If nature calls;take your cashout ticket first!

there aren't any desperate people in need of cash in St Louis? How did that city manage to solve the current economic/foreclosure/unemployment crisis?

Speaking of leaving tickets in the machines, about 5 or 6 years ago while walking through the MGM GRAND i saw a ticket sticking out of a .25 machine and there was no one around.
I sat down at the machine for a good 10 - 15 minutes waiting / thinking someone would come back for it but no one did. Anyway when no one showed up to claim the ticket I took it
out [ 40. some odd dollars as I recall ] and moved to another [ 12 x pay machine -i'm a sucker for the multi pay machines ] and put the ticket in and started to play.
After a minute or so i hear a security guy walking behind me talking into his headset and saying O.K. we got him, at this point i'm thinking OH S**T now what.
Anyway to make a long story short he walks right past me and goes a few iasles over and meets up with another security guard who had someone detained [don't know what for]
but I did have a little scare there for a second..

Not sure how or if they solved any crisis- but you could trust the bartender to know you by name, or the person next to you that you saw on a regular basis to not be a thief.

When someone asks me to watch their machine while they run to the bathroom I always tell them I will watch their machine but not their money, they need to take their TITO.
I get some confused looks at 1st but they always comply and thank me afterwards.

Case of several wrongs not making a right.

Gamblers are a superstitious lot, even those of us who know and play the odds. So I understand someone wanting to return to a certain seat or a certain machine even though there is (in most cases) no tactical advantage in doing so.

I'll bet in another thirty seconds your ticket would have been history. My approach, assuming I had done what you did, would have been to cash out immediately, tell the bartender "Thanks for everything," flip a ten-cent tip onto the bartop, and get away from those two yahoos ASAP.