On our regular Wednesday (Senior Double Points Day)
trip to our usual Gambling Boat my wife and I had an
unusual occurrence. They had been installing some new
Video Poker machines (TITO) at $1,$5,$10,$20 levels
with unusually poor pay schedules and moving the
machines they replaced to a different location on the
boat also reducing some of the better pay schedules.
My wife and I sat down at two of the older $1 machines
in their relocated area. After a short period she told
me to look at the points she had accumulated. She had
4,000 points when usually she would have had about 115
points. Points are awarded at 2.2 per hand playing
full coin on a $5 machine and redeemed at .25%, except
Players categories get an extra 25% added to their
earned cash. So we realized she was getting 72 points
per hand instead of 2.2. Now here I suppose an honest
and moral person would have called the slot people
over and told them something was wrong. I guess It�s
pretty obvious you can see where I�m going with this
and will know quickly I don�t fit in that category.
Since I was a Player I decided I should be playing the
machine in order to get the extra 25% cash back. I
played for six hours and accumulated over 250,000
points. By this time I was getting wary that some slot
personnel would walk by and notice the unusual point
balance for the day and stop the play. I know I was
doomed to be found at some point but I had some hope
it would last a few days. I casually placed the Stats
sheet and pen we were using on top of the video so
that it partially obscured the card display and
removed it occasionally to make some notes. After six
hours of play I went to eat and rest and let a friend
play the machine for two to three hours. About 2 hours
after I returned three slot supervisors approached me
and asked why I had the paper in front of the card
read out. They said security kept asking why I kept
the paper there. When I removed the paper to show them
I was writing down my stats one of the other
supervisors said �I�ve never seen anyone accumulate
that many points in one day�. They had a pretty well
organized script by the time they approached me and
started questioning me about whether I had won or
lost. I advised them at that time that I was down
about $400. So then they ask me how much I had won.
This from people who make a living in the casino
industry. They finally said the machine had
malfunctioned and they would have to shut it down, but
I could keep the points I had earned. All this time we
were going back and forth with me playing the village
idiot, which comes natural to me and them wanting to
accuse me of something but afraid to. At one time one
of them made some remark about fraudulent activity on
my part which didn�t set well with me at all and they
also related to the Gaming Commission at one point. So
I asked to speak to someone from the GC. They were not
on the premises but finally gave me a complaint form I
could send in. They also informed me at this time that
they had never said anything about giving me cash at
the higher rate, but would give something
approximating what I should have earned.
We went to our room and after some discussion decided
to return to the Players Club and take what they were
willing to give in cash back, which was fair for the
time I had played at the regular point accumulation
rate. My wife and my friend being much wiser had
already cashed out at the higher rate earned as had
I'm sure other people that had been playing that
machine in the week it was in service.
When they closed down my machine I moved to the one
next to it which we had been playing some also because
it was giving back a cash rate of .007 instead of the
usual .0013 and continued to play for another two
hours. I thought the next morning I could start on the
lower but still better than normal cash rate machine
and still do ok. Much to my surgrine when I returned
to the boat this morning all the machines in that bank
had been turned off. To add insult to injury they told
me that both our accounts were on inactive status and
they couldn�t do anything about restoring points for
our play until a manager arrived about noon. The night
before when we reached an agreement with them they
assured me everything was ok and I was still a member
in good standing. My wife knew she would have to wait
until a supevisor came in to analyze her situation. I
played anyway without a card and luckily drew deuces
for $1,000 and accumulated another $550 on dueces as
well for about 2.5 hours play. For the trip I done ok,
but the hassle over the malfunction disturbed me. I
was looking at playing hopefully several more days
on 9/6 JoB with a 3% edge over the house. I guess the
moral of the story is �Don�t be so damn greedy�.
I would like to hear your comments about my actions
and the casino�s. I know I�m inviting a lot of moral
fiber type criticism but what would you have done?
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