Ask the Slot Expert: A quirk about when I sometimes stop playing a machine

I've always enjoyed playing with numbers and looking for patterns in them. The number of my first house was 413, 4=1+3. My next house was at 1023, 1+0+2=3. Another was at 2244, 44 is twice 22. My current house is 2401. Having a pattern in the house number isn't a requirement.

It bothers me when a Jeopardy contestant wagers an amount not divisible by 200 on a Daily Double. All of the clue values are multiples of 200. That leads to nice, even numbers of hundreds in the contestants' totals, unless one of them breaks the pattern by wagering an amount like $1500.

Sometimes I stop playing a machine when I like the number of points I've earned. I like 500 or 1000. A number like 1050 is also nice. I'll even sometimes stop at 1040, especially around tax time.

I used to play a lot at a casino that maxed out its point multiplier on video poker at 10,000 points. I routinely stopped at 10,000 points. The casino noticed and stopped sending me offers for a while.

At a casino that gives only half a point for a dollar played in a video poker machine, I'll never quit when my point total ends in 2 or 7 (really 2.5 or 7.5). I hate leaving that half-point on the table, even though all those half-points don't add up to much.

I usually do a similar thing on slots. I'll stop when the number of points is a multiple of my bet. That's easy when I'm betting dollars. I have to do a little math when my bet is 80 cents or $2.25.

I think my finickiness about points arises in part from some early slot clubs in Atlantic City. In those clubs, when you inserted your club card into the reader attached to the side of the machine -- this was a long time ago -- a countdown appeared on the card reader display. The countdown decreased with each coin you played. You earned a point when the countdown reached 0.

What happened if you pulled your card before the countdown reached 0? Sorry, Charlie. No point for you. Plus, the progress you made towards a point did not carry over to your next machine. You received no credit for those dollars you played.

A quarter century or so ago, I attended a seminar about Acres Gaming's new slot club system. One of its selling points was that it counted every dollar played by players.

I thought I'd seen the end of countdown systems -- Good riddance! -- until Boyd revamped its slot club a few years ago. You have to play a certain amount to earn a tier credit. If you pull your card before earning the credit, too bad. Everything old is new again.

I don't credit (blame?) my preoccupation with points on countdown slot clubs completely. Part of it is due to my preference for round numbers and numbers with patterns.

If you would like to see more non-smoking areas on slot floors in Las Vegas, please sign my petition on change.org.

Send your slot and video poker questions to John Robison, Slot Expert™, at slotexpert@slotexpert.com.

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Send your slot and video poker questions to John Robison, Slot Expert™, at slotexpert@slotexpert.com. Because of the volume of mail I receive, I regret that I can't reply to every question.

Copyright © John Robison. Slot Expert and Ask the Slot Expert are trademarks of John Robison.