I was playing at a Dotty’s, a local chain of small casinos. The best game for me is 9/6 Jacks or Better. Without going through all of the slot club benefits and promotions, the one that is most relevant to today’s story is the “Big Bonus.”
In this promotion, all W2-Gs become drawing entries, and 10% of these entries get a 10% cash bonus. That is, if a $5,000 W2-G is drawn, the player who hit it will get a $500 reward if he collects it within a month.
Although the inventory of each Dotty’s varies, the most convenient Dotty’s for me has the game for $2, where you can bet anywhere from five to fifty coins and still get the full 99.54% return on the game. Since I want to get W2-Gs, I need to play for at least 24 coins ($48) per hand, yielding $1,200 for every quad, but I usually play for 25 coins ($50), yielding $1,250. I record the game on my gambling log as a $10 game.
The nature of 9/6 Jacks or Better is that you tend to lose during a session unless you hit a royal flush.
Another promotion in effect at Dotty’s is the machine bonuses. For the stakes I play, these come around every five to ten minutes. The first five are always, in order, $1, $1, $1, $5, $2 — which are negligible amounts when you’re playing $50 per hand. These bonuses then increase to $10, $20 or $25 each time if you continue to play for more than an hour. These amounts are not so negligible. Suffice it to say, I usually play for at least a few hours when I come.
Most of the players in the place are playing for far smaller stakes than I am and very rarely, if ever, receive a $1,200-or-higher jackpot. Since I get them regularly, some players assume I’m killing the game, whereas in fact I’m usually losing.
On this particular night, after I collected my fifth or sixth W2-G (and I was behind perhaps $2,000 after being paid), a lady approached me and asked if she could invest with me. She and her husband were homeless and playing keno hoping to strike it rich. Since I was obviously doing well, she wanted to pay me $200 for a share of my next jackpot.
I wanted no part of this particular arrangement. I told her that if they were indeed homeless, the last place they should be is in a casino, and the odds on the keno game they were playing were prohibitively in the house’s favor. I told her I was losing this night (I’m not sure she believed me) and many of the benefits I receive were deferred. I’m sure she understood I was telling her “No,” but I don’t believe she understood what I was talking about when I said “deferred benefits.”
I was earning slot club points (which were cashed and mailed to me once a month), the Big Bonus drawing wouldn’t happen until next Wednesday, and the machine bonuses are paid in slot club points. The $40,000 royal flush was unlikely to be hit on this particular night. I had the bankroll to wait for it — but this lady didn’t.
I wanted to give her $20 or so to “go away,” but several other players were watching the exchange. If I started paying all players with a sob story, I would have been deluged with these stories. There are few winners at Dotty’s and the clientele tends to be less affluent than those players who play in the larger casinos. Paying players playing losing games and are always broke is a bottomless pit.
The lady and her husband went away and that was the end of this particular incident. The aftertaste of it remains with me, though. I’ve frequently been asked for money in casinos. I usually politely say “No,” and continue with what I am doing.
I know that most players lose in casinos, and many can’t afford their habit. And the ones I see don’t include the spouses and kids at home. Yes, I’ve found a way to beat the casinos, but coming face to face with the ones who can’t, especially during the holidays, is a sobering experience.
Since I’ve been doing this for decades, I’m somewhat immune to these feelings. But not totally immune.
