Frommer's Las Vegas 2004

218
CHAPTER 8 . ABOUT CASINO GAMBLING
Impressions
If you aim to leave Las Vegas with a small fortune, go there with a
large one.
—Anonymous
Progressive slots are groups of linked machines (sometimes spread over several
casinos) where the jackpot gets bigger every few moments (just as lottery
jackpots build up). Bigger and better games keep showing up; for example, there’s
Anchor Gaming’s much-imitated Wheel of Gold, wherein if you get the right
symbol, you get to spin a roulette wheel, which guarantees you a win of a serious
number of coins. Totem Pole is the Godzilla of slot machines, a behemoth that
allows you to spin up to three reels at once (provided you put in the limit).
Other gimmick machines include the popular Wheel of Fortune machines,
slots that have a gorilla attempt to climb the Empire State Building, heading up as
you win, and machines with themes like Elvis or the Three Stooges. And, of
course, there are always those giant slot machines, gimmicky devices found in
almost every casino. They may not win as often as regular slots (though there is
no definite word on it one way or the other), but not only are they just plain fun
to spin, they often turn into audience-participation gambling, as watchers gather
to cheer you on to victory.
Nickel slots, which for a long time had been overlooked, regulated to a lonely
spot somewhere by a back wall because they were not as profitable for the casinos
as quarter and dollar slots, are making a comeback. Many machines now offer
a 45-nickel maximum (meaning a larger bet on those machines than on the fivequarter-maximum
slots), and gamblers have been flocking to them. As a result,
more cash is pocketed by the casino (which keeps a higher percentage of cash off
nickel slots than it does off of quarter slots), which is happy to accommodate this
trend by offering up more and more nickel slots. (See how this all works? Are you
paying attention?)
The biggest trend in Vegas, though, is the use of cashless machines. When
gambling with these machines, players insert their money, they play, and when
they cash out, they get—instead of the comforting sound of coins cascading out
into the tray—a little paper ticket with their total winnings on it. (Those of us
who find the sound of the coins pouring out a comfort are only slightly pleased
to learn that that noise plays, as a computer generated audio effect, when the
ticket is disgorged.) It’s not nearly as viscerally satisfying, but it is the wave of the
future; many of the casinos are already entirely cashless, and the rest are on their
way. Why take this cheap thrill from us? Because it saves gambling time (instead
of waiting for the flow of coins to stop, you can grab your ticket and pop it into
another machine), maintenance time (keeping the machines stocked with
coins), and the casinos no longer need worry about having enough quarters on
hand. We are not pleased about this.
Are there surefire ways to win on a slot machine? No. But you can lose more
slowly. The slot machines use minicomputers known as Random Number Generators
(RNG) to determine the winning combinations on a machine; depending
on how many numbers have been programmed into the RNG, some
machines are going to be “looser” than others. A bank of empty slots probably
(but not certainly) means the machines are tight. Go find a line where lots of
people are sitting around with trays full of money. (Of course, yours will be the