The slot player's Declaration of Independence

On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was signed by 56 brave men who were willing to face severe hardship and even death to stand up for their belief in "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." From that moment to this very moment, the greatest country in the history of the world took shape, evolved and now allows us to play slot machines. We have come a long, long way.

Unfortunately many slot players have not taken the concept of being independent all that seriously. Indeed, they have become dependent on many aspects of their slot play that are not in their best interests. For example, some slot players do not take advantage of the casinos' slot clubs, which offer to players a host of "rewards" for their play. They are limiting their "pursuit of happiness" by doing such a thing.

Slot players who do not join slot clubs are actually losing more money because those "rewards" have a monetary value attached to them. In fact, those "rewards" are sometimes free play, which translated means free money. In addition, sticking to a hard-headed rejection of belonging to a slot club doesn't allow you access to free or discounted rooms, comped meals and various entertainment values. It's like being a subject of King George III with no freedom to enjoy the fruits of your slot labors except for the actual playing of the machine.

Conversely, some slot players get so caught up in their slot club points and "rewards" that they play too much at one casino. There comes a point where you are getting just about everything you can get from your level of play in a given casino and any money played above the minimum for that level will probably not add to your rewards. So why play more at that one casino? Give yourself the "liberty" to spread your play around.

And there is the best idea of how to maximize your slot club enjoyment. Don't belong to only one club at one casino; join several slot clubs in different casinos. Find out the minimum needed to get the types of rewards that you want and just play that minimum at each casino. By doing this at several casinos, you maximize your rewards.

Here is an example of maximization. Many casinos will give their slot players free rooms from Sunday through Thursday, but they don't usually like to give more than three nights in a row. What if you wanted to go on vacation for a week? If you only played at one casino, you'd get your three nights; then you would have to pay for the other four nights.

If you belonged to three slot clubs at three different casinos, each giving you three nights, you could have your weeklong vacation without having to pay for a room. Now, that's independence. That's the "life!"

With some national and large regional companies, you are automatically enrolled in all their casinos' slot clubs by simply enrolling in one of them. By playing at any of their properties, you get benefits that can be used at any other of their properties.

Usually the mega-club cards have a tier system based on your type of play. Figure out what tier you wish to be on, play the minimum amount of money for that tier, and then go to a different company and play at their casinos as well.

When belonging to a large company's slot club, look to find the best deal at its casinos. If this company has an elite property, a high-level property, a moderate property and a small property, decide which one will give you the best rewards and go to that one. Since you can play at one hotel and get the rewards at another, such a situation gives you a great deal of freedom. If playing at an elite property makes you feel good and getting a free room and meals at the moderate property makes your wallet feel good, then do exactly that. Such a method will give you the slot equivalent of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Slot players could also use a little independence from the traditional advice that they should play full coin in all machines. This is not so -- and it is not so most of the time. Playing full coin, even on machines that reward such a method by giving a slightly better percentage back, will essentially increase the number of decisions you face and correspondingly the amount you lose per time played.

If you can't stop yourself from playing full coin, find out exactly how much money you need to play to get the range of comps you want and stop when you reach that amount. Obviously, if you play full coin, you will reach that amount far sooner than if you only played one coin. Once you reach that amount, head to another casino where you repeat the process.

Some players feel the need to play for prolonged periods of time, I understand that, but these long time periods do not have to be at a single casino to fill the bill. So you get your slot points, and you play for the amount of time you want, but you do this at several casinos to take advantage of all your play. This is the way to keep giving you more slot club rewards and consequently more independence.

The Declaration of Independence gave all of us our freedom. Now the time has come to have some slot freedom as well.