The recent discussion about the Cannery's COD promo reminds me of
something that happened a few months ago at the Palms: be warned!
There was a locals mailer which contained a whole bunch of good
coupons, the best of which was a 125-coin bonus for four 8's. This
was good the whole month and could be used on up to $2 denom
machines.
I naturally hit the $1 NSUD (being unwilling to go, say, $1000 in
the tank to chase a coupon, so I shunned the $2 game), since it was
triple points day too and the $1 10/7 DB carousel looked like Gary,
Indiana with its toxic smoke clouds (a lot of the VP-playing locals
here smoke either Burning Tire or Sewage Lagoon, two of my least
favorite brands).
An hour later, behind by $160, I held 88 and drew 288. Ah! I
thought, the four 8's have arrived! I turned on my change light and
waited for someone to arrive to pay me. Well, seven hours later
(good thing it wasn't a busy day) a slot floorthing finally oozed up
to my side. I asked to get paid my $125, and it frowned at my
machine, said "Bleez bugnose zork zid," (I'm not actually sure what
it said, since English was um, not its first language) and slithered
away. Almost immediately (half an hour later), a boss floorthing
came up to me and said (I think), "You no can use wild card." I
frowned and expressed my opinion that I indeed had four natural 8's
showing on the screen. "You no can use wild card." "I'm not USING
the wild card. It shouldn't MATTER what the fifth card is!" "Sorry,
Sir, you no can use wild card." "I WANT TO TALK TO THE SLOT
MANAGER!" "Okay Sir, thank you, but you no can use wild card." I
lunged at him, fingers outstretched, but missed him since he had
already turned around and was scurrying away, and instead blindsided
the cigarette girl, who nonetheless maintained her composure and her
balance, spinning away so I could crash into the Wheel of Fortune
carousel.
Well, to make a long story short, the slot mangler on duty (who
turned out not to be the regular slot manager), informed me that the
phrase, "No wild cards" that was so clearly stated as rule #17 on
the informative brochure, meant that I could not have any wild cards
in the HAND. I informed it that the phrase SHOULD have read that "no
wild cards may be used to FORM the winning hand" and that somenody
had gotten lazy and/or careless. It smiled and said that it was
sorry, but those were the rules and management's decision. I SUPPOSE
I could have called Gaming at this point, but I just clenched my
teeth and decided that I would play DB and HIT the damned coupon
since I had ten days left to use it. I confined my resentment to a
halfhearted attempt to run over the valet parking attendant's toes
after he had retrieved my car.
Twenty hours of play later, I STILL hadn't hit the blankety bleeping
8's and I was down $2000 for the month. At this point I was tempted
to use my points for explosives so I could blow up the place. The
coupon eventually expired without my ever hitting the 8's again.
After a long period of thought, I decided to ascribe this particular
event to collective rank stupidity rather than deliberate malice.
After all, they HAD sent out the coupon in the first place! But a
word to the casino wise might be in order: if you have a &%$#@!#
promotion, DON'T nit-pick it to death. Who knows how many people had
an experience similar to mine, and stomped out totally pissed off,
never to return? I'm never going back to the Cannery, as stated in a
previous post, for a very similar reason.