Tuesday March 8th, 2011 - Milwaukee, WI Up to Milwaukee today to connect and reconnect. I still need to find a home location to use as a base for ’Schlitz Happened!’ so I can work out the bugs and polish it into a show that flows seamlessly from one bit to the next. That‘s a process, and I want to find a place that won’t break me for theater rental. This is a work in progress, and I’m learning a lot. I was driving around downtown and out of nowhere came a strong urge to go straight to the Potawatomi Casino because it was time to win money. I’m a sporadic gambler at best, and it’s not something I make a habit of doing. Rarely do I make a conscious effort to go to any casino. If I’m working in one, I may risk a scant few bucks on random occasion. Today was different. My little inner voice told me to go straight there immediately, and that’s what I did. Video poker is usually my game of choice, and I especially like the one that plays up to fifty hands at a time. There are never more than a few of those machines, and often there’s a wait to get on one. Not today. I walked right up and sat down to play. I had two $20 bills in my wallet, and I decided that was my limit. I’ve experienced this ‘inner voice’ thing a few times before, and it’s usually right on so I expected to win a few bucks at the very least. I started playing at the two cent level and too soon $20 was gone. I had to play the other one, and I bumped it up to the nickel level. That took a little bit longer, but that eventually the second $20 got sucked up too. I carry an emergency $100 bill in my wallet and it’s been sitting in there so long I almost didn’t remember I had it. I reluctantly stuck the $100 bill into the machine and jumped up to the quarter level to expedite the process. If I’d win, I’d win. If not, I’d admit to hearing voices and move on. On the first hand, I thought I’d pressed ’maximum bet’, but the touch screen wasn’t very sensitive and I only ended up playing one hand instead of the full fifty I had intended to. Of course, for the first time ever, I was dealt four deuces and an ace. I sat there stunned. I won 1000 quarters, which was $250. That’s great, but I would have hit the jackpot with a maximum bet, and I fully intended to do it on that one hand. $250 times 50 is $12,500. There was a married couple playing the two machines to my right and they both saw me flinch and cry out in disgust. They said they’d never seen that happen and I said now they did so they’d have something to talk about forever. I sat there for a few minutes stewing. What is this inner voice, and how did it know that hand was coming up? Also, why did that touch screen malfunction and I only won the $250? I appreciate $250, but the big one would have been a lot better. Technically, I won it. In reality, I ended up blowing $140. I kept playing for a while, and eventually built the $250 up to $650. I was hitting hands I’d never hit before. I went up and down with levels and ended up playing for a couple of hours. Eventually, it was all gone, but I did have fun playing. The universe can be cruel. Was there a specific lesson I was supposed to learn from this? I thought I had learned it as a kid from my grandfather who told me “Gambling money has no home.” How correct he was. People may ’win’, but it’s only for a while. Eventually, that money leaves again. What was the right decision here? Had I left with the $250, I’d have been up for the day and in fine shape. I ended up playing, and got it up to $650. That would have been quite a bit better, and I’d have been in even better shape. That would have let me carry five $100 bills in my wallet as an emergency fund, or do whatever else I wanted. But I chose not to. Instead, I sat there trying to hone in on that inner voice, and see if I could control it with when I’d make a maximum bet on the quarter level. I’d play a number of hands on maybe the two cent level, then bump it up to the nickel and try a maximum bet. Sometimes I was right and other times not. It was a guess, and I didn’t sense any kind of a pattern with it. I think whatever psychic message I may have gotten was for that big jackpot hand and it was over after that hand came up. I blew it with the malfunction of not making 100% sure the maximum bet was in place, and there’s nobody to blame - not even me. It happens. I’m not angry, and I’m not even disappointed after that fact. Would it have been nice to walk out with several thousand dollars? Of course, but I wasn’t planning for it so it’s not a major loss. Had I entered a contest with a prize of $12,500 and lost, it may have put me in a sour mood. This was a lark, and in the end I look at it as only really losing my $140. Actually, it wasn’t even that bad. That $100 had been sitting in my wallet since summer because that’s when I started working cruise ships. I put it there in case I’d need it for cab fare or a hotel in a foreign country where they wouldn’t take a credit card. It was sitting in there for probably nine months, and I don’t really look at it as lost income. It was extra. The $40 isn’t the end of the world either. I often take 1% of my income and designate it for gambling on lottery tickets, scratch offs, whatever. I hadn’t bought any in months and this was it. I had an opportunity to walk away with several hundred dollars profit, but that wasn’t enough. I was greedy, stupid or a little bit of both. Still, I really had fun doing it. I don’t often get a chance to play for that long, and I really enjoyed it. I scored on some big hands, and that feels really good. It’s not like I’m going to slide into the pit of being a degenerate gambler, and it’s not a vice. I’ll probably not gamble again for several months. I wish I could pinpoint what that feeling is though. I can never control it, and it happens only once in a great while - but when I get it, it’s always right. This should be a hint from the universe to put my mind in constant position to receive rather than wander aimlessly. If nothing else, this will make a hell of a scene in a movie. If I didn’t live it, I would not believe it. But it really happened, and somewhere in the universe there’s an extra $12,500 floating around waiting to be claimed. I’m claiming it, but have no idea how to go collect it. I’m going back to work, hopefully I’ll EARN it. That’s the money that has a real home.
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2 comments:
Dobie, just to help you come to grips with your feeling of missing out on that jackpot:
It wouldn't have hit 4 deuces and an Ace had you placed the maximum bet.
Slot machines work off of computers that respond directly off of the programmed payout percentages that are set by the casino. (hence the phrases "98% payback" you might see on some machine banks)
This means at that precise moment you hit "spin", the computer chip calculated a $250 return and then set the wheel/screen to reflect that.
This doesn't mean that slot machines are "rigged" in any way. It's just a mathematical process that takes place behind the scenes, yet it wouldn't be "fun" for human beings if there were spinning wheels and high colored visuals were not shown giving the illusion of this inherent probability equation known to us as "luck".
I agree it would NOT have hit the 4 dueces with an ace. The result of the first 5 cards are decided by a random number generator.
The instant you hit the play max credit, or play 5 credit button, The RNG decides what the hand will be. The time difference from reaching from the play 5 credit button to the play max credit button would Not have been identical, so you would not have hit the same hand.
Please show me at Potowatami ANY machine that advertises the percentage of payout (like they do in Vegas) They do it in vegas because there are many Casinos fighting for your gambling dollar. But NOT here (thanks to Jim Doyle) You will NEVER know Potowatamis payouts. And if they did advertise them, you would probably throw up!!! My guess is around 40 -50%.
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