I always play video poker when I go to my local casino.
Sometimes, after a bad night, I will put a single dollar in a KENO game on the way out, as a woman at work plays it all the time. She rarely wins, but loves it.
So tonight I didn’t win squat and on the way out put in a dollar. I play one quarter per game and pick eight numbers.
On my second play, I got seven out of eight numbers!
I won $380.00!
Not bad.
I can hardly wait to tell the woman at work…although I think she might kill me on the spot.
My dad and a neighbour took the JetSkis out to Lake Tahoe back in the '90s, and I joined them (nice long ride on my motorcyle in full leathers and 108ºF heat). After a day of playing in the water we went to dinner. When we got back to our campsite we saw that the shore was in disarray. Debris everywhere. Boats sunk or sinking. Our JetSki had been pulled off of its cradle in the water and dragged ashore. There had been a massive windstorm. A samaratan rescued dad’s JetSki. In the restaurant we had no clue of Nature’s violence outside.
Unfortunately the JetSki’s intake was full of gravel, since the samaratans were too busy helping others in the storm and didn’t think of the pebbley shore. Dad didn’t have his tools to take the intake and impeller apart so that he could be sure of having removed all of the pebbles, so he decided to pack it in. I rode back to L.A., and dad and the neighbour took a trip to Laughlin.
Dad loved keno. He always played it. At the Flamingo Hilton he picked up a pamphlet at the table that said ‘How To Win $100,000 Playing Keno’. What the heck? He followed the instructions on his first hand.
And won $100,000. He didn’t gamble anymore that trip.
My Great Grandma Marie lived in Las Vegas. The last time we saw her was on her, like, 99th birthday or so. We took her out to lunch in a restaurant which, like every other restaurant in Las Vegas, has a casino attached.
After lunch she turned to my brother and me. “Boys, wheel me into the casino,” she said. We did, and lined her up in front of a one-armed bandit.
She popped in a quarter, pulled the lever, and won $20. I remember her sitting there, completely unflappable, as the coins spilled out. “All right, boys,” she said, “wheel me back out again.”
It is people like your Great Grandma Marie who ruin it for casinos…taking money out of the machines is just not good form.
(Actually, that is a cool story. My aunt (80 years old) loves to play, and the delight on her face when she wins $20 on a nickel machine is worth the cost of flying her out here!)