Page 11 - March 2015 • Southern California Gaming Guide

by Maya Winkler
Winning a jackpot at a casino is a wonderful thing. Winning jackpots consistently sounds fantastic and unreal, right? It must require an amazing amount of luck.
At one of the casinos I visit, I’ve made friends with a few players, and our consensus
is that once you’ve won several big jackpots in a short period of time, you have to be pretty lucky. And you seem to expect to win more. It’s human nature to want more. We want to win and we want to win as often as we can.
only plays the same or similar slots on which he won, and expects to win again.
Chasing Jackpots Past
Are you aware of your pattern of casino play? Do you play the same or same type of slot machine very time you go to your favorite casino? And do you do it because that’s where you won your last jackpot? Are you chasing
jackpots past? Ginnysays,“ItellWalter
to mix it up and play di erent games. Before he won those jackpots, we had a lot of fun. Now it’s
like work. He comes to the casino expecting to win big,
and when he doesn’t, he’s not happy. And besides, he’s played a lot his winnings back just trying
to get another big jackpot.”
Sound familiar? Like I said, I am pretty
practical. But I’ve had my share of big wins, and I recognized what Ginny was saying. ere have been times that I have stopped playing slots for a while because I did exactly what Walter was doing: chasing jackpots past. ere are other games in the casino with better odds — better chances — of winning than slots. But we do love those slot games.
It takes discipline to be a winner and stay a winner by walking away. Ginny’s advice sounds pretty good to me: Mix it up. Try di erent games. Keep your casino experience fun. And if it’s no longer fun, do something else.
Ginnykeepstellingherhusband,“Takeastrollwhen you’re not on a roll.”
I say it’s inevitable that you’ll lose at the casino. Just don’t make a habit of it.
Maya Winkler is a bi-coastal cultural observer who plays in and writes about Southern California casinos.
“It’s all about expectations,” VIP player Ginny said. “ e more you win, the higher your expectations that
you’ll win more each time you play.”
Ginny’s husband, Walter, won several large jackpots
at the beginning of the year. Since then, says Ginny, Walter’s playing more and enjoying it less.
“Walter’s sure he’s going to win another big jackpot because of his earlier luck. He’s actually expecting to win. I tell him it’s not the right attitude. When he won those other jackpots he was playing totally di erently. It was just chance. He wasn’t expecting to win at all.”
She said that the rst jackpot he won was a real uke. He was playing a slot he would usually never choose to play. ey planned to meet to go to the bu et, so before they went, he sat down and put $20 into the slot next to her while she was nishing a bonus round on a game. And, wouldn’t you know, she said, after three pushes on the spin button, he won a $2,500 jackpot. ey agreed it was sheer good luck.
“We didn’t go back to the casino to play for a few weeks because Walter said he couldn’t win twice in a row. But he was wrong. His second jackpot came during our next visit. He was lucky twice in a row! Now, for Walter, it’s all about winning instead of going to have fun and being surprised by winning. He’s expecting to win, and when it doesn’t happen, he’s annoyed. I say winning is a matter of chance and that he needs an attitude adjustment.”
So, what does luck have to do with it? Is it a matter of chance? And what’s the di erence?
A Slot Machine is a Slot Machine
is is not an article about using the power of positive thinking. I’m a transplanted New Englander and I’m
practical by nature. And besides, a slot machine is a slot machine.
Slot machines have a
random number generator.
It’s a small computer within
the game that constantly
spews out numbers,
whether anyone’s playing or
not. When the numbers line
up, they create a particular
outcome (win or loss) at the
particular millisecond the spin
button is pressed. Once you sit down
to play, your only choices are the number of credits you play and when you push the spin button.
Luck or Chance?
Chance generally relates to the odds of something occurring, without any relative preference of it happening. Luck, either good or bad, is what we attribute to the result of chance. By analyzing chance, you can take action to increase the percentage of good outcomes and decrease those you don’t want.
So, if you think you’re lucky, will you win? Attitude a ects patterns of play. For instance, according to Ginny, before Walter won his two big jackpots, he played a variety of slots — reel-spinners and video slots in di erent denominations. He would let his intuition and wallet guide him, and he’d play whatever he liked on a given day. He would win some and lose some, but always had fun at the casino. Since he won the rst big jackpot on a reel-spinner and then the second on another slot, his pattern of play has changed. Now he
MARCH 2015
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
PAGE 11