Winning on mistakes

17 May 2015

By John Grochowski

Winning is always a good feeling. Winning when you think you’ve made a very costly mistake – well, there’s a large dose of relief that goes with any extra cash.

A reader recently sent me a story about a big win he’d witnessed that falls firmly in the extraordinary category.

“An older woman is play was playing a Ten Play Poker slant top quarter machine behind me,” he wrote. “She was playing one quarter per hand, and the game was Triple Double Bonus.

“I heard her say ‘Oooops!’ rather loudly, so I stood up and turned around. She had somehow leaned over and mistakenly hit the full pay button.”

Instead of the $2.50 the woman had been wagering with 25 cents times 10 hands, she wagered $12.50 with full five coin bets for each hand. Not only that. A peek at the credit meter showed she had only 18 credits left. If this hand went badly, she was done.

But she wasn’t.

“She has been dealt four aces,” the witness wrote. “A guy sitting next to her caught my eye and shook his head with a big smile.”

On Triple Double Bonus, four Aces pay 800 coins – $200 on a quarter machine. If the fifth card is a 2, 3 or 4, that payoff rockets to 4,000 coins, or $1,000 at quarter level. She had at least $200 10 times, and had the draw to go.

“She drew FIVE kickers, so she had $6,000 in all,” he wrote. “I went back to playing and the staff did the hand pay.”

We all make mistakes in the casino. Blackjack players stand when they meant to hit, slot players forget to check to see all the paylines are active and players at any game sometimes have a brain cramp and make a bet that’s larger than they’d intended.

I’ve made my share. When they start happening, I take it as a signal that fatigue has set in and it’s time to take a break. I remember holding two pair in video poker, then watching as a matching card disappeared from the screen. When I’m not noticing a full house, it’s definitely time to go.

Jack always bet the maximum five coins on quarter video poker games – until the time he didn’t.

“I’d been playing the slots, and I cashed out a ticket for $15.75. I figured that would give me a little to play with while I went to the video poker bar for a beer. I didn’t get anything really good, just a few two pairs and three of a kinds.

“Before I knew it I was down to 75 cents. I only had enough for a three-coin bet, and I didn’t want to put more money in. I suppose I could have just printed another ticket and taken it to a penny slot or something, but you never think this is the hand that’s going to be a royal. Of course, it was.

“So instead of a thousand dollars for my royal, I got 750 quarters. Better than a poke in the eye, but I could have kicked myself.”

But the reader-witnessed betting error wasn’t costly. It amped winnings up to $6,000 instead of the $1,200 the same hand would bring with a one-coin-per-line wager.

Was her husband thrilled for her? Not so much

“She called her husband to tell him the news,” the witness said. “The guy next to her told me that he could hear her husband chewing her out for screwing up their taxes.”

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