If you play the slots, no doubt you've developed a method of play. Some players look for a special type of machine, while others will only frequent certain casinos with reputedly "loose machines."
No matter whether you wear lucky gambling duds or carry a special talisman when you visit a casino, you'll want to read MacIntyre Symms' book on slots. In "Slot Machine Strategy: Winning Methods for Hitting the Jackpot" (Lyons Press, $8.95), Symms dispels some of the common myths about how slot machines work and explains how a smart player should approach play.
One of the dilemmas Symms will help his reader resolve is when to stick with a machine and when to move on. There's also a trick to finding slots that are paying off as well as avoiding extremely tight machines. Symms urges his reader to always read the instructions and rules on a machine before playing. This can avoid the heartbreak of lining up a winning combination only to discover you had to play an extra coin or two to hit the big jackpot.
So rather than $10,000, you walk away with $25. Dispelling a common myth that casinos can alter payoffs for weekends or during different hours, the author says, "No way!" Although a casino can determine a specific payoff rate within a range set by a state's gaming commission, a machine's rate of payoff is set at the factory before it is sent out.
Some other good advice slot players will want to heed is to beware of "speed-up" games (unless you are playing in a tournament), don't play two machines side-by-side and avoid dark corners or areas that don't have many people circulating through them. It's also a good idea to keep in mind that a modern, computerized slot machine contains a computer chip that can generate as many as 262,144,000 possible combinations. In the older mechanical machines with three independently spinning reels, that number can range between 8,000 and 64,000, depending on number of stopping positions.
Avoid a mechanical slot that has stops between symbols! "Slot Machine Strategy" may or may not increase your winnings, but it should make you a smarter player. Perhaps the best advice Symms gives the reader is to decide beforehand how much money he is willing to lose and stick to that decision. Learning to quit when you are ahead - assuming that ever happens - is also about the only way you will go home ahead of the game. If you do get lucky, also remember if you hit a jackpot greater than $1,200 you are require by law to report it to the IRS as income!
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After dissipating your gambling fund, you might wish to seek literary solace in "The Greatest Gambling Stories Ever Told" (Lyons, $14.95) edited by Paul Lyons. Thirty-one of the finest stories, both fact and fiction, are brought together here by some of the world's best writers. Fyodor Dostoevsky, Roald Dahl, D.H. Lawrence, Mark Twain, Honore de Balzac and Alexander Pushkin are just some of the authors whose work appears here. ooo Jane Smiley's "A Day at the Races" concludes the anthology. The Carmel Valley resident's love of racehorses and spending a day at the track is no secret.
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Bob Walch is a freelance writer out of Monterey. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].
His opinions are not necessarily those of the Register-Pajaronian. ©Register-Pajaronian 2004
