Laughlin RFB 362
August 21st, 2013 at 10:09:40 PM
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This is a pretty long story so I won't be able to tell it in just a post or two. It's hard to believe I haven't been back to Laughlin in over 11 years. I left after the Pioneer Double Time promotion in May of 2002 and haven't been back since. I got heavily involved in the Northern Nevada video poker scene and just never had an excuse to return to Laughlin. I'm gonna start this story at the beginning, how I wound up in Laughlin in the first place, and cover everything that was going on there.
Lodi, California - Oct. 1996. I was stuck under the Hwy. 99 overpass. I couldn't hitchhike. It was raining like hell and showed no signs of letting up. But it wasn't that bad compared to the blizzard I thumbed through in the Siskiyou's. The plan had been to work the day labor in Washington and shoot the money at the poker games to jump start a bankroll. Another failed plan. The cold weather moved in and sent me fleeing south to warmer climes. And I was way low on money. Now the plan was to thumb back to Las Vegas. By then my campsite in Vegas was behind the Carpet Barn just off of Charleston, close to the Interstate. I couldn't wait to get back so I could walk the Strip credit hustling. The plan was to thumb to Bakersfield, then 58 to Barstow, then I-15 to Las Vegas.
It rained for three days straight in Lodi. I was under the overpass the whole time. Just me, my sleeping bag. pack, a Sony Walkman, and a paperback, The Grapes of Wrath. Tom Joad and family. When the weather broke I got back on the on ramp looking for a ride. Thumbing California in 96 wasn't like it was in the old days. I used to be able to clear the state in 24 hours. I-5 down to Sac, then switch to 99 to Bakersfield, then 58 over Tehachapi Pass to Barstow, then I-40 into Arizona. But by 1996 them California folks were way wary of picking up hitchhikers. It took me three days just to get from Lodi to Tehachapi. I spent the night there in the cloverleaf of the on ramp.
The next morning I got up, went into the gas station bathroom and took a whore bath, then bought a cup of coffee and hit the on ramp. I counted up the change in my pocket. 99 cents. Oh, well. At least I had a good chance to make it to Las Vegas that day. About an hour later a man in a van pulled over. I jumped in.
"Where you headed" he asked.
"Las Vegas."
"Well, I'm headed to Bullhead City" he responded.
"Bullhead City! Are you gong through Laughlin?"
"Sure am."
"Can you drop me off there?"
"No problem."
"Thank you so much."
Laughlin had machines to credit hustle and I was broke. I wanted to be around machines as soon as possible. I took the ride to Laughlin. We went east on I-40 to Hwy. 95 and turned north. Then we hit Hwy. 163, the Laughlin Highway. I got the guy to drop me off just above Harrah's. I went and stashed my gear in the desert then walked down to Harrah's. The machines were flashing pretty good. Within an hour I was up to $8 and change. Then I spied another credit hustler. A credit hustler recognizes another credit hustler just like a skunk recognizes another skunk when they run into each other in the woods. I struck up a conversation with him.
"This is sweet" he says.
"How's that?"
"I'm from Atlanta. I busted out playing Blackjack yesterday and I got two more days before I fly back. Some local taught me how to find these credits. Real nice guy."
"So you are a bonified credit hustler now?"
"That's right. He also showed me the Pigs."
"The Pigs? What are the Pigs?"
"It's these machines the locals are beating."
"No kidding? Can you show them to me?"
"Sure follow me."
He led me to the south side of the casino next to the bar. There was a row of 6 quarter machines called Piggy Bankin'. And six machines of dollar denom on the other side. A few of the quarter machines were being played.
"So how are they beating them?" I asked.
"I don't know. I ain't quite figured it out."
I looked over and there were a couple of guys sitting at machines by the cage, with buckets of quarters in their hands. They were staring intently at the Piggy Bankin' machines.
"Well, thanks for the tip, buddy, but I have to get back to work. Good luck."
"Yeah, I'll se ya around the casino."
I made a couple of laps around the casino picking up change, then returned to the Piggy Bankin' machines. I grabbed a seat way back and watched the tourists play....and the two guys with buckets in their hands. A tourist left a machine and one of the guys with a bucket got up and approached the machine. I looked up at the top of the machine and it said 46 coins. The guy dropped in a quarter at a time and made a spin. After several spins the piggy bank went up to 47 coins, then 48, then 49. Then something happened. All of a sudden the piggy bank on the dotmation screen exploded and all the coins were awarded to the player. The guy hit the cashout button. The piggy bank reset to 10 coins. He loaded the quarters in his bucket then went and grabbed a seat again. But he was staring intently at the action on those same machines.
I watched this process over and over again. A tourist playing 2 coins (every time the machine caught blanks it would put two coins in the bank) and driving the money in the piggy bank way up, then walking off from the machine. Then one of those two guys would get up and play it off betting just one coin at a time. There was a symbol on the third reel that said "Break The Bank." When that symbol landed on the line you were awarded all the coins in the bank. I didn't know what they thought was a good number but they didn't seem to like anything under 34. I knew I was gonna have to take a shot at those machines when I got the money.
I figured I better get out of Harrah's. It's not good for a credit hustler to hang around one casino to long. I headed up river with a mental note to check the other casinos for those Piggy Bankin' machines while I was hustling credits.
More later....
Lodi, California - Oct. 1996. I was stuck under the Hwy. 99 overpass. I couldn't hitchhike. It was raining like hell and showed no signs of letting up. But it wasn't that bad compared to the blizzard I thumbed through in the Siskiyou's. The plan had been to work the day labor in Washington and shoot the money at the poker games to jump start a bankroll. Another failed plan. The cold weather moved in and sent me fleeing south to warmer climes. And I was way low on money. Now the plan was to thumb back to Las Vegas. By then my campsite in Vegas was behind the Carpet Barn just off of Charleston, close to the Interstate. I couldn't wait to get back so I could walk the Strip credit hustling. The plan was to thumb to Bakersfield, then 58 to Barstow, then I-15 to Las Vegas.
It rained for three days straight in Lodi. I was under the overpass the whole time. Just me, my sleeping bag. pack, a Sony Walkman, and a paperback, The Grapes of Wrath. Tom Joad and family. When the weather broke I got back on the on ramp looking for a ride. Thumbing California in 96 wasn't like it was in the old days. I used to be able to clear the state in 24 hours. I-5 down to Sac, then switch to 99 to Bakersfield, then 58 over Tehachapi Pass to Barstow, then I-40 into Arizona. But by 1996 them California folks were way wary of picking up hitchhikers. It took me three days just to get from Lodi to Tehachapi. I spent the night there in the cloverleaf of the on ramp.
The next morning I got up, went into the gas station bathroom and took a whore bath, then bought a cup of coffee and hit the on ramp. I counted up the change in my pocket. 99 cents. Oh, well. At least I had a good chance to make it to Las Vegas that day. About an hour later a man in a van pulled over. I jumped in.
"Where you headed" he asked.
"Las Vegas."
"Well, I'm headed to Bullhead City" he responded.
"Bullhead City! Are you gong through Laughlin?"
"Sure am."
"Can you drop me off there?"
"No problem."
"Thank you so much."
Laughlin had machines to credit hustle and I was broke. I wanted to be around machines as soon as possible. I took the ride to Laughlin. We went east on I-40 to Hwy. 95 and turned north. Then we hit Hwy. 163, the Laughlin Highway. I got the guy to drop me off just above Harrah's. I went and stashed my gear in the desert then walked down to Harrah's. The machines were flashing pretty good. Within an hour I was up to $8 and change. Then I spied another credit hustler. A credit hustler recognizes another credit hustler just like a skunk recognizes another skunk when they run into each other in the woods. I struck up a conversation with him.
"This is sweet" he says.
"How's that?"
"I'm from Atlanta. I busted out playing Blackjack yesterday and I got two more days before I fly back. Some local taught me how to find these credits. Real nice guy."
"So you are a bonified credit hustler now?"
"That's right. He also showed me the Pigs."
"The Pigs? What are the Pigs?"
"It's these machines the locals are beating."
"No kidding? Can you show them to me?"
"Sure follow me."
He led me to the south side of the casino next to the bar. There was a row of 6 quarter machines called Piggy Bankin'. And six machines of dollar denom on the other side. A few of the quarter machines were being played.
"So how are they beating them?" I asked.
"I don't know. I ain't quite figured it out."
I looked over and there were a couple of guys sitting at machines by the cage, with buckets of quarters in their hands. They were staring intently at the Piggy Bankin' machines.
"Well, thanks for the tip, buddy, but I have to get back to work. Good luck."
"Yeah, I'll se ya around the casino."
I made a couple of laps around the casino picking up change, then returned to the Piggy Bankin' machines. I grabbed a seat way back and watched the tourists play....and the two guys with buckets in their hands. A tourist left a machine and one of the guys with a bucket got up and approached the machine. I looked up at the top of the machine and it said 46 coins. The guy dropped in a quarter at a time and made a spin. After several spins the piggy bank went up to 47 coins, then 48, then 49. Then something happened. All of a sudden the piggy bank on the dotmation screen exploded and all the coins were awarded to the player. The guy hit the cashout button. The piggy bank reset to 10 coins. He loaded the quarters in his bucket then went and grabbed a seat again. But he was staring intently at the action on those same machines.
I watched this process over and over again. A tourist playing 2 coins (every time the machine caught blanks it would put two coins in the bank) and driving the money in the piggy bank way up, then walking off from the machine. Then one of those two guys would get up and play it off betting just one coin at a time. There was a symbol on the third reel that said "Break The Bank." When that symbol landed on the line you were awarded all the coins in the bank. I didn't know what they thought was a good number but they didn't seem to like anything under 34. I knew I was gonna have to take a shot at those machines when I got the money.
I figured I better get out of Harrah's. It's not good for a credit hustler to hang around one casino to long. I headed up river with a mental note to check the other casinos for those Piggy Bankin' machines while I was hustling credits.
More later....
"Quit trying your luck and start trying your skill." Mickey Crimm
August 22nd, 2013 at 4:52:31 AM
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The next stop was Gold River (now River Palms). The joint wasn't flashing to good and I only picked up a few dollars. There were no Piggy Banking machines (they would later put 6 quarter machines in). Then I stumbled by some Flush Attack machines. I had read an article by Lenny Frome in Cardplayer magazine about Flush Attacks. He said it was a beatable game, but at that point I still had no clue. I walked down to the Golden Nugget. They had two dollar Piggy Bankin' machines. I picked up a few bucks then took the River Walk to the Pioneer. I'm walking around the Pioneer picking up change and all of a sudden I walked up on some Flush Attacks. And lo and behold! Who is sitting there playing? Ali! I knew him from the mean streets of Vegas.
"Ali! What's up, Buddy?"
"How you doing?" he said.
He had two big buckets of quarters full to the brim sitting on the machine.
"Good. Hey, Ali, give me a clue."
"About what?"
"About what you are doing? I need a money making gig. Give me clue."
He hit the cashout button and loaded another bucket of quarters.
"I'll tell you what. If something comes up I'll put you in."
Then he grabbed all the buckets and walked off.
Put me in, huh? Yeah, right. That might have been what he said, but what he was really saying was F$$k off. There were no Piggy Bankin' machines in the Pioneer at that time but they would later put a bank of 8 quarter machines in, a couple of dollar machines, and a $5 machine. On the way out of the Pioneer I seen a sign that said "Steak & Eggs - $3.00 - 11 P.M. to 7 A.M." The next stop was the Colorado Belle where the machines were flashing pretty good. And they had a bank of 8 quarter Piggy Bankin' machines, and two dollar machines.
When I walked into the Edgewater I was up to $20 and change. The first thing I noticed was all the Piggy Bankin' machines. There were 15 quarter machines and 6 dollar machines. There was a lady playing one of the quarters and the number was on 65. Her husband says "C'mon, honey, we got to catch the bus" She hit the cashout button, scooped up the quarters and walked off. I sat down on the stool in front of the machine to keep someone else from coming along and playing it off. I had some thinking to do. What should I do with this play? It was on 65. I only had $20. If I try to spin it off I could go broke. I thought it over really good. F$$k it, I thought. If I go broke I'll just start back over credit hunting and put down another play when I get the money. Sooner or later I'm gonna get through the window. I pulled a handful of quarters out of my pocket, dropped one into the machine and hit the spin button. The reels spun around. The first one landed on a single bar. The second reel caught a blank. The third reel landed on Break The Bank! The Piggy Bank on the dotmation screen exploded and I was awarded all the coins. I broke the bank on the first spin of the first Pig I ever played. I almost doubled my bankroll. I fell in love with that Break The Bank symbol.
At that point I decided I would keep credit hunting but try to play off any quarter Pig I found at 50 coins or higher. And if I went broke I would just start over. But sooner or later I was going to get through the window. The next stop was the Flamingo where there were no Pigs and never would be. Then on to the Riverside where they had 4 dollar pigs and 8 quarter pigs. I found a Pig on 56 and jumped on it. It got a little spooky as it took me about a 100 spins but I wound up making $7. From the Riverside I turned around and headed back downriver. I caught another Pig play in the Edgewater. Then got two more in the Colorado Belle. By then I decided I would do what those guys up at Harrah's were doing, grab a seat and watch the action. I wound up getting six more plays in the Belle.
It was getting late and that sign in the Pioneer was on my mind....Steak & Eggs - $3.00. So that's where I wound up, pigging out (pardon the pun) on Steak & Eggs with plenty of A-1 sauce. Then I walked on up the hill, out into the desert, and rolled out my sleeping bag. My first day in Laughlin and I was up to a $109 bankroll. How sweet it is. I fell asleep and dreamed tremulous dreams of the Break The Bank symbol.
http://www.pinrepair.com/slots/wms/pigbank.htm Then scroll down to see the Piggy Bankin' machine.
more later....
"Ali! What's up, Buddy?"
"How you doing?" he said.
He had two big buckets of quarters full to the brim sitting on the machine.
"Good. Hey, Ali, give me a clue."
"About what?"
"About what you are doing? I need a money making gig. Give me clue."
He hit the cashout button and loaded another bucket of quarters.
"I'll tell you what. If something comes up I'll put you in."
Then he grabbed all the buckets and walked off.
Put me in, huh? Yeah, right. That might have been what he said, but what he was really saying was F$$k off. There were no Piggy Bankin' machines in the Pioneer at that time but they would later put a bank of 8 quarter machines in, a couple of dollar machines, and a $5 machine. On the way out of the Pioneer I seen a sign that said "Steak & Eggs - $3.00 - 11 P.M. to 7 A.M." The next stop was the Colorado Belle where the machines were flashing pretty good. And they had a bank of 8 quarter Piggy Bankin' machines, and two dollar machines.
When I walked into the Edgewater I was up to $20 and change. The first thing I noticed was all the Piggy Bankin' machines. There were 15 quarter machines and 6 dollar machines. There was a lady playing one of the quarters and the number was on 65. Her husband says "C'mon, honey, we got to catch the bus" She hit the cashout button, scooped up the quarters and walked off. I sat down on the stool in front of the machine to keep someone else from coming along and playing it off. I had some thinking to do. What should I do with this play? It was on 65. I only had $20. If I try to spin it off I could go broke. I thought it over really good. F$$k it, I thought. If I go broke I'll just start back over credit hunting and put down another play when I get the money. Sooner or later I'm gonna get through the window. I pulled a handful of quarters out of my pocket, dropped one into the machine and hit the spin button. The reels spun around. The first one landed on a single bar. The second reel caught a blank. The third reel landed on Break The Bank! The Piggy Bank on the dotmation screen exploded and I was awarded all the coins. I broke the bank on the first spin of the first Pig I ever played. I almost doubled my bankroll. I fell in love with that Break The Bank symbol.
At that point I decided I would keep credit hunting but try to play off any quarter Pig I found at 50 coins or higher. And if I went broke I would just start over. But sooner or later I was going to get through the window. The next stop was the Flamingo where there were no Pigs and never would be. Then on to the Riverside where they had 4 dollar pigs and 8 quarter pigs. I found a Pig on 56 and jumped on it. It got a little spooky as it took me about a 100 spins but I wound up making $7. From the Riverside I turned around and headed back downriver. I caught another Pig play in the Edgewater. Then got two more in the Colorado Belle. By then I decided I would do what those guys up at Harrah's were doing, grab a seat and watch the action. I wound up getting six more plays in the Belle.
It was getting late and that sign in the Pioneer was on my mind....Steak & Eggs - $3.00. So that's where I wound up, pigging out (pardon the pun) on Steak & Eggs with plenty of A-1 sauce. Then I walked on up the hill, out into the desert, and rolled out my sleeping bag. My first day in Laughlin and I was up to a $109 bankroll. How sweet it is. I fell asleep and dreamed tremulous dreams of the Break The Bank symbol.
http://www.pinrepair.com/slots/wms/pigbank.htm Then scroll down to see the Piggy Bankin' machine.
more later....
"Quit trying your luck and start trying your skill." Mickey Crimm
August 22nd, 2013 at 7:00:10 AM
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Quote: mickeycrimmThe next stop was Gold River (now River Palms). The joint wasn't flashing to good and I only picked up a few dollars. There were no Piggy Banking machines (they would later put 6 quarter machines in). Then I stumbled by some Flush Attack machines. I had read an article by Lenny Frome in Cardplayer magazine about Flush Attacks. He said it was a beatable game, but at that point I still had no clue. I walked down to the Golden Nugget. They had two dollar Piggy Bankin' machines. I picked up a few bucks then took the River Walk to the Pioneer. I'm walking around the Pioneer picking up change and all of a sudden I walked up on some Flush Attacks. And lo and behold! Who is sitting there playing? Ali! I knew him from the mean streets of Vegas.
"Ali! What's up, Buddy?"
"How you doing?" he said.
He had two big buckets of quarters full to the brim sitting on the machine.
"Good. Hey, Ali, give me a clue."
"About what?"
"About what you are doing? I need a money making gig. Give me clue."
He hit the cashout button and loaded another bucket of quarters.
"I'll tell you what. If something comes up I'll put you in."
Then he grabbed all the buckets and walked off.
Put me in, huh? Yeah, right. That might have been what he said, but what he was really saying was F$$k off. There were no Piggy Bankin' machines in the Pioneer at that time but they would later put a bank of 8 quarter machines in, a couple of dollar machines, and a $5 machine. On the way out of the Pioneer I seen a sign that said "Steak & Eggs - $3.00 - 11 P.M. to 7 A.M." The next stop was the Colorado Belle where the machines were flashing pretty good. And they had a bank of 8 quarter Piggy Bankin' machines, and two dollar machines.
When I walked into the Edgewater I was up to $20 and change. The first thing I noticed was all the Piggy Bankin' machines. There were 15 quarter machines and 6 dollar machines. There was a lady playing one of the quarters and the number was on 65. Her husband says "C'mon, honey, we got to catch the bus" She hit the cashout button, scooped up the quarters and walked off. I sat down on the stool in front of the machine to keep someone else from coming along and playing it off. I had some thinking to do. What should I do with this play? It was on 65. I only had $20. If I try to spin it off I could go broke. I thought it over really good. F$$k it, I thought. If I go broke I'll just start back over credit hunting and put down another play when I get the money. Sooner or later I'm gonna get through the window. I pulled a handful of quarters out of my pocket, dropped one into the machine and hit the spin button. The reels spun around. The first one landed on a single bar. The second reel caught a blank. The third reel landed on Break The Bank! The Piggy Bank on the dotmation screen exploded and I was awarded all the coins. I broke the bank on the first spin of the first Pig I ever played. I almost doubled my bankroll. I fell in love with that Break The Bank symbol.
At that point I decided I would keep credit hunting but try to play off any quarter Pig I found at 50 coins or higher. And if I went broke I would just start over. But sooner or later I was going to get through the window. The next stop was the Flamingo where there were no Pigs and never would be. Then on to the Riverside where they had 4 dollar pigs and 8 quarter pigs. I found a Pig on 56 and jumped on it. It got a little spooky as it took me about a 100 spins but I wound up making $7. From the Riverside I turned around and headed back downriver. I caught another Pig play in the Edgewater. Then got two more in the Colorado Belle. By then I decided I would do what those guys up at Harrah's were doing, grab a seat and watch the action. I wound up getting six more plays in the Belle.
It was getting late and that sign in the Pioneer was on my mind....Steak & Eggs - $3.00. So that's where I wound up, pigging out (pardon the pun) on Steak & Eggs with plenty of A-1 sauce. Then I walked on up the hill, out into the desert, and rolled out my sleeping bag. My first day in Laughlin and I was up to a $109 bankroll. How sweet it is. I fell asleep and dreamed tremulous dreams of the Break The Bank symbol.
http://www.pinrepair.com/slots/wms/pigbank.htm Then scroll down to see the Piggy Bankin' machine.
more later....
August 22nd, 2013 at 7:01:21 AM
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Hey, keep the stories coming, I'm enjoying this quite a bit.
What is your first name again, I know it can't be Mickey.
What is your first name again, I know it can't be Mickey.
August 22nd, 2013 at 3:33:00 PM
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Quote: JIMMYFOCKERHey, keep the stories coming, I'm enjoying this quite a bit. What is your first name again, I know it can't be Mickey.
Mickey is my nickname, Jimmy. I was named after my father but my mother called me Mickey from the time I came out of the womb. That's what all my family, including my father, called me. I can't divulge my real first name because of casino personnel lurking these gambling forums. But I can divulge a little information. The biggest clan of Crimms in the United States is in Scott County, Mississippi. That's where I'm from. A little farming community called Ringgold.
"Quit trying your luck and start trying your skill." Mickey Crimm
August 22nd, 2013 at 6:46:26 PM
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I love love love love these stories.
"Dice, verily, are armed with goads and driving-hooks, deceiving and tormenting, causing grievous woe." -Rig Veda 10.34.4
August 23rd, 2013 at 12:19:05 AM
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I witnessed my first "camp out" when the bingo promotion was going on at the Palms. It started at midnight so I figured I'd screw around and grab a card at 11:55pm and stroll over to the 5 play 9/6 jacks but all the seats were taken by advantage players chatting with each other and waiting for the clock to strike. I stood around for a bit and luckily a seat opened up but everyone else had $500-1000 in their machines so you know what they were here for.
"Man Babes" #AxelFabulous
August 23rd, 2013 at 12:37:37 AM
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Great stuff.
Keep it coming.
Keep it coming.
"What, me worry?"
August 24th, 2013 at 10:57:38 AM
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My second day in Laughlin I concentrated on the Pigs in the Edgewater and the Belle. It was easy walking back and forth....and there were 23 quarter machines between the two casinos. I was seeing good numbers on the dollar machines too but avoided them. I didn't have enough money to assume the risk. But I knew that sooner or later I was going to throw down on them. I just kept plugging away on the quarters. I had my first losing play that morning but by mid afternoon I nudged above the $200 mark in bankroll. I dropped my playable number down to 40. I made the decision to knock off the credit hustling. The money was in the Pigs and I didn't want to give the casinos an excuse to get rid of me. And again my last stop that night was the Pioneer chowing down on steak & eggs. How sweet it is. Then I headed on up the hill, back out into the desert, and into my sleeping bag. The bankroll was at $247. That night would be another watershed event in my life. My homeless career was about to come to a screeching halt....forever. That night was the very last night I ever rolled a sleeping bag out in the weeds to get some sleep.
By noon the next day my bankroll went over the $300 mark. At that point I decided that if I see a dollar pig at 50 or higher I was going to throw down. And sure enough, a man walked off from a dollar Pig with 54 coins in the bank. It was scary but I got lucky. I broke the bank of the fourth spin. Yipeeeee! Now I was off and running on the dollars. Four times the money. When I knocked off that night I had $535 in my pocket. I made the requisite stop at the Pioneer for the Steak & Eggs, then walked up the hill past Harrah's. I started out into the desert but then stopped, turned around, and looked at Harrah's. Then I looked back out to the desert where my sleeping bag was. Then I looked at Harrah's again. To hell with it, I thought. I walked down to Harrah's and up to the hotel desk.
"How much for a single?" I asked
"Twenty-Five dollars plus tax."
"I'll take it."
When I got to the room the first order of business was a hot shower. When I came out of the shower I seen my reflection in the mirror. I gave myself a lecture. "Mickey, if you mess this one up there is no hope for you. You've been presented with a golden opportunity. Don't muck it up. No sucker gambling, asshole. You either got an edge or you don't play. If you mess it up you deserve to spend the rest of your life on the street. You got that, Idiot?"
"Yes, I got it." I said to myself. I went and jumped in bed. Nice clean linens. What a country.
By noon the next day my bankroll went over the $300 mark. At that point I decided that if I see a dollar pig at 50 or higher I was going to throw down. And sure enough, a man walked off from a dollar Pig with 54 coins in the bank. It was scary but I got lucky. I broke the bank of the fourth spin. Yipeeeee! Now I was off and running on the dollars. Four times the money. When I knocked off that night I had $535 in my pocket. I made the requisite stop at the Pioneer for the Steak & Eggs, then walked up the hill past Harrah's. I started out into the desert but then stopped, turned around, and looked at Harrah's. Then I looked back out to the desert where my sleeping bag was. Then I looked at Harrah's again. To hell with it, I thought. I walked down to Harrah's and up to the hotel desk.
"How much for a single?" I asked
"Twenty-Five dollars plus tax."
"I'll take it."
When I got to the room the first order of business was a hot shower. When I came out of the shower I seen my reflection in the mirror. I gave myself a lecture. "Mickey, if you mess this one up there is no hope for you. You've been presented with a golden opportunity. Don't muck it up. No sucker gambling, asshole. You either got an edge or you don't play. If you mess it up you deserve to spend the rest of your life on the street. You got that, Idiot?"
"Yes, I got it." I said to myself. I went and jumped in bed. Nice clean linens. What a country.
"Quit trying your luck and start trying your skill." Mickey Crimm
August 25th, 2013 at 9:29:37 AM
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Great stuff! Enjoy reading everything you post.
August 25th, 2013 at 10:23:25 AM
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mickey,
I think a lot of folks are like me; watching and waiting for the next installment, but nothing to say except encourage you to keep talkin'...so here's another bump.
I think a lot of folks are like me; watching and waiting for the next installment, but nothing to say except encourage you to keep talkin'...so here's another bump.
If the House lost every hand, they wouldn't deal the game.
August 25th, 2013 at 11:25:29 AM
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Those first few days in Laughlin was how I got my start playing advantage machines. There would be a whole lot more to come. But I've often asked myself "What if that guy in the van who picked me up in Tehachapi hadn't stopped?" Would I still be living out of a sleeping bag and backpack? "What if I hadn't met that busted out blackjack player from Atlanta?" Would I still be hustling credits for a living? Fate is a funny thing.
A few days after checking into Harrah's my bankroll went over $1000. I decided I needed a better wardrobe. I was gonna have to jettison the Salvation Army threads. So I went over to Horizon Outlet to see what I could find. Ali was sitting on the bench next to the door when I approached.
"Ali! What's up?"
"I just ate, I'm taking a little breather. What are you up to?"
"I need some new threads."
"I seen you playing the Pigs. You must be doing pretty good."
"A hell of a lot better than I was doing. See ya in the casino's" I said as I entered the Outlet.
Ali was always highly secretive about what he was doing and I knew it. I knew he was up to something. I just couldn't put my finger on it. He wasn't just sitting there taking a breather. I went back in the food court and grabbed a seat. The front was all plate glass window and I could see Ali. A young man approached the door. Ali said something to him and the kid nodded his head. He came in the door and walked up to the podium in front of the escalator. The woman at the podium handed him a little book. The kid took it and went back out the door to Ali. Ali pulled a bill out of his pocket and handed it to the kid. The kid handed the book to Ali.
I got up and went to the podium. A sign said Ramada Fun Books. "Can I get one?" I asked the lady. She handed me the book. "How many can I get?" I asked. "Just one a day." she responded. I walked off while thumbing through the book. A hotdog with a coke for a buck was on one of the coupons. Ali ain't after a hotdog and coke, I thought. I kept thumbing. They were pretty much all junk coupons until I got to one that said "125 coin bonus for 4 of a Kind." I didn't know anything about the math. But if Ali thought it was strong enough that he was willing to pay then it must be a strong play. Just one funbook a day, huh? Not for Ali.
I knew what 9/6 Jacks were. And they had them in the Ramada. I figured I couldn't butcher the game too bad. So I added that to my repertoire. I cracked one a day on quarters. That was the start of my advantage video poker career.
more later....
A few days after checking into Harrah's my bankroll went over $1000. I decided I needed a better wardrobe. I was gonna have to jettison the Salvation Army threads. So I went over to Horizon Outlet to see what I could find. Ali was sitting on the bench next to the door when I approached.
"Ali! What's up?"
"I just ate, I'm taking a little breather. What are you up to?"
"I need some new threads."
"I seen you playing the Pigs. You must be doing pretty good."
"A hell of a lot better than I was doing. See ya in the casino's" I said as I entered the Outlet.
Ali was always highly secretive about what he was doing and I knew it. I knew he was up to something. I just couldn't put my finger on it. He wasn't just sitting there taking a breather. I went back in the food court and grabbed a seat. The front was all plate glass window and I could see Ali. A young man approached the door. Ali said something to him and the kid nodded his head. He came in the door and walked up to the podium in front of the escalator. The woman at the podium handed him a little book. The kid took it and went back out the door to Ali. Ali pulled a bill out of his pocket and handed it to the kid. The kid handed the book to Ali.
I got up and went to the podium. A sign said Ramada Fun Books. "Can I get one?" I asked the lady. She handed me the book. "How many can I get?" I asked. "Just one a day." she responded. I walked off while thumbing through the book. A hotdog with a coke for a buck was on one of the coupons. Ali ain't after a hotdog and coke, I thought. I kept thumbing. They were pretty much all junk coupons until I got to one that said "125 coin bonus for 4 of a Kind." I didn't know anything about the math. But if Ali thought it was strong enough that he was willing to pay then it must be a strong play. Just one funbook a day, huh? Not for Ali.
I knew what 9/6 Jacks were. And they had them in the Ramada. I figured I couldn't butcher the game too bad. So I added that to my repertoire. I cracked one a day on quarters. That was the start of my advantage video poker career.
more later....
"Quit trying your luck and start trying your skill." Mickey Crimm
August 27th, 2013 at 3:27:58 PM
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I'm ready for the next installment :)
Vote for Nobody 2020!
August 27th, 2013 at 4:47:24 PM
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The quad bonus didn't last much longer after I got on it. The Ramada was getting hammered by the hustlers cracking multiple coupons every day. I even heard there was some counterfeiting going on. The funbooks were cheaply put together with just a couple of staples on one end. One hustler, that both Jimmy Focker and AxelWolf know, was bankrolling multitudes of people on the play. One girl he put in hit a $4000 royal. When she got the handpay she hauled ass into the women's room. She didn't want to give up the money. He went right in after her. He got the money but got 86'd for going in the women's room. I got outhouse lucky before the play ended by holding the Jack of Clubs and coming up with a royal. My first advantage play royal.
I was bouncing around the hotels, Harrah's, Gold River, Riverside. It was running $150 to $170 a week depending on what I had to pay for Friday and Saturday night. And I was paying for the meals too. But I was making plenty of money off the Pigs. Three and a half weeks in Laughlin and I crossed the $5000 mark. There was something else going on. I was meeting a different breed of gambler around the Pigs. Advantage gamblers that were around the Pigs for the same reason I was. And they had been in the racket a hell of a lot longer than me. I became friends with many of them. And I was learning the value of things from them. Stuff like match play coupons, free aces, promotions, etc. And they talked a lot about Flush Attack and FPDW.
It was getting close to December and I decided I needed to take a trip to Las Vegas. If they had Pigs in Laughlin they must have them in Vegas, I thought. But the real reason to go was I wanted to go by Gambler's General Store on S. Main to see what they had in the way of video poker books. I took the Greyhound to Las Vegas and checked into the Western. What the hell. $16 rooms. I was a big hit with my down and out friends. Mostly because I had money and they didn't. They tagged me for a little bit. I went down to Gambler's General Store. I found two books that were the best of the lot. Both written by Dan Paymar. Precision Play and The Best of Video Poker Times. I kept them on the nightstand and read myself to sleep every night. Plus I picked up strategy cards for 9/6 Jacks and FPDW.
The Piggy Bankin' situation was a little different in Vegas than Laughlin. They were practically all dollar denom. Downtown there were six in the Horsheshoe and two in the Golden Nugget. There were banks of Piggy Bankin' in the Strat, Circus Circus, Stardust, Treasure Island, Mirage, Flamingo, Luxor and Tropicana. And probably more places that I don't remember. The competition for plays was much fiercer in Las Vegas. A lady beat me to a play in the Stardust and got an attendant to shut the machine down. Then she pulled out her cell phone and made a call. I figured she was the scout and someone else came along and played them off. In Treasure Island there was a guy who sat there all frickin' day watching those Pigs. I struck a conversation with him one day. He was being paid $6 an hour and 10% of the win by someone for sweating those pigs. But I still managed to get plays.
It was around Christmas I got off the bus at Circus Circus and went inside. All the Pigs were shut down. I asked a floorperson what was up. She didn't know. So I went back out and jumped on a bus downtown. I walked into the Horseshoe and the Pigs were shut down. What the Hell? I walked over to the Golden Nugget and I'll be a son of a bitch, they were shut down too. What the hell's goin' on here? Somebody is messing with my meal ticket. I'm gonna get to the bottom of this, I muttered to myself. I got down looking on the machine for a name, you know, the manufacturer. I finally found it. Williams Gaming, Chicago, Illinois. I went to the phone booth to see if they had an office in Las Vegas. Sure enough they had a Las Vegas field office. I called the number.
"Williams Gaming."
"Yes, Ma'am. I'm a big fan of your Piggy Bankin' machines. I play them a lot. But the last few places I've been in they're shut down."
"We're being sued by IGT over the Telnaes patent" she said. "They got a court order to have the machines removed. But we're scrambling for an injunction."
"Thank you, ma'am."
Damn the luck. By the time they got the injunction 90% of the Pigs were gone out of Las Vegas.
more later....
I was bouncing around the hotels, Harrah's, Gold River, Riverside. It was running $150 to $170 a week depending on what I had to pay for Friday and Saturday night. And I was paying for the meals too. But I was making plenty of money off the Pigs. Three and a half weeks in Laughlin and I crossed the $5000 mark. There was something else going on. I was meeting a different breed of gambler around the Pigs. Advantage gamblers that were around the Pigs for the same reason I was. And they had been in the racket a hell of a lot longer than me. I became friends with many of them. And I was learning the value of things from them. Stuff like match play coupons, free aces, promotions, etc. And they talked a lot about Flush Attack and FPDW.
It was getting close to December and I decided I needed to take a trip to Las Vegas. If they had Pigs in Laughlin they must have them in Vegas, I thought. But the real reason to go was I wanted to go by Gambler's General Store on S. Main to see what they had in the way of video poker books. I took the Greyhound to Las Vegas and checked into the Western. What the hell. $16 rooms. I was a big hit with my down and out friends. Mostly because I had money and they didn't. They tagged me for a little bit. I went down to Gambler's General Store. I found two books that were the best of the lot. Both written by Dan Paymar. Precision Play and The Best of Video Poker Times. I kept them on the nightstand and read myself to sleep every night. Plus I picked up strategy cards for 9/6 Jacks and FPDW.
The Piggy Bankin' situation was a little different in Vegas than Laughlin. They were practically all dollar denom. Downtown there were six in the Horsheshoe and two in the Golden Nugget. There were banks of Piggy Bankin' in the Strat, Circus Circus, Stardust, Treasure Island, Mirage, Flamingo, Luxor and Tropicana. And probably more places that I don't remember. The competition for plays was much fiercer in Las Vegas. A lady beat me to a play in the Stardust and got an attendant to shut the machine down. Then she pulled out her cell phone and made a call. I figured she was the scout and someone else came along and played them off. In Treasure Island there was a guy who sat there all frickin' day watching those Pigs. I struck a conversation with him one day. He was being paid $6 an hour and 10% of the win by someone for sweating those pigs. But I still managed to get plays.
It was around Christmas I got off the bus at Circus Circus and went inside. All the Pigs were shut down. I asked a floorperson what was up. She didn't know. So I went back out and jumped on a bus downtown. I walked into the Horseshoe and the Pigs were shut down. What the Hell? I walked over to the Golden Nugget and I'll be a son of a bitch, they were shut down too. What the hell's goin' on here? Somebody is messing with my meal ticket. I'm gonna get to the bottom of this, I muttered to myself. I got down looking on the machine for a name, you know, the manufacturer. I finally found it. Williams Gaming, Chicago, Illinois. I went to the phone booth to see if they had an office in Las Vegas. Sure enough they had a Las Vegas field office. I called the number.
"Williams Gaming."
"Yes, Ma'am. I'm a big fan of your Piggy Bankin' machines. I play them a lot. But the last few places I've been in they're shut down."
"We're being sued by IGT over the Telnaes patent" she said. "They got a court order to have the machines removed. But we're scrambling for an injunction."
"Thank you, ma'am."
Damn the luck. By the time they got the injunction 90% of the Pigs were gone out of Las Vegas.
more later....
"Quit trying your luck and start trying your skill." Mickey Crimm
August 27th, 2013 at 6:00:06 PM
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I'm enjoying the story! Keep it coming.
"For with much wisdom comes much sorrow." -- Ecclesiastes 1:18 (NIV)
August 27th, 2013 at 6:18:54 PM
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Coincidence or not I have just played one of those machines on saturday! Didn't hit anything decent, lost U$20 straight up!
No bounce, no play.
August 27th, 2013 at 7:16:33 PM
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Quote: aluisioCoincidence or not I have just played one of those machines on saturday! Didn't hit anything decent, lost U$20 straight up!
WOW, if you can say, where did you find one?
August 27th, 2013 at 8:27:11 PM
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Last time I was at Resorts in AC they had a bank of Diamond Mine machines, but that was a couple years ago. And there were also people watching them.
A falling knife has no handle.
August 27th, 2013 at 8:32:07 PM
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Boz, I played it at Dominican Republic, Punta Cana. It was in the Majestic Elagance's small casino. They only have one of these machines at the quarter level.
No bounce, no play.
August 29th, 2013 at 5:34:06 AM
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With the Pigs stripped out of Las Vegas, and I figured they had to be gone out of Laughlin too, I went over my options. They all appeared to be in Paymar's book, The Best of Video Poker Times, and in one of his strategy cards, FPDW. One of my questions to the Laughlin hustlers was "what was a safe bankroll for FPDW?" Their answer was "$3,000 is pretty safe on quarters as long as you are getting decent cashback." My bankroll was just under $7,000. The Gold River in Laughlin had a bank of 6 quarter FPDW. The card was worth .333% cashback, and on Thursdays you got triple points, Fridays double points. The comp meter ran at .333%.
Another game Paymar wrote about was a Sigma game called Jackpot Card. I had seen those machines in Laughlin but didn't know how to exploit them. But Paymar led the way. Most of the machines were 6/5 Double Double Jackpot Bonus. There was a bingo card in the upper right hand corner of the screen. There were 25 squares on the card. You filled the squares in by hitting various hands. The middle square was Two Pair. Another square was filled in when you made a straight. A 3 of a Kind was in a couple of the squares. Four squares were filled in when you made flushes of that suit. Some of the squares had certain full houses in them. The rest of the squares had all of the Four of a Kind's in them.
When you made a Four of a Kind in the game and filled in a square, if it made a regular bingo on the card you got a $62.50 bonus. And sometimes filling in a square with a certain four of a kind hit two bingo's at once, or even three bingo's at once, so you got paid a double or triple bonus. When these machines got action the bingo cards would fill up to where you could get 9, 10, or 11 ways to get the bonuses. 6/5 DDJB was a 94.9% game. Paymar used a simple rule of thumb for calculating the value that the bingo card added to the game. Add .9% per way to get a bonus. So a 10 way added 9% to the game. When you hit a 4 of a Kind that made a Bingo it would blank that line out so you had to count up the ways again. If you didn't have enough ways you had to take a walk and let someone else fill the card back up to where it was a play. They had banks of these machines in the Riverside, Flamingo, Belle, Pioneer and Harrah's.
Another game in Paymar's book was Flush Attack. But it was written for unlinked Flush Attacks and how to get a 4% or 5% edge by sweeping through the machines picking up all the 5 for 1 flushes made by prior players. It was a game that would eventually become my bread and butter play, but not in 1997.
Dancer and Paymar had a feud going. Bob was continually criticizing Paymar because he had left a penalty situation or two out of his 9/6 Jacks strategy. And I have to hand it to Bob. If he put out a strategy card it was the nuts, just flawless. But back in those days Paymar was doing something that Bob wasn't. He was teaching me, and any one else who paid attention, how to make dollar money playing quarter video poker. When you are getting a 4% or 5% edge on quarters, that's dollar money. Which would you rather play? A quarter game with a 4% edge or a dollar game with a 1% edge?
So I decided I had to go back to Laughlin and try to exploit the FPDW and the Jackpot Cards. And maybe try to figure out how to beat the linked banks of Flush Attack. So I jumped on Greyhound back to Laughlin.
More later....
Another game Paymar wrote about was a Sigma game called Jackpot Card. I had seen those machines in Laughlin but didn't know how to exploit them. But Paymar led the way. Most of the machines were 6/5 Double Double Jackpot Bonus. There was a bingo card in the upper right hand corner of the screen. There were 25 squares on the card. You filled the squares in by hitting various hands. The middle square was Two Pair. Another square was filled in when you made a straight. A 3 of a Kind was in a couple of the squares. Four squares were filled in when you made flushes of that suit. Some of the squares had certain full houses in them. The rest of the squares had all of the Four of a Kind's in them.
When you made a Four of a Kind in the game and filled in a square, if it made a regular bingo on the card you got a $62.50 bonus. And sometimes filling in a square with a certain four of a kind hit two bingo's at once, or even three bingo's at once, so you got paid a double or triple bonus. When these machines got action the bingo cards would fill up to where you could get 9, 10, or 11 ways to get the bonuses. 6/5 DDJB was a 94.9% game. Paymar used a simple rule of thumb for calculating the value that the bingo card added to the game. Add .9% per way to get a bonus. So a 10 way added 9% to the game. When you hit a 4 of a Kind that made a Bingo it would blank that line out so you had to count up the ways again. If you didn't have enough ways you had to take a walk and let someone else fill the card back up to where it was a play. They had banks of these machines in the Riverside, Flamingo, Belle, Pioneer and Harrah's.
Another game in Paymar's book was Flush Attack. But it was written for unlinked Flush Attacks and how to get a 4% or 5% edge by sweeping through the machines picking up all the 5 for 1 flushes made by prior players. It was a game that would eventually become my bread and butter play, but not in 1997.
Dancer and Paymar had a feud going. Bob was continually criticizing Paymar because he had left a penalty situation or two out of his 9/6 Jacks strategy. And I have to hand it to Bob. If he put out a strategy card it was the nuts, just flawless. But back in those days Paymar was doing something that Bob wasn't. He was teaching me, and any one else who paid attention, how to make dollar money playing quarter video poker. When you are getting a 4% or 5% edge on quarters, that's dollar money. Which would you rather play? A quarter game with a 4% edge or a dollar game with a 1% edge?
So I decided I had to go back to Laughlin and try to exploit the FPDW and the Jackpot Cards. And maybe try to figure out how to beat the linked banks of Flush Attack. So I jumped on Greyhound back to Laughlin.
More later....
"Quit trying your luck and start trying your skill." Mickey Crimm
August 30th, 2013 at 11:05:10 AM
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When I got back to Laughlin I was happily surprised that a lot of the Laughlin Pigs had survived the IGT court order. But the hotspot got stripped out. They were all gone out of the Edgewater, Belle, Ramada, Golden Nugget. In 1997 Williams and IGT came to some sort of agreement. And they actually started putting more Pigs in Laughlin. The Ramada put in an 8 machine quarter bank. Gold River put in a 6 machine bank. Harrah's added 10 more machines, bringing their total to 16 quarters and 6 dollars.
So I had the cash cow with the Pigs for most of the week, but I played the Gold River Deuces on Thursdays, sometime Fridays. And I had to get my lazy but into action and write a strategy for the Jackpot Cards. It would be the first video poker strategy I ever wrote. I had been developing a skill for the past few years that was about to come in real handy in video poker. When I was tramping around the mountain states working day labor, playing poker, hitting libraries and reading gambling books, some of those pokers books gave odds or percentages for completing draws. Now it's nice to take someone else's word for it but I wanted to know for myself. So I set about to learn how to make those calculations. But I hit a massive brick wall. I made it through the tenth grade but I didn't take Algrebra. I'm grabbing these algebra and probability books off the shelfs in the libraries and I can't make head or tails of what is going on. I didn't understand the code language. All those fancy equations. They were all gibberish to me. It was a huge brick wall I couldn't get through. And I must confess, I'm still ignorant that way today.
Sometime in 1993 I grabbed a book off of a library shelf called "Scarne's Guide to Modern Poker" by John Scarne. Chapter 10 was called "The Mathematics of Poker. " Scarne did the math for 5-card combinations in a 52 card deck. But he didn't use all that fancy equation gibberish. He wrote it like this:
52X51X50X49X48/5X4X3X2X1 = 2, 598, 960.
When I seen that equation the party was over. I knew exactly what it meant. I knew the implications of it. Then Scarne proceeded to break down the deck. He showed how many combinations made a royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, etc. all the way down to the no pair hands. And he wrote the equations out just like the one above. Damn right I ran that chapter to the copying machine. I bought a pocket calculator and started practicing those equations....and coming up with my own. Like, what's my chances of picking up pocket aces in Texas Holdem? What's my chances of picking up three wheel cards or a Pair of Aces with a low kicker in Stud Hi-Lo? If I have a four flush on fourth street what's my chances of completing the flush in 7 card stud. I learned to calculate the odds and percentages on every situation in poker so I wasn't dependent on someone else having to tell me. And that skill came in handy when I switched to video poker. The Dan Paymar equation for video poker was "probability times payoff." Okay. So let's start from there. I wrote the strategy for 6/5 DDJB with a calculator and scratch paper. Then I wrote the strategy for 8/5 Flush Attack with a 125 coin flush.
So then I had the Pigs working, The Gold River Deuces, playing off Jackpot Cards when I found a strong play, and working the Riverside 18 machine linked bank of Flush Attack. Life was good on the River. I was starting to get a comped meal here and there. But I was still paying the rent. I met a hustler on the Riverside Flush Attack Bank named Bill Hartman. I can say his name because I think he's dead now. No one has seen him in years. We became friends. He was a pretty nice guy for someone who had done 13 years in San Quentin for manslaughter.
The casino hosts in the Riverside were allowed to take tips. It became a racket. One day Hartman says:
"How much you paying for rent?" We were sitting in the North Tower Bar.
"At least $160 a week, sometimes more."
'I can get you a room here in the Riverside for $10 a day. And they got cable television here too."
"I'm all up for that, Bill."
"Okay, how many days you want?"
"How about seven?"
"Okay, take $70, fold it up, put it in the palm of your hand. I'm gonna go call my casino host."
When he got back he told me that when the host got there, shake hands with her and palm off the $70. When she got there Bill says:
"Cindy, this is Mickey, he needs a room for seven days." I shook hands with her palming off the money. She took down my information.
"Give me about 15 minutes, Mickey" she said. "Then you can check in at the hotel desk any time you want." She handed me her card and walked away. Hartman chimed back in. The Riverside had a Post Office.
"Now, when you're done checking in go downstairs to the Post Office and rent a mailbox."
"What for?"
"You'll see. You're missin' out on all the mail, son."
"What mail?"
"The mail from all these casinos on the River. Just go get the box. It only costs $14."
So I went and rented a mailbox. Then I went by all the slot clubs. The address I had given them was from an old dilapidated trailer court I used to live in in Colorado Springs. I had my address changed to the Riverside. Hartman was right. The mail came flooding in. I met my casino host every week in the North Tower Bar with a $70 handshake.
more later....
So I had the cash cow with the Pigs for most of the week, but I played the Gold River Deuces on Thursdays, sometime Fridays. And I had to get my lazy but into action and write a strategy for the Jackpot Cards. It would be the first video poker strategy I ever wrote. I had been developing a skill for the past few years that was about to come in real handy in video poker. When I was tramping around the mountain states working day labor, playing poker, hitting libraries and reading gambling books, some of those pokers books gave odds or percentages for completing draws. Now it's nice to take someone else's word for it but I wanted to know for myself. So I set about to learn how to make those calculations. But I hit a massive brick wall. I made it through the tenth grade but I didn't take Algrebra. I'm grabbing these algebra and probability books off the shelfs in the libraries and I can't make head or tails of what is going on. I didn't understand the code language. All those fancy equations. They were all gibberish to me. It was a huge brick wall I couldn't get through. And I must confess, I'm still ignorant that way today.
Sometime in 1993 I grabbed a book off of a library shelf called "Scarne's Guide to Modern Poker" by John Scarne. Chapter 10 was called "The Mathematics of Poker. " Scarne did the math for 5-card combinations in a 52 card deck. But he didn't use all that fancy equation gibberish. He wrote it like this:
52X51X50X49X48/5X4X3X2X1 = 2, 598, 960.
When I seen that equation the party was over. I knew exactly what it meant. I knew the implications of it. Then Scarne proceeded to break down the deck. He showed how many combinations made a royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, etc. all the way down to the no pair hands. And he wrote the equations out just like the one above. Damn right I ran that chapter to the copying machine. I bought a pocket calculator and started practicing those equations....and coming up with my own. Like, what's my chances of picking up pocket aces in Texas Holdem? What's my chances of picking up three wheel cards or a Pair of Aces with a low kicker in Stud Hi-Lo? If I have a four flush on fourth street what's my chances of completing the flush in 7 card stud. I learned to calculate the odds and percentages on every situation in poker so I wasn't dependent on someone else having to tell me. And that skill came in handy when I switched to video poker. The Dan Paymar equation for video poker was "probability times payoff." Okay. So let's start from there. I wrote the strategy for 6/5 DDJB with a calculator and scratch paper. Then I wrote the strategy for 8/5 Flush Attack with a 125 coin flush.
So then I had the Pigs working, The Gold River Deuces, playing off Jackpot Cards when I found a strong play, and working the Riverside 18 machine linked bank of Flush Attack. Life was good on the River. I was starting to get a comped meal here and there. But I was still paying the rent. I met a hustler on the Riverside Flush Attack Bank named Bill Hartman. I can say his name because I think he's dead now. No one has seen him in years. We became friends. He was a pretty nice guy for someone who had done 13 years in San Quentin for manslaughter.
The casino hosts in the Riverside were allowed to take tips. It became a racket. One day Hartman says:
"How much you paying for rent?" We were sitting in the North Tower Bar.
"At least $160 a week, sometimes more."
'I can get you a room here in the Riverside for $10 a day. And they got cable television here too."
"I'm all up for that, Bill."
"Okay, how many days you want?"
"How about seven?"
"Okay, take $70, fold it up, put it in the palm of your hand. I'm gonna go call my casino host."
When he got back he told me that when the host got there, shake hands with her and palm off the $70. When she got there Bill says:
"Cindy, this is Mickey, he needs a room for seven days." I shook hands with her palming off the money. She took down my information.
"Give me about 15 minutes, Mickey" she said. "Then you can check in at the hotel desk any time you want." She handed me her card and walked away. Hartman chimed back in. The Riverside had a Post Office.
"Now, when you're done checking in go downstairs to the Post Office and rent a mailbox."
"What for?"
"You'll see. You're missin' out on all the mail, son."
"What mail?"
"The mail from all these casinos on the River. Just go get the box. It only costs $14."
So I went and rented a mailbox. Then I went by all the slot clubs. The address I had given them was from an old dilapidated trailer court I used to live in in Colorado Springs. I had my address changed to the Riverside. Hartman was right. The mail came flooding in. I met my casino host every week in the North Tower Bar with a $70 handshake.
more later....
"Quit trying your luck and start trying your skill." Mickey Crimm
August 30th, 2013 at 12:41:56 PM
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I started collecting stats on the Pigs. I would record the number of coins in the bank when I started the play, count and record the numbers of spins I made, record the number in the bank when it broke, and how many coins it cost me to break the bank. Recording the number of coins in the bank at the start and at the end told me how many times the machine caught blanks--which is what put coins in the bank. A few other hustlers were doing the same and we compared notes. We all had similar results.
We put the chance of breaking the bank at 1 in 90 spins.
We put the cost to spin the play off at 18 coins.
We put the frequency of the machine catching blanks at 11.
The ten coins in the bank at preset represented 11.1% of the payback. The machine dropping a coin in the bank every 11 spins was equivalent to a 9% progressive meter. Forty coins in the bank was a typical play. On quarters it was worth $5.50. On dollars it was worth $22. You could make 90 spins in 4 or five minutes. The rest of it was a volume thing. How many plays can you get in a day?
The next big event in 1997 was when Silicon Gaming's Odyssey machines arrived in Laughlin. It was a multi game machine. In that first generation of games there were two that were exploitable. A banking game called Fort Knox, and another banking game called Buccaneer Gold.
Fort Knox was a 3-coin quarter three reel video game. The line pays were the main game. There was a bank vault with a ten digit combination. While you were playing, every so often one of the digits would fill in. When you got 10 digits filled in you got a bonus of either 55 coins, 110 coins, or 165 coins. Tourists would play this game and often walk away leaving 5 or more digits filled in. I would come in behind them and complete the play betting just one coin at a time.
Buccaneer Gold was a pirate themed 3 reel video game. There was a dagger on the third reel. When it landed on the line a pirate would jump up and stick a dagger in a log. When you got five daggers you got a big bonus. Tourists would play this game and sometimes walk away leaving 3 or more daggers in the log. It was advantage if you found 3 daggers in the log, and super strong if you found 4 daggers in the log.
Silicon Gaming came behind and changed the configuration on Fort Knox to where you had to bet 3 coins to fill in the digits. They probably did it because of the vulture activity. But the new configuration turned out to be even stronger for the advantage player. In any event, I added two more games to my arsenal.
And then, lo and behold. Here came the IGT Vision Series. Cherrie Pie's, Diamond Mines, Slot Bingo's, etc. All of them highly exploitable.
Except for a two week summer trip to Colorado, and a 3 week gig in Mesquite, I spent all of 1997 livng in the Riverside. That is, until November of 1997. That's when the sh$t hit the fan.
more later....
We put the chance of breaking the bank at 1 in 90 spins.
We put the cost to spin the play off at 18 coins.
We put the frequency of the machine catching blanks at 11.
The ten coins in the bank at preset represented 11.1% of the payback. The machine dropping a coin in the bank every 11 spins was equivalent to a 9% progressive meter. Forty coins in the bank was a typical play. On quarters it was worth $5.50. On dollars it was worth $22. You could make 90 spins in 4 or five minutes. The rest of it was a volume thing. How many plays can you get in a day?
The next big event in 1997 was when Silicon Gaming's Odyssey machines arrived in Laughlin. It was a multi game machine. In that first generation of games there were two that were exploitable. A banking game called Fort Knox, and another banking game called Buccaneer Gold.
Fort Knox was a 3-coin quarter three reel video game. The line pays were the main game. There was a bank vault with a ten digit combination. While you were playing, every so often one of the digits would fill in. When you got 10 digits filled in you got a bonus of either 55 coins, 110 coins, or 165 coins. Tourists would play this game and often walk away leaving 5 or more digits filled in. I would come in behind them and complete the play betting just one coin at a time.
Buccaneer Gold was a pirate themed 3 reel video game. There was a dagger on the third reel. When it landed on the line a pirate would jump up and stick a dagger in a log. When you got five daggers you got a big bonus. Tourists would play this game and sometimes walk away leaving 3 or more daggers in the log. It was advantage if you found 3 daggers in the log, and super strong if you found 4 daggers in the log.
Silicon Gaming came behind and changed the configuration on Fort Knox to where you had to bet 3 coins to fill in the digits. They probably did it because of the vulture activity. But the new configuration turned out to be even stronger for the advantage player. In any event, I added two more games to my arsenal.
And then, lo and behold. Here came the IGT Vision Series. Cherrie Pie's, Diamond Mines, Slot Bingo's, etc. All of them highly exploitable.
Except for a two week summer trip to Colorado, and a 3 week gig in Mesquite, I spent all of 1997 livng in the Riverside. That is, until November of 1997. That's when the sh$t hit the fan.
more later....
"Quit trying your luck and start trying your skill." Mickey Crimm
August 30th, 2013 at 1:38:07 PM
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Definitely continue, but I feel obligated to inform you that I would pay money to be reading this stuff, just sayin'!
https://wizardofvegas.com/forum/off-topic/gripes/11182-pet-peeves/120/#post815219
August 30th, 2013 at 2:37:18 PM
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The Flush Attack Bank at the Riverside.
This was an 18 machine linked bank sitting at the bottom of the escalator to the bingo hall. The game was 8/5 Double Bonus with every fourth flush paying 125 coins. The linked banks worked like this: Fifteen points worth of flush triggered Flush Attack mode. A person betting five coins puts in 5 points when me makes a flush. A person betting two coins puts in two points when she makes a flush, etc. Once 15 points was collected the top of the screen on every machine flashed "FLUSH ATTACK!!! next flush pays bonus." Then it was a race to see who could make the flush first. When someone made the flush the tops of the screens of the machines went blank. You are no longer in flush attack mode.
The optimum way to play the game is only play when in flush attack mode. Your money's at 135%. But you couldn't do that in the Riverside. That bank of machines had more players thrown off of it than any other set of machines in the world. The heat came mainly from security and slot operations, but there were other ways to lose the bank. Don't piss off a little old lady pushing a change cart. Don't tip a cocktail waitress and see what happens. You had to disguise your play, and give up a little of the earn by looking like a player. So the strategy became, bet one coin out of mode, bet 5 coins in mode.
And there were times when you just didn't want to play the game. You walk up to the bank, ten machines are taken. Three little slow playin' old ladies are playing. They're the marks. They're the ones that are gonna turn the light on. They are surrounded by seven hustlers, all licking their chops, all waiting for the light. The little old ladies don't know it be they are up against the fastest flush attackers in the world. I just went the other way when it was like that. I like it the other way around, 7 lives ones, and only 3 hustlers.
All the casino hosts were on the take. The rumor was that one of them, I'll call him Karl, had over 50 people in the hotel at $10 a pop per night. That's over $500 a day. Every night when he got off work you seen Carl playing dollar sucker video poker in the Riverside. There was another host, Jerry, (his real name, he's dead) that was running a lot of people too. My host didn't have that many. Jerry was from the same place in Minnesota as Don Laughlin. They were thicker than thieves. When Jerry died Don renamed the high roller room "Jerry's Place."
There was a hustler living in the hotel that frequently played flush attack. No one liked him. He had a nasty disposition. The heat was getting heavier and heavier on the flush attack bank. All of a sudden, one day two more security cameras showed up on the ceiling at each end of the bank. Players were getting pitched. I knew my turn was coming. The flush attack and the casino host situation were all coming to a boil in November, 1997. The hustler no one liked did us all in.
He got into a dispute with some woman over some Jewelry. Security went up to his room to question him. The dude was dying his hair at the time and got dye all in the carpet. Security pitched him out of the hotel. Dude didn't just call the cops, he called Gaming too. He told Gaming what was going on with the rooms at the Riverside. Gaming came in and busted the whole thing out. About 100 people hit the bricks that day. That's how many rooms were being sold under the table everyday.
I met my host in the North Tower Bar.
"The sh$t has hit the fan" she said.
"Are you in any trouble?"
"No. All my people ran points. That idiot, Karl, had people in rooms that didn't even have slot cards. You have a 700 point a day average ($3500 wager). They won't say anything to you. But it's best that we don't be in contact for awhile. I'm trying to move to the Golden Nugget anyway. You qualify for a lot of room comp. You don't have to call me, just call Slot Club Reservations. They will take care of you."
Okay. So no more $10 rooms. The situation wasn't hopeless. I was getting mailers from every casino every month. Many of them had room offers. I set about to see just how much room comp I could get from the casiinos on the River. It developed into what I call Laughlin RFB 362. The Thursday, Friday, Saturday night of the last weekend in April, Biker Weekend, were the only three days in the year I couldn't get comped in Laughlin. Those rooms are sold out a year in advance for top dollar. And I did it all playing advantage games.
more later....oh! one other thing that changed at the Riverside in November 1997. Karl was no longer playing sucker video poker every night.
This was an 18 machine linked bank sitting at the bottom of the escalator to the bingo hall. The game was 8/5 Double Bonus with every fourth flush paying 125 coins. The linked banks worked like this: Fifteen points worth of flush triggered Flush Attack mode. A person betting five coins puts in 5 points when me makes a flush. A person betting two coins puts in two points when she makes a flush, etc. Once 15 points was collected the top of the screen on every machine flashed "FLUSH ATTACK!!! next flush pays bonus." Then it was a race to see who could make the flush first. When someone made the flush the tops of the screens of the machines went blank. You are no longer in flush attack mode.
The optimum way to play the game is only play when in flush attack mode. Your money's at 135%. But you couldn't do that in the Riverside. That bank of machines had more players thrown off of it than any other set of machines in the world. The heat came mainly from security and slot operations, but there were other ways to lose the bank. Don't piss off a little old lady pushing a change cart. Don't tip a cocktail waitress and see what happens. You had to disguise your play, and give up a little of the earn by looking like a player. So the strategy became, bet one coin out of mode, bet 5 coins in mode.
And there were times when you just didn't want to play the game. You walk up to the bank, ten machines are taken. Three little slow playin' old ladies are playing. They're the marks. They're the ones that are gonna turn the light on. They are surrounded by seven hustlers, all licking their chops, all waiting for the light. The little old ladies don't know it be they are up against the fastest flush attackers in the world. I just went the other way when it was like that. I like it the other way around, 7 lives ones, and only 3 hustlers.
All the casino hosts were on the take. The rumor was that one of them, I'll call him Karl, had over 50 people in the hotel at $10 a pop per night. That's over $500 a day. Every night when he got off work you seen Carl playing dollar sucker video poker in the Riverside. There was another host, Jerry, (his real name, he's dead) that was running a lot of people too. My host didn't have that many. Jerry was from the same place in Minnesota as Don Laughlin. They were thicker than thieves. When Jerry died Don renamed the high roller room "Jerry's Place."
There was a hustler living in the hotel that frequently played flush attack. No one liked him. He had a nasty disposition. The heat was getting heavier and heavier on the flush attack bank. All of a sudden, one day two more security cameras showed up on the ceiling at each end of the bank. Players were getting pitched. I knew my turn was coming. The flush attack and the casino host situation were all coming to a boil in November, 1997. The hustler no one liked did us all in.
He got into a dispute with some woman over some Jewelry. Security went up to his room to question him. The dude was dying his hair at the time and got dye all in the carpet. Security pitched him out of the hotel. Dude didn't just call the cops, he called Gaming too. He told Gaming what was going on with the rooms at the Riverside. Gaming came in and busted the whole thing out. About 100 people hit the bricks that day. That's how many rooms were being sold under the table everyday.
I met my host in the North Tower Bar.
"The sh$t has hit the fan" she said.
"Are you in any trouble?"
"No. All my people ran points. That idiot, Karl, had people in rooms that didn't even have slot cards. You have a 700 point a day average ($3500 wager). They won't say anything to you. But it's best that we don't be in contact for awhile. I'm trying to move to the Golden Nugget anyway. You qualify for a lot of room comp. You don't have to call me, just call Slot Club Reservations. They will take care of you."
Okay. So no more $10 rooms. The situation wasn't hopeless. I was getting mailers from every casino every month. Many of them had room offers. I set about to see just how much room comp I could get from the casiinos on the River. It developed into what I call Laughlin RFB 362. The Thursday, Friday, Saturday night of the last weekend in April, Biker Weekend, were the only three days in the year I couldn't get comped in Laughlin. Those rooms are sold out a year in advance for top dollar. And I did it all playing advantage games.
more later....oh! one other thing that changed at the Riverside in November 1997. Karl was no longer playing sucker video poker every night.
"Quit trying your luck and start trying your skill." Mickey Crimm
August 31st, 2013 at 12:38:55 AM
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mickey, if i go down to laughlin is there still anything i can play, and get cheap enough rooms including weekends? specifically, can i survive and grow a $1000 roll to $3000 within 6 months without a lot of risk of going broke? be aware im banned at the colorado belle and edgewater and harrahs, id probably hang out riverside, palms, pioneer, avi or nugget. feel free to send a PM if u dont want to discuss too much publicly
sevencard2003.blogspot.com
August 31st, 2013 at 9:13:39 AM
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Quote: sevencard2003mickey, if i go down to laughlin is there still anything i can play, and get cheap enough rooms including weekends? specifically, can i survive and grow a $1000 roll to $3000 within 6 months without a lot of risk of going broke? be aware im banned at the colorado belle and edgewater and harrahs, id probably hang out riverside, palms, pioneer, avi or nugget. feel free to send a PM if u dont want to discuss too much publicly
I haven't been to Laughlin in 11 years so I don't have a clue as to what can be done there now.
"Quit trying your luck and start trying your skill." Mickey Crimm
August 31st, 2013 at 9:39:45 AM
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Quote: sevencard2003mickey, if i go down to laughlin is there still anything i can play, and get cheap enough rooms including weekends? specifically, can i survive and grow a $1000 roll to $3000 within 6 months without a lot of risk of going broke? be aware im banned at the colorado belle and edgewater and harrahs, id probably hang out riverside, palms, pioneer, avi or nugget. feel free to send a PM if u dont want to discuss too much publicly
Not sure what you are banned for, but odds are the others are already aware of you and will have an eye on you.
August 31st, 2013 at 9:46:04 AM
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Quote: Mission146Definitely continue, but I feel obligated to inform you that I would pay money to be reading this stuff, just sayin'!
I was thinking the exact same thing, Mission. Mickey: in this age of electronic book publishing, you should take these threads, (the other couple where you tell stories as well) put them together into a .pdf, and sell them to Barnes and Noble and Amazon as an ebook. They are fresh, engrossing, and extremely well told, not just for gambling specialists. At 1.99-2.99 for ebook only, you'd have a killing on a short read (30-50 pages), under 10 you'd have a bestseller memoir for a novel-length. Truly. Do it. I'm not an editor, but I'm dying to edit this stuff into a book.
If the House lost every hand, they wouldn't deal the game.
August 31st, 2013 at 11:58:37 AM
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Quote: beachbumbabsI was thinking the exact same thing, Mission. Mickey: in this age of electronic book publishing, you should take these threads, (the other couple where you tell stories as well) put them together into a .pdf, and sell them to Barnes and Noble and Amazon as an ebook. They are fresh, engrossing, and extremely well told, not just for gambling specialists. At 1.99-2.99 for ebook only, you'd have a killing on a short read (30-50 pages), under 10 you'd have a bestseller memoir for a novel-length. Truly. Do it. I'm not an editor, but I'm dying to edit this stuff into a book.
Thank you so much, BBB. I've had offers. Dancer offered to get me published through Huntington Press. Henry Tamburin has made some offers. I've been contacted by ghost writers who want my story. So far I've turned them all down. It's a pride thing. Once I start taking money for my stories I can no longer say that I make my entire living gambling. The last time I was broke was when I showed up in Laughlin with 99 cents in my pocket. Seventeen years running now. I wear it like a badge of honor.
But the situation will be changing in the next few years. I'm not that far from Social Security. I suppose it will be then that I try to publish something. And I like the e-book way. For now I'm happy enough telling my stories to people that understand them. I've told lots of my gambling stories on vpFREE. Now I'm telling them on WoV. The members of these two sites have an understanding of gambling that is far superior to the general public. I get more gratification writing for free to people who understand it than I will ever get taking money from the masses who probably won't understand much of it.
I can use some advice. I'm about as computer stupid as they come. I have stories in Notepad. A few months ago I downloaded and started putting stories in Open Office. I'm especially concerned about the stories I have in Notepad and what kind of problems a person would have if I attached the Notepad document to an email and sent it to them. The Wizard has offered to put some fictional stories I have on his site if he likes them. But they are in Notepad and he might have problems with it. I can write the stories, but for the technical stuff, like I said, I'm about as computer dumb as they come.
In the fictional stories I try to give some insight into how the mind of a professional gambler works. They are also sexed up a little bit. I have these two characters, River Johnny, a professional gambler, and his on and off again love interest, a knock out of a girl, Delia. She's a compulsive gambler. The stories are written from my own experiences in that situation.
Any technical advice is appreciated. And please try to explain it to me like I'm a three year old. Take care.
"Quit trying your luck and start trying your skill." Mickey Crimm
August 31st, 2013 at 12:30:30 PM
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mickey,
one question:
Whats a credit hustler?
u mean those people that leave 8 cents in the machine when they went broke because its not worth their time to try to cash the ticket?
wait.. this was back in the 80's and 90's where slots gave out real coins.
now even more lost on credit hustler?
one question:
Whats a credit hustler?
u mean those people that leave 8 cents in the machine when they went broke because its not worth their time to try to cash the ticket?
wait.. this was back in the 80's and 90's where slots gave out real coins.
now even more lost on credit hustler?
Craps is paradise (Pair of dice).
Lets hear it for the SpeedCount Mathletes :)
August 31st, 2013 at 1:05:50 PM
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Quote: 100xOddsmickey,
one question:
Whats a credit hustler?
u mean those people that leave 8 cents in the machine when they went broke because its not worth their time to try to cash the ticket?
wait.. this was back in the 80's and 90's where slots gave out real coins.
now even more lost on credit hustler?
I got out of the racket just before they started coming with TITO. For whatever reason some people walk away from machines unknowingly leaving credits on them. In those days all the machines were coin droppers. A credit hustler roams around the casino looking for abandoned machines with credits on them. It took a practiced eye. Generally, there were no buttons lit on a machine that didn't have credits on it. It's a meager living at best. Generally, you only found a few coins at a time. When I was camped out behind the Carpet Barn I walked everyday through the Strat, Sahara, Circus Circus, Slots 'A Fun, Westward Ho, Stardust, Desert Inn, and all the way down to Tropicana going through the casinos. Then I turned around and did the same thing going back. It was worth $20 to $30 a day.
"Quit trying your luck and start trying your skill." Mickey Crimm
August 31st, 2013 at 1:11:34 PM
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I just remembered. On my Las Vegas Strip credit hustling route I took my first meal break at Westward Ho. Do you remember those big one pound rancid hot dogs for a buck? The only way you could eat it was you had to drown it in condiments. And on the way back from Tropicana I stopped in the Boardwalk for those three little burgers you got for a buck.
"Quit trying your luck and start trying your skill." Mickey Crimm
August 31st, 2013 at 1:50:16 PM
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mickeycrimm,
Notepad saves letters and numbers in the most basic text form, called .txt in the extension (the suffix). It's part of the ASCII set of characters that underlie every font and program. It doesn't have a lot of formatting code (the things that indicate to a word processing program like OpenOffice what font, paragraphs, margins, etc.) hidden in it, so it's very compact; just the language itself. It's actually ideal for your purposes, because every program processes text, and so you're way ahead of the game there; it's like using an electronic typewriter. It's very easy to take your entire set of stories and paste or insert them either online or into a processing program for making them pretty.
For making a book into an ebook, they do one of two things. Either they take a hard copy of the book and scan it with a scanner (same bright light head as a copier uses, but a copier is a picture-taker). A scanner usually has software called an Optical Character Reader (OCR), which looks for and recognizes text while taking the picture. That allows the picture the scanner takes to be manipulated like a document, where you can edit and format it, because it "reads" what you wrote. The other way is to take something written electronically (either .txt like yours, or one that's been processed like in Word) and convert it into the same type of OCR'd document. The most popular converter by far is made by Adobe, and their Acrobat program is the industry standard. The other thing that Acrobat does is, once you're done with a document, you can freeze the contents and send it out as a .pdf, protecting the integrity of your work. .pdf is a document that can be read by an ereader, like Nook or Kindle, as well as any computer or tablet that has the free Adobe Reader installed. They can read but not edit your work with that program. They can change the font size, and search or skip around the book using a hypersearch application, but the work stays unchanged.
There are other programs that do the word processing, and other formats for ebook or ereader usage which have their own advantages, but that's the gist of how it works. For your purposes, for now, I would continue to use Notepad if you're comfortable with it, because it will be easy to transition into any publishing format for whoever processes your work.
This is informal advice; I have published some periodicals here and there and run a forum in the past, but it's strictly amateur hour for me. There is a series of publications, revised annually, called "The Writer's Guide" that give the latest publication and book format information, how to get an agent or an editor, that sort of thing. Here are 2 links:
a good book
and
a decent website
one more
a paid service that's not bad
Best of luck!
Notepad saves letters and numbers in the most basic text form, called .txt in the extension (the suffix). It's part of the ASCII set of characters that underlie every font and program. It doesn't have a lot of formatting code (the things that indicate to a word processing program like OpenOffice what font, paragraphs, margins, etc.) hidden in it, so it's very compact; just the language itself. It's actually ideal for your purposes, because every program processes text, and so you're way ahead of the game there; it's like using an electronic typewriter. It's very easy to take your entire set of stories and paste or insert them either online or into a processing program for making them pretty.
For making a book into an ebook, they do one of two things. Either they take a hard copy of the book and scan it with a scanner (same bright light head as a copier uses, but a copier is a picture-taker). A scanner usually has software called an Optical Character Reader (OCR), which looks for and recognizes text while taking the picture. That allows the picture the scanner takes to be manipulated like a document, where you can edit and format it, because it "reads" what you wrote. The other way is to take something written electronically (either .txt like yours, or one that's been processed like in Word) and convert it into the same type of OCR'd document. The most popular converter by far is made by Adobe, and their Acrobat program is the industry standard. The other thing that Acrobat does is, once you're done with a document, you can freeze the contents and send it out as a .pdf, protecting the integrity of your work. .pdf is a document that can be read by an ereader, like Nook or Kindle, as well as any computer or tablet that has the free Adobe Reader installed. They can read but not edit your work with that program. They can change the font size, and search or skip around the book using a hypersearch application, but the work stays unchanged.
There are other programs that do the word processing, and other formats for ebook or ereader usage which have their own advantages, but that's the gist of how it works. For your purposes, for now, I would continue to use Notepad if you're comfortable with it, because it will be easy to transition into any publishing format for whoever processes your work.
This is informal advice; I have published some periodicals here and there and run a forum in the past, but it's strictly amateur hour for me. There is a series of publications, revised annually, called "The Writer's Guide" that give the latest publication and book format information, how to get an agent or an editor, that sort of thing. Here are 2 links:
a good book
and
a decent website
one more
a paid service that's not bad
Best of luck!
If the House lost every hand, they wouldn't deal the game.
August 31st, 2013 at 2:31:23 PM
permalink
Quote: beachbumbabsmickeycrimm,
Notepad saves letters and numbers in the most basic text form, called .txt in the extension (the suffix). It's part of the ASCII set of characters that underlie every font and program. It doesn't have a lot of formatting code (the things that indicate to a word processing program like OpenOffice what font, paragraphs, margins, etc.) hidden in it, so it's very compact; just the language itself. It's actually ideal for your purposes, because every program processes text, and so you're way ahead of the game there; it's like using an electronic typewriter. It's very easy to take your entire set of stories and paste or insert them either online or into a processing program for making them pretty.
For making a book into an ebook, they do one of two things. Either they take a hard copy of the book and scan it with a scanner (same bright light head as a copier uses, but a copier is a picture-taker). A scanner usually has software called an Optical Character Reader (OCR), which looks for and recognizes text while taking the picture. That allows the picture the scanner takes to be manipulated like a document, where you can edit and format it, because it "reads" what you wrote. The other way is to take something written electronically (either .txt like yours, or one that's been processed like in Word) and convert it into the same type of OCR'd document. The most popular converter by far is made by Adobe, and their Acrobat program is the industry standard. The other thing that Acrobat does is, once you're done with a document, you can freeze the contents and send it out as a .pdf, protecting the integrity of your work. .pdf is a document that can be read by an ereader, like Nook or Kindle, as well as any computer or tablet that has the free Adobe Reader installed. They can read but not edit your work with that program. They can change the font size, and search or skip around the book using a hypersearch application, but the work stays unchanged.
There are other programs that do the word processing, and other formats for ebook or ereader usage which have their own advantages, but that's the gist of how it works. For your purposes, for now, I would continue to use Notepad if you're comfortable with it, because it will be easy to transition into any publishing format for whoever processes your work.
This is informal advice; I have published some periodicals here and there and run a forum in the past, but it's strictly amateur hour for me. There is a series of publications, revised annually, called "The Writer's Guide" that give the latest publication and book format information, how to get an agent or an editor, that sort of thing. Here are 2 links:
a good book
and
a decent website
one more
a paid service that's not bad
Best of luck!
Thanks, Babs. I've saved your post so I can study it, and do the research in the links. Take care.
"Quit trying your luck and start trying your skill." Mickey Crimm
September 1st, 2013 at 10:29:17 AM
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You, sir, are the Hemingway of Gambling story-telling. Keep it coming. There is probably a movie here as well. I trust you will be hearing from Frank S. soon enough with an offer or two.
September 1st, 2013 at 1:50:12 PM
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Mickey you should contact richard munchkin if hes writing another book. I throughly enjoy your stories more then the multimillionaire gamblers.
"Man Babes" #AxelFabulous
September 1st, 2013 at 3:04:09 PM
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The advantage slot situation kept developing in 1998 and into 1999. Williams came with banking games like Shopping Spree, X-Factor and Safecracker. Silicon Gaming came with a second generation of banking games on the Odyssey's, Riddle Of The Sphinx, Lady Of Fortune, and a video poker game called Bonus Playoff. The Odyssey's had six games on them so, with Fort Knox and Buccaneer Gold, on a lot of the machines 5 of the six games would be banking games. IGT came with a second generation in the Vision series. Games like Diamond Thief, Money Factory, Jewel In The Crown, Good Times. I haven't written a lot about the Vision series but I'll get around to it sooner or later. They were banking games and highly exploitable by knowledgeable players. There were so many advantage slots, not just in Laughlin but also in Vegas, Reno, Tahoe, that scouting out and playing them in advantage mode became a full time occupation for many hustlers.
There was another advantage slot called Bingo. It was manufactured by a small company, the name of which escapes me. It was a five reel, five line video slot game. You could bet up to five coins per line. Above the reels was a bingo card. You could pick your own pattern, anything from a regular bingo up to a coverall. The bingo balls came out on the reels, the B's on the first reel, I's on the second reel, N's on the third reel, etc. If the ball matched a number on your bingo card then it filled that number in. When you made your bingo you got a bonus. The size of the bonus was based on the amount off action the machine got since the last time a bingo was made. So the trick to the game was playing off partial patterns that people left. And you only bet one coin a spin, while the prior player was betting multiple coins per spin. It was a huge advantage.
So we had all these advantage slots in every casino on the River. And there was strong video poker everywhere. And....there were 10,000 hotel rooms out in the middle of nowhere. The occupancy rates were high on the weekends but very low during the week. The casinos worked hard to keep people in the rooms.
GOLD RIVER/RIVER PALMS
I got the room comp out of them two ways.
1. Every month they sent me a mailer with 4 two-day packages. So I was in the Palms for two days every week.
2. You could use your comp dollars for rooms and meals. The meter ran .3333%
The card was .3333% cashback, triple points on Thursdays, double points on Fridays.
Equipment:
Quarter FPDW
Progressives that went positive
A bank of quarter Pigs
Odyssey's
Two linked banks of Flush Attack
Jackpot Cards
For a while they had the Williams video blackjack with early surrender (100.4%)
THE RAMADA (Now Tropicana)
I got the room comps out of them three ways:
1. Locals got a three day Getaway Package every month for $11. Okay, I lied. I was actually paying a whopping $11 a month to live in Laughlin.
2. They sent me a mailer every month with a 2 day package.
3. Discretionary, up to the casino host.
Cashback was .0666% for out-of-towners. Locals got 5X points making the card .3333%. One day a month locals got 10X points. The comp account was "don't ask, won't tell." It's an easy thing to figure out if they will tell you how many comp dollars you have. Whatever they say it is, go run $1000 in action then ask them again. Then you can figure out what the meter speed is. But they wouldn't tell you in the Ramada.
Equipment:
A bank of quarter Pigs
Odyssey's
Dollar Visions
Linked bank of Flush Attack
10/7 Double Bonus
I didn't play much video poker in the Ramada. I mostly played the dollar Visions. Their dollar slots sucked. They were all 90%ers. So you had to play the Visions real close. But they comped the hell out of dollar slot players. Anytime I ran pretty good action on the Visions I picked up the house phone and booked a couple of days a month or so down the road. Oh, BTW, my card was falling out of the machines quite a bit.
THE PIONEER
I got the room comp out of them four ways.
1. Two Hundred points a month got you a two-day Getaway Package.
2. They sent me a mailer every month with a two-day package.
3. They sent me a 3-day package for every holiday, including Easter and Cinco de Mayo.
4. You could buy rooms with your comp dollars. It didn't matter if it was midweek, weekend or holiday, the rooms were 16 comp dollars per night. I spent most of the weekends in the Pioneer.
The card was .167% cashback and .3333% comp for rooms and meals. They had some kind of promotion practically everyday like double or triple points or card of the day.
Equipment:
FPDW
Flush Attack
Quarter and dollar Pigs, and even a $5 Pig.
Jackpot Cards
Maxx
In 1999 they unlinked the Flush Attacks....which was a Godsend. Now we had a 101.8% game playing straight through with promotions. It lasted three years.
RIVERSIDE:
1. 500 points ($2500 wager) got you a two-day midweek Getaway Package every month. 1000 points got a weekend Getaway Package.
2. They sent me a mailer with a two-day midweek package every month.
3. Discretionary, up to the host
4. They sent me a lot of 3-day holiday packages.
The card was worth .2% cashback, the comp was "don't ask, won't tell."
Equipment:
Flush Attack
House A' Rockin'
Quarter and dollar Visions
Quarter and dollar Pigs
X-Factors
Jackpot Cards
I always ran a 1000+ points a month in the Riverside. Sometimes I took the Weekend Getaway. But if I booked it midweek I always asked if I could hang two more days on. They never had a problem with it. BTW, I booked all the rooms in Laughlin by phone.
BELLE AND EDGEWATER
Both places would send me a two-day package only 3 or four times a year. But I used them when I got them. The card was .25% cashback, .25% comp for rooms and meals. I ate quite a bit in both places. Their buffets sucked, but it was free.
Equipment:
10/7 Double bonus
9/6/5 DDJB (100.4%)
Quarter and dollar Visions
Odyssey's
X-Factors
There was a quarter 15/10 Loose Deuce (101.6%) in one of the bartops in the Edgewater.
For awhile the Belle had quarter FPDW
Bingo machines
Jackpot Cards
FLAMINGO (Now Aquarius)
They were pretty skimpy. They only sent me a few two-day packages a year.
Equipment:
Quarter and dollar Odyssey's
Bingo machines
Quarter, 50 cent and dollar Visions
X-Factors
Jackpot Cards
The Flamingo was a good place to play the Visions on busy weekend nights.
GOLDEN NUGGET
The card was .2% cashback."
I would play the quarter FPDW on double point days. They sent me a two or three day room package about every two months. They never turned me down for a meal comp.
HARRAH'S
Those deadbeats never sent me anything.
I had switched from a backpack to a rollaway suitcase in 1998. I kept all the rooms booked at least a month in advance. I used a calendar to keep track of everything. Whenever I booked a room I would pencil in the name of the casino in the dates on the calender. I circulated through the casinos with two, three, and sometimes four day packages. On moving day I would pack up the rollaway, check out, jump in a cab to the next casino, and ask for an early check in, which I frequently got. If not, I would drop the rollaway off at valet, and I was back in action. I would come back later and pick up the keys and the rollaway.
Life was nice on the River. I don't know why I ever gave it up. Laughlin RFB 362.
There was another advantage slot called Bingo. It was manufactured by a small company, the name of which escapes me. It was a five reel, five line video slot game. You could bet up to five coins per line. Above the reels was a bingo card. You could pick your own pattern, anything from a regular bingo up to a coverall. The bingo balls came out on the reels, the B's on the first reel, I's on the second reel, N's on the third reel, etc. If the ball matched a number on your bingo card then it filled that number in. When you made your bingo you got a bonus. The size of the bonus was based on the amount off action the machine got since the last time a bingo was made. So the trick to the game was playing off partial patterns that people left. And you only bet one coin a spin, while the prior player was betting multiple coins per spin. It was a huge advantage.
So we had all these advantage slots in every casino on the River. And there was strong video poker everywhere. And....there were 10,000 hotel rooms out in the middle of nowhere. The occupancy rates were high on the weekends but very low during the week. The casinos worked hard to keep people in the rooms.
GOLD RIVER/RIVER PALMS
I got the room comp out of them two ways.
1. Every month they sent me a mailer with 4 two-day packages. So I was in the Palms for two days every week.
2. You could use your comp dollars for rooms and meals. The meter ran .3333%
The card was .3333% cashback, triple points on Thursdays, double points on Fridays.
Equipment:
Quarter FPDW
Progressives that went positive
A bank of quarter Pigs
Odyssey's
Two linked banks of Flush Attack
Jackpot Cards
For a while they had the Williams video blackjack with early surrender (100.4%)
THE RAMADA (Now Tropicana)
I got the room comps out of them three ways:
1. Locals got a three day Getaway Package every month for $11. Okay, I lied. I was actually paying a whopping $11 a month to live in Laughlin.
2. They sent me a mailer every month with a 2 day package.
3. Discretionary, up to the casino host.
Cashback was .0666% for out-of-towners. Locals got 5X points making the card .3333%. One day a month locals got 10X points. The comp account was "don't ask, won't tell." It's an easy thing to figure out if they will tell you how many comp dollars you have. Whatever they say it is, go run $1000 in action then ask them again. Then you can figure out what the meter speed is. But they wouldn't tell you in the Ramada.
Equipment:
A bank of quarter Pigs
Odyssey's
Dollar Visions
Linked bank of Flush Attack
10/7 Double Bonus
I didn't play much video poker in the Ramada. I mostly played the dollar Visions. Their dollar slots sucked. They were all 90%ers. So you had to play the Visions real close. But they comped the hell out of dollar slot players. Anytime I ran pretty good action on the Visions I picked up the house phone and booked a couple of days a month or so down the road. Oh, BTW, my card was falling out of the machines quite a bit.
THE PIONEER
I got the room comp out of them four ways.
1. Two Hundred points a month got you a two-day Getaway Package.
2. They sent me a mailer every month with a two-day package.
3. They sent me a 3-day package for every holiday, including Easter and Cinco de Mayo.
4. You could buy rooms with your comp dollars. It didn't matter if it was midweek, weekend or holiday, the rooms were 16 comp dollars per night. I spent most of the weekends in the Pioneer.
The card was .167% cashback and .3333% comp for rooms and meals. They had some kind of promotion practically everyday like double or triple points or card of the day.
Equipment:
FPDW
Flush Attack
Quarter and dollar Pigs, and even a $5 Pig.
Jackpot Cards
Maxx
In 1999 they unlinked the Flush Attacks....which was a Godsend. Now we had a 101.8% game playing straight through with promotions. It lasted three years.
RIVERSIDE:
1. 500 points ($2500 wager) got you a two-day midweek Getaway Package every month. 1000 points got a weekend Getaway Package.
2. They sent me a mailer with a two-day midweek package every month.
3. Discretionary, up to the host
4. They sent me a lot of 3-day holiday packages.
The card was worth .2% cashback, the comp was "don't ask, won't tell."
Equipment:
Flush Attack
House A' Rockin'
Quarter and dollar Visions
Quarter and dollar Pigs
X-Factors
Jackpot Cards
I always ran a 1000+ points a month in the Riverside. Sometimes I took the Weekend Getaway. But if I booked it midweek I always asked if I could hang two more days on. They never had a problem with it. BTW, I booked all the rooms in Laughlin by phone.
BELLE AND EDGEWATER
Both places would send me a two-day package only 3 or four times a year. But I used them when I got them. The card was .25% cashback, .25% comp for rooms and meals. I ate quite a bit in both places. Their buffets sucked, but it was free.
Equipment:
10/7 Double bonus
9/6/5 DDJB (100.4%)
Quarter and dollar Visions
Odyssey's
X-Factors
There was a quarter 15/10 Loose Deuce (101.6%) in one of the bartops in the Edgewater.
For awhile the Belle had quarter FPDW
Bingo machines
Jackpot Cards
FLAMINGO (Now Aquarius)
They were pretty skimpy. They only sent me a few two-day packages a year.
Equipment:
Quarter and dollar Odyssey's
Bingo machines
Quarter, 50 cent and dollar Visions
X-Factors
Jackpot Cards
The Flamingo was a good place to play the Visions on busy weekend nights.
GOLDEN NUGGET
The card was .2% cashback."
I would play the quarter FPDW on double point days. They sent me a two or three day room package about every two months. They never turned me down for a meal comp.
HARRAH'S
Those deadbeats never sent me anything.
I had switched from a backpack to a rollaway suitcase in 1998. I kept all the rooms booked at least a month in advance. I used a calendar to keep track of everything. Whenever I booked a room I would pencil in the name of the casino in the dates on the calender. I circulated through the casinos with two, three, and sometimes four day packages. On moving day I would pack up the rollaway, check out, jump in a cab to the next casino, and ask for an early check in, which I frequently got. If not, I would drop the rollaway off at valet, and I was back in action. I would come back later and pick up the keys and the rollaway.
Life was nice on the River. I don't know why I ever gave it up. Laughlin RFB 362.
"Quit trying your luck and start trying your skill." Mickey Crimm
September 1st, 2013 at 5:58:18 PM
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Micky perhaps you had not started playing Flush Attack yet but at the beginning one real importation thing about flush attack was the fact you could set up four flushes or pat flushes and just Waite until the Flush Attack light went on and hit draw real quick if you had a dealt flush you got paid the bonus. If you had a four flush and hit the flush on the draw you got paid the 125 coins, if you missed you would just play on.
The Riverside had more Flush Attack machines then just that one big bank near the escalators your talking about. They had 8 to 12 more machines linked to that main bank near the River View bar just past the pit and 2 more all the way down stars right next to the bar. They were much better to play because it was not a long bank where all the machines sat next to each other. there were only 2 machines each that sat side by side. This way no one could see you were not playing as you should be. soon after that they put in a separate bank of FA machines in the non smoking section. They also had A big bank of House A Rock'in and Max attack.
$70 was to much (: my ex GF was paying like $20 a week. She may have tipped an extra $20 or gave more for suits.
The Riverside had more Flush Attack machines then just that one big bank near the escalators your talking about. They had 8 to 12 more machines linked to that main bank near the River View bar just past the pit and 2 more all the way down stars right next to the bar. They were much better to play because it was not a long bank where all the machines sat next to each other. there were only 2 machines each that sat side by side. This way no one could see you were not playing as you should be. soon after that they put in a separate bank of FA machines in the non smoking section. They also had A big bank of House A Rock'in and Max attack.
$70 was to much (: my ex GF was paying like $20 a week. She may have tipped an extra $20 or gave more for suits.
♪♪Now you swear and kick and beg us That you're not a gamblin' man Then you find you're back in Vegas With a handle in your hand♪♪ Your black cards can make you money So you hide them when you're able In the land of casinos and money You must put them on the table♪♪ You go back Jack do it again roulette wheels turinin' 'round and 'round♪♪ You go back Jack do it again♪♪
September 1st, 2013 at 6:54:29 PM
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Quote: AxelWolfMicky perhaps you had not started playing Flush Attack yet but at the beginning one real importation thing about flush attack was the fact you could set up four flushes or pat flushes and just Waite until the Flush Attack light went on and hit draw real quick if you had a dealt flush you got paid the bonus. If you had a four flush and hit the flush on the draw you got paid the 125 coins, if you missed you would just play on.
The Riverside had more Flush Attack machines then just that one big bank near the escalators your talking about. They had 8 to 12 more machines linked to that main bank near the River View bar just past the pit and 2 more all the way down stars right next to the bar. They were much better to play because it was not a long bank where all the machines sat next to each other. there were only 2 machines each that sat side by side. This way no one could see you were not playing as you should be. soon after that they put in a separate bank of FA machines in the non smoking section. They also had A big bank of House A Rock'in and Max attack.
$70 was to much (: my ex GF was paying like $20 a week. She may have tipped an extra $20 or gave more for suits.
By the time I got there Sigma had retrofit the machines to where you had to complete your hand to qualify for the bonus flush. So you could no longer make the move you describe above. The Flush Attacks by the River Bar and downstairs were also gone by the time I got there. There was an 8 machine flush attack bank in no smoking but it wasn't linked to the main bank. The House a Rockin' was in the North Tower Bar. The Maxx was gone. As for the rent I was new to the game and learning. My rent went from $160+ a week, down to $70 a week, then down to $11 a month.
"Quit trying your luck and start trying your skill." Mickey Crimm
September 2nd, 2013 at 12:23:23 AM
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This is unbelievable, incredible. You sir are the real hustler. Hats off to you. When are you going on Dancer's radio show?
So what did you do for the 3 days of River Run? Go up to Vegas?
So what did you do for the 3 days of River Run? Go up to Vegas?
"Dice, verily, are armed with goads and driving-hooks, deceiving and tormenting, causing grievous woe." -Rig Veda 10.34.4
September 2nd, 2013 at 7:43:24 AM
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Quote: teddysThis is unbelievable, incredible. You sir are the real hustler. Hats off to you. When are you going on Dancer's radio show?
So what did you do for the 3 days of River Run? Go up to Vegas?
Teddy, I never did 362 days straight in Laughlin. The longest I did was about a five month stretch. The reason was I was making forays north. Laughlin was my home base. The slot clubs in Las Vegas, Reno and Tahoe had my Laughlin mailing address and were sending me mailers. So when I made a foray north I was usually going with room comp and bounceback checks.
On trips to Vegas I usually had 5 to seven days room comp between 4 Queens, Las Vegas Club, Plaza. If I wanted to stay longer it wasn't time efficient to continue to try and get room comp after that. So I stayed at either the Nevada Hotel, 232 S. Main, or the Budget Inn (Now Bridger Inn) at 302 S. Main. The rent was $140 to $160 a week. Both hotels were just off the downtown casino district. There were lots of advantage slots downtown and I also played 10-20 holdem in the Horseshoe.
On trips to Reno I usually had about a week of room comp for Silver Legacy, El Dorado, and the Sands Regency. After that I stayed at the El Cortez Hotel (A.K.A. the Hustler's Hilton) in the 200 block of West Main Street, just off the downtown casino district. The rent was $120 a week. Reno was a strong combination of advantage slots and advantage video poker.
Buses left every hour from the Reno Airport to the North Shore Tahoe casinos. I would usually have 5 to 7 days room comp from Caesar's, Horizon, and Harrah's. After that the mom & pop hotels on the California side ran $100 to $130 a week. Tahoe was also a strong combination of advantage slots and strong video poker.
I also made trips to Elko where I would spend a month in a comped room and sweep through the unlinked Flush Attacks and House A Rockin's everyday.
I was on Dancer's show April 7th, 2011. I doubt that he would want me back after my criticism of him over the Revel promo.
"Quit trying your luck and start trying your skill." Mickey Crimm
September 2nd, 2013 at 8:19:05 AM
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This is awesome stuff!
September 2nd, 2013 at 10:04:04 AM
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HOUSE A ROCKIN' AND THE MAXX
House a Rockin' was a Sigma game that played like Flush Attack but it was based on full houses. It was either 8/5 Double Bonus or 7/5 Double Bonus with the first five full houses paying either 8 for 1 or 7 for 1. The sixth full house paid 40 for 1. The 8/5's had a theoretical of 100.2% and the 7/5's had a theoretical of 99.22%. On the linked banks, like in the Riverside, the strategy was bet 1 coin in non mode, bet 5 coins in mode.
In Elko they were unlinked 7/5's. The strategy was to let the machines get action by the ploppies. Then come in behind them and sweep through the machines. You played a machine until you collected the bonus full house then cashed out and moved to the next machine, doing the same thing. That way you picked up all the 7 for 1 full houses made by the ploppies. In Elko I averaged having to make just 3.3 full houses per play. That gave me an average full house value of 17 for 1, putting my theoretical at 104.4%.
The Maxx was also a Sigma game based on 4 of a Kind's. The Maxx in the Pioneer/Laughlin had this payscale:
RF.........800
SF...........50
4K...........25/125
FH............9
FL............7
ST...........4
3K...........3
2P...........1
HP...........1
The first 4K paid 25 for 1. Then the Maxx Attack light would come on and the next 4K paid 125 for one. Playing straight through the game had a theoretical of 99.82%. But you only played the game when you found it in Maxx Attack mode. Your money was at 111.54% playing until you hit a 4K. It was about a $60 earn for about a half hour's work.
House a Rockin' was a Sigma game that played like Flush Attack but it was based on full houses. It was either 8/5 Double Bonus or 7/5 Double Bonus with the first five full houses paying either 8 for 1 or 7 for 1. The sixth full house paid 40 for 1. The 8/5's had a theoretical of 100.2% and the 7/5's had a theoretical of 99.22%. On the linked banks, like in the Riverside, the strategy was bet 1 coin in non mode, bet 5 coins in mode.
In Elko they were unlinked 7/5's. The strategy was to let the machines get action by the ploppies. Then come in behind them and sweep through the machines. You played a machine until you collected the bonus full house then cashed out and moved to the next machine, doing the same thing. That way you picked up all the 7 for 1 full houses made by the ploppies. In Elko I averaged having to make just 3.3 full houses per play. That gave me an average full house value of 17 for 1, putting my theoretical at 104.4%.
The Maxx was also a Sigma game based on 4 of a Kind's. The Maxx in the Pioneer/Laughlin had this payscale:
RF.........800
SF...........50
4K...........25/125
FH............9
FL............7
ST...........4
3K...........3
2P...........1
HP...........1
The first 4K paid 25 for 1. Then the Maxx Attack light would come on and the next 4K paid 125 for one. Playing straight through the game had a theoretical of 99.82%. But you only played the game when you found it in Maxx Attack mode. Your money was at 111.54% playing until you hit a 4K. It was about a $60 earn for about a half hour's work.
"Quit trying your luck and start trying your skill." Mickey Crimm
September 2nd, 2013 at 10:49:01 AM
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Were The Maxx machines linked or unlinked?
https://wizardofvegas.com/forum/off-topic/gripes/11182-pet-peeves/120/#post815219
September 2nd, 2013 at 11:16:32 AM
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Quote: Mission146Were The Maxx machines linked or unlinked?
Initially, they were linked. But there was massive vulture activity. The game got removed in most places. The few that were left were unlinked. By the late nineties the only ones left in Nevada were at Pioneer/Laughlin and Caesar's/Tahoe. They were unlinked in both places.
"Quit trying your luck and start trying your skill." Mickey Crimm
September 2nd, 2013 at 11:39:00 AM
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deleted
DUHHIIIIIIIII HEARD THAT!
September 2nd, 2013 at 11:46:20 AM
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How many royals did you hit in one coin mode?
September 2nd, 2013 at 12:13:46 PM
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Quote: JohnzimboHow many royals did you hit in one coin mode?
I hit a lot of them. But I was happy when it happened. It was the best hand I could hit. If you tried to bet five coins between lights then you were fading a 5.8% drop. Betting one coin was a bout a 7% drop. You could only count on getting in maybe 200 games an hour in flush attack mode. That was worth about $90. You lost a hell of a lot less money betting one coin between lights than betting five coins.
"Quit trying your luck and start trying your skill." Mickey Crimm
September 3rd, 2013 at 12:36:53 AM
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I DIDN'T realize you were on his show. WOW HATS OFF to you for standing up for the players and speaking out your disapproval of AP killing tactics most people would be ass kissing just to get more air time. Much RESPECT! AXELWOLF *BOWS TO YOU*Quote: mickeycrimmTeddy, I never did 362 days straight in Laughlin. The longest I did was about a five month stretch. The reason was I was making forays north. Laughlin was my home base. The slot clubs in Las Vegas, Reno and Tahoe had my Laughlin mailing address and were sending me mailers. So when I made a foray north I was usually going with room comp and bounceback checks.
On trips to Vegas I usually had 5 to seven days room comp between 4 Queens, Las Vegas Club, Plaza. If I wanted to stay longer it wasn't time efficient to continue to try and get room comp after that. So I stayed at either the Nevada Hotel, 232 S. Main, or the Budget Inn (Now Bridger Inn) at 302 S. Main. The rent was $140 to $160 a week. Both hotels were just off the downtown casino district. There were lots of advantage slots downtown and I also played 10-20 holdem in the Horseshoe.
On trips to Reno I usually had about a week of room comp for Silver Legacy, El Dorado, and the Sands Regency. After that I stayed at the El Cortez Hotel (A.K.A. the Hustler's Hilton) in the 200 block of West Main Street, just off the downtown casino district. The rent was $120 a week. Reno was a strong combination of advantage slots and advantage video poker.
Buses left every hour from the Reno Airport to the North Shore Tahoe casinos. I would usually have 5 to 7 days room comp from Caesar's, Horizon, and Harrah's. After that the mom & pop hotels on the California side ran $100 to $130 a week. Tahoe was also a strong combination of advantage slots and strong video poker.
I also made trips to Elko where I would spend a month in a comped room and sweep through the unlinked Flush Attacks and House A Rockin's everyday.
I was on Dancer's show April 7th, 2011. I doubt that he would want me back after my criticism of him over the Revel promo.
♪♪Now you swear and kick and beg us That you're not a gamblin' man Then you find you're back in Vegas With a handle in your hand♪♪ Your black cards can make you money So you hide them when you're able In the land of casinos and money You must put them on the table♪♪ You go back Jack do it again roulette wheels turinin' 'round and 'round♪♪ You go back Jack do it again♪♪
September 3rd, 2013 at 12:52:32 AM
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FYI they had a linked $1 bank of Max attack at the Horse Shoe down town it took only 1 4 of a kind to set it off into attack mode the next 4oak got 625 for the 4 of a kind. during attack mode I believe it was worth around 130% as well.Quote: Mission146Were The Maxx machines linked or unlinked?
Gold River not only has .25 Flush Attack they had $1 linked flush attack. I believe the team Frankie worked for locked it up and killed it after a few days of play. =DUMB.
♪♪Now you swear and kick and beg us That you're not a gamblin' man Then you find you're back in Vegas With a handle in your hand♪♪ Your black cards can make you money So you hide them when you're able In the land of casinos and money You must put them on the table♪♪ You go back Jack do it again roulette wheels turinin' 'round and 'round♪♪ You go back Jack do it again♪♪
