In my email inbox, I regularly receive pictures of royal flushes and other video poker jackpots. Frequently, I get thanks in the email saying that if my writing and classes hadn’t taught the emailer how to play, they’d never have a chance. And then the picture of the royal is from an 8/5 Double Double Bonus game. I don’t recall ever saying anything about such a game other than to not even think about playing it if you want a chance at winning.
Recently, I received an email with a picture of a royal on a quarter 8/5 Jacks or Better game. While this game returns almost a half percent more than 8/5 Double Double Bonus, it’s still in the “no play zone” from my point of view. The subject line of the email said: “You’re Going To Want to Read This.” I would have read the email anyway, and the subject line made me think this was going to be junk mail, but it turns out it was from a reader of mine.
This player was playing quarter 8/5 Bonus Poker at a casino in a southern state. This 99.17% game is the highest paying game at that casino and, along with the slot club and other benefits, he felt it “wasn’t too bad” for a recreational player. Okay. I certainly don’t insist that others use my “if it doesn’t return more than 100% it should never be played” philosophy. It sounds like this guy, “Mark,” made a considered, intelligent, choice.
While Mark was playing, a cleaning lady named Sophia came running up to him. Sophia was regularly stationed in the area that included the machines he played, and he recognized her. About half of his visits he slipped her $2. Cleaning machines and picking up after sloppy players wasn’t a fun job or one that paid well. Plus, Sophia had come from somewhere in Central America and her grasp of English was rudimentary at best.
When Sophia reached Mark, she frantically signaled him to follow her. He asked her what was going on and she just kept saying, “Please come. Hurry! Hurry!”
Thinking there might be some type of emergency, Mark cashed out and followed Sophia upstairs. She took him to a bank of quarter 8/5 Jacks or Better progressives. Mark occasionally played these machines if the progressive was more than $2,000 which rarely happened because the meter was quite slow. Still, he didn’t expect Sophia to be cognizant of video poker pay schedules, although it didn’t surprise him greatly that she knew when it was relatively high.
When he looked at the meter, he saw it was at $9,400! Later he figured out that this was a 119% game, but all he knew now was that the game was much better than any other gambling opportunity he’d ever seen. He surmised that the casino shut down a progressive and they had to put the accumulated progressive somewhere — and this is where they dumped it! There was a bank of four machines and so far, all of them were vacant. Clearly that wouldn’t last long.
He thanked Sophia profusely, sat down, and started banging away. It didn’t have to happen this way, but he hit the royal before any other players even noticed how high it was. After the employees came and took his ID, he hunted Sophia down and gave her a $300 tip. Tears came to her eyes. Nobody had ever given her that much money before.
Karma doesn’t always work this way. It could easily have happened that he got a seat and somebody else ended up hitting the royal. But just getting a seat on a 119% game is pretty sweet. And if Sophia hadn’t come and found him, he would have never known.
If you treat people well, often they’ll be only too happy to help you back. That jackpot more than reimbursed Mark for all the tips he’d ever given to casino employees. And if he didn’t hit it? Well, that’s okay. If Mark can afford to gamble recreationally, his life is likely better off financially than Sophia’s. And helping others, whether it’s the holidays or not, is one of the things that makes the world go ‘round.
