Ask the Slot Expert: Limits on machines in Montana

Question: I have a question about what a machine says it will pay out when it is printed on the side and a machine that does not have any information about the payout. Buy two nights ago on a roses festival game machine 13 got into the bonus ended up with over 100 free games. And of course at 7500 it stopped printed me out and then went to playing again which was normal but it 10,000 which is once in a lifetime luck, it stopped said that was capacity or a captain or whatever it was and I still had 13 free spins left which each bin was somewhere between 250 and 300. So my issue is this machine had no information on it about being capped as many of the others in the casino do. And by stopping and leaving me 13 spins for 13 spins were worth close to another $4000, or maybe more if I got into the bonus again.

By the way, this was a Town Pump establishment in Missoula.

Answer: This is the second time that a Town Pump casino in Montana has made an appearance in my column (Ask the Slot Expert: Rigged slot machines at Town Pump in Montana?).

I was not able to find any information about the Roses Festival slot machine online, nor was I able to find any YouTube videos of someone playing one. As a result, I didn't edit your letter because I don't know how the game works.

Montana has some unusual rules, at least from a Nevada/New Jersey/Mississippi perspective. According to a number of sites, Montana's video gaming machines have a max bet of $2 and a max payout of $800 per play. If you get a free spins bonus, though, each of those spins could pay $800. Limits are higher at tribal casinos.

If someone is familiar with this machine and playing under Montana's regulations and can shed some light on what happened, please let me know.

I'll address your issue with the limitations not being posted on the machine. All limitations on a machine's operation should be prominently displayed on the machine, either on the game screen or on plates attached to the machine. That said....

A casino has a bank of positive expectation video poker machines. The casino has taken two measures to make them, shall we say, unattractive to play. First, the max denomination is quarters. Second, they deal very slooooooowly.

Most of the machines have engraved plates saying something like "Don't even think about asking us to speed up the deal." The machines are old. The plates are old. The plate has fallen off from one machine.

Every other machine in the bank has the plate. You can assume that the limitation applies to the machine without the plate too.

If the other Roses Festival machines have a notice, you can assume that the notice applies to the machine that doesn't have it. This is especially true if you're running up against a limitation imposed by Montana's regulations.

If something similar should happen to you again, call over a slot floorperson to get clarification on the issue and to ensure that something didn't go wrong. If you're not satisfied, file a complaint with the gaming board.

Starbucks had an end-of-year present for its Starbucks Rewards members last year. We received an email saying that the Terms of Use for reward redemption would be updated in February. Members might have been tempted to ignore this message like the countless emails they get about changes to a company's privacy policy, but then they would have missed the change that affects them: Starbucks is raising the number of stars required for free drinks and breakfast and lunch items. Even though Starbucks could have detailed the redemption changes in the email instead of hiding them until you click through to the Terms of Use page, they at least clearly describe the changes right at the top of the page.

Boyd Rewards had some changes for this year too. Some Boyd casinos let you redeem Boyd Points for cash. A friend plays in a Boyd casino in the South that does not let players exchange points for cash. He frequently saved his points for a trip to Las Vegas so he could redeem them at one of the Boyd casinos here. I noticed a sign posted at the Boyd Rewards booth that players could no longer redeem points for cash starting in 2023.

Boyd had another change that I think they slipstreamed in. I at least do not recall seeing any notice about it.

You used to get a discount when you used your points for food. One thousand points were worth $1 in free play but it took only 600 points to get $1 in food. The redemption rate is the same across the board now and $1 in food takes 1000 points.

I liked that discount. I figured that it was like Boyd was giving the food at cost. I always held onto about 30,000 or so points in case I wanted to use them for food.

Many years ago I was saving up my points because my brother and sister-in-law were coming to visit and I wanted to use them for dinner at the steakhouse at The Orleans. I had about 1,000,000 points.

I was at the java vegas at the gold coast getting a coffee. I told the cashier to use my points.

She swiped my card and said, "Let me check that you have... Wow. You have more than enough points."

I'm redeeming my Starbucks stars now before the rate goes up. I might have used some of my Boyd points for food before the end of last year if I had known about Boyd's change.

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