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Slot Machines Handling
Pay close attention to the pay particulars of "7s" machines; they can be tricky. We were in a casino one day and a woman started yelling, "1 got three blue sevens! I got three blue sevens!" We looked over and sure enough, there they were, three blue 7s lined up on the pay line. However, there were no lights flashing, no bells ringing, no credits racking up, no money coming out of the machine. The woman cried, “Where’s my jackpot?" Upon closer inspection, we saw that with less than-max coins played, payoffs were limited to bars and cherries only; to get paid for 7s you had to have three coins in. The woman had played two coins, so when her three blue 7s came up, instead of winning a $1,000 jackpot, she got nothing.
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Online Beating At Casino
Beating Professional
The fact that I ended up making my living in casinos was in itself a long shot. While growing up in Maine, no one I knew considered professional gambling as a possible vocation. At that time few even existed outside Nevada. So first of all, there were no opportunities anywhere near Maine. Second, most frugal New Englanders frowned upon any conspicuous waste of their hard-earned cash. The concept of losing one's money, but having a good time, seemed as silly as asking Mrs. Lincoln, "So other than your husband getting shot, how did you like the play?"
And last game the morality issue. Though gambling no longer carried the same stigma previous generations attached to it, I had grown up in a church that frowned upon playing cards of any type, let a one gambling. So I started out as one of the most unlikely candidates for a future career in card counting.
All that changed a few years later when I was finishing up my master's degree at grad school. One day in the library, I took a break from some stimulating studies on ancient Near Eastern archaeology and browsed the magazine rack. A story 'about gamblers in an old Sports Illustrated article caught my attention. One of the high rollers profiled was a blackjack player named Ken Uston. He had masterminded several card-counting teams that won millions from, the casinos. Their astounding profits ignited a chain reaction in my head and I immediately felt like I'd found my calling in life.
False Start
Some of the smaller casinos in Nevada used to operate a lot of junket flights to bring traffic into out-of-the-way towns like Wend over and Elko. These obscure destinations were so desperate for business that I found an overnight flight to Carson City for free if you showed at least $300. This was pretty much all the money I had at that time, but I expected my pauper days to end soon, so the trip seemed well worth the risk.
I learned a simple counting system on the plane, then mastered on the boring ride from Reno to the state capital. I was the first one out of the bus and started betting $ 5 a pop at the table nearest the front door. I didn't know how to size my bets (an optimal form of wagering in relation to your advantage on each given hand) when the cards favored me, so I simply jumped up to $25 on any high count. I started out on fire and after two hours was up $600. It all seemed so, easy, and I couldn't understand why everyone wasn't doing this for a living. I fantasized about the changes my newfound riches would bring, and at the current win rate of $300 an hour, many things seemed within my grasp.
However, none of those dreams of the future included the next sequence of events. As quickly as the pile of chips had grown in front of me, they vanished. Soon, I not only lost all my winnings, but all my money. I spent the last few hours of my first casino experience sitting outside on a bench waiting for the sun to rise and my miserable red-eye gambling junket to end. It was embarrassing, to say the least. I had foolishly told several of my friends how I intended to make my mark in the blackjack world. Instead, I had to show up for work the next day tired, beat, and broke-just another bozo with "loser" stamped in capital letters across my forehead.
Historical Perspective
I wasn't the first, nor would I be the last chump to think I could beat the casinos with some clandestine strategy. Historically, gambling clubs have welcomed system players to their tables with open arms. The know hat most schemes devised to beat the house are flawed, and eventually the dealer will take away whatever money and hopes the player brought on the flight down.
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