What is the best way to lose at a casino?
I have a friend who complains about hitting a nice one as soon as she comes into the casino. There she is, up seven or eight hundred dollars, and she just got there. Now she spends the rest of her visit giving it back. "It is so painful," she complains. "I keep thinking that I should cash out. Leave. Go put my win in the bank. But here I am giving it back until it is all gone. Then I go to the ATM to try to win some of it back, but then lose that too. Then I want to kick myself because I was up seven hundred dollars, but I am leaving down a thousand. Painful. Painful."
My other friend complains, "Don't you just hate when you lose and lose and lose and then bang--you hit a little jackpot? A thousand. Two thousand. Then you take out all of the ATM receipts in your pocket and add them up. You can't believe it. Despite the jackpot, you are actually down three or four hundred. See, if they had let you hit that jackpot as soon as you got there, then you could have cashed out and gone home up a couple thousand. Why do they wait so long to let you hit? Now, since you're still down a couple hundred, you stick some of that jackpot back into the machines, and of course you lose it. Before you know it, you've lost it all. All of the jackpot money. All of the money you came with. All of the money in your ATM."
Personally, my favorite loss was the day I blew a thousand dollars, waited for my ATM to reset itself at midnight, drew out another thousand (my daily limit for the next day), and promptly lost all but 20 dollars of that thousand. I said, screw this, went to the poker room with that twenty, hit a royal flush at the tables and was paid the $1000 jackpot for the royal. So what did I do? I went back out to the machines and blew all but $20, cursed again, and went back to the poker rooms and hit another royal flush. Two royal flushes in one day! The odds against that are freaking amazing! And this was a real nice one--the jackpot was like $6000--somewhere around there. So now I stopped and caught my breath. Despite my bad luck at the machines, I was still up $4000. So what did I do? I went back to the machines and pushed the maximum--$200 a pop. Normally, I would push $2 or $3 a pop. If I was feeling dangerous, I might risk a few pushes at $10 or $20 a pop. But $200 a pop? Insane. But see, at $200 a pop, anything that hit would pay off nice. First 2, which paid $4 at a dollar per push, would pay $800. First 3 would pay $3200. First 4 would pay $12000. First 5 or first 6? Man, my blood was pumping!
I pushed ten times ($2000) and the machine hit absolutely nothing. I figured I still had about four grand (meaning I was still up two grand), so I went for it. I pushed it ten more times. Can you believe that that stinking machine did not hit one time in twenty pushes? Not first 1. Not first 2. Nothing. Nothing. So now I was at dead even. I had two grand remaining, which is exactly what I had taken out of the ATM. I pushed five more times. Nothing. Nothing. I had a thousand dollars remaining. I had just pushed at $200 a pop twenty-five times, and they had not even paid me a single penny. When it does crap like that, you've got to believe the machines are rigged.
So I had a thousand dollars left. I pushed four times. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. All I had left now was $200. One last push.
But this was too much. My heart couldn't handle it anymore. So I lowered my bet to $2 a pop. At that level, the machine got hot. After a half dozen or so pushes, I was up to a little over $400. This is what I was waiting for. I quickly raised my bet to $200, and pushed.
Twice.
Whoopie! It hit first 4! 12,000! I was up twelve grand. Whoopie!
Minus the two grand I had put in, I was up ten grand! Whoopie!
Minus the four grand in taxes on the twelve grand, I was up six grand. Hmmm.
Minus the two grand in taxes on the six grand royal flush, I was up four grand. Hmmm.
So I went back to the machines and put four grand in and pushed twenty times at $200 a pop. It took every penny. I was dead even with six grand still in my pocket.
I put another $200 in and pushed. It took the $200 and paid nothing. Now I was down $200 with about $5800 still in my pocket.
I said, "Screw them." And went home down $200 with $5800 in my pocket.
It was my best night of losing ever.
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Preston L. Allen is the award-winning author of "Churchboys and Other Sinners" (Carolina Wren Press). He gambled, he won big, he lost even bigger, and it didn't kill him.