{"id":120557,"date":"2020-03-10T09:46:25","date_gmt":"2020-03-10T16:46:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/?p=120557"},"modified":"2020-03-10T09:46:33","modified_gmt":"2020-03-10T16:46:33","slug":"how-it-should-be-done","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/how-it-should-be-done\/","title":{"rendered":"How it Should Be Done"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I was playing video poker at a Dotty\u2019s — a chain of 15-machine bar\/casinos where I can still eke out an edge. I was playing high stakes for there ($50 a hand) at about 4 a.m. one Sunday morning, sitting off in a corner where the rest of the place spread out before me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Directly across from me, a lady I\u2019ll call Susan, called the bartender over and said her machine had shorted her a hundred dollars. It didn\u2019t involve me and I didn\u2019t have any information about it, so I watched silently. Voices weren\u2019t raised, but I could still hear things clearly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bartender, Ann, listened to the story. Susan moved from another machine with a TITO ticket for about $100, inserted it into the current machine, and two hands later the money was gone. Susan doesn\u2019t play very high stakes, so this was impossible. Susan\u2019s conclusion was that the machine confiscated her money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, Ann checked the first machine. Sure enough, about a half hour earlier a ticket for $98.23 was cashed out. Then Ann checked the second machine. About 25 minutes earlier, a ticket for $5.35 had been inserted. There was no record of any ticket for $98.23 being inserted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From my point of view, what likely happened was that Susan had another ticket, one for $5.35, and that was the one she inserted into the machine. She was either confused about it or possibly taking a shot. One of the two.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a small chance, of course, that she indeed inserted the larger ticket into the second machine and it didn\u2019t register on this IGT machine. Not likely. But malfunctions do occasionally happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Presumably Ann made the same mental calculation I did. But as she was taking the report, her voice implied she was completely on Susan\u2019s side. Ann outlined the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A slot technician would be sent from Dotty\u2019s headquarters and he would open up the box that had collected all the bills and TITO tickets. If there was a $98.23 ticket there, Susan would get that much money from Dotty\u2019s. If there wasn\u2019t such a ticket, then there was nothing that could be done. Ann said she didn\u2019t have the ability to open the box herself. Sorry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Susan was told that the technician would probably do this in the morning and that Susan would get a phone call with the results. Susan seemed satisfied by all this. She willingly gave her name and phone number and left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not long afterwards, Ann was paying me for a small jackpot. I complimented her on the way she handled it. Not once had she let on that she believed Susan was either mixed up or trying to pull one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ann thanked me. She acknowledged that she didn\u2019t believe things happened the way Susan said they did, but being polite was part of her job. If the slot tech decided that Susan was mistaken (which we both agreed was the most likely outcome), then it wasn\u2019t Ann\u2019s fault and Susan could still believe that Ann was on her side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe do,\u201d Ann shrugged, \u201cwork for tips. If I called Susan a liar or an idiot, there\u2019s a pretty good chance I\u2019d never see another dime from her.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought it was a problem well-handled. Since it wasn\u2019t Ann\u2019s responsibility to determine right or wrong, then she shouldn\u2019t do so. And she didn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A possibility for Dotty\u2019s is to come to the conclusion that Susan \u201cowns\u201d the $98.23 ticket and that it hasn\u2019t been cashed yet. What Dotty\u2019s could do is to tell Susan that it will pay her the $98.23 and void the ticket. If (when) she comes across it later, it won\u2019t be worth anything. This avoids the discussion of whether Susan was confused or taking a shot. It makes Susan happy. And doesn\u2019t cost the casino anything because it owes the money anyway.
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I was playing video poker at a Dotty\u2019s — a chain of 15-machine bar\/casinos where I can still eke out an edge. I was playing high stakes for there ($50 a hand) at about 4 a.m. one Sunday morning, sitting off in a corner where the rest of the place spread out before me. Directly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"How it Should Be Done by Bob Dancer","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[428,542,196],"yoast_head":"\nHow it Should Be Done<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/how-it-should-be-done\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How it Should Be Done\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was playing video poker at a Dotty\u2019s — a chain of 15-machine bar\/casinos where I can still eke out an edge. 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