At least I got a
breakfast comp out of the deal."
A couple of points. An $800 loss is a high price for a "free" breakfast.
As for $5 slot machines paying more, they do tend to have higher payback
percentages than lower-denomination machines do. At the four Illinois
casinos closest to Chicago--Harrah's and Empress in Joliet, Hollywood in
Aurora and Grand Victoria in Elgin--returns on $5 machines average about
96 percent, compared with 95 percent on dollar games and 93 percent on
quarter games.
But that 96-percent figure is compiled over hundreds of thousands of
pulls, and short-term cold streaks are a normal part of play. If you're
going to play the higher-denomination slots, you have to be prepared to
take some large short-term losses. If losing $800 in a session makes you
queasy--and it would do just that to most of us--you're better off
sticking to dollars or quarters.
A woman who called herself "Sally Slots" didn't go for the $5 slots on
her losing day. She went the opposite direction, changing from quarter
reel-spinners to nickel video slots.
"I've played slots about once a month since the boats opened," she
wrote. "I've always played the quarter reel slots. I bring $40 or $80,
and if I lose it, I leave," she wrote. "Sometimes I get my lunch comped.
It's a nice day out. I won $1,000 once, and a couple of times I've hit
for 2,500 quarters. That's $625, and that's not bad for quarter slots.
Sometimes I lost what I brought in 30 minutes, and that was that. But
sometimes I had extra money to take home.
"Lately, I've been playing nickel video slots because I think they're
fun. It seems more like playing a game than gambling. The problem is, I
never seem to win. I mean, I win a little something here and there, but
it's never big enough that I could walk away with a win. The other day,
I was playing Jackpot Party. I kept getting to the party, but I kept
hitting the 'pooper' on the first or second time. I got to play for an
hour or so, but it drained my money. Why don't those $600 or $1,000 wins
ever happen?"
Sally was finding exactly what nickel slots are designed to do. They
give small paybacks more often than reel-spinners, but most of those
paybacks are less than the size of your bet. That keeps you going longer
than you would on a bad session on reel slots, but the big paybacks that
would make you happy to walk away come less often. Each player has to
decide whether the longer play and entertainment value of video games is
important enough to her or him to make up for the lower frequency of big
hits.
Losses are part of the game. Sally, Hal and all slot players need to
decide what they want out of the slots, and choose the games and
denominations that are best for them.
