It’s 1 a.m. in Las Vegas, and I’m headed home after having a few adult beverages and hanging out with friends. To reach the Lyft pickup zone, I have to walk through one of the casinos.
That’s when I realize, Hey… this would be a perfect time to spend the $20 I had set aside for gambling on this trip!
Vegas is silly – there are slots everywhere, including gas stations, 7-11s, and even the airport.
It’s time to try to parlay my twenty into big bucks.
Witnessing Victory on the Betty White Slots Machine
When it comes to Vegas, I’m a high roller. Several years ago, on my first Vegas trip, I gave myself a whopping $10 to gamble, which I promptly lost in a matter of minutes.
Since then, life has been good, so I’m able to give myself a more massive $20 to gamble this time. Look out posers, the big money gambler has arrived!
This is my second night in Vegas on this trip. So far, I’ve resisted the urge to gamble, despite running into a Betty White slot machine that is pretty much the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.
It’s a video slot machine, in fact. Betty appears on screen and speaks directly to the player. Good times!
A friend plays Betty’s machine and doesn’t win anything. But the stranger seated at the Betty machine next to him walks away with an astounding $3700 on a single bet! Betty is a true Golden Girl on this night.
While the stranger waits for security to arrive to help him with his payout – apparently large jackpots like that have to be verified by a staffer – I study his screen and notice that he’s made the infamous “max bet.”
I do some math in my head and realize that if he’d bet a smaller amount, he would only be walking away with $370. But because he went big, he won big. Okay, I think. Noted.
Playing the Cheap Slots
I decide to take a seat at one of the often-ignored penny slot machines in the hallway between the bar and the main gambling area. I haven’t seen anybody using these machines all weekend, so maybe they’re due for a winner.
I pop in the $20 bill and immediately press “max bet.” A max bet on this machine is about $3, so I calculate that I’ll only have seven spins before I’ll be broke. I figure that should take 60 seconds at most, and then I’ll be on my way home.
I make the first spin. And I hit. Big time. More than half my screen is filled with ‘Wild’ cards. So the machine starts cranking up my winnings.
And it just keeps going and going. It finally stops at 5000 credits ($50). So I’ve won $30, plus the $3 back from my initial bet. Score!
At that point, after just 15 seconds at the machine, I’m up 150% on my investment. Without even giving it a second thought, I hit the “cash out” button. It feels like one of the greatest victories of my life, as if I’ve beaten the system!
If anybody was watching, I’m sure it was hilarious to see someone plop down at a machine, make one quick spin, cash out, and walk right to the booth to collect my winnings, all in less than 30 seconds.
I made thirty bucks in 15 seconds! That works out to $120/minute, or $7200/hour! I may be a novice, but I’m pretty sure most gamblers don’t escape this city with a $7200/hour profit margin. This time, I truly am a Vegas high roller.
First Time in Las Vegas: My Initial Gambling Experience
A few years earlier, I had visited Vegas for the first time and had a much different experience.
I inserted $5 into some of the nickel slots, beginning with the Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve game. After a few minutes of careful, measured betting, I cashed out with a cool 39 cents profit. This was starting to get addicting!
I moved on to the Press Your Luck slot machine. No whammies, no whammies! I lost a couple bucks here, so I decided to cut my losses and move on.
I ended up losing the $10 rather quickly, as I decided to try out one of the $1 blackjack video games and accidentally ended up hitting Max Bet, which meant I lost $5 in an instant.
That was half of my gambling budget! My friend Jason, of course, went to the penny slots and turned $1 into something like $57. Crazy! You just never know how your luck will work out.
While you’re in Las Vegas, save some money by checking out the Pinball Hall of Fame, where you can play classic games for a quarter!
See the quirkiest museums in Las Vegas, including the Neon Museum and the National Atomic Testing Museum. And visit Red Rock Canyon, the best day trip from Vegas.
Have you ever had a Vegas gambling experience?
