Throw-Away Win Stories

1. After having lost about $40 at $2 BJ in Tahoe (I was in college, so it was all the money in the world), I put a quarter in a 25c slot machine on the way out the door. It hit single bars for a payout of $12.50, a 50:1 payout!

2. After a long, bad weekend in at Beau Rivage, down about $1,100, I was on the last session of the trip before departing, playing $1 WOF x 3 coins. On the last pull of the session, I get the Wheel Bonus, and hit $1,000! Nice!

If by "throw away wins" you mean lucky wins after losing money, I had small one of these recently. I was down about $50 from playing $5 blackjack at Harrah's North Kansas City and decided to blow some more money on slots.

Now usually, I make it as a personal rule to only waste money on slots if I'm ahead, but we all have our weak moments, right?

Anyway I passed in front of a flashy WMS Wizard of Oz machine and tried my luck. I was like three spins in or something and bam! Bonus time! After all the explosions and music and lights and whatever, I had won $130! Awesome!

I actually won $250 from the same type of machine at another casino a few months later. I guess lady luck occasionally smiles when I play at the Land of Oz. Or rather, Oz-themed slot machines anyway.

Was on a cruise a few years ago and was down to my last $15 before going to dinner. Was playing 3 Card Poker and played the last hand blind just for the hell of it. Hit trip Kings for a nice payout!

This was back in 2004. Multistrike poker was still pretty new and I played a quite a bit of it during my stay
even though it was absolutely brutal to me the entire trip. I played quarter, nickel, dime and even penny (MSS) versions and nearly every time it would take my money faster than Ross Perot could say "giant sucking sound".

During the final morning of my trip I was killing the last few minutes before I had to go and get ready to head out to the airport. The second to last machine on the way to the Golden Nuggets South Tower was a Multistrike, and I figured what better way to quickly lose my last $12.50, or perhaps get a relatively decent hit, before taking the long walk of shame back to the hotel room.

I played straight Deuces Wild in part because the payout for the royal with JOB on that machine was set to a dismal 1250 instead of 4000, (like that was something I really had to worry about *snort*), but the Deuces royal was 4000. The machine was extremely cooperative, taking my first 20 quarters in a fraction of a second. My plan was working perfectly.

First hand on the next game I got three of a kind, and a flush on the second. On the third hand I held the AK10 of hearts hoping I might somehow manage to pull a deuces royal, which at 4x for the line would have been a decent way to end the trip. I didn't. Instead I got the jack and queen for the natural royal: 16,000 quarters which, with the top line and the lower two included, ended up being $4,007 on the W-2.

LOL, just last night. Our 21st wedding anniversary, dinner, a movie, and a couple hours in the casino. Wife, playing slots, took her $20 free play and won $250, I with my savvy nature (I know how to gamble, after all) went to the tables and lost $300. So I sat down next to her at the quarter slots, and she said, "Here; cash this ticket in, take $50 of it, and give me back $200." So I put $50 in the machine next to hers, and hit 5x-5x-2bar, then 5x-5x-3bar, for a total of $250 (including the initial $50). I gave her back her $50 and we went home about even as a team (She didn't stop playing), me down $100 and her up $50.

On tuesday, after losing $300 at the tables, I put $20 into a $1 Top Dollar machine near the out door. I played one 20 line pull. The machine managed to fit a bonus, 5 3-bars, and 3 cherries into that board. The bonus ended up being small (I passed on $325, $250, and $450 en route to a $200 final offer), but with the other payouts, I cashed out with $320.

A couple years ago I was playing a 3-6 LHE game. After a mediocre start I finally caught a break and got dealt AA. I ended up losing the hand and almost all of what was left of my buy in when my opponent rivered a set. That month the casino poker room was having a "spin the wheel" promo for whenever someone had their AA cracked. Lot's of pins, keychains and coffemugs as prizes, and one $100 slot. I hit the $100 and ended up winning more than the original pot was and was able to finish the night with a small profit.

1994, my wife and I were leaving Vegas after a long weekend and we needed to stop at Excalibur so I could fill out some NFL contest cards. She sits at a bank of $.25 slots called Fastest Cash, and I go off to do the cards. I come back and am trying to be patient while she plays through her credits. She finally loses and, instead of getting up to go, asks if she can put in another $20. I get ticked and walk away to play video poker, lose my $20 in about 15 hands and am now REALLY ticked off. I start walking back to tell the wife to cash out so we can leave, and she is waving at me and jumping up and down.

She had hit the progressive for $12,400! By far the most we had ever won.

Took about $400 in to play blackjack a couple years ago and got down to my last $25 which I would of just bet anyways, but they closed the table. I went over to the multi spot blackjack and just put the last $25 behind the guy at first base. It was his first time playing and he was looking to me for advice so I just gave him the BS plays. He wins 6 hands in a row, so I have $175. I take it over to the 4 card table and play the usual and the Aces Up. Lose. Lose. 3rd hand comes and I peel back the cards to see 6,9,8 of hearts. I'm thinking "Come on squeeze out one more heart to keep me going". I peel the 4th card and you can see it's a red 7, but you can't tell the suit. The guy next to me who is looking at my hand yells "DON'T LOOK AT IT" so loud I just about jumped out of the chair. I smiled and put $25 into the "play" circle. I didn't have enough to play 3x so that same neighbor had me put in $50 for him.


The dealer fans it out nice and slow and it's the 7 of hearts for a straight flush. That put me at around $1600 and I then played some more $25 blackjack to get it to a nice even $2000 before I finally left. It's ironic because I don't like 4 card poker one bit, and I actually haven't played since that time.

Just killing time while our teenage kids were going through
Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, my wife hit the VP RF for
$ 1000. She had been doing ok the rest of the time as well
(me not so much) so this was our First trip ever that we had
to go to the bank and DEPOSIT some money.

Was playing Pai-gow poker, bought in for 200 dollars. Was down to my last 49.00 and in quite the foul mood so I decided to bet 25 on main, 24 on bonus bet.
Looked down at my hand, straight flush. 1200 dollars. Left the table with that, took 100 to a slot machine, betting max of 3.00 3rd pull won 987.00. Went to another slot machine with a different hundred, didn't take long til I had won 500 dollars. Went to Life of Luxury penny progressive, dropped 300 before I won the diamond jackpot for 1600. All said and done walked out with 3500 dollars after being down to my last 49.00