Slot Systems

Bill Stone and John Patrick - How to Win at Slots - Or Not

Chuck Flick — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 21:21:00 +0000

I wanted to take a second to discuss Bill Stone again. It seems like I'm always getting emails from people about this "Bill Stone" character. I've written about his ebooks here, so it's natural that interested readers would reply about him.

It's intersting, some readers have been confused. Because of the sometimes satirical nature of this blog, some readers tend to believe I'm affiliated with the Bill Stone advice empire. That isn't the case. He really sucks and I suggest you avoid his con games.

There's a far larger group of readers who contact me, asking for my help in getting their money back from Bill Stone. He promises a 60- or 90-day money back guarantee, I can't remember which one. When people ask for their refund--and apparently a lot of people do--he ignores the request and doesn't pay.

I got an email the other day from someone who didn't get his crappy ebooks at all. The guy claimed he had been trying since "last year" to get his money back, but never get a reply. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do to help this fellow get his money back. Those 40 to 50 bucks are gone.

All I can say is, prevention is the best cure.

Bill Stone sells advice on how to win the lottery. He has an ebook about spotting fake magic. Not stage magic, mind you, but fake magic. He once sent me spam about exciting new secrets for winning sure money from an online casino he claimed to have hacked into. This email ended with him signing his name with the title "vice president" of the same casino he had supposedly hacked into.

That's craziness, people. Don't fall for it.

Anyway, on to a recap of my latest slots sessions. This is from the vault, I'm afraid, back when online gambling was legal. You know, back in the days when everything was cool. Here's another installment of...Tales From Slot Systems.

My Down The Steps sessions were a real roller coaster ride. Using John Patrick's methods for "grinding out small wins", I plowed ahead for five mighty sessions comprising 263 individual wagers. Three of the five sessions rank among my largest ones yet. In other words, going down the steps was gruelling stuff. You wouldn't think it would be.

Of my 263 wagers, 96 of them were wins. Of course, around half of those were simple break even "wins", where I won no more than I bet on the pull. Four of my sessions were losers. One was a big winner.

So what do I have to show for my efforts? -$1.95.

The money in my account when I started these sessions was $578.41. The money when I ended was $576.46. So I lost a buck ninety-five.

THE LOWDOWN ON "DOWN THE STEPS"

You know, that's not so bad if you look at it as entertainment dollars. It's cheaper than the cost of a premium Blockbuster rental. So I'm not complaining as a man who might have been looking for the thrill of a wager. As a student of the gambling science, I'm a little disappointed.

I'm supposed to grind out small wins. Instead, I grounded out small losses. That isn't what John Patrick promised.

In fact, my data would show that you almost never have small wins, but instead get lucky on one spins that makes up for all the small losing sessions you're having. Losing four out of five sessions is about standard. The wins on that fifth one almost make up for the losses on the other four. "Grinding out small wins" has not been my experience.

I'm certain John would say I'm not following his advice perfectly or something. He might even say my body of evidence is too small and that we are still within the standard deviation. That's all true, but I'm still right on this one.

The house has an edge. Some gamblers will win. Most will lose. In the end, you are pushing a button or pulling a lever. There is nothing (within the rules) you can do to increase the odds the jackpot will come up.

WHY SLOTS IS DIFFERENT

You can increase your odds playing poker. You can find games of blackjack and video poker in which you have a break even odds, or even a very slight advantage. I'm afraid you're not going to find slot machines with the same advantages.

I mean, know which machines give better odds than others. Know which jackpots to play and all that stuff. But I never read any of that in John Patrick's Slots. John Patrick's money management might save you a little money if you have trouble controlling yourself, but it won't teach you how to win.

John Patrick sells hope, not the secrets to success.

John Patrick Sessions Review - Comment on Bill Stone

Chuck Flick — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 21:13:00 +0000

I wanted to take a second to discuss Bill Stone again. It seems like I'm always getting emails from people about this "Bill Stone" character. I've written about his ebooks here, so it's natural that interested readers would reply about him.

Interstingly, some readers have been confused. Because of the sometimes satirical nature of this blog, some readers tend to believe I'm affiliated with the Bill Stone advice empire. That isn't the case. He really sucks and I suggest you avoid his con games.

There's a far larger group of readers who contact me, asking for my help in getting their money back from Bill Stone. He promises a 60- or 90-day money back guarantee, I can't remember which one. When people ask for their refund--and apparently a lot of people do--he ignores the request and doesn't pay.

I got an email the other day from someone who didn't get his crappy ebooks at all. The guy claimed he had been trying since "last year" to get his money back, but never get a reply. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do to help this fellow get his money back. Those 40 to 50 bucks are gone.

All I can say is, prevention is the best cure.

Bill Stone sells advice on how to win the lottery. He has an ebook about spotting fake magic. Not stage magic, mind you, but fake magic. He once sent me spam about exciting new secrets for winning sure money from an online casino he claimed to have hacked into. This email ended with him signing his name with the title "vice president" of the same casino he had supposedly hacked into.

That's craziness, people. Don't fall for it.

Anyway, on to a recap of my latest slots sessions. This is from the vault, I'm afraid, back when online gambling was legal. You know, back in the days when everything was cool. Here's another installment of...Tales From Slot Systems.

My Down The Steps sessions were a real roller coaster ride. Using John Patrick's methods for "grinding out small wins", I ploughed ahead for five mighty sessions comprising 263 individual wagers. Three of the five sessions rank among my largest ones yet. In other words, going down the steps was gruelling stuff. You wouldn't think it would be.

Of my 263 wagers, 96 of them were wins. Of course, around half of those were simple break even "wins", where I won no more than I bet on the pull. Four of my sessions were losers. One was a big winner.

So what do I have to show for my efforts? -$1.95.

The money in my account when I started these sessions was $578.41. The money when I ended was $576.46. So I lost a buck ninety-five.

You know, that's not so bad if you look at it as entertainment dollars. It's cheaper than the cost of a premium Blockbuster rental. So I'm not complaining as a man who might have been looking for the thrill of a wager. As a student of the gambling science, I'm a little disappointed.

I'm supposed to grind out small wins. Instead, I grounded out small losses. That isn't what John Patrick promised.

In fact, my data would show that you almost never have small wins, but instead get lucky on one spins that makes up for all the small losing sessions you're having. Losing four out of five sessions is about standard. The wins on that fifth one almost make up for the losses on the other four. "Grinding out small wins" has not been my experience.

I'm certain John would say I'm not following his advice perfectly or something. He might even say my body of evidence is too small and that we are still within the standard deviation. That's all true, but I'm still right on this one.

The house has an edge. Some gamblers will win. Most will lose. In the end, you are pushing a button or pulling a lever. There is nothing (within the rules) you can do to increase the odds the jackpot will come up.

You can increase your odds playing poker. You can find games of blackjack and video poker in which you have a break even odds, or even a very slight advantage. I'm afraid you're not going to find slot machines with the same advantages.

I mean, know which machines give better odds than others. Know which jackpots to play and all that stuff. But I never read any of that in John Patrick's Slots. John Patrick's money management might save you a little money if you have trouble controlling yourself, but it won't teach you how to win.

John Patrick sells hope, not the secrets to success.

Intercasino.com - InterCasino - Down the Steps Session #5 - Blade Slot Machine

Chuck Flick — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 22:09:00 +0000

For my fifth and final session of Down the Steps, I went with the Blade slot machine.

This one has it all. You have a dark-haired chick who looks to be in pain, which every red-blooded American guy loves. You've got semi-automatic pistols and tombstones and silver stakes and crucifixes and cool (impractical) bladed weapons.

I mean, you've got everything you need for a wild Saturday night.

For some odd reason, though, one of the symbols is a lipstick case. I guess vampires chicks love to pile on the cherry lipstick. Killing a guy seems so much more sensuous that way.

Or maybe there's been a re-write of Blade I'm not taking into account. Is it possible everyone's favorite half-breed vampire gets up in drag these days?

Stranger things have happened. I've heard they turned the Ultimate Colossus gay. Wonder what Wolverine thinks about all those fastball specials now?

By the way, this game really pissed me off.

I lost $50.05 on the session. Almost nothing went right this outing. It lasted 74 spin, meaning I lost around 65 cents per spin. All in all, 28 of the spins "won" me money, though most of those were two dollars or less.

Since about half my spins cost that much, I was pretty much losing the whole time. My biggest winning pull was 7 dollars, not nearly enough to help my cause.

In fact, I've decided that no small winning pulls are of much account. Hell, I nearly reached my loss limit (of seven losing spins in a row) early on, but I "won" 90 cents on the seventh one. Had I ended there, it would have saved me about 45 bucks.

To win at slots, you have to win big bonuses. That means you'll never be consistent at slots. No system can get around that fact, so I would suggest you avoid playing someone's slot systems. I've just about decided that anyone telling you any different is a scammer...or, at best, a fool.

For instance, I won around 150 bucks on my first Down the Steps session. Otherwise, I was losing. "Grinding out small wins" the way John Patrick suggests is nonsense. If you think he's right, then you're a nonsense person.

Speaking of nonsense, since Wesley Snipes may end up in prison for tax evasion, I doubt there will be another Blade movie. I guess they could film Blade in a prison.

That would be a cool vampire movie. Imagine a prison run by a clan of vampires. What better way to maintain a steady source of fresh blood?

Blade is placed in prison, only to find a bunch of vampires are the guards. You talk about action.

Or better yet, imagine a zombie movie set in a prison. One day, hardened criminals are going about their usual hyjinx, when suddenly a zombie apocalypse happens. It would explore a side of the zombie attack we'e never seen before. Hell, all those zombie movie worlds, those things had to have their own prison system. Prison of the Living Dead...I like the sound of it.

You might scoff, but I've seen Hood of the Living Dead. I guarentee a prison setting would beat that. (Or a shopping mall, for that matter.) I mean, you've got plenty of guns and badasses. Imagine the cons sitting around watching t.v. reports of the zombie attack and saying, "We've gotta get out of this place." You could have a riot, and when things are starting to get crazy, Boom!, the zombies show up. Then what's left of the two sides would have to work with one another.

You could have the slimy warden could cut a deal with the slimy gang leader, but only after it's too late. If you want hot women and all that, there's always the obligatory conjugal visit. It would work.

Think about it.

Starting Money: $626.51 Ending Money: $576.46

LOSING SESSION

9 Slot Machines I'd Like to Play

Chuck Flick — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 00:04:00 +0000

Have you ever thought about what slot machines you would REALLY love to play? I do that all the time. There's a lot of great machines out there, like the Marvel Superheroes slots. But for every great machine, there are ten more I would like to see.

So here's a list of nine slot machines which someone should produce.

1. The Google Slot Machine

This would be my favorite.

Whenever you played the game, Google Ads would pop up along the sides of the screen. If you clicked on one of these Adwords links, you might win a bonus. Most of the time, they would involve ads for some motorcycle repair shop in Peoria.

But this slot machine would have access to all of Google's coolest do-dads. You could access your gmail account while you played and have IM conversations with your friends.

Or, you could hang out on Orkut, meeting friends while you hit the jackpot. All the other Google slot machines would be networked with one another. Orkut would be for gamblers what MySpace is for musicians.

The bonus game would use Google Earth software. You would search the globe for your bonus money. Not only would you get a cool geography lesson, but you would learn all about the crazy names of foreign currencies.

If you hit the big progressive jackpot, you wouldn't win cash. Google would pay you in Google stock, which is much more valuable anyway.

A word of warning to Chinese players of Google slots. Your gambling WILL be reported to the Chinese government. And if you win the jackpot, not only will the Ministry of State Security confiscate your winnings, but you will be sent to a reeducation camp.

2. The Microsoft Slot Machine

This machine wouldn't pay out at all.

It would just eat your money and malfunction a lot. But like other Microsoft products, people would love it. That's because some of the glitches would actually pay out. These would be significantly high enough to warrant the money you would pour into the machine.

Of course, any time one of these screw-ups happened, a graphic would come up asking if you want to report the malfunction to tech support. Whether you chose "yes" or "no", nothing would be done by the management. Most people would assume this was just a bonus game.

When this happened, you could pull the level five times and hit the machine on top, sort of like the old pinball machines. Like with most Microsoft products, cursing a lot would probably help win the bonus game. Telling the guy next to you "Microsoft products" and shaking your head would also help.

Most of the slot sessions would be interrupted by software updates. And you would need to buy anti-theft protection, because other slots players might network in and steal your winnings.

Of course, something like this isn't far around the corner. Except Bill Gates won't partner with Bally or IGT. He's going to produce his own slots and try to corner the market, like he's doing with XBOX. Which brings me to my next slot machine.

3. The Xbox Slot Machine

This is the second offering from Bill Gates and Microsoft.

The great thing about the XBOX slot machine is the XBox Live option. This will be an interactive network game where players can encourage one another or (more likely) trash talk. So while you're playing slots, you can listen to obnoxious 12 year olds with Stephen Hawking voices tell you about their jackpot winnings. "I just hit the progressive, biyatch!"

This game will bombard you will all the greatest XBOX images. It could include scenes from fan favorites like Call of Duty, Knights of the Old Republic, Splinter Cell and Prince of Persia.

The bonus games would be awesome on this one. I would put in a Madden Bonus Game, a Halo Bonus Game and a Grand Theft Auto 3 Bonus Game. A picture of John Madden's big head saying "Boom!" would be the bonus symbol.

The Madden Bonus Game would have Madden's suggestions for winning bonuses. You should never listen to this advice.

The Halo Bonus Game would require you to play the role of the Chief and fight it out with the Flood. When you blow them up, they would explode into a multitude of smaller Flood. Some of these Flood would contain bonus money.

The Grand Theft Auto 3 Bonus Game simply requires you to take up a sniper rifle and shoot up a virtual casino. That way, if you have a rude neighbor on the slot machine next to you, you can simply wipe out the virtual slots row.

4. The Digg.com Slot Machine

This would be a novelty game.

Once again, it would require a network of all the Digg.com slot machines. Digg is "popularity website"; the Digg slot machine would be a "popularity slot machine".

Other Digg players would watch you play and vote on whether you should win. The more people that "digg" you, the more money you win.

Now I don't know how this would work. Maybe the Digg mechanism would activate on the bonus games. Or maybe you would have to refer your audience to other winning slot machines. That might open up the game to lots of zig zag talk and slotmachinemastery talk, but I figure the losing machines would prove out in the end.

It would be another way for Bill Stone to be exposed. You know; kind of like what goes on in this blog.

Also, if I were designing these machines, they would broadcast the latest installment of Diggnation. That way, you could learn about the most popular stories of the week. I would probably include a Diggnation Slots clip, with a list of the week's best slot machines.

This could be a goldmine for IGT. Like the classic television slots franchises, this could turn into popularity websites. You could have a del.icio.us slot machine, a Slashdot slot machine, Web 2.0 slots, and eventually put out machines for the lesser known Digg competitors, like Fark and Reddit.

5. The Iraq Slot Machine

This would be the timeliest slots game of all time, much better than those Hitler slot machines back in the forties.

Symbols would include flag-draped coffins, burning mosques, and a sign that says, "Mission Accomplished".

You would have reels full of George W. Bush wearing a cowboy hat or chopping wood at his fake ranch, Dick Cheney holding a shotgun and Jerry Bremer signing self-defeating protocols. You could have a picture of Paul Wolfowitz looking like Eddie Munster.

To show that IGT wasn't being partisan, the machine would include pictures of all the Democratic presidential "contenders" who voted for the war resolution: Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and John Edwards.

I'm just getting started.

Terrorists like al-Zarkawi and radicals like Muqtada Al-Sadr wouldn't be left out. These would be the wild symbols. Each would activate a bonus game. The bonus games would be the bomb.

In the WMD bonus game, you would search for weapons of mass destruction. There would be five or ten sites to inspect. Whenever you picked a site and it didn't have a MMD bonus, a picture of Hanz Blix would pop up and say, "I told you so."

There wouldn't be many bonuses given out on this one.

I would also have a Saddam Hussein bonus game. In this one, you would be looking down spider holes for Saddam. If you won a bonus, there would be a picture of Saddam hanging from the gallows. Shiites would stand around and taunt the corpse.

One thing this machine wouldn't have is a picture of Osama Bin Laden.
Why? Because there was no connection between Al Quaeda and Iraq. (insert laughter)

This is getting fun. Let's move on to another.

6. The Dick Cheney Slot Machine

Okay, this is just an elaboration of the previous slots game, but I figure the Iraq War will be so popular that it needs a sequel. You know, sort of like that first Iraq War.

And what better subject than Dick Cheney? I mean, you can get a lot of mileage out of that hunting "incident". He's the Elmer Fudd of American politics.

Though the George W. Bush slot machine would be cool from an audio point of view, with all those wacky quotes, we're not going to design a slot machine solely about our embattled Chief Commander. We have too much respect for the Office of the President.

Of course, no one respects the Office of the Vice President.

I mean, what do those guys do? Attend funerals and wait for the president to die?

Well, in Dick Cheney's case, I guess they do a little more than that. He hires a gang of his own cronies to form his own shadow presidency and tries to control the government from behind the scenes.

This machine would focus on some of the highlights of Dick Cheney's career. The bonus game would be called "Hunting With Dick Cheney".

You would choose targets. When you shot an animal, you would win. Most of the time, you would be firing on campaign contributors who are lobbying you for those Iraq contracts you claim to have nothing to do with.

This game would be activated by a picture of Cheney holding a shotgun.

The wild symbol would be a picture of the Haliburton corporate logo. This would activate a multiplier to give you bonus cash, much like the multipliers that Haliburton uses to calculate the profits on all of its military contracts.

7. The American Idol Slot Machine

Now that American Idol is back for its sixth season, it's time for the American Idol slot machine.

Obviously, you would include pictures of the big stars: Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, Ryan Seacrest and Randy Jackson. There would be pictures of all the American Idols: Kelly, Reuben, Fantasia, Carrie and that Taylor loser. Of course, you would have to have William Hung.

Whenever you lose, you would hear Simon saying "That was hideous" in his effete little British accent. If you lost really bad, he could tell you he could have seen the same in "any hotel lobby across America".

Those are my favorite Simon quotes. He'll use each of those several times this year. Just watch.

There would be the requisite Randy quotes about "Dawg this" and "Dawg that". Ryan Seacrest could show up and be useless.

You know, this guy's got a great career for doing a little bit of nothing. Now he hosts New Year's Rocking Eve with Dick Clark. You know he's just waiting for Dick clark to die, so he can have that gig for the next forty years.

He's also on the America's Weekly Top Forty countdown, taking over for Casey Kasem. Once again, another job that will last for forty years. I mean, this dude is set. And all based on "hosting" American Idol, where everyone but him is the star. It's great work, though, if you can get it.

That being said, Seacrest would be the wildcard symbol. There would be a bunch of phone numbers under his picture, indicating the American people voting. If the vote goes your way, you continue on and have a chance to win more money. If the vote doesn't go your way, the game is over.

Another bonus game would involve Paula. There would be a clip of her leaning towards the screen, looking drunk. She would be flirting with the player, then disappear seductively into a dressing room. You would be asked to decide what to do next, and this would affect your bonus.

Beware, though; it's a trick question.

8. The Wal-Mart Slot Machine

The great thing about this one is it involves Wal-Mart.

That means they would find a way to put Wal-Mart slot machines in every store across America. I know that's illegal, but Wal-Mart would could get the laws changed. I mean, it's Wal-Mart.

I guarentee, Wal-Mart would revolutionize the gambling industry.

This would be a devious machine. You wouldn't actually win money on this game. But you would get tremendous discounts on losing your money.

You see, these slot machines would be built in China. These slots could be produced for a little bit of nothing. So Wal-Mart would only have to take a fraction of your gambling money to make the same profit. That's the American way!

The music on the Wal-Mart slot machine would be from the top artists in the pop industry. Of course, all of this music would be censored to take out anything that might be offensive to parents and children.

Wal-Mart would probably skimp on the graphic and sound effects. Like their commercials, they would only include pictures of actual Wal-Mart associates and generic smiley faces. The smiley faces would look pleasant and probably indicate a kind of bonus "savings", but the employee graphics would be unfriendly looking. Occasionally, the sound effects would mimic a rude associate.

Another favorite of mine would be sound effects from one of those morning associate meetings.

You know, the ones where they get together and clap their hands like a pep rally? The one that makes outsiders wonder if Wal-Mart is using cult techniques to brainwash their associates? Yeah, those meetings.

From time to time, a voice would ring out about a "blue light special".

You won't be able to figure out what this is trying to tell you, but the
flashing blue lights on the machine would draw in a lot of new players.

9. The Lord of the Rings Slot Machine

They have a Star Wars slot machine. So is a Lord of the Rings slots game that far away?

Now, nothing could be as unstable as a George Lucas slot.

I've never played Star Wars, but I imagine it has Darth Vader in a musical number or something. I knew that Lucas had lost his mind when he spliced in Boba Fett flirting with Jabba's strippers in the "new and improved" Return of the Jedi.

Lord of the Rings can't get that crazy, but I bet it could get close. I've heard recently that Peter Jackson probably won't be coming back for The Hobbit movie, because the studio screwed him on the profits of the Rings Trilogy.

That means the studio execs are in charge of the franchise. That means a Rings slot machine is just around the corner.

Can you imagine the possibilities? Gandalf would be the wildcard, becuase he's the badass of the bunch.

Prominent sound effects would include Smeegol repeatedly saying "Precious" and Samwise chiming in "He'll betray you, Mr. Frodo!".

You know, in retrospect, that was a really annoying subplot.

It was pretty much three movies of Samwise and Frodo arguing about the Ring. I would like to see the Frodo parts of the movies cut out and spliced into its own movie. That would probably be the most annoying hour and half of your life, even more of an ass-whipping than Titanic.

On second thought, I would probably design this game as if you were the villain. The villains are much cooler in this movie, except for Smeegol.

The Sauron Bonus Game would be kickass. That eye could pop up and you could send your ring-wraiths to capture different characters. Collect the rings and you come to destroy Middle-Earth...and win a bunch of bonus money.

The problem is The Lord of the Rings didn't have a whole lot of cool quotes, like Star Wars did. Also, the end of the game would draw out forever, and finally you would walk away because you were sick of the graphics.

So maybe this game wouldn't be so great, after all. But, hey, that's why I have it listed #9 on the list, right?

Peter Jackson's version would be much better. He would have King Kong show up and attack or something. Freaking studio execs.

Intercasino.com - InterCasino - Down the Steps Session #4 - Silver Surfer Slot Machine

Chuck Flick — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 09:16:00 +0000

Welcome to another installment of From The Files Of Slot Systems.

This is the segment where we go back to the dusty past, back when online gambling was legal in America. Back before the age of gambling prohibition, I played a bunch of sessions. I took notes. Occasionally, I open the tomes and post one of those old sessions.

I'm returning to my notes of sessions I played months ago. I just dug up another one of my "Down the Steps" sessions.

Maybe I should recap.

John Patrick wrote a book called John Patrick's Slots, where he detailed different ways to win at the slot machines. I'm testing all 25 systems. The latest one of these is Down The Steps.

Here's the post where I first discussed the system.

http://www.slot-systems.com/2006/09/intercasinocom-intercasino-down-steps.html

Basically, you start betting high. As you hit the spin button, you bet less with each spin, then start the cycle over again. John Patrick explains it better than I do.

What goes up, must come down.

I'm serious; he wrote this stuff. But who's the fool, right? I actually bought a book full of this nonsense.

But, hey, I've played three sessions using Down The Steps and I actually won once.

The first session, I played the Hulk slot machine. I won $148. Here's my original post.

http://www.slot-systems.com/2006/09/hulk-slots-game-down-steps-session-1.html

The second session, I played X-Men slot machine. On this one, I lost $36. Here's that session in full.

http://www.slot-systems.com/2006/10/x-men-slots-game-down-steps-session-2.html

For the third session, I played the Thor slot machine. I lost $14. And guess what? Here's the recap.

http://www.slot-systems.com/2006/10/thor-slots-game-down-steps-session-3.html

If you don't want to read all that crap, let me tell you I've won around 98 bucks on the Down The Steps, which is frankly better than I'm used to doing with John Patrick's advice. So that's good.

As you might have noticed by now, I've been playing Marvel Comics slot machines at Intercasino.com.

For my fourth session, I decided to play Silver Surfer slots.

The Silver Surfer is one of my favorites. You'll love this. His name is Norrin Radd.

Isn't that cool?

I mean, he's an alien surfer, but his name just so happens to be "rad". I mean, that's one huge freaking coincidence. He might as well have been named Narly Johnson or something.

Of course, the Silver Surfer is serious business. He was the herald of Galactus, the Devourer of Worlds. He became a herald to keep Galactus from destroying Surfer's homeworld of Zenn-La. Hmph...the sellout.

Eventually, the two came to Earth, where they faced The Fantastic Four. You know, Galactus was hungry and he wanted to eat the Earth.

Deciding that Mr. Fantastic had a point about saving Earth and all that kind of stuff, the Surfer betrayed Galactus and helped the Fantastic Four. Galactus banished him to Earth as a punishment, and the rest is history.

It looks like the Silver Surfer will be a big part of the Fantastic Four 2 movie coming out this summer. It kind of looks like Surfer will be the major villain, though I hope that isn't the case. A good idea might be to tell the story in its original form. That's worked before, you know.

I doubt that will happen. They already put Dr. Doom in a love triangle in the first movie, which is just plain stupid. I mean, Dr. Doom was the character George Lucas ripped off to create Darth Vader. He was the original disfigured, masked badass who killed his minions for failure.

I mean, can you imagine Darth Vader in a love triangle? Okay, I guess he kind of was in a love story in the second Star Wars trilogy, but those movies sucked.

So I guess that kind of makes my point.

Whatever the case, I hope to see Galactus being galactic in this sequel, but I bet he'll hardly make an appearance. At least they'll have Jessica Alba running around, so the movie won't be all bad.

By the way, I had a losing Silver Surfer session.

It was a long one. I had 71 spins. 25 of those were wins, but I bled money anyway. I didn't win anything over $4.50. In the end, I lost $50.40.
But I'm still up for these sessions, so John Patrick is still a genius.

Starting Money: $676.91 Ending Money: $626.51

LOSING SESSION

Lasvegastalk.com - Bill Stone - Slotmachinemastery.com

Chuck Flick — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 19:14:00 +0000

I noticed recently that this blog was mentioned on the forums at http://www.lasvegastalk.com/modules.php?name=Forums.

The subject was Bill Stone and his e-books service at slotmachinemastery.com. It seemed that the regulars over at their message boards were discussing the merits of Bill's system.

There seemed to be a good deal of skepticism at the idea Bill Stone could win $1000 a day on the slot machines. If he could, why would he waste time selling e-books to show others how to do the same thing?

Wouldn't you want to keep your methods secret? That way, the casinos wouldn't know how to counter your strategy. That way, you wouldn't have hundreds and thousands of other gamblers gumming up the works.

I mean, selling these books would create competition for you, and increase the chances casinos would take notice of this avalanche of people winning $1000 a day.

In the middle of the discussion, there was a link to one of my posts about Bill Stone. It was an early post, just after I had bought those e-books, so the post was trying to be open-minded.

I want those people over at Las Vegas Talk to know that since that time, I've become much more familiar with Bill Stone, and I've come out very much against the man. Unequivocally, Bill Stone is a scam artist.

The guy once sent me an ad for how to beat the lottery. He sells books explaining how magic isn't real. Actually, I agree with him on that one, but it's kind of like writing a book to show people that dragons don't exist.

By the way, dragons don't exist. I'm writing an e-book to that effect.

Seriously, though, I have several blog entries about Bill Stone, where I'm being sly and sarcastic about my own opinions. There's one where I wrote something like, "I just got slotmachinemastery.com. I'm going to try this out and let you know. This could be great stuff."

Strangely, I end up getting an email every couple of weeks from random people, where they obviously think this site belongs to Bill Stone, and this blog is shilling his e-books. These people always have a complaint, and want their money back from me.

I guess that one blog entry reads like a clever marketing ploy, especially when these people read my silly "I've made a million dollars playing slots" faux introduction.

So, for all those who might be wondering, I do not recommend Bill Stone's e-books. If he could make a $1,000 a day playing slots, he wouldn't be selling e-books for $49.

It takes time to write e-books...even crappy e-books. It takes time to write web pages as ads for those e-books, and to build websites as a platform for those ads. It takes time to go through credit card information and stiff-arm people wanting their money back.

So if Bill Stone was really clearing those kind of profits without all those hassles, he wouldn't be selling his so-called secrets.

Chocktaw Casino - Durant, Oklahoma - Money Tree Slot Machine - Stand and Bet Session #5

Chuck Flick — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 18:53:00 +0000

This is the final installment of my Stand and Bet Sessions. Unlike my usual sessions, which I play online, these took place at the Choctaw Casino a few miles outside of Durant, Oklahoma.

Most of my time at the casino, I was playing poker. That was kind of our stated goal at the Choctaw. But I couldn't resist taking time to play some slots, so I decided to play the same number of sessions I would on any standard slots system.

I didn't use an experts' betting system. I just played. Strangely, my new strategy worked.

It's enough to make me wonder if strategy has anything to do with slots, or if winning and losing is just pure luck. Hmmm....

My fifth and final session was on a machine called The Money Tree.

I chose this one because it had a $17,000+ progressive jackpot on it. I thought to myself, "What a perfect end to a perfect day, to win seventeen thousand dollars."

Well, it didn't work out that way. I lost 20 bucks, instead.

So I ended up with five sessions at the Choctaw Casino. I put $100 in the slot machine. I ended up with two winning sessions, totalling $216. That's a $116 profit.

You know what? I'm pretty sure that's the second best set of sessions I've had. That's kickass!

No expert advice. No fancy system. No freaking e-books. I put my money in the machine, and I won.

You know, maybe I should put out my own e-book.

Ok, I'm just being silly now. The fact is, if I went to the Choctaw Casino a whole bunch, I would probably lose money two out of three times I went. On average, I will lose a little bit more than I'm going to win, no matter what betting system or "slots strategy" I use.

Just the same as if I was using some guru's half-brained system.

Starting Money: $20 Ending Money: $0

LOSING SESSION

Choctaw Casino - Wheel of Fortune Slots - Stand and Bet Session #4

Chuck Flick — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 19:44:00 +0000

I'm starting to think this "Stand and Bet" method is the way to go. Of all the betting systems I've tried out over the last year, it's given me the highest win percentage.

Three sessions and two wins. And those aren't crappy $5 wins, either. I'm not grinding out smalling winning sessions, as John Patrick would have me do.

Oh, no. I'm winning eighty and a hundred dollars pretty regularly with the Stand and Bet. It's a license to print money, is really what it is.

For those who need a recap, let me provide.

For the last year, I had been trying out different gambling experts' slot systems, to see which are real and which are really lame. I've had mixed reviews. By that, I mean that I've mixed my money in with all the money online casinos have taken from other poor schmucks.

So recently, I went to Choctaw Casino in Durant, Oklahoma. I didn't want to use someone else's system, because I didn't want to keep a notebook of my wins and losses while I was walking around the casino. People don't take kindly to that kind of stuff on the Texas-Oklahoma border.

On the spot, I invented my own slots theory, which I dubbed the "Stand and Bet" method. It might be hard for new gamblers to grasp, but it's proven wildly successful for me. Here's the two-step process.

The Stand and Bet System

1. You stand before a slot machine.
2. You bet.

An unofficial third step is to collect your winnings.

If things keep up like this, I might just start selling $50 e-books about how to win at slots.

Of course, I would have to add in a lot of other helpful tips, so my customers wouldn't realize there's not much to my system at all. Here's what I would probably include.

Chuck Flick's $50 E-Book

1. A short bio, where I talk about all the years I've spent gambling and how successful I've been. I wouldn't mention the fact that, if I were that successful at slots, I wouldn't need to be selling e-books. I would mention my success in other fields, which would probably include my original career as a concert cellist and a short stint on the Pro Bowling circuit, and how a degenerative elbow condition cut short both promising careers.

2. Gambling Myths. No doubt, there would be a gambling myths section. I would tell you about the cold slots/hot slots myth, definately taking a strong position one way or another. I could quote from a hundred other "slots myths" pages on the internet. (No need to mention them. Just do a Google search for "slots myths".)

Or I might suggest that hot slots are for real, and show you how to find them in any casino across America. This is probably the stance I would take, because it would show I know more gambling tricks. I might later show people how to catch the Easter Bunny.

3. My System's the Best. The part where I tout my own system, and tell you why everybody else's system sucks. I would probably focus more on other systems, to distract from the fact that mine is actually pretty simple. You know, you could probably spell out my method in one overlong blog post.

4. Money management. Now, this would be the bulk of my e-book. I would go on at length about money management. I would have cool, catchy quotes about this concept. Here's one: If you don't lose all your money at once, you'll have it to lose in the next session.

5. Other Books By Chuck Flick. I would mention my other e-books, so I could reveal that I also give piano lessons. I would highly tout the book where I discuss whether astrology and television psychics are real or not.

The Wheel of Fortune Slots

Anyway, back to Durant, Oklahoma. I put $20 into a Wheel of Fortune Slot Machine, betting $3 a spin.

Wheel of Fortune is where it's at. Pat Sajak and all that kind of good stuff. It's the most popular slot machine in history, put out by IGT, the leader in slots.

You might notice I'm real effusive in my praise of Wheel of Fortune, because I won $78 on the machine. I hit one jackpot for over a hundred bucks, and cashed out a $98 ticket. Factor in my twenty dollar bill, and I won nearly eighty dollars this session.

I never won eighty dollars two out of three sessions using John Patrick's advice. I never won that much using Bill Stone's advice, though that's mostly because I couldn't find much advice to take out of the Bill Stone e-books.

Certainly not as much as my book would have.

Starting Money: $20 Ending Money: $98

WINNING SESSION

Choctaw Casino - Saturday Night Live - Blues Brothers Slot Machine - Stand and Bet Session #3

Chuck Flick — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 23:09:00 +0000

For my third slots session at the Choctaw Casino in Durant, Oklahoma, I chose to play a Saturday Night Live slot machine.

These machines are produced by Bally Gaming, who like to produce licensed machines with a little edgy quality to them. They have the SNL slots, along with stuff like Playboy slots and Pamela Anderson slots.
My game of choice was a Blues Brothers slot machine.

I like the Blues Brothers. You might not know that about me. That chase scene at the end is a classic. And where Belushi sweet talks his girlfriend in the sewer, then kisses her, then shoves her aside (and into the mush)? That was classic, too.

I'll tell you what, though. I didn't like that second Blues Brothers movie.
Actually, I never watched it.

I remember seeing them perform at the Super Bowl the year prior. It was Akroyd and that other guy, but no Belushi.

Now, I know it would have been heard to get Belushi to perform. I'm not saying they should have tried to fake it or anything. But when the guy is dead, maybe that's when the franchise should end.

I wonder if Belushi's character was dead in the movie. I wonder if he died of an overdose or something. Hell, that would have been in poor taste. Looks like it's time to go to themoviespoiler.com.

Anyway, the machine was cool. It had big pictures of the original, cool Blues Brothers. It also had three video monitors above it, which you could watch old SNL skits.

They were playing the one where Patrick Swayze and Chris Farley were battling it out to be male strippers. Gross, yet funny.

what wasn't funny, was I lost my $20 on the machine.

I was betting $3 a shot. I won a few bucks once, but my money was gone in 9 spins. That's eight losing spins, if you want to know the truth.

After that, I watched my buddy play on the machine next to me. You'll be happy to know that he won a couple of hundred bucks on that machine. So it looks like I picked the wrong horse, so to speak.

But let me tell you about my big win at the poker table. These never happen to me, so I want to brag a little bit.

I wasn't dealt one pair the entire first two hours of my poker session. Not one stinking pair.

When it did come, I got a pair of Aces. So I tried to play it all cool. I had help from the waitress.

She was bringing me my coffee (black, with none of that crap in it), so I used her as a prop. To avoid eye contact with my opponents, by feigning confusion at the very act of where the waitress should place my coffee.
I was chewing the scenery, but I did seem too preoccupied with the waitress to have a pair of aces.

I bet before the flop, to try to get all the straight and flush possibilities out. There were three of us in the pot at that point.

The flop comes and it's 8-K-A. Yes, I had flopped a set of Aces.

Not wanting to push too many out of the pot at that point, I slow played it. The cards had flopped perfectly, since all three flop cards were of different suits. There was the chance of the ace-high straight out there, but I was willing to take a chance no one had a Q-10 or Q-J.

A lady across the table started betting. She pushed the one guy out of the pot. I called.

The turn came and it was a 3, or something real low. The lady bet again. I called again.

The river came and it was a 6. There were not three cards of any suit. So there were no flush or straight possibilities.

The lady came in with a huge bet. I came over the top with all I had, or real close to it. She called me down. I figured she had flopped a pair of kings or a pair of aces, and possibly two pairs (king and aces or king and eights).

She laid down her cards. They were three kings. The people at the table were impressed, but not as impressed as they were by my three aces.

I have a question for my readers. Is interacting with the waitress too much (while you hold a pair of Aces) a tell?

Now that I think about it, maybe it is. A good tell is when a player acts non-chalant, as if the hand doesn't matter. I think it is. Helping me, though, is the fact that I generally look clueless. So the idiot act is quite natural seeming with me.

Great hand of cards. I won $100+ on the hand, which more or less made my day. When we got there, the only tables going were $1-$2 blinds, no limit. Ended up playing on those all day, so the $100 pot was about all I expected.

I more or less sucked the rest of the day, because frankly I'm not a very good poker player. I also have about the same luck as I do at slots.

What's interesting, I watched the new James Bond movie a couple of weeks ago. One of them sucked out on the other one, holding A-A-A against K-K-K. So maybe one of the other players at the table was an international spy.

But I'll discuss that at another time. For the moment, I had another losing slots session.

Starting Money: $20 Ending Money: $0

LOSING SESSION

Choctaw Casino - Hexbreaker Slot Machine - Stand and Bet Sessions #2

Chuck Flick — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 22:18:00 +0000

For my second live slots session at the Choctaw Casino, I chose a Hexbreaker slot machine.

I thought Hexbreaker was the coolest. The artwork on the machine was real stylized and sleak. It was very modern looking, fitted out in black and midnight blue.

The main character in Hexbreaker is a black cat named Hoodoo. You might not know this, but Hoodoo is like a cooler way to say "voodoo". It's more contemporary than stodgy old voodoo, so you need to know that.

Even though black cats are supposed to be unlucky, this one is apparently just the opposite. That's why they call it a hexbreaker.

This is not a game for the superstitious.

It flaunts all the conventions of bad luck. There are several versions of the black cat, broken mirrors and jinx symbols, which are the bonus images you need to get the real money.

It's a 5-reel, 13-line slot machine. You can bet up to 20 credits. For the life of me, I can't remember how much I was betting. I put $20 in the machine. My bets were in the $2.50 variety.

Of course, the main reason I liked Hexbreaker was I won $140 on the bonus round. That's when I used wise money management.

John Patrick suggests you set a win limit, that you win a bonus, then spin the button one more time, then walk away. So that's what I did.

Otherwise, I was playing the straight Stand and Bet Method.

For those that don't know, I created this slots betting method on my own. Here's what you do with the Stand and Bet.

You stand in front of the machine, and then you bet.

That's what I call wonderful simplicity. Scoff all you want, but I just won $118 with my new betting method.

Starting Money: $20 Ending Money: $118

WINNING SESSION

Choctaw Casino - Durant, Oklahoma - Red Hot Ruby Slot Machine - Stand and Bet Session #1

Chuck Flick — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 21:21:00 +0000

A buddy and I visited the Choctaw Casino near beautiful Durant, Oklahoma on Saturday.

The stated purpose of our visit was to play live poker and to play it in a setting that was all legal like. And that's what we did.

Of course, I had to stop off to play some slots on our way out of town. I couldn't travel all the way to a live casino and not play some slots. The idea was to play a full set of sessions using one of John Patrick's methods.
That didn't happen.

I forgot to take a pen and notepad. Actually, forgot is a bit of a misnomer. I figured that would look suspicious, like I was a Fed or something like that. And I didn't want anyone to think I was a Fed.

So the next few sessions I'll be writing about aren't from a specific guru. I'll be using my methods.

We'll call this The Chuck Flick "Stand and Bet" Method. There are two steps to using this method.

1. You stand in front of the slot machine.

2. You bet.

That's why it has that name, you see. It's worked for me in the past. I bet it's worked for you, too.

I played five different machines. That means I played five sessions using my own method. That's just the number of sessions I give John Patrick's methods, which works out nicely for the sake of comparisons.

The machines I played were Red Hot Ruby, Hexbreaker, Wheel of Fortune, Saturday Night Live Blues Brothers and Money Tree.

The first thing you need to know about these machines is that they aren't your average run-of-the-mill slots. These babies run off a bingo mechanism. Let me explain.

It's evil and wicked to bet on regular slot machines. You know, the ones with reels and random number generators. Those reels belong to the Devil.

But if the random number generator is tied to a bingo game, then that's approved by both Church and State. It's legal. More importantly, it's pious.

Bingo is good. Slots are bad. But slots with Bingo are good.

I think you understand.

Now, don't get me wrong. These machines sure look like regular slot machines. They have reels and everything. And if you don't look for the little bingo card on the top of the machine, you would never know it was there.

I mean, you could probably play a whole session of this stuff, and think you were doing something really wicked. But you wouldn't be.

Explain that to your priest.

Anyway, on to Red Hot Ruby. This machine has a cartoon picture of a red-head named Ruby. The cartoon picture is fun-loving.

Ruby has big eyes and is a little comical looking, though I have to say she's pretty attractive, if you are attracted to cartoon characters.

Then there's the other ruby. At another spot on the machine, Ruby looks a little more realistic looking. She's in her same red skirt, except this time she's laying on her back provocatively.

Ruby's being all seductive and stuff. I assume she's had a few drinks. I figure that's "Red Hot Ruby", if you know what I mean.

I had to lay some money down on this slot. So I inserted my twenty dollars into Red Hot Ruby.

It was one dollars bets. Three lines. Basically, I was paying $3 a spin.

Long story short, I won a few dollars here or there. But within ten minutes, I had lost all twenty dollars.

So my Stand and Bet method didn't work for the first session. But that's why I played five of them.

For the record, I won a little at the poker tables. So I was playing with house money anyway, if you can call other poker players' money "house money".

NOTE: I'll have to detail my poker session soon, just for the sake of information. I had a great showdown with one woman. And by "great", I mean that I won the showdown. More on this later.

Okay, so I lost my money to Red Hot Ruby. That's just like a woman, taking my money like that.

Starting Money: $20 Ending Money: $0

LOSING SESSION

Slot Systems and casinocitytimes.com

Chuck Flick — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 04:33:00 +0000

I had a real treat today.

This little blog was featured in Casino City Times, a major online source for casino and gambling information.

Having reread the post that was cited in the casinocitytimes.com column, I thought I would reintroduce the site to possible new readers. I also had a comment or two about that earlier post.

1. A Testimonial To Introduce My Site

"Hi. I'm Chuck Flick. I've won hundreds of dollars playing slot systems devised by John Patrick."

That isn't true, of course. I've lost hundreds of dollars playing those same systems, but I'm cheery about it.

Actually, my name isn't really Chuck Flick, either.

That's sorta my alter ego. Here's how it all came to be.

I was checking out at Kroger several years ago. The young lady at the register asked if I had a Kroger Loyalty Card, and I said, "Well, I don't think I do."

So she had me fill out my information, complete with name, address and e-mail address.

I suddenly realized I was going to be barraged with junk mail and spam from Kroger, so I gave all kinds of false info on the application. Chuck Flick was the name I came up with at a moment's notice.

Since that time, every time I fill out a loyalty card, I give my name as Chuck Flick. I love hearing the cashier say to me, after I produce my fake grocery store I.D., "Have a good day, Chuck."

My real name, you might ask?

Chucky McChuck. I'm Irish and stuff like that.

2. Fuzzy Math

My math was waaaay off on the number of John Patrick posts I'm going to have. I mean, it was off by a factor of five.

I mentioned playing five sessions for John's 25 different slots methods. Somehow, I added an extra five into my multiplication figures, coming up with the astronomical 625 posts for John Patrick's Slots alone.

Wow, that really would be stalking the old fellow.

Let me assure my readers; I won't beat them over the head with 625 John Patrick posts. Not unless he and I eventually end up starring in a sitcom together.

He could play my crotchety old granddad who's always peddling gambling systems. He moves into the house to hide from angry customers, making my life interesting as I try to cope with my wife leaving me or something.

I don't know what the name of the show would be. "One-Armed Bandits" is the first thing that comes to mind, but since neither of us has lost an arm, that just wouldn't make any sense at all.

I'll have to think about that one.

3. Bill Stone Will Help You Win the Lottery

This Bill Stone guy is a mess. He's a real piece of work. I'm pretty sure Bill also calls himself Giancarlo Capuccio, which is probably his name at the local Kroger food store.

For the record, Bill Stone claims to be a gambling expert. He sells e-books showing people how to win at gambling.

He once sent me an email showing me how to win the lottery.

That should tell you all you need to know about Bill Stone.

He's just one of the more notorious gambling "gurus", which dovetails with my final point.

4. I'm An Expert; Now Give Me Money

If you wanna be considered an expert, simply tell people you're an expert.

You might try this sometime. I'm telling you; it works. Read what I'm writing and learn it.

You can believe me, because I'm an expert.

That's not true. I'm no expert, especially about gambling. I kind of suck at it, to be honest.

Of course, I would suggest there aren't many slots experts. I mean, you hit a button and hope for luck.

If you're on the internet looking for free slots tips, let me save you the time searching around. Here's the sum of most slots wisdom you'll find:

Money management...slots myths...you didn't win because you didn't play my method properly...Charles Fey...don't leave a hot slot...random number generator, simply called an RNG...money management...lock up a profit...bet the maximum coins...cold machines comes in pairs...zig zag...money management...and, last but not least...when you learn my system, casinos will hate to see you come in the door.

I'm sure I'm missing something, but that's not a bad list. Most of it's just there to fill space.

Or you could remember that playing slots is just another form of entertainment, like watching a movie or a ballgame, and you're probably going to have to pay a little money to be entertained.

Otherwise, keep in mind the bottom line.

Bet one coin. Bet five coins. Bet one line, two lines or all the lines, if you want.

In the end, you're hitting a button and hoping for luck.

Thor - Slots Game - Down the Steps Session #3

Chuck Flick — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 03:13:00 +0000

The next session took place during a marathon of slots I had a few weeks ago. You know, during the Stone Age when online gambling was legal and stuff. So allow me to introduce a new feature I call From the Files of Slot Systems.

Don't ask me what I post after I finish with my notes. Guess I'll have to start making trips to land casinos in the near future...and carry a notepad.

Or maybe I'll move to Antigua prematurely, before I make my million dollars. (sigh)

Whatever, these experiments may be a little harder to perform, but I'll figure out some way. I mean, governments often stand in the way of science. I'm pretty sure The Government tried to stop Pasteur from inventing milk.

So I'll sacrifice for my science, the way Pasteur and all those guys did.

During my next "Down the Steps" session, I played the Thor slot machine.

Now, I couldn't really tell you what they are doing with Thor in Marvel Comics these days. At least, I couldn't say without consulting Wikipedia.

Thor used to be the Norse god of thunder, son of Odin and the most powerful superhero in the Marvel Universe. Odin forced him to take the form of a crippled mortal doctor, but when he beat his crutch on the ground, Thor could still kick ass with the best of them.

Later, he became a registered nurse or an ambulance driver or something. I'm pretty sure he died. Even deities die when their monthly sales drop. Poor sales are kind of like Thor's kryptonite.

But I lost track of the story in there somewhere.

I mean, Marvel created an Ultimate Thor, who is either the god of thunder or a nut with a powerful hammer. Coincidentally, Ultimate Thor came from the Ultimate Marvel Universe.

Once there were two Thors, I kind of got sleepy head any time I heard anything about the guy.

So I'm not sure which incarnation of Thor is featured on the slot machine. This one looks like he's pretty tough, so I'm pretty sure this isn't the registered nurse.

The music is cool in this game. It plays when you win something, even when it's 45 cents. It's real dramatic stuff, like the music they used to play in those old Hollywood Biblical epic movies.

The pictures on the reels were top notch. There were all the standards: Mjolnir, Loki and Sif.

I've seen better pictures of Sif. I mean, we're talking the chick that Thor shacked up with. This should be one hot looking warrior woman. I mean, we're talking about the Xena of Norse mythology. She could take any two or three valkyries.

Of course, I think they maimed and later killed off Sif in the comics. I guess it's a real treat she was actually included. Don't ask me how they killed off a goddess. You know, it happens. (poor sales)

Of course, it's no surprise that Thor's woman got the axe.

I mean, that's what happens to superhero girlfriends. Most of them die in some awful way, usually after having an over the top encounter with Dr. Light. If they don't die horribly, then they become insane supervillains.

That's just what happens, except to Lois Lane, of course. She's the exception to the Dead and Crazy Girlfriends Rule.

My guess is the comics writers, mostly middle aged guys, have a real problem with women.

Either their wives give them hell all the time about getting a real job, or the wife left them for a truck driver. Either way, the writer is looking to take out his frustration, and so the love interest is on the receiving end of it.

That's just my guess.

But back to the slot machine. The rest of the images are concepts which have only a vague relation to Thor.

There's a typhoon. Then there's a viking ship. There's a hand with a cool looking shaped wristband, which glows mightily when it helps you win something. There is Thor's helm, a castle and a runic staff.

There's even a bored looking ice giant, which brings me to a question.

Why are giants in fiction always depicted as bored looking?

Let me present you with my theory.

Okay, giants sit around all day, waiting for some little guy to come slay them. It's gotta be dull as hell, honestly. In terms of excitement on the job, it's like being a security guard, except worse.

Unlike security guards, you don't have a television or a radio to keep you entertained. There's no watching the ballgame to pass the time. So it's really a whole lot worse than being a night watchman or something like that.

I mean, the hours are bad. The benefits are awful. It's the definition of a dead end job.

By the way, this session lasted 44 pulls. 16 of them were wins, though I never won anything over $7.50.

On the 44th pull, I had my 7th naked pull in a row. That was my pull limit, so the session ended.

Thanks to the pull limit, I only lost $13.50 on this session.

I was hoping for better luck. The Thor slots game is cool.

Guess I should have said a prayer to Thor before I started playing.

Starting Money: $690.41 Ending Money: $676.91

LOSING SESSION

The X-Men - Slots Game - Down The Steps Session #2

Chuck Flick — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 18:48:00 +0000

I chose the X-Men slot machine for my next session of Down The Steps.

X-Men seem to fit the mood of the times. Xavier's bunch fight to protect the society which shuns and distrusts them, just like me. I get the idea if I lived in the Marvel Universe, the X-Men and I would get along just fine.
I'd probably have some minor mutant power, and my hero name would be "Flick". I would probably be able to record every moment of my superhero career and then psychically link that with technology, allowing people to see my exploits in real time on the internet.

I would be the p.r. person for the X-Men. Xavier wouldn't like it, but I might sway some public opinion for the mutants.

That's why they would call me Flick, because my life would be like a cheaply-made movie. It would be viral marketing at its finest, because you can't tell me people wouldn't want to see the X-Men on YouTube.

That is, if they have YouTube in the Marvel Universe.

Yeah, me codename would be Flick, but my few friends would call me Chuck, because they know who I really am and what I'm really like.

My enemy would be my evil twin brother. He would have the same powers, except they would call him "Snuff", because he would kill people and broadcast it online.

But that's only if I lived in the Marvel Universe.

On second thought, that would suck. "Flick" wouldn't be very popular, and Wolverine would eventually kill me in a tragic mistake.

So that would suck.

This machine has most of the cool characters as images on its reels. You know, the ones who are a lot cooler than that Flick character.

It has all the hot chicks, like Jean Grey, Storm, Mystique and Rogue.

It has the badass warriors like Wolverine, Sabertooth and Magneto.

It has the "leaders" like Xavier and Cyclops. I mean, Xavier is cool and all, but we all know Cyclops is lame. All he can do is fire a laserbeam, which half of the other characters can also do.

That's why Cyclops gets to be the leader, because he can't do much else. I guess they let him pilot the Blackbird, too.

See, lame characters get all the support jobs.

My guess is "Flick" would also do the repairs on the Blackbird. And he would probably prepare inboard movies for long flights to Genosha.

By the way, this was one of my quickest sessions. I hit the "naked pull" limit real quick.

For those just joining, a naked pull is a losing spin on the slot machine. If you have a certain number of them in a row, the session automatically ends. That's called a naked pull limit.

I've set 7 as my limit for these sessions. That's good number, because that machine has some bad karma coming off of it if you have seven bad spins in a row.

Besides, it gets pretty boring losing all the time. And the sound effects are even lamer and more annoying when you lose.

The session lasted only 9 pulls. The second one was a win for 9 dollars.

The rest of them were losses.

I lost around $36 on this session. Since my regular loss limit is $50, John Patrick's naked pull limit stipulation probably saved me 14 dollars.
That's money management at its finest.

Note to My Readers: These are records of my sessions from last week.

Due to the new laws being written up on Capitol Hill, I've been afraid all this week the entire D.O.J. would bust through my front door if I started writing about my online gambling sessions.

Okay, that was panic, and I understand that stuff hasn't been written into law or anything, but I want to go on record saying I'll be writing about my sessions from last week for some time to come.

Starting Money: $726.06 Ending Money: $690.41

LOSING SESSION

The Hulk - Slots Game - Down the Steps Session #1

Chuck Flick — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 17:53:00 +0000

InterCasino.com offers the Marvel Superheroes slots game.

I've played these slot machines once before during these sessions and they were quite a hoot. So I decided for the "Down the Steps" sessions, I would give The House of Ideas another try.

When I played The Hulk last time, I lost around $30. But I was playing The Squirrel Method at the time, so I have a built-in advantage this time around.

I like The Hulk slot machine. It has pictures of tanks and serums and mushroom clouds...you know, all the stuff that made us love the Hulk as a kid.

It has General Thunderbolt Ross and The Abomination and some guy I don't recognize who looks like a zombie. Mostly, it has Dr. Bruce Banner and The Hulk.

The Hulk has a burning rage, just like I do. His was caused by gamma radiation, while mine is caused by flawed slots wisdom.

Luckily, the U.S. military hasn't tried to apprehend me yet. At least I think that's the case.

This was my longest session yet. It lasted a marathon 65 pulls.

I had the normal limits of $50 up and down. The naked pull limit was 7. So there was nothing odd about how I approached this.

This was a come-from-behind win for me. I started out losing, and then I got hot. The Hulk got angry, and then he started to smash stuff.

This slot machine has a cool bonus game. Suddenly, this real dramatic music comes up. Then you see the Hulk facing a tank and a gunship helicopter.

You have to choose to attack one or the other. I chose the helicopter a lot, because it looked cooler when The Hulk swatted it away.

Depending on which one you choose, you get money. If you choose the wrong one, you might get shot. It seems like you can get shot two (maybe three) time before the bonus game is over.

So I had 26 winning spins on this game. Most of these were lameass 50 cent spins. I had one worth $18 and another worth $17.

And then The Hulk went crazy. I hit the bonus game and came up with a big $117.75 spin.

It hardly mattered that the tank took down The Hulk in the end. That would never happen in the comics, but I don't care at the moment, because I won about $148 on this session.

Down The Steps is working out quite nicely for me.

Starting Money: $578.41 Ending Money: $726.06

WINNING SESSION

Intercasino.com - InterCasino - The Down the Steps Method

Chuck Flick — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 15:35:00 +0000

I hope I don't confuse everyone with the next method I use.

It's a real bizarro betting system. It turns the world on its elbow. Yes, it's the Down the Steps Method.

Those who have been reading my recents posts know about the Steps Method of slots betting.

In the steps, you start out with a low number of coins. As you move up the steps, you increase your bets in increments. These are standard increases that you determine before you ever step in front of a slot machine.

Okay, that's pretty easy to understand. That's why they call it the "step". It's as simple as one-two-three.

Down the Steps is much more complicated. Bear with me here. I apologize. Most places that explain these difficult mathematical principles, they have chalkboards so you can follow along. Here we go.

In Down The Steps, you start out with a high number of coins, and bet going the opposite way. It goes three-two-one.

3-2-1 is a lot more complicated than 1-2-3. The human brain isn't wired to think that way.

That's why it takes a man with the knowledge and experience of John Patrick to come up with this stuff. Of course, John was the master of explaining these difficult concepts to a wider audience.

"What goes up, must come down."

That perfectly crystallizes Down The Steps in one simple phrase. Let me repeat the words for you, to let this wisdom sink in.

"What goes up, must come down."

...(short pause)...

It comes down the steps, you see. That's what he called the last betting method...Steps.

So anyway, I'll be playing at Intercasino.com.

There's one very good reason I'm doing that. Basically, I'm just about out of money at Breakaway.com.

Intercasino...my bets start out high and end low...that's about all you need to know about this latest slots system.

The Step Method Slots Sessions in Review - John Patrick's Slot - Slot Systems

Chuck Flick — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 20:28:00 +0000

So we come to the end of my gaming sessions for John Patrick's Step Method. Another slot system has been put to the test and been found wanting.

I played five sessions and bet a good $800.

Throughout, I had one winning session and four losing ones.

The win was for $56.80. The losses were for $51.00, $54.50, $10.05 and $50.00, for a total loss of $165.55 in the losing sessions.

In all, I lost $88.75 through the five sessions. That comes to a payback percentage of around 89%.

That's lame, people.

Of course, I'm assuming these slot machines pay back better than that and everything would even out over a larger sample of bets. But I also remember that one of my losing sessions was cut short. It could have been worse.

I was probably going to lose another $40 on that session. That Realm of Riches slot machine was going to plunder me, man.

Now, I can see John Patrick's reply, "You didn't follow my system right. You left the one system early. Did your bets follow the classic step method?"

Then he would call me some whacky name like Don Nojack.

"You have to follow the Step Method step-by-step. You can't leave any part out."

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know the routine.

But let's review this from an objective point-of-view.

Slot machines have a certain payback percentage. Casinos have a house edge. Money management and slot systems cannot change that fact.

To win, you have to get lucky. That's why they call it gambling.

Casinos make a profit, because they have a house edge. That's why Vegas can afford all those bright lights.

Those are the facts.

It's a hard lesson that's cost me around $500 to learn, but I'm learning it. I hope everyone reading this blog is coming to the same conclusion.

Play slots. Use the slot system of your choice. But do it for the entertainment of it, paying money you would normally pay to watch a movie or concert. Don't put down your car payment, because you'll probably lose your car.

These are entertainment dollars, not investments. The rare person gets really lucky, but you're more likely going to be part of the multitude that is contributing to that person's jackpot.

That being said, I hope to have my conclusions overturned. I will not be close-minded about the slot machine.

I'll keep putting my money in the slots. I'll continue these sessions. The experiment continues.

Keep me in your prayers, people.

Game Technology and the Future of Slot Systems

Chuck Flick — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 20:25:00 +0000

It might not be news to gamblers who play online slots, but there are radical changes coming for the way casino slot machines work.

I play a lot of online slots. So I'm pretty used to the idea that an online casino operator somewhere in the world can modify the program in his "slot machines" and even change the payback odds on the game I'm playing.

Let's face it; regulation is a lot harder online than in land-based casinos.

But slots players better get used to the same concept at their local gambling halls. Very soon, casinos will have the technology to reprogram their odds on all their machines from the control room in the back.

There was a time when such modifications took hours, if not days. That isn't the case any more.

With the computerization of slot machines, the ability to reprogram them in a matter of seconds is not just possible, but realistic.

Before you think casinos are going to change the rules in the middle of the game, here are four laws which should reassure you. These are standard in Vegas, but the Nevada laws are the model for lawmakers across the states.

1. Casino operators cannot change the odds on a slot machine while it is being played.

2. They cannot change the odds for four minutes after someone stops playing the machine.

3. That same machine much be offline for four minutes after the odds have been changed.

4. While the odds are being changed, the machine must display to customers that its odds are being modified.

Now, that probably won't assure the more paranoid customers out there.
If it takes half a minute to change the odds on a machine, what is to keep an unscrupulous casino manager from changing the odds?

Well, enlightened self-interest is the best answer I can give. If it were learned that a casino was "changing the dice" in the middle of the game, then that casino would face crippling fines and its operators would face criminal charges.

Perhaps worse, that casino would become infamous in the gaming public, red-flagged by the insiders who give casinos the bulk of their profits.

Of course, conspiracy theorists might wonder if more subtle forms of gambling discrimination will take place.

Some gamers fear that regulars will get preferential treatment, to assure the regulars keep returning. Others are concerned that high rollers will get the red carpet treatment, assuring where they will spend their gaming dollars.

But I figure this is just the technological evolution of the slot machine industry. Basically, casinos are wanting to become more efficient, and they want to provide better services for gamers.

If you want to play a certain type of game, then you can request it and have it programmed into the system in a matter of minutes. And if you are a whale, then your requests will probably get you first in line.

Preferential treatment, maybe, but I imagine it's hardly anything insidious.

The answer, of course, is to win a huge progressive jackpot and retire to a tropical island. Then you won't have to worry about such nonsense.

It's Good To Be Bad - 3 Reel Slots - Step Session #5

Chuck Flick — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 00:33:00 +0000

I decided to try It's Good To Be Bad for my next session.

I've played this machine before, but not using the Step Method. I tried it using the Play And Run method, but that was a long time ago.

The Play-and-Run also isn't a full test of It's Good To Be Bad. In that game, you play for four minutes, then you run. You run on to the next slot machine, that is.

The more naked spins you have on this machine, the better your chances of winning really big. It's a great scam, and I applaud the game designers. The machine seems to have been designed to thwart John Patrick's Play And Run techniques.

In the play-and-run, you are running about the time your session really turns bad. Well, it's good to be bad on It's Good To Be Bad, so the game might as well have been called It's Bad To Run When Things're Just Getting Bad.

But the Step Method is a much more methodical system. It's a full exploration of a machine.

Of course, when things get bad, sometimes they stay bad. And that's what happened on this session.

Nearly 40 "pulls" with nothing better than a few four dollar wins.

In fact, this session was almost a mirror image of my earlier It's Good To Be Bad session. About the same number of plays, about the same amount of success. The only difference was I didn't lose fifty dollars the first time around.

In short, I should have run when I simply stepped.

Starting Money: $534.63 Ending Money: $483.63

LOSING SESSION

Slot Machine Strategy Guides

Chuck Flick — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 00:28:00 +0000

I've been looking ahead to the next slots guide for my experiments.

I mean, I don't want John Patrick to think I'm just picking on him. I talk so much about him that I may seem obsessed with the old coot.

But he detailed 25 slot systems. I'm going to give each one of them about 25 sessions of study. So I'm talking about 625 posts about John Patrick.
It's a full scientific study. I should apply for a government grant.

Still, I've thought about checking out other books' systems. To that end, I looked around on Amazon.com today to scout ahead. Here's the list I've compiled.

1. Slot Machine Strategy: Winning Methods For Hitting The Jackpot by MacIntyre Symms

I like the title of this book. It has a colon in the title. In my mind, a good slots guide has to have a sub-title.

I like the name "MacIntyre Symms", too. It's very imposing. I figure Mr. Symms is a scholar. Professor MacIntyre Symms sounds about right.

The synopsis offers money management tips, which are important in a strategy guide. I figured John Patrick would sue Mr. Symms over money management, since he invented that slots strategy, but I guess they've worked it out.

Something really caught my mind about this book. Professor Symms offers funny tips on what to do with your money when you win the big jackpot. He probably talks about moving to a tropical island, like I'm going to do.

2. Slot Smarts: Winning Strategies at the Slot Machine by Claude Halcombe

Okay, this is another solid title. It has a sub-title, but it has the virtue of being brief and to the point. I like that in a subtitle.

I tend to wonder about that name, Claude Halcombe. He could be French, though the surname is probably British. Claude is possibly the offspring of some forbidden Anglo-French love affair.

I'm leery of this one. I expect purple prose, though there is nothing to suggest that in his reviews. He's accused of moralizing. That's probably a product of self-loathing, since he was born out of wedlock and all.

One thing I did like was talk of his "luck management" techniques. This sounds like a step up from mere money management strategies, though it may just be an example of that purple prose I was talking about earlier.

It comes with a spreadsheet. I'll put this one on the short list.

3. Secrets of Modern Slots by Larry Mak

This one has no subtitle. Larry Mak was the nickname of my high school gym teacher. I don't trust this strategy guide.

The catchphrase for this one is "Ignorance may be bliss...", and goes on to tell us that isn't the case with slot machines.

He's right, but I hate Larry Mak anyway. I'll avoid this one.

4. Slot Machine Answer Book: How They Work, How They've Changed and How To Overcome The House Edge by John Grochowski

Okay, now that is an imposing subtitle. It tells you what's on its mind.

How it fits on a book cover, I'm not sure. But it's top notch, all the same.

This book uses the Socratic Method to get to the truth of slot machines.

The author posits a questions, then answers that question according to his slots theories.

One thing I don't like is that it has quiz questions. I don't want to have to take a test on my slots knowledge. I left that stuff behind, just like Larry Mak.

I don't see any mention of slot systems being offered. It is more a general discussion of the slots industry. Interesting, but probably not for our purposes here.

Ultimately, John Grochowski is too respected in this business. There wouldn't be any fun in listening to his advice. Besides, it sounds like there aren't any real strategies in this, just level-headed slots wisdom.

Who needs that?

5. Avery Cardoza's 100 Slots Strategy Guide

This one has no editorial synopsis. It has no buyer reviews. There is nothing about the author to suggest his expertise.

It doesn't even have a colon or a subtitle.

But the mysterious title seems to imply there might be 100 different slot systems to play. Avery Cardoza may have bested John Patrick four-fold.

This one could be a keeper.

Honey To The Bee - Bonus Slots - Step Session #4

Chuck Flick — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 22:05:00 +0000

"Chuck's sweating fingers paused as their tips touched the keyboard of his Compaq Presario.

It had been another all-night session, and Chuck still hadn't quite recovered from the beating he just took. He rubbed the fingers from his left hand through his thinning hair, letting out a sigh as he began focusing his thoughts.

As he started to type, Chuck saw his own reflection in the monitor. His nervous tick returned. His body almost gave a shudder. Chuck reached for his glass of cognac, gulping the drink like a latino child after downing his first habanera pepper.

The ashes on his cigarette were long and gnarled, pointing like an old man's finger at the computer screen, as if urging Chuck to finish what he had started..." --The Many Loves of Chuck Flick

That's how the novel version of this blog would read.

It would read like an old pulp detective novel, you see, because your faithful reporter is a gritty burnout of a man. I have to be, to take the ass-kickings that I keep taking during these slots sessions.

Yes, I have another loss to report.

For my latest session at the Breakaway Casino, I chose the Honey To The Bee slot machine.

There's not a whole lot of mystery to this machine. It's got a bee hive. It has a comical looking bee. It has a rather average looking beetle.

Otherwise, it has card ranks. So there's not a whole lot of excitement about this game. (sigh) I don't even have the energy to make the customary "buzz" joke.

There were 27 pulls in this session. 9 of them won me money. One was for $12 and the other was for $14.50.

It didn't matter. Just about every other spin was a loss, or was so small that it might as well have been.

You know, these slots systems of John Patrick's don't seem to be working very well. I don't care to count the money I've lost playing them.

For those who are just joining, Mr. Patrick is the author of the Step Method. It's one of twenty-five unique systems John once devised to win at slots. These were put forth in John Patrick's Slot Systems, which has been my guidebook during the length of this blog.

That is, my guidebook to loss and tragedy.

Either the systems are flawed, or my execution of the systems are flawed.

No matter how much "money management" I apply to this slots problem, at the end of the day, I still put my money in the machine and leave the results to chance. And most of the time, it seems like the percentages are against me.

That's at least what it seems like, despite John's helpful wisdom.

I get the idea that John Patrick's been down this path before.

I don't think there's such a thing as a John Patrick novel, but I'm assuming it would be very similar to mine. That bastard.

Starting Money: $589.13 Ending Money: $534.63

LOSING SESSION

Slots Tips and a Theory by Michael Shackleford

Chuck Flick — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 22:00:00 +0000

I bet everyone who reads this blog has read online Slots Tips pages.

Have you ever noticed that one of the first tips is to always play the maximum coins?

Now, I suppose that's good advice most of the time. But it isn't neccessarily the best way to go.

In fact, there's at least one respected oddsmaker who argues otherwise.
I've been reading Gambling 102, a top notch gaming guide by Michael Shackleford.

You might know Shackleford better by his more famous online sobriquet, The Wizard of Odds. Once again, if you're reading this blog, you have no doubt come across wizardofodds.com.

Anyway, Shackleford is about as respected as it gets online. If you look at his site, he's consulted for pretty much every gaming company in the free world. And he says that you might be better off playing only one coin on a larger denomination machine.

How could that be? Well, here's the Wizard's points.

1. Unless you are playing a progressive, the jackpot reward may not be worth the extra risk.

Okay, if you only play progressive jackpots, move onto the next post. You probably don't need to hear this.

But if you like playing the flat top machines, listen closely, my students.
The chances of winning a jackpot are low. Factoring in the non-progressive jackpot does not increase your overall risks a lot.

In fact, you might be lowering your odds by playing the same amount of money on a lower denomination machine, even with the jackpot odds added in. That's because of the following fact...

2. Bigger denomination machines tend to pay off at a higher rate than lower denomination machines.

Yes, that quarter machine is more likely to give a better payback percentage than the nickel machine. So instead of playing five nickels, it might be better for you to play one quarter.

Besides, I hate having to lug around all those nickels. What happens if you end your session early and don't have time to cash out those nickels?

Drive-thru restaurant attendents will be hating you from one end of town to another.

Of course, you need to factor in if those quarter machines pay back more for higher denominations, to see if that throws off your numbers. But there's a lot of sense in the idea.

But if calculate that you you get a better payback percentage playing one quarter than five nickels, you should be playing the quarter machine despite the conventional wisdom.

3. There are some slot machines in casinos which take advantage of the max coin assumption.

You read that right. Those slot machine designers are a pretty crafty bunch.

They know most people "know" to play the max coins. So why not throw in a machine every once in a while that takes advantage of the public?

Island Hoppers Slots is one of those machines. On many of its wagers, you actually get less of a return percentage the more coins you pay.

That's a crazy bizarro game; that's what that is. It turns the world on its ear.

Realm of Riches - Bonus Slots - Step Session #3

Chuck Flick — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 18:34:00 +0000

For my next session at Break Away Casino, I chose Realm of Riches.

Realm of Riches is a 20 line, five reel machine which offers a free spin bonus game.

This game imagines a medieval realm, a realm of magnificent riches. Instead of fighting dragons, black knights and evil wizards to win the gold, you play slots.

Think about it; that would be one helluva fantasy kingdom.

The game's reel pictures in this case come from this fantasy kingdom. There's a knight in crusader-era armor. Another picture has a one of those helmets with the nosepiece. There's a castle tower and a bejewelled crown, and some kind of a crest on a shield.

And as usual, there's the card ranks. I've already stated my views of this feature of the slot machine, so I won't be going over that ground again. (Look at my previous post.)

It does have a hot blonde princess. I know she's a princess, because she has a tiara on. Princesses always wear tiaras. I have to say, the princess may be hotter than the mermaid queen. It probably depends on whether you prefer blondes or redheads.

This was a shortened session. I should probably stipulate that I didn't follow John Patrick's system perfectly, so this is a session I will probably throw out of my data. That's what a good scientist does.

The problem, I was interrupted half-way through the session and had to end it early. So it finished at only 28 spins, and that's with the bonus spin added in.

Actually, I've had shorter sessions, so I should probably record this one like the others. The only difference is, I didn't reach my loss limit or, if you want to be optimistic, my win limit.

This was one of those games that didn't pay much when you hit certain lines, because you have twenty of the freakin' things. So you have the illusion of winning a lot, when actually you aren't winning a thing at all.

Also, music played when you hit several lines at once. I couldn't exactly place it, but it sounded like a piece of Baroque period classical music. Don't quote me on that. I honestly don't want to hear it again.

I mean, that snippet of music was supposed to signal a win, but since I was only winning (like) 80 cents a time, the music got annoying pretty fast. It played on nearly half the spins, so it got real repetitive real quick.

If you don't like music playing everytime you when 80 cents, I would recommend you avoid this game. They celebrate stuff like that in the Realm of Riches.

My biggest wins were 5 dollars and 12.50, the latter one coming on a 10 free spin cycle.

Of course, by the time everything was said and done, I had lost $10.05. Then I got distracted and ended the session.

So I had another losing session...as usual. Thanks, John Patrick; I'm so depressed.

Starting Money: $599.18 Ending Money: $589.13

LOSING SESSION

Mermaid Queen - Classic Slots - Step Session #2

Chuck Flick — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 04:08:00 +0000

I chose Mermaid Queen for my next session at Breakaway Casino.

Mermaid Queen was a mixed bag. The first picture I saw was a Spanish galleon, which I thought was solid enough.

Pirates used to attack Spanish gold ships. And you may not have known this, but I like pirates. One of my rules is, if it was good enough for the pirates, then it's good enough for me.

The next thing I see is some dude without a shirt.

Do we really need this?

I mean, we're not talking about a salty looking pirate with a knife clinched in his teeth or anything. We're talking about some cartoon guy that's supposed to look like Fabio.

Clearly, this Fabio character is hooking up with the Mermaid Queen.

Meanwhile, it took several spins to see the queen herself. At least, I assume it's the queen. She's a hot redhead, with her long hair strategically placed to cover her "thingies".

Then I started to notice several other suggestive images. I saw a pearl necklace. Then I saw a clam with a pearl in it.

Clearly, this game is trying to tell us something...something about the mermaid queen, is my guess. We're all adults here. I think you know what ole Chuck is saying.

Of course, I also noticed that most of the pictures on the reel were the card ranks. You know, like kings, queens, tens, nines and that kind of stuff.

Am I the only one who thinks this is a cop-out?

I mean, say you're designing a slot machine named Mermaid Queen. You ask yourself, what pictures do I need to include? You start writing out your list...pirate ship...fish, of course...hot red-headed chick...okay, kinda running out of ideas...umm, guy without a shirt...a clam will be kinda funny, 'cause of all that sexual stuff.

So you're out of ideas. You could include treasure chests, or a spyglass, or maybe a mermaid queen's crown or a trident or something, or (heaven forbid) a mermaid. But no, you choose the card ranks. Like every other game on the market, you go with the numbers and letters.

I bet these designers have a union, where it's stipulated they only have to come up with six pictures for each new slot machine. That's my theory.

As for the session itself, I lost won $56.80. Yes, I had a winning session.

It's been a long time, so I'm feeling pretty good about this "step" system so far. In two sessions, I've netted a gain of six dollars.

That's grinding out a small win, just like John Patrick teaches us to do.

I would have stayed longer, but my limit was $50 for either wins or losses. You cross that line at any time during the session, you walk away. I was kind of hoping to win a hundred thousand dollars on the spins that put me over, but I'll take the half a hundred any day.

The session was a long one. It lasted 36 paid spins. There also were bonus spins, right around 35 of those, too. In all, I won 21 of the regular spins, or more than half of the times I hit the spin button.

The wins were always small, though. I hit on 7 lines once, and only recieved back 85 cents. How is that possible?

I also had a few 7 and 10 dollar spins. The big win was on the bonus game. With an extra 29 spins on the one bonus, I ended up winning $89.25.

As you can see, it was a real come-from-behind win. I was down some 33 dollars, or two-thirds of the way to my loss limit, when I hit the bonus game.

It was a gritty performance, but I'm a gritty kind of guy. I'm a gritty slots player.

Just like my hero, John Patrick.

Starting Money: $542.38 Ending Money: $599.18

WINNING SESSION

Crazy Dragon - Classic Slots - Step Session #1

Chuck Flick — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 23:50:00 +0000

For my return to the game of slots, I decided to play the Crazy Dragon slot machine.

The highest possible jackpot for this game is 3000 x the wager. I had to play the 5 coin wager to get these rates, though.

Chuck's Aside to my Veteran Readers: I know, I know, it's a no-brainer to mention you have to place the maximum bet to get the higher rate on the jackpot. But I have to mention it to the newbie players who might be reading. I would be negligent otherwise.

Crazy Dragon offers a respin mode that's a big part of this game. I hit two respin modes during my first session, with bonus respins added during that mode.

The best way to win respins is completing the dragon pattern. On each of the three reels, there is one-third of the pattern. Respectively from the left, middle and right reels, there is the head, the torso and the tail of a dragon.

If a couple of these match up, you win a little bit of money and the respins, also known as bonus spins.

I would tell you what happens when all three dragon segments connect, but I imagine you win a lot of money and quit your job.

As for the aesthetics of the game, it stood out to me. It was exotic. It conjured up to me the "wealth of the orient". Wealth is good.

Crazy Dragon captures the flair of the Far East. I use the vague "Far East" term because it seems a hodge-podge of East Asian. Some of the imagery seems Chinese, from the pictures of firecrackers and Chinese-style dragons, while much of it seems Japanese, from the bonzai trees to pagodas.

I'm not sure which culture the fishbone is tied to, but it's possibly Atlantean. Atlantis is known for its crazy dragons, you know?

This session, my loss limit was $50. If at any time during the session I had lost fifty bucks, I would walk away from the machine. Also, if at any time I went up fifty bucks, I would take my winnings and quit.

That's called grinding out small wins. You grind out the small wins, hoping for the big win. The less you lose, the longer you play. The longer you play, the better chance you have of winning the big jackpot.

That's why you grind out small wins and small losses. It's called money management.

Notice these terms I keep italicizing? Those are terms John Patrick wants you to know. You learn a few of these terms, and there's no need to buy Patrick's book.

Actually, there's no reason to buy most of the slots guides on the market. These are the standard terms for one of these books. If you want a synopsis of any of these books, here it goes...money management...loss control...this system assures a higher expected return...the "cold" machine is a myth, so watch out...no, you aren't "due" for a win...and my favorite...the casino will hate seeing you walk in the door.

John Patrick adds a few flourishes. He inserts wacky names like Bill O. Knee (baloney) and I.M Madork (no explanation needed), to keep you entertained throughout the production.

It's funny, because of all those people running around out there named Knee and Madork. This stuff is taken from real life, you see?

So how did the session go?

It stunk. I played a long one, which was good. It lasted 43 spins. This wasn't counting those bonus spins. I got one for 20 free spins, then added +5 and +2 later.

Later, I added a 4 bonus spin, and added +8, +2 and +6. That's 47 bonus spins and all. Basically, they were mini-spins, so the reel kept spinning automatically, keeping me from having to do much of anything but watch.

But none of them mattered. My biggest win was 30 credits, while I had a several 6 credits wins.

So I lost a smooth fifty bucks. End of session. (sigh)

Starting Money: $637.93 Ending Money: $587.93

LOSING SESSION

BTW, quick mention of a really cool site about online casinos at Online Casino Conditions - check this one out. TONS of useful information for anyone interested in online casino gambling or online slots.