In March, the Gold Coast held “Wheel of Cash” drawings every Friday and Saturday night. Players earned drawing tickets by playing casino games, and five lucky players each night got a chance to win somewhere between $500 and $5,000 in cash.
Once the five players were chosen, each got to come up and spin a modified “Big 6” wheel. A normal Big 6 wheel has 60 slots. This one had the normal number of pins separating slots, but each prize category covered two slots. The net effect was that you had a 1-in-30 chance to win $5,000 — and the other prizes ranged from $500 to $3,000. I didn’t add it up, but the average spin was probably about $1,200 or so.
I entered on the weekend of March 25 and 26. I had played $60,000 of coin-in on Wednesday (5x drawing tickets) of that week and I liked my chances. My name wasn’t called Friday night, but I showed up Saturday and they called my name. Very good!
An average prize of $1,200 is pretty cool, but looking at the wheel I wondered if I could improve my odds. I saw that they started the wheel with $5,000 at the top. That means that if I could manage to barely spin it one time around, I would have a much better than average chance of ending up on the big prize. If I ended up a little short, there was no penalty. I merely had to spin it again.
My first spin only made it about 2/3 of the way around. I didn’t have a feel for the wheel and how hard to spin it, so I had to practice. I had to “undershoot” while practicing because if I “over shot,” the spin would be over and I’d end up with whatever prize the wheel ended up on. There was a small crowd gathered around watching the drawing, and they booed me when I spun short. They wanted me to spin the wheel really hard, and they didn’t like my “incremental approach.”
My second spin made it about 80% of the way around, and my third spin only a bit further. The boos were getting louder, although I could see several people in the crowd explaining to their friends that I appeared to have a smart idea. I felt my next spin would be very close. It’s possible I could have gone one or two spaces too far (earning $500 or $1,000 by doing so), but the average of these three numbers is quite a bit higher than the $1,200 I would have received had I merely spun the wheel as hard as I could and ended up with an average amount.
As it turned out, my fourth spin ended up on $5,000 exactly. YES! Winning is always nice, but this time it was a little bit nicer because I had figured out a way to squeeze a bit extra out of a situation. A wheel spin involves quite a bit of luck, but I had managed to successfully integrate a little mental savvy and muscle memory into the spin — with good results. I was feeling rather proud of myself and I raised my arms as if to signify a “touchdown” had just been scored.
Not so fast. The casino had appointed monitors to observe the spin, and one of them came running up to declare the wheel hadn’t spun enough. I had never seen this man before. He had a casino name tag on, but I have no idea what position he held. I explained that yes it had gone around once, and it had actually gone one extra space because the wheel had started in the first $5,000 slot and ended up in the second. It had, in fact, gone exactly “one full turn plus one space.”
This monitor wasn’t persuaded. He told me I had to spin again. As it happened, the General Manager of the casino, Kerrie Burke, was on the microphone emceeing the event. I was hoping she’d take my side in this discussion, but instead she announced, “I’m sorry sir. You’ll have to spin again.”
Damn! This was very irritating. Although my actions weren’t exactly what the casino had in mind when they wrote the rules, I thought I had played by the letter of the rules and won the biggest prize. Now this prize was being withheld from me. What to do?
I considered appealing to the Gaming Control Board. I had an excellent case, I thought, and would probably win. The problem with this, unfortunately, is I could win the battle and lose the war. I’m a strong enough player that some casinos don’t want me to play there. The mere fact of going to Gaming has been enough to get the welcome mat withdrawn at some casinos for some players. I haven’t heard of this happening at the Gold Coast in particular, but how could I know for sure? I could write a nasty article about the situation — with the same potential hazards as going to Gaming.
As much as I hated to do it, I felt my best option was to suck it up and go with the casino’s ruling. Disgustedly I spun the wheel and it ended up on $750 in free play. Not bad, but I felt I was being cheated out of $4,250.
After the drawing, I was chatting with the General Manager. Although we’d met in the past, I didn’t really know her well at all. Whenever possible, I make it a point to meet casino management in a friendly environment. We briefly spoke on a number of subjects, and then I repeated that I was sure she made the wrong ruling. The wheel had spun more than a full revolution and I should be paid. I moved the wheel to show her where I started and where I finished. The conversation was polite and civil. She said she’d talk to her people.
By the time I got home, there was a message on my phone from Kerrie saying she had checked with surveillance, and they agreed the wheel spun at least once, and they were going to award me $5,000. She wanted me to go in and sign some papers — which I had no objection to doing.
Kerrie wanted to do the right thing. Apparently, she wasn’t positive what had happened until she went and looked at the “instant replay.” When she realized that the casino had ruled incorrectly, she set about making the situation right. I appreciate that. As it was happening, I was disappointed she didn’t rule in my favor immediately — but it’s easy to understand that she wanted to be very sure of what actually happened before she overruled her staff. This was a situation that was easy to rectify “an hour later” since they could always give me more money the next day. Had she ruled in my favor immediately and then went back and found out they shouldn’t have, it would have been stickier to take the money back — and it might have caused a rift between her and her staff.
It wouldn’t surprise me that the rules for this type of wheel spin are written a little bit differently in the future. Maybe they’ll say the wheel has to go around twice. Maybe they’ll say that if a person “short spins” twice in a row that person is awarded the smallest prize on the wheel. Something. But once my “spinning exactly once technique” becomes well known, others will want to try it as well and the casino would end up paying quite a bit more than they budgeted.
Although every situation is different, there are some important lessons here. First of all, losing my temper could have been disastrous. Had I gone “on tilt,” I could have easily said something that would have gotten me 86’d immediately. Keeping control of your emotions at times like this is important. Arguing excessively with the monitor might have made an enemy out of him. Enemies have a way of gaining revenge some time down the road.
Second, maintaining relationships with casino executives can be valuable for players. To be sure, since I teach and occasionally consult I have more reason to do this than most other players, but it can pay dividends for all players who aren’t making it a point to “stay under the radar.” There are times when you really want to communicate something to decision makers in casinos, and if you have previously spoken to these people, it’s easier to have the opportunity to do this.
Third, in addition to maintaining relationships, it was important that I made an issue of this particular situation. Had I accepted the ruling and not said anything, there is a chance that the surveillance tapes would never have been checked. (As an example, the second winner won $1,000 and there was no dispute about it. I very much doubt that they went back and checked it again.) Once they decided to check the tape and discovered that my spin had indeed qualified, I believe that they would have given the correct award to any player. I wasn’t “special” with respect to getting the extra money. But not every player would have effectively stood up and politely argued the merits of the case. Doing that greatly increased the chances that a review would take place.
The “trick” of trying to spin the wheel exactly once isn’t well known, but it’s not original with me. I first heard about it in the mid-nineties from a woman I briefly dated before I met Shirley. She had been associated with video poker teams for years, but was getting out of the business at that time. I was just getting in. But when I heard this technique, I filed it away as “maybe something I can use sometime in the future.” Fortunately I was able to recognize this as a situation where this stratagem mentioned briefly 15 years earlier would apply. It wouldn’t surprise me if someone else becomes aware of this technique via this article and is able to successfully implement it somewhere down the road.