Ask the Slot Expert: The dark side of Quick Hit slots

I made my triumphant, in my mind at least, return to my movie theater after a two-week trip to New Jersey and Cancun. I was very disappointed that none of the theater employees noticed that I hadn't been there for over two weeks.

On my way out of the casino--

Let me digress here and mention how surprised some people are at the differences in non-gambling activities offered by Strip and locals casinos. Some of the people I met during my trip had been to only a few Strip casinos. They were amazed that my regular movie theater is in a casino and that many locals casinos have movie theaters. And bowling alleys. Non-gambling activities that you don't find in a casino on the Las Vegas Strip.

Anyway, on my way out of the casino I passed by the gift giveaway desk. It was Thursday, gift day. I wasn't planning to play that day, but if the gift was something I wanted, I could be persuaded. The gift that day was a sling backpack. I wanted to see if a sling backpack would work better than the thermal lunch pack I use to carry my breakfast walking home from the bagel shop or Starbucks. Here was my chance to get one for free.

Or maybe not free, depending upon whether I win or lose playing. This casino used to have a "Dinner and a Movie" promotion. Earn a certain number of points and you got a voucher for an entree from a special menu at the steakhouse and a voucher for a 2D movie ticket.

When I told Jean Scott's husband Brad that I had used this promotion, he asked me how much it cost me. "About $200," I said.

We both took the loss in stride. It's a cost of doing business. When I tell this story to non-gamblers, they point out it would have been much cheaper to just buy the meal and ticket.

"Well, yeah," I say, "but that's not the point."

I dropped off the tub with my leftover popcorn and the cup with my ICEE refill in my car and went back to the casino to find a machine to play to earn my gift. I found my old friend, Quick Hit Blitz (QHB).

My goal at one time was to hit some of the high-value progressives for landing a large number of Quick Hit symbols on the screen. I never hit one of those big-dollar progressives before being lured away by the siren song of another slot game. I decided to give QHB another try to get my gift.

You can win a progressive in the base game by landing Quick Hit Symbols on the screen. You can win a progressive in the bonus game by climbing the progressive ladder. You move up a rung by landing the required number of Blitz symbols on the screen within three spins. The number of symbols needed to advance increases with each level. The game gives you some assistance, though, by increasing the height of the reels as you climb up.

It sure is nice to land a bunch of those symbols on the screen and win some money and it sure is frustrating to land too few to get a payout, two in the case of Quick Hit Blitz's base game. And it's particularly frustrating when those symbols interrupt a paying a combination.

Say I have a 7 on a payline on the first, second, and fourth reels and a Quick Hit symbol on the payline on the third reel. That symbol ruined my 7s combo.

That's the dark side of Quick Hit and other scatter-pay symbols. They can appear to spoil winning combinations and you won't get any payout at all from them if you don't land enough of them.

I have to keep reminding myself that there is no guarantee that a 7 would have landed in that position if the Quick Hit symbol hadn't. It's really not much different from landing a bar symbol in that position. Either way, you don't get the winning combination. With the scatter-pay symbol, at least, you do have a chance at getting a scatter pay if you land enough of them.

By the way, I earned my sling backpack and a $50 profit.

If you would like to see more non-smoking areas on slot floors in Las Vegas, please sign my petition on change.org.

Ask the Slot Expert: The dark side of Quick Hit slots

Books by John Robison:

Books by John Robison: