The story from last week continues. If you didn’t catch last week’s blog, you need to read that one first for context. Last week was more about my decision process. This week is more about the actual results when I went to play at my local Dotty’s for $150 a hand.
My first $3,000 was lost in about five minutes. It took a full eight minutes to lose the next $3,000. A half-hour later, still with no W-2Gs, I was down $15,000. This was not the way I envisioned the game!
A few hands after inserting another $3,000 (for a current total of $18,000), the first W-2G I received was for a $120,000 royal flush! This was more like it! This was exactly why I was playing this game, although I certainly did not expect the royal to come around so quickly.
It takes awhile to be paid this amount. The Dotty’s venues don’t keep that kind of cash on hand, so they have to call a manager to come in and handle it. I’ve received $8,000 jackpots on other games without having a manager called in to handle it, but every jackpot $25,000 or higher required a manager. Exactly where the cutoff is, I don’t know. But I asked for $20,000 in cash and a check for $100,000.
I snapped a picture and sent it off to Bonnie and a few gambling friends with smug comments to the effect that my mailers at Dotty’s were now screwed for another four months!
About a half-hour later, I was paid. They wanted me to play off the $120,000 hand still on the machine, and my first hand turned out to be five aces for $12,000! The manager was still on the premises, so receiving another check only took a few minutes.
I was down to $1,800 in credits. I decided to continue to play until it went down to zero. Anybody who had seen me receive two sizeable checks along with $20,000 in cash could possibly have designs of relieving me of my booty. If I settled in to continue to play, perhaps they wouldn’t want to stick around for the duration of an indeterminate length. I don’t know if anybody had such plans, but I figured playing a little more and then slipping out quietly when my machine went to zero would be safer.
Before I got down to zero, I hit a $1,350 straight flush. This was a normal-sized jackpot there and I was paid in cash. I finally ran out of credits and quietly left.
I knew I would not be receiving big mailers in the near future, but still, there was a drawing coming up. I had a 10% chance of receiving a $12,000 bonus for the royal flush, a 10% chance of receiving a $1,200 bonus for the five aces, and a 10% chance of receiving a $135 bonus for the straight flush.
This is not a must-be-present-to-win drawing. It takes place behind the scenes on a Tuesday, for the previous weekend ending Sunday, and the results are posted Tuesday midnight at all Dotty’s system-wide. The following Wednesday I went in to check at the shop where I had hit the jackpots.
I was an underdog to receive any of these bonuses, of course. Still, they were sizeable enough that it was definitely worth it to go in and check. On this particular week, I didn’t get any of the three bonuses. Disappointing, but the bottom line was that I was up $115,000 or so for the less-than-two-hours of play at Dotty’s that month and have nothing to complain about. Including figuring out how much to play and practicing until I was 99.99% competent at this game that I hadn’t played in a few years had taken several additional hours, and a career’s worth of experience, but still, it was a nice result.
I never know when my welcome will be withdrawn at a casino. It’s usually after “one too many” big jackpots. Possibly that time has come. Possibly not. I haven’t received any notifications one way or another. If I continue to get mailers (miniscule as they might be), that’ll be a sign that I’m still welcome.
After waiting for four months before I play again, I think I’ll probably go back to 9/6 Jacks or Better for $50 a hand, assuming they still have the game and that I’m welcome to play. Although the return is slightly lower than playing $150-a-hand Bonus Deuces, there are fewer chances for getting kicked out. There is just the $40,000 royal flush while playing Jacks or Better. In Bonus Deuces, although the royal flush cycle is longer than it is in Jacks or Better, if you include the chances of getting five aces for $12,000, and even $6,000 for five twos, threes, or fours, there is a bigger chance of getting some hand that can kill my mailers for four months.
My results were pretty spectacular to be sure. But I’m happy with my decision-making process independent of the results. Had I lost $24,000 in my first play there, which could have happened, it would still have been a good decision — albeit with a lousy result.
