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Once you join the family, you will immediately earn casino credits
for cash and comps each time you play a slot or video poker machine.
To start just visit the casino slot club booth and ask to sign up.
The host or hostess will tell you how the program works, ask you to
fill out an application, and give you your own plastic club card. When
you sit down at a slot machine from that moment on, inset the club card
into the special card reader. The reader will either start spitting
out tickets or automatically register the total amount of coins you
have played into the slot club's central computer. When you leave one
machine, take your card and insert it into the next machine you play,
or you'll miss earning more valuable credits.
At the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas, for example, you get one ticket
for every $75 you play. By the time you're done playing you can easily
have a trail of tickets a few feet long, and you can redeem each ticket
at the slot booth for 50 cents. In addition to the cash value, a sizable
collection of tickets will not only get you free-meal comps, it'll let
you move to the head of the restaurant line with the rest of the VIPs.
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Some clubs will allow you to earn credits and comps by playing quarter
machines and higher. Others require minimum play on dollar machines
or higher. If you are a quarter-machine player, do not step up to the
dollar machines simply to earn slot club comps and bonuses. You will
be playing beyond your risk level and bankroll, and any credits and
comps you earn will not be worth the added risk and potential losses.
If you play quarters, join slot clubs that reward quarter players. There
are fewer of them, but they do exist.
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Surely when Charles Fey built his first slot machine in 1896 he never
could have envisioned where the contraption would travel and how it would
transmogrify. In fact, for a hundred years his innovation hardly changed
at all, except cosmetically. The external design, consisting of an ornate
metal box was wrapped around the mechanism and became fancier or plainer,
larger or smaller, in attempt to attract the eye. But as always, when
a player primed the machine with coins and pulled the handle, the reels
spun randomly and, governed by stoppers eventually came to a halt. Each
reel was decorated with a variety of symbols that, when matched according
to a pay schedule (printed somewhere on the face of the machine), the
player won; when no matching symbols appeared, the player lost.
Though Fey is given credit as the Father of the Slot Machine, prototypes
existed years before he came up with the idea of converting them into
gambling device--which he believed would enhance the profits on his sales
routes. These early "amusement devices" could be found in saloons where
polite society would not be exposed to them and where proprietors stood
on the edge of breaking the law.
These first apparatuses had a major drawback. They were designed in
such a way that after a certain number of coins were inserted the weight
of these coins would tip the scales and some of the stored coins from
previous play would spill out, thus providing a winner. It didn't take
long for street-smart players and wise guys to figure out that the coins
would come out automatically with a little pushing and shoving and slamming
the machine around. So it was back to the drawing board where clever
builders devised first a metal bar to help prevent "tilting," and then
came up with smaller devices that could be bolted to a counter top or
wall.
Meanwhile, in dignified establishments such as grocery stores and mercantiles,
a similar piece of equipment began popping up and being played by even
the snootiest of patrons. Called the trade simulator, this machine operated
much like other contemporary devices except that the winners produced
could be exchanged or traded for goods within the establishment--thus
the name "trade," perhaps a forerunner to the modern cents-off coupon.
Playing slots was (and is) both a tactile and sensory experience involving
the feel of the coins and the touch and pull of the handle. It involved
the sense of vision, the sense of hearing, and the innate sensation of
anticipation.
Winning and losing depended on a simple mechanism that included symbols
(usually fruit of some kind, perhaps bars and/or sevens, and of course
hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades, Fey's original choice) affixed to
the three reels and a shaft. With ten symbols per reel, the machine was
capable of a thousand possible combinations.
A payline is a 'line' on slot machine reels on which symbols must line up on in order to win. Some slot machines have only 1 payline, some have 3, others
have 5, 9 and even 15! Generally speaking, you must pay a coin to play each line on a machine, but have the option of
not playing all available lines.
So, on a 3 line machine, you can play the center line for one coin - the center line and the line above it for two coins - or all 3 lines for 3 coins. If
you don't play a specific line and a winning combination comes up on it - then you don't win.
Classic slot machines have 3 reels and only 1 line - a horizontal payline that goes through the middle of each reel. You may be able to wager more than
one coin per spin on these games - but the amount will apply to wins on the same payline. (You win more by betting more, but your chances of winning stay the same)
Other 3 reel slots often have three paylines, one in the middle, one above it, and one below it. Betting 1 coin activates the middle payline, betting 2 coins opens up 2 paylines, and
3 coins plays all 3 lines on a spin.
5 reel slot machines typically have quite a few paylines, from 5 to 15. These paylines aren't necessarily straight lines - there's diagonal matches and lines
that actually bend. How the lines go differs from machine to machine, but the lines should be marked clearly on each game.
A big mistake that a lot of people make when they first start playing slots
is neglecting to set a finite amount of money for each session of play. A session
of play could be a night, a day, an hour, or a week! However long you plan to
be playing slots you should always set a limit that you are willing to LOSE
and stick to it. Once you hit that limit DON'T GO OVER! Playing slots is a game
for Adults. If you don't have the self control and discipline to set a limit
and not spend over it then you don't deserve to play. That may sound harsh but
it's the truth. This is your livelihood your toying with, and if you're not
responsible with your money your livelihood could go down the drain. It happens
every day. So do yourself a favor and don't let it happen to you. Every time
you plan to visit a casino take the time to sit down and figure out how much
you can afford to lose. If you're going on a holiday then budget an amount for
the week. If you're just going for a night then budget an amount for the night.
There is no rule for how much is right, but the best way to think of it is,
how much you would spend on a normal night out, or a normal weekend outside
of the casino. If you would normally sped $100 out with friends outside of a
casino in a night, then set your casino limit for the night at $100. Once you
set this amount you can either do one of two things: you can sit down prior
to going to the casino and budget out how you're going to spend the money, in
other words on what games. The other way is to wait until you go to the casino
and just spend as you go. This method is a little more risky because it's easier
to lose track of how much you're spending. The best way to spend as you go is
to take out your entire bankroll for that evening as soon as you get to the
casino. Spend only that cash, then, when you run out you know for sure that
it's time to quit.
As an added money management tool some people like to actually keep a pen and
notepad with them throughout the night, and will actually record ho much money
they are spending on each game. When they win they write it down-when they lose
they write it down. Micromanaging your budget this way can be a very smart way
of deciding what slots games you want to play throughout your session. For instance
if you see that you are losing money a little faster then you normally would
on a certain progressive game, then you might consider switching to a flat top
game with fewer reels.
No mater how wealthy you are there is no excuse for playing slots without setting
a budget, even the richest Arab Sheiks have the good sense to set limits. If
you really like to play slots it's the only way to ensure you can continue to
play on into the future.
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