A gambling friend shared an incident that happened to him at a casino recently. It\u2019s never happened to me, but it could. I\u2019m writing this as a hypothetical, because there are a lot of different ways it could turn out. So, there are lots of choices to be made — and it\u2019s probably wise that you\u2019ve at least thought about it beforehand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m waiting for a casino drawing. They call my name and I have three minutes to make my way up to wherever the drawing is being held. Usually that\u2019s no problem. But what if I\u2019m doing something else?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If I\u2019m playing video poker, it\u2019s usually easy to cash out and leave the machine. If there are players around, let them know that you\u2019ll be back after the drawing. That usually works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But let\u2019s say I\u2019m playing a slot machine, and the machine is positive. That is, assume it\u2019s well known that it\u2019s a play if the mini jackpot is at least 20, and it\u2019s now at 25. If you leave this machine unguarded, often somebody else will recognize the situation for what it is and play until the jackpot hits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now you need to get some casino employee to watch your machine. So, I\u2019ll start hollering and making quite a commotion. Usually, some employee will come investigate. When that happens, I explain that I\u2019ve been called for the drawing — and usually the employee will assist you. Not always, but usually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another situation is that you\u2019ve hit the bonus round on the machine, and the bonus round takes several minutes to play out. This is actually better for you because nobody can claim the machine while this is happening. You can actually leave the machine while hollering and searching for an employee. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you know for a fact that the bonus round will result in a W-2G, then it\u2019s okay to leave — assuming your card was in the machine and the casino can identify who hit the jackpot. But usually, you don\u2019t know for sure. It might end up for more than $1,200, and it might not. If it only goes up to $1,100 and you\u2019re not around when it finishes, someone can cash out with your win plus however much in credits you had before the bonus round started. They can collect the ticket, cash it out, and leave the casino before you return. Casinos have different policies on how much, if any, of your money you\u2019ll retrieve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If hollering doesn\u2019t work, you\u2019ll need to make a quick analysis of how much the slot machine jackpot is worth versus how much the drawing is worth. If it\u2019s a drawing where you get at least $500, and can earn quite a bit more than that, and the slot jackpot will only be $200, then it\u2019s an easy choice. If the hollering doesn\u2019t work, cash out and go to collect your drawing winnings. If you\u2019re playing on the two-cent machine, 40 coins at a time, you probably should leave another screen (perhaps one cent, 50 coins at a time) that is not in positive mode so maybe the good game will still be there when you return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the other hand, if the drawing is for $100 and you believe your equity in the machine is worth quite a bit more than that, then you simply keep playing the slot machine if the hollering doesn\u2019t work. Yes, you\u2019d like to collect both, but sometimes you have to make a choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One way to guard against this is to not do anything else while waiting for a drawing. That\u2019s fine, but not doing anything is worth $0 per hour. And these drawings can go on for quite some time — especially if there are one or more rounds of redraws because people didn\u2019t show up when their names were called. And unless it\u2019s a fairly unusual situation, you are probably not a favorite to be called in the drawing. The combination of being called and being on a game that can\u2019t be left without losing equity and you can\u2019t find an employee to watch the machine is pretty remote. It could happen, of course, but usually it\u2019s better for me to be scouting while I\u2019m waiting for the names to be called. I don\u2019t have to be present for three minutes and if necessary, I can run from quite a distance in three minutes. (Well, maybe not today. As I write this, I\u2019m still recovering from hip surgery — so running is not an option — but that is hopefully a short-lived restriction.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a nice problem to have — because you\u2019re going to be getting some money — but getting all of your money is better than getting part of your money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A gambling friend shared an incident that happened to him at a casino recently. It\u2019s never happened to me, but it could. I\u2019m writing this as a hypothetical, because there are a lot of different ways it could turn out. So, there are lots of choices to be made — and it\u2019s probably wise that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15763,"featured_media":843442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[558,557],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/spinach-2.png?fit=500%2C300&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853742"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15763"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=853742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=853742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=853742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=853742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}