The good times at slots

12 December 2017

By Frank Scoblete

December is the holiday month. The stores, the streets and many homes are aglow with Christmas lights and the people (who aren’t harried, annoyed or angry) are enjoying themselves. Everyone (who isn’t a killjoy) is looking forward to the New Year.

And nothing is more joyous than going to the casinos during this festive time of love – and hammering them; slaughtering them; ripping the gold fillings from their teeth . . . sorry, I’m getting carried away in the spirit of the season.

Here are some winners:

Mei: I was playing in the casino on Christmas Eve and looking forward to dinner at the best restaurant in the hotel. It was a happy time all around and I was really hoping I would win some money. My husband and I celebrate Christmas by going to the casinos for a few days and just enjoying ourselves.

It was about five o’clock and I sat at a Blazing Sevens machine. These are tight machines but they give out pretty big wins if you can hit a few. So there is a lot of waiting time for the hits to come. But I felt lucky.

And I was. After about five minutes I hit a jackpot. Then after a few more spins I hit the biggest jackpot. I had to sign some papers and I decided to play again when it was all said and done. In a half hour I hit two more times, not the biggest jackpot but pretty good ones.

I was a little late for dinner. My husband looks at me and wants to know why I am so late? I tell him. Well, I just won enough money to win us a new car! We celebrated with an expensive bottle of champagne.

That was a great Christmas present for me.

TERI: This happened five years ago almost to this date. I was in the casino playing and doing pretty good and this man comes and sits next to me. At first he just plays, kind of slow. I can see him out of the corner of my eye. He is intently looking at his machine.

After a little while, he turns his head to me. “Are you looking at me?” he asks. I must have turned bright red. “Because I was looking at you,” he said. He had a nice smile.

So as we played we talked. At first I thought he might have been a masher, you know someone who hassles women, but he wasn’t that at all. The more we talked the slower I was playing. I wasn’t really too aware of whether I was winning or losing. I’d press the play button and keep talking or listening.

After maybe a half hour he says, “Gee, I am doing pretty good here. You must be a good-luck charm for me.” I laughed and looked at my machine. I was up 2,000 credits! I must have turned bright red again. “Looks to me as if I am your good-luck charm too!” he laughed. I liked his laugh.

We had dinner together that night and it turned out he lived two towns over from me which is not far at all. We dated for several months and then he asked me to marry him. We were married two months later in Las Vegas of all places! That was our wedding and our honeymoon.

He was the biggest win I ever had and now we have a son – another win for the both of us. I guess you could say that was the luckiest slot machine I ever played!

Dorothy: I was at the casino with my girlfriend. First spin I hit for a couple of hundred dollars. I was playing three dollars in credits a spin. It just went like that all evening. I couldn’t lose. Oh, yeah, don’t get me wrong, I didn’t win every spin or anything like that – I don’t think anyone in history has played slots for a while and won on every spin – but I had no long losing streaks. It was spin, spin, spin – hit! Spin, spin – hit! Hit! Spin – hit! Amazing. I never had a night like that before or since then.

When I finished I was so tired from playing but more tired from the excitement of winning so much. When I found my girlfriend she seemed so happy too. She had hit a big jackpot! She had won a good amount of money.

It was her night and my night too. I used my head and didn’t play anymore that trip. The next day I went to a mall and, well, I spent some money; I did. But it didn’t make much of a dent in what I had won. I wish I could have that happen again. It was a night to remember.

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Yes, these are wonderful tales of good fortune; the kind of fortune every slot player wishes he or she could have. I think slot players dream of those epic wins and when a win such as the above comes, well, those we will remember for a long, long time.

Happy Holidays and best of fortune to you.


Frank Scoblete’s newest books are I Am a Dice Controller: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Craps!, I Am a Card Counter: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Blackjack! and Confessions of a Wayward Catholic. Frank’s books are available on Amazon.com, Kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores. Visit Frank's website at www.frankscoblete.com.