Page 10 - April 2003 • Southern California Gaming Guide

Page 10
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
April 2003
by Billie Lee Bartell
Imagine winning a million dollars! (Or two or more!) Imagine going to the casino, and playing a slot machine that could change your life forever! There’s an elite group of thrilling games in casinos that feature life-changing top prizes. And yes, they
consistently have winners (and a number of recent winners in Southern California casinos). Some slots are casino mainstays, and one is a brand-new game about to debut on the casino oor. These slot machines are in a class all by themselves — the
$1,000,000 progressives. Here’s the low-down on these fabulous games.
How would you like to receive a $1,000 (at least) check every week for the rest of your life? The check would be in your mailbox, guaranteed for as long as you live (and available
to your heirs on your demise)! Cash for LifeTM is a new, unique progressive that offers an over $1,000,000 jackpot to players on a variety of different slot machines, and in a range of denominations from nickel to one-dollar slots. Created by the makers of the popular Blazing 7s®, Bally Gaming and Systems’ designers were inspired by the Canadian lottery’s “Cash
for Life” scratcher tickets.
Cash for Life is a wide-area progressive
that links multi-denominational — nickel, quarter and dollar—(a ve-dollar game is in the works) slots. Six different games will initially comprise the series including Blazing 7s, a new video slot
ConcentrationTM, the Bob EubanksTM (host of the Newlywed Game) slot, plus the hysterical Saturday Night Live Blues BrothersTM slots, Double Jackpot and
Rich And Famous. The unique concept of Cash for Life is a linked mix of different slots with different denominations and
different games — some video, some reel-spinners, so some players may be on 45-coin nickel video games, and some may be playing 3-coin quarter slots, and others may be playing 3-coin dollar reel spinners—and any one could hit the million dollar jackpot of Cash for Life!
Winners of the Cash for Life jackpot have different payoff options. They can choose the “Cash for Life” $1,000-a-week-plus checks for the rest of their lives that will give them at least 20 years of weekly checks that amount to $1,040,000 at the minimum, or they can opt for a lump-sum
payoff which will be based on the winner’s age, and possibly, their health. For instance, a non- smoking woman of 21 years can statistically expect a minimum of sixty years of payments, so she, in fact, would be wise to take the weekly checks.
Like all progressives, the jackpot accrues based on networked play, so the more people play, the bigger the jackpot! So the jackpot could be $1,000, $1,200, $1,500, etc. a week for life! Who wouldn’t want to win? Bally Gaming has had a lot of fun in their advertising for this game, turning the phrase
“the check is in the mail!” to its most creative use. Look for Cash for Life in the next few months in Southern California casinos.