Playing Those Traditional Slots

11 April 2021

By John Grochowski

My list of readers I've heard from multiple times includes a corps of players who still love slots with three mechanical reels.

Most have adapted to the video age by playing a mix of games. Some have switched to playing video and skipping the reel-spinners. Only a few refuse to play video slots at all.

I reached out to those who play a mix of reel and video slots and asked what it took to get them to welcome video slots into their rotation. Was there a game or an experience that finally convinced them video slots weren't so bad?

A few shared their thoughts.

MANDY: Remember when the Monopoly slots were new and there were both reel versions and video versions? My husband and I were on a trip and the casino where we were staying was one of the first to have them.

We played a lot of Monopoly at home. I'd played with my parents and my sisters growing up, and my husband and I played with our kids, too. So of course we had to try the slot machine.

When we found them, there was only one seat at a reel game, but we found two on video. Neither of us had played video slots before. I always headed for reel slots and he'd either join me or play blackjack for a while. But we HAD to play Monopoly together.

He got a nice bonus on the board, landing on good properties. You could build houses and hotels in those early ones and go several times around the board, and his last trip around he landed on Illinois with a hotel. I can't remember exactly what he won, but it was in the thousands of nickels.

I was on the other video game were the board bonus was just for one trip around. I think it was even called Once Around. I landed on Boardwalk.

We both got other, smaller board bonuses, too, and we came away thinking it was really a lot of fun.

I still love the three reels, but I've taken little video detours ever since.

ARNOLD: I resisted for a long, long time. My games were always Double Diamond, Red, White and Blue and, of course, Wheel of Fortune.

I wanted nothing to do with the video slots. I always liked the idea that when I won, I was going to get multiple times my bet. Those little unwins, as I call them, where your payoff is less than your bet were not for me.

My wife finally got me to try when those U-Spin games came out. You know the ones. In the bonus, there's a wheel on the video screen and you touch the screen and drag the wheel to move it, and let go with some big momentum to spin it. A real wheel on top is synced so it spins and lands in the same place as your video wheel.

I'm an engineer, and I thought that was really clever technology. I enjoyed playing the game. I gave other videos a chance, and now I mix it up between reels and video.

SUZIE: Breakfast at Tiffany's won me over. I love the movie. I still watch it every year. When the slot came out, I couldn't pass it up. I loved it. I had some nice bonuses, but I'd have loved it even if I'd just gotten to pet the cat.

Reels are still my favorites, though. If a casino still has Double Diamond, that's where I'll be.

Look for John Grochowski on Facebook (http://tinyurl.com/7lzdt44) and Twitter (@GrochowskiJ).