The 26th of August, 2009
A True Story From a Friend
By JS Lincecum---
PITTSBURGH - My girlfriend Courtney and I went to the new Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh last night to play the penny slots. Very impressive facility. Fantastic architecture and very classy much to my surprise.
We did a few laps and acquired our "Rivers Edge" players cards and stuck our toe in the wat
er on the penny and nickel slots. Eventually, we upgraded to the high roller section to play 25 cent machines. Within 20 minutes Courtney got a triple diamond symbol plus a wheel of fortune symbol and won $50! She immediately stopped playing and almost killed two old women with oxygen machines as she was sprinting to the cashier. It was the most excited I've ever seen someone in a casino, and it was for $50. People around us thought she had won $10,000. Seriously, people started gathering around us asking how much she'd won. Their faces were priceless after I told them it was $50.
I had $10.75 left in my machine from the original $20 I'd put in. I wanted an even $10.00 so I decided to play one more spin for $0.75
I hit "bet max credits" and the wheels started to turn...here's how it turned out along with directors commentary:
Reel 1 stops on the triple diamond symbol.
Reel 2 lands me a 2nd triple diamond symbol. The jackpot on this machine is three triple diamond symbols!!
Reel 3 crushes my dreams by stopping on a red "7" symbol.
Then I heard my favorite noise in the world. Ding ding ding ding ding ding!!!!!! And the credits on my machine started climbing fast. The credits are worth one quarter each so I knew that 400 credits would only be $100, which would be awesome but I've been there before.
The credits count blew by 100 on it's way to 200. When it hit 300, I was sure it would stop. But It kept going. The digital counter kept to ascending - it read 400 credits, then 500 credits and it's still moving fast! Now I'm starting to get excited and Courtney is starting to get looks from angry geriatrics because she has become REALLY excited. 600 was an afterthought as the tally raced to 700. How much could I have won?!? Then it soared up to 800, 900, and then 1,000 with no signs of slowing down!! I looked up at the payout chart above the reels, frantically trying to calculate if I should be getting really pumped about this but who the hell can decipher those charts?!? It's like they are written using these weird casino petroglyphs. Regardless of this unknown, Courtney is nearly blacked out from happiness at this point 1,100 is gone before I can appreciate the $250 I had won, and the number of credits continues to flicker up past 1,200 to 1,300. Courtney was almost at the point where she was in need of medical attention when we reached 1,400, and I think I saw her eyes change to revolving dollar symbols, and her head start spinning at around 1,500 credits. By 1,600 I was officially fired up, which doesn't even come close to the full blown hysteria that Courtney was engaged in. I had lost hearing in my right ear due to Courtney screaming "OH MY GOSH, JOSH" by 1,700 but I was too excited to care. Onlookers started to gather around my machine and, in my mind, I was picturing myself on a G5 jet, lighting a cuban with a $10,000 bill. 1,800 was there and gone, as was 1,900. Courtney was laying on the ground, twitching, and foaming at the mouth when I reached 2,000 but then suddenly, and with no warning, it stopped.
When it was over, I had won $500!! I was pumped but tried to keep it cool so that I wasn't rubbing it in to people who were losing their next months salary. I know this is a long email for only $500, and you were probably thinking it would be much more after that build up but I felt like trying to make you guys laugh :)
I cashed out, bought a box of fancy chocolates for Courtney from the gift shop, and went home happy.
Fin
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