Well today I was at Harrah's for a Macy's giveaway. Since Harrah's Vegas
has no good VP (best might be 9/5 JB to give you some idea) and since I needed
to put in some play, I decided to play $5 reels. I figure $5 reels probably
pay out 95-97% so pretty much are about the same as playing bad VP, plus it
takes less play to get points/comps for them an VP at Harrahs. And I enjoy
playing reels occasionally.
I normally only play 1 machine at a time, but to run up points in less time
(I had a limited amount of time to play), I played 2 machines side by side.
Naturally, as usually happens, one started giving money while the other kept
taking. Still I was just about even after over an hour. I played Top Dollar
on the right, one of my favorite reel-type-games, and a weirdo by the same
manufacturer, Quack Shot. Both are "bonus" type machines - if a certain
symbol comes up, you get the bonus round. In the case of Top Dollar, you get 4
"offers" for bonus amounts - you can stop at any time, or keep trying for a
higher offer. (Hint if you play, you are usually best off to stop at about 40
units or more of bonus - but if 40 is the very first offer, you can try going
for more, but probably you will end up with less, but if 40+ is offer #2, or
3, you probably should take it rather than keep trying until you hit offer
#4). The top payout is 1000 coins.
Quack Shot is a weird duck - depending on which colored ducks you get (you
must get 3 of them for the bonus round to begin), you get either 5 "shots" or 4
or 3 or 2. For each "shot" a colored light bounces around a line of bonus
amounts, if it lands on the bonus, you get that amount, but it could land on a
upward arrow, in which case you go to the next line, which has higher
amounts. If you are lucky, you keep landing on upward arrows, til you get to the
top line, which has the largest bonus amounts of all, including 1000.
Ok - so I've lost probably about $2500 or so into Quack, while I've got
$2500 in credits on Top Dollar. Quack Shot bonus rounds haven't been coming very
often, and I'm getting pretty much nothing but cherries or mixed bars for
the normal reel hits on this 5 times machine. Top Dollar bonuses were
happening pretty regularly, and I'd gotten some triple x double bars and triple x
triple bars, nice little line hits.
Then up comes the bonus round on Quack again -- I get the 2 shot round.
Usually I like to hit the bonus button quickly, but since I've been getting
nothing, I let the music play a little while. I press the button, and the Quack
Shot goes up via the arrow, and up and up, to the top line, and hits for
1000!
Yippie I'm thinking - 1000 credits would be $5000 since I've been playing at
the $5 level on this multi-denominational machine. But gee, I get one more
shot. I wait, and hit the button, and up it goes and up and up and wowiewowie
- it hits for 1000!
So that is 2000 credits or $10,000. I'm in dreamland, because this is a very
good jackpot indeed for this sort of $5 machine.
They come to pay me, and say "Here is your $20,000." I say - "I'd love
$20,000, but I only have 2000 credits for $10,000."
"NO - you were playing at $10 a hand - so that is $20,000!"
"What?"
I discover that somewhere fairly recently I'd somehow hit the button that
changes the machine from a $5 to $10 (or up to $25 if you keep hitting that
button). I'd noticed this button before, and was careful not to hit it, or to
change it back to $5 if I did hit it. I must have hit it quiet recently, or I
would have noticed that my credits were disappearing too fast.
So I accidentally hit $20,000. And who knows, if I hadn't hit that wrong
button, my timing might have been off by a split second, and I probably
wouldn't have hit any jackpot at all.
I had a very very good day! It just goes to show, you can win at any time,
and even accidentally hit a goodie. [Of course, remember playing $5 reels
requires a pretty good bankroll to begin with, and you can certainly lose
several thousands in a bad session.]
I also took home $750 in Macy's cards and had a nice dinner at Pennazi
Italian restaurant.
It was a very very good day indeed! Some money into the bank, and now I've
got some money to play at Gold Coast during 8x points later this week.
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