My Weird and Wacky Slot Experiences

Inverse order:

10. Puncher

At Atlantic City’s defunct Sands who looked like Friar Tuck of Robin Hood fame, including a remarkably hairy chest, totally viewable because he had four buttons undone.

He lost spin after spin and then punched the machine, screaming at it. What outraged him more was the pleasant woman on the machine two over from his who was winning on almost every other spin and clapping her hands, saying. “This is the luckiest day of my life!”

The man’s knuckles made a loud sound hitting the machine. Of course, the machine sat passively, showing no evidence of the blow leveled at it. The man didn’t stop playing either. On the next spin after slugging the machine, he lost, just as the woman screamed happily, “I won the jackpot!” Violence just doesn’t pay.

9. Switch

            This leather-skinned man never played the slots but one of his beach buddies was a former slot technician that told everyone in his circle that he was the world’s greatest slot expert. So the leather-skinned man told me what the slot technician told him, “There is a button in the back of all slots that you flip and then the player wins the money and not the casino. Try it next time and see if it is true.” I did. It wasn’t.

8. Painful

I just finished eating in the Golden Nugget’s fine now-defunct Italian restaurant Stephanos. I was happy from a bottle of fine wine and I was heading to the bathroom. I passed a machine, I think it was called Treasure Island, put in three coins, and hit for $1,600. I then had to wait to be paid. And wait. And wait. It was the most excruciating win I ever had in my life.

7. Hairy

At the Showboat in Atlantic City in the 1990s, two elderly women playing the slots side by side until the blue-haired one went to the powder room. The red-orangey-haired one then took over the blue-haired one’s machine because the blue-haired one had been winning and the red-orangey-haired one had been losing. When blue-hair came back she told the red-orangey-haired one to “get off my machine!” The red-orangey-haired one said, “Go to hell!” Then they fought. They punched weakly at each other and pulled out some of each others’ dyed hair. I grabbed the blue-haired one; another man grabbed the red-orangey haired one and the fight stopped. These two women were sisters! 

6. Caveman

This happened at a defunct downtown Vegas casino which was packed because of a big promotion. An attractive older woman sitting next to a big guy said to me, “Excuse me, sir, but could you tell this man he smells?” The man, hearing her, turned to the woman, “Why don’t you tell me yourself, lady?” I stepped to the man and smiled, “Oh, sir,” I started and then I caught a whiff of him. Something, probably many things, had died on this guy’s body.  “Oh, God,” I groaned. Now what would you do in a situation like this? I turned to the woman and said in a whisper, “Go play another machine. You could die here.” And she said, “This is my favorite machine. Tell him to leave.” “I ain’t leaving,” said the man. So I left.

5. Pregnant

She was pretty and pregnant and playing the Blazing 7s at Tropicana. She called over to me. I thought she said, “My glass of water broke.” I walked over. “Where’s the glass; I don’t want anyone to step on the glass,” I said. “Glass? My water broke! I’m about to have a baby!” Being cool, I responded, “Uh, ah, ee, oh, aaaarrrggghhhh!” and luckily one of the female security guards took it from there. This lady hit the real jackpot that day.

4. Luck

The kid was too young and playing a machine when he hit a big one just as the security guard came over to ask for his identification. Ooops! Sorry kid, you lose. The kid put up a fight; so did the kid’s parents; so did the kid’s future lawyer. The casino won. The kid lost. If good luck is a finite commodity, this kid used up a lot of his.

3. Gloating

I entered the elevator of this premium Vegas hotel. A couple entered; the wife laughing; the husband singing. “We won a ton of money tonight,” laughed the wife. “Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah!” sang the husband. “How did you do?” the wife asked me. “I got killed,” I said. “Well, too bad,” she laughed. “Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no for you chum!” sang the husband. Chum? Chum? I put up with that all the way to the top floor. They were so happy for themselves. They danced out of the elevator. I was hoping they would trip and fall to the floor. They didn’t. Couldn’t they have shown a little pity for me?

2. Bucket

In the days of pervasive coin slots, a woman was playing at Bally’s and I asked her how she was doing and she said, “I am almost there.” I had no idea what she meant so she told me. “Oh, when I was younger I wanted a husband and I found him. I wanted a house and I got it. I wanted children. They are now all grown up.” She looked at me and smiled, “Today I just want to fill a larger bucket than this one. I am almost at the top. That is my goal, a bigger bucket.”

1. Magic

Ages ago, I received a mailing about a “Magic 7 Slot Magnet” that made machines hit like crazy. Being interested in finding out what this great new invention was (the seller claimed that he won millions with it and was now retiring from the casinos to live on his own private island, which I later found out was Alcatraz), I sent in my $39.99.

My Magic 7 Slot Magnet arrived with an added bonus – a Slot Divining Rod that would lead me to hot machines that my Slot Magnet would help me conquer for untold wealth and my own island! (I was thinking Manhattan.)

At the casino I walked around with this cheap cardboard divining rod trying to locate “loose” machines. People looked at me as if I were crazy.

Finally, the rod picked out its first machine by bending. I took out my Magic 7 Slot Magnet and moved it over the machine as the directions indicated. The “magnet” was not a real magnet, just a flimsy piece of metal with a poorly embossed slot machine on it. I played a few hundred dollars in the machine. I lost.

For an entire evening and much of the next day, I used my divining rod and my Magic 7 Slot Magnet throughout Atlantic City. I won a few spins here and there but overall nothing of note. Even young and dumb, I realized there was no proof in the hype about the Magic 7 Slot Magnet or any power in the flimsy Slot Divining Rod. I went over to Pier One across from Caesars and threw them into the Atlantic Ocean. The divining rod floated out to sea and the Magic 7 Slot Magnet sunk to the bottom.

I don’t own Manhattan.

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