This past March, after months of effort, I finally persuaded my wife to play single coin on the short machines at our local Indian casino. To backup my case, I showed her one of Bob Dancer's articles, making note that you really can't argue with the numbers or the Master. It's been great since I got her off of five coins.
Our play time is vastly extended,losses aren't as deep and we still eat for free. And my wife works through the disappointment of the $62.50 royal by looking forward to our next trip to Laughlin, where we play full-pay games, 5-coins in and win $1,000 royals. Playing 1-coin locally makes the experience of winning on a full pay machine in Nevada that much sweeter. Thanks for the tip Bob!
UPDATE: In a recent article at CasinoGaming.com (http://www.casinogaming.com/columnists/dancer/2010/0817.html, Bob revisits the idea of playing single coin and is no longer recommending the practice. I won't be showing this latest article to my wife. The money we save by minimizing our losses locally goes a long way to financing our 5-coin trips.
HiptoVP