# What the hell is a slot tournament? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [July 20, 2009, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-a-slot-tournament/503672 "2009-07-20T21:06:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2009, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-a-slot-tournament/503672/1 "2009-07-20T21:06:46Z")
Since the recession hit, the casinos have ramped up their advertising by a factor of four, it seems. Every commercial break has at least on casino ad. Many of them mention “slot tournaments.” How can you have a tournament in a game of chance? Is it just that whoever has the most $$ at the end of the event gets more money? Isn’t this just a really tranparent way for people to shove as much cash in the machine as fast as they can? What am I missing here? Obviously, I am not a casino gambler. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2009, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-a-slot-tournament/503672/2 "2009-07-20T21:14:10Z")
You don’t put your own money in the slot for the tournaments, and they are often free. It is entirely random, but the people who hit the buttons fastest do better. The point is fun, not the winning, and there are usually raffle prizes, too. ---
**Author:** ![zoog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7ea924/32.png) [@zoog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoog)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2009, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-a-slot-tournament/503672/3 "2009-07-20T23:23:39Z")
I witnessed one of these once out in Vegas. It looked like a roomful of people sitting in front of their chosen machine smacking the spin button as fast as they could. It was amusing to watch for about 2 minutes, then I went off to play a table game. ---
**Author:** ![MadTheSwine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MadTheSwine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MadTheSwine)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2009, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-a-slot-tournament/503672/4 "2009-07-21T01:21:33Z")
Most of the time ,they set the slot machines to pay out more so the scores are real high…but they are boring as hell to watch.I worked in a few casinos and have seen many of them…just a promotion to draw in customers really. ---
**Author:** ![Jules\_Andre](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jules_andre/32/9334_2.png) [@Jules\_Andre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jules_Andre)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2009, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-a-slot-tournament/503672/5 "2009-07-21T09:03:23Z")
And the ones I saw were sometimes 10 minutes long. The key is to slap your machine as fast as possible to get as many plays in during the allotted time. Can you imagine rapidly pounding the “spin again” button for ten minutes? It looked like torture. ---
**Author:** ![Scuba\_Ben](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@Scuba\_Ben](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scuba_Ben)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2009, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-a-slot-tournament/503672/6 "2009-07-21T12:47:29Z")
To riff a line from St Louis Ren Faire… A slots tournament would be more interesting if the slots machines were fighting each other.