Ask the Slot Expert: Gaslight-ed by casino?

Point multiplier day at my main casino. I went to Auntie Anne's to use a 15% off coupon Anne emailed me. I ordered an original with salt from my favorite employee (she always calls me by name). She asked if I could come back in about five minutes. If so, she'd give me a pretzel right out of the oven.

I didn't have any place to be other than in front of an NSU machine, so I said I'd see her in five.

Piping hot pretzel and lemonade in hand (I wish Anne would bring back iced tea so I could get an Arnold Palmer there again), I walked around the perimeter of the main slot floor to get to a bump-out with one of the entrances from the surface lot and a small collection of machines, including some NSUs.

On the way I decided to get in a few extra steps and check out the machines in the bump-out before the one that was my destination. This bump-out had a group of NSU machines in the same relative location as the machines to which I was going.

Hmm. Was I mistaken about the location of the machines? I've played them almost exclusively for the past few months and I could have sworn that they were in the second bump-out.

In any case, I'll play any old NSU in a storm and these machines were as good as any other. I picked one and sat down to play.

I kept wondering whether I really could have been mistaken about the location of the machines for the entire time I played. The machines were in front of the automatic doors: check. The bump-out was between two restaurants: check. Maybe the machines were here all along.

After a longer amount of time than I'm willing to admit, I remembered two other significant characteristics about the bump-out in which I had previously played. First, there were three slot club kiosks and an ATM on one wall. And, more significantly, those machines were next to restrooms.

This area did not have either of those two features. This area was definitely not the one I had been playing in the past few months. I cashed out after earning the number of points I wanted to earn.

I checked the other bump-out on my way out. The NSU machines I expected to see were still there. Either the casino recently put some NSUs in the first bump-out or I didn't check it the last time the casino moved the NSU machines around.

I was back a few days later. This time my pretzel was free because I used a free pretzel reward that was going to expire in a few days. I skipped the lemonade because I had used Starbucks stars to get a free coffee.

None of the video poker machines in my new place to play would accept my ticket. I couldn't see anything wrong with the bar code on the ticket. I went to one of the Buffalo machines in the area to see if it could read the ticket.

It couldn't. When it tried to return the ticket to me, the ticket didn't come out of the bill acceptor slot. Instead, it went just under the opening in the button deck and got stuck in the machine. I could see the middle of the ticket through the opening in the deck.

I tried to wiggle the ticket out, but I didn't think I could do that without ripping it. I hit the service button and waited for an attendant.

The slot attendant tried to get the ticket out with her smaller fingers, but she gave up too and opened the machine. She removed the ticket, made sure the bill acceptor was securely in place, and closed the machine.

"Do you still want to play this machine?" she asked.

I told her that I really wanted to play one of the video poker machines but none of them would accept my ticket. She went to one of the machines -- I think it was the one that had printed the ticket -- and put it in the bill acceptor, which promptly spit it back out.

She called somebody on her radio and read off the ID on the ticket. Then she and I both noticed that the screen didn't look right. It looked like the machine was in the middle of a hand.

"No wonder it wouldn't accept the ticket," I said.

She hit the Draw button to complete the hand. The hold status on some the cards changed. She hit the button again. Some of the cards changed status again. Every time she hit the button, a new combination of cards were held. She couldn't break out of the endless loop.

"Something's wrong with this machine," I said.

"Ya think?" she replied. (Okay, she didn't really say that, but I would have found it funny if she had.)

She asked me for my players card.

At this point, I was a bit concerned. I've been a little skittish when things go wrong in a casino after one branded me an Advantage Player and cut off my access to the players club website by changing my password and cut off my mailers by changing my mailing address to the corporate address.

Did they invalidate my ticket? Was she going to confiscate my players card?

Do you know why she asked for my players card? Send me your theories. I'll give the answer next week. Hint: I discussed the reason in a past column.

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