Love me, love my slots

10 April 2018

By Frank Scoblete

If you are married to, or a friend of, someone who enjoys playing slot machines, you know that such people must tolerate you. If your companion or friend plays other games or they are in fact non-players, they have to show great patience if you enjoy significant time at the machines. If they like or love you, they better be patient and understanding.

Avid slot players are not like other players. They are serious pursuers of machines that are hot or at least promising.

If you are a slot junky or slotaholic who enjoys many hours trying to beat the RNGs of this, that or all machines, those who wait for you to finish play may have a long wait indeed. They must, in short, tolerate your play.

Take Nanny Lipsky: “I am a devotee of slot machines. My husband knows this; it’s no secret. When I go to the casinos I do not go with any other motivation than to play slots. I do not go to shows. I do not structure my meals around anything but my slot play. I want to go after it, if you know what I mean; why go if you are not serious about winning? I don’t want to be playing and have to think to myself that I need to hurry to dinner or some show. Slot play is everything to me.”

How does Papa Lipsky, her husband of 35 years, feel about his wife’s slot mania?

Here is his take: “Nanny is wildly in love with slots and I am in love with her even though she wants nothing to do with me in the casinos. I enjoy playing blackjack and craps but I don’t play more than four hours in a day. I like to do other things. But I do not put any restraints on her. I don’t even look for her in the casino. I tell her when I am going to dinner and she is either there or not. If she wants to play through the dinner hour I have no problem going to dinner by myself or we can go together later in the evening.”

Janet is also a slot-lover. “I go to the casino with a bunch of friends, but they all know they are not to bother me when I play. They all play slots too, but they like to play at the same machines. I don’t like that. I enjoy going from one machine to another.”

She continues: “I think there are basically two ways to play slots, meaning two types of slot players. You can sit down at one machine – some players do have favorite machines – and wish and hope that machine gets hot – or you can do like I do: Play a little on this one and if it doesn’t get hot fairly soon, then move on to another. I have a friend who is a bird watcher and she tells me that you can stay in one place and hope the birds come to you or you can move around and find where the birds are. That’s the type of player I am. I like moving.”

But there is a third alternative. Take Benny and Birdie (those are their nicknames), longtime players dating back to the late 1970s.

Benny: “I used to play the tables and Birdie played the slots. I finally joined her at the slots. I never had much luck at the tables because I never learned to play the games, meaning blackjack mostly, properly.”

Birdie: “He played slots with me because he finally realized what fun it was.”

Benny: “So here is how we play. We give each other $100 each on our first machine. After we both put through that $100 we see if we are ahead –"

Birdie: “Or only a little behind –"

Benny: “We will stay then.”

Birdie: If we are behind we go to another area and try our luck there using the same technique. We give ourselves $500 each for a session and if we are winning or close to winning, we stay at the machines. If those machines aren’t producing for us we move on. It’s a fun way to play and it gives us time together.”

Benny: “We call it quits when we lose the $1,000 or we get tired. When we first started doing this we didn’t get too tired; we’d play endlessly. Now we don’t have the stamina. But fun is fun no matter how long or short a playing session is.”

I do not advocate long playing sessions. I also enjoy doing other things when I am at a casino and/or casino destination. But that’s just me. I can understand players who just want to play and play and play some more.

But if you love someone who loves slots, then it might be best if you love slots too.

Frank Scoblete’s latest books are I Am a Dice Controller: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Craps, Confessions of a Wayward Catholic, Slot Conquest and I Am a Card Counter. Available from Amazon.com, Kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores. Visit Frank’s web site at frankscoblete.com.