The greatest assumption is that you can make no assumptions

By John Grochowski

Ever have an “oops!” casino moment, one particular of these times when things have gone wrong and you know it’s your personal fault simply because you didn’t verify the game guidelines or assumed a small as well significantly?

I sure have. I’ve been going to casinos given that the 1980s, and I’ve pulled some doozies. 1 came at an Indiana casino a while ago, back when most machines have been nonetheless set to a single coin denomination. The casino was 1 of the Midwest’s first to offer SuperTimes Spend.&nbsp I like the game really a lot, and have no qualms about playing SuperTimesTriple Play on a quarter machine with a decent spend table, even even though the $7.50 maximum bet is double that on normalTriple Play, and six occasions the $1.25 on a standard single-hand quarter game.

Dilemma: I assumed this was a quarter game.&nbsp A organic adequate assumption, given that my wife was on a quarter machine a single spot to the correct. It wasn’t. When I hit the max coins button, it deducted $30 from my $100 buy-in. Turns out my wife and I have been on opposite sides of the dividing line amongst quarter and dollar games. This wasn’t the game for someone of my modest indicates. I cashed out the rest and moved on to anything much more bankroll suitable.

Oops!

I witnessed one of the excellent “oops” moments in Las Vegas in the early 1990s.The Tropicana at the time had a bank of huge-money quarter progressives close to the entrance, with a 3-coin maximum bet and a jackpot that typically reached $250,000.

One morning, I got off the elevator and walked into the casino to be greeted by a host I knew. He directed my consideration to a player who was just sitting and staring at the reels on one particular of the progressives, so motionless he could have been a mannequin.

“See that guy?” the host asked. “He just hit the blue 7s. And he only bet one particular quarter.”

I asked how considerably he’d won.

“Oh, a handful of hundred quarters,” the host said, shaking his head at what saving 50 cents on the bet had cost in the finish.

I didn’t verify, and that could have been an exaggeration. Maybe it was thousands of quarters and not hundreds. But still—oops.

I put it to other players, asking about some of their “oops” moments:

DAN

I have a couple for you, both on video poker. I normally play dollar video poker but sometimes I go into the higher-limit location and play one coin on a $5 machine. I’ve had achievement at hitting four deuces. Well, I hit a royal about six months ago. I believed I had hit for $four,000, given that that is what a $5 bet would have been on a dollar machine. Envision my disappointment when I realized the payout was only $1,250. I assumed the very same bet size would bring the identical payoffs, but you have to bet max coins or else the royal is only 250-for-1. It was a great payout, but I learned a lesson about not playing max coin in! But at the same time, I can not afford $25 a hand.

The other issue is, when I get up from a machine to go to the men’s room, I always cash out, but leave my players card in the machine and cover the screen. In January I came back to my machine and began playing once again. I hit 4 deuces for what I believed&nbsp was for $1,000. It turns out the machine had a max 25-coin play instead of the usual five-coin max, and I had forgotten to limit my play to five coins, or $5. So, I ended up with a $5,000 payout as an alternative of the thousand.

That time, I was grateful for the error, but by no signifies am I going to play $25 a hand on my bankroll!

MARGARET

Mine has to be the very first time I played video slots. I was utilised to usually playing max coins on the reel slots, and I figured I must do the very same on video.&nbsp I believe it was Reel ’Em In, though I can’t remember soon after all this time. It could have been Jackpot Celebration or one particular of the other individuals.

I didn’t play the videos at initial. I loved my reels. But my girlfriend convinced me to give it a attempt. It was a nickel game and had nine lines. I figured, OK, this will be a inexpensive attempt, 45 cents to play all the lines. I didn’t know it would take five coins on every line. I hit max coins, and didn’t notice right away how much it had taken. So I hit max coins once again, and then once again, ahead of I lastly noticed that my credits have been obtaining awfully little. I wasn’t betting 45 cents, I was betting $two.25! It took a couple of months ahead of I’d attempt that once more, this time at one particular coin per line!

CARLA

I don’t know if this counts, because it is not playing or strategy or something, but it was in a casino and it embarrassed me. I’d only played in Las Vegas, and was utilized to the waitresses bringing totally free drinks. So I was playing the slots, and the waitress came by and I asked for a beer.

She came back, and mentioned it would be $five. I was shocked, and I was unprepared. I only had $20 to commence with, and that was in the machine. My husband and I figured we’d get money when we got to the casino, and he hadn’t come back from the ATM but.

Anyway, even though I was fumbling through my purse attempting to come up with $5 in loose adjust to pay, my husband found me and handed me some cash. I paid the waitress and apologized for maintaining her. Yet another couple of minutes and I’d have had to inform her I didn’t want the beer soon after all. Oops!