How I Gamble

[KMMK]

I went to Vegas recently. One of the hotels gave me a dollar worth of free gambling credit. I got up to $2.47 and cashed out. That's like $3.00 Canadian! They weren't going to trick me to put my money in.

That's how I gamble.

[stashy]

One time I gambled on a fart- I'll save you the details but I lost.

[flashpacker]

I live in Vegas. Some Friday nights I go downtown, buy a 99c iced tea from Walgreens, lose $1 on penny slots, and go to the container park to see the fire-breathing insect. It's my $1.99 plus gas Friday night.  Sometimes my spouse comes with me and we still only play $1 and share the iced tea. Our rule is if we are up at any point, we cash out. Otherwise, we just see how long it takes us to lose the $1.

[KMMK]

I live in Vegas. Some Friday nights I go downtown, buy a 99c iced tea from Walgreens, lose $1 on penny slots, and go to the container park to see the fire-breathing insect. It's my $1.99 plus gas Friday night.  Sometimes my spouse comes with me and we still only play $1 and share the iced tea. Our rule is if we are up at any point, we cash out. Otherwise, we just see how long it takes us to lose the $1.

Thanks for sharing. I often wonder what people who live in Vegas think of it.

[2ndTimer]

I gamble by watching my SIL put money in the slot machine and cheering wildly when she wins.  I get all the thrills and she spends the money

[mikefixac]

Bob Stupek, who used to own Vegas World and now it's called the Stratosphere in Vegas, had a great deal. Send him $396 and when you arrived in Vegas, you would get $800 in play money, free room, drinks and buffet.

After checking in and getting the $800, I'd go to the roulette table and put $400 on black and $400 on red. If not land on green, I'd get $400 back in real $.

On top of that, he had this other deal (coupon in the room) where you got $50 in play money. So I did that one time too. The problem was you'd get so much money every hour and it was divided into 3 increments. So I'd get a drink, gamble with his money, then go back to the room and wait. Ended up winning ~$10, but was confined to his casino.

[Gerard]

I went to Vegas recently. One of the hotels gave me a dollar worth of free gambling credit. I got up to $2.47 and cashed out. That's like $3.00 Canadian! They weren't going to trick me to put my money in.

That's how I gamble.

Are you me? My brother took me to a place where if you signed up for a player card, you got a discount breakfast. My card had a dollar loaded on it. I won $6.65. Breakfast was five bucks. I am one hiiiiigh roller.

[crocheted_stache]

Once upon a time, we were driving past billboards for one of California's assorted Indian casinos. We were hungry for lunch and hoped that they might have a decent buffet. And they had penny slots. Husband, eager to see me gamble something says surely I can part with a few pennies, and surely there are a few loose on the floor of the car, which even I could stand to part with. I reluctantly agree to ten cents or so.

Come to find out, there is no slot in which to put a penny in a "penny slot" there. They make you buy a card with some minimum amount on it. Too much trouble. It was also smoky (yuck) and didn't promise a desirable lunch. We left none of our money at the casino and instead ate at a mom-and-pop restaurant down the way. If I recall, it cost less than anything at the casino, and tasted a lot better than anything at the casino looked.

tl;dr: gambling fail, lunch win.

If I am certain I'm right about something, and husband is certain about his version, I'll sometimes bet him a neck rub or a turn cooking. That's how we gamble.

[Argyle]

A friend showed me how this typically works on the slot machines.  You can put any amount in and get the remainder of your unspent money back at any point.  So if you're going to play $20, you can put in $20, or you can put in $100 and play $20 worth (or any amount) and ask for your unspent money back.

So you put in $100, because that sets the system up to think you're a big spender.

You play once.  That first play is the one designed to hook you in, if you're a big spender.  So if any play is going to make you money, it will be that one.  They think you'll think you're on a roll, and you'll keep going.  Remember the rolls aren't really random.  They're all designed by computers to keep you playing.

So showing me how this works, he played his first $20.  He made $56.  Then he cashed out, and took his remaining $80 and the $56 he'd won — put them in his wallet, and headed home.  Nice recreation, and they paid him $36 to do it.

[UnleashHell]

if thats how it works why didn;t your friend just do that on every single machine and win a fortune??

[Argyle]

I'm sure it doesn't work every time.  But if it's going to work, that's a typical way it works.

[UnleashHell]

Putting a limited amount in a machine and walking if you win isn’t a bad strategy – especially if you live in Vegas. However the method and sophistication of you approach mentioned above just doesn’t work . The machines are not that sophisticated. They are programmed to pay out a set % of the money put in – over a period of time. That is very closely regulated by the gaming board – and the casinos can’t just change them at a whim – never mind when someone new sits down. As long as the set percentages hold up over a period of time then the casinos are happy – if they have 3,000 machines that will only pay out 97%  then the casino wins.
The Casino also like people to win – the wins are noisy (compared to the spins that don’t win) and when people win they tell others – and/or go put that money back in and/or go buy other stuff with the winnings.

By putting money in and only doing one spin you are on  the very short side of statistical variance. You may win – or not. If your friend repeated his experiment 100 times he still might win. A million times and he would probably lose – because that’s just math and that’s how the machines are designed.

[solon]

I took a roll of quarters to a casino once. Put 'em all in, got a few back, put those in, got one back, put it in, lost it. Went home.

That's how I gamble.