I've been a casino whore since 2011. I blame a former acquaintance who I bowled with for taking me down that road. I was part of a gay bowling league that met once a month on the 1st Saturday of the month. Mick and I bowled on the same team. Hemingway one cold evening in January 2011, Mick invited me and another team member to head out to a local Indiana casino called Majestic casino. I may have spent $40 there that night.
Prior to that night, I used to only frequent the casinos on my birthday. But for some reason that night woke up the casino bug in me and I started going more frequently. I would go with Mick a few more times before he finally kicked the casino bug.
I even joined a few slot forums and befriended other casino whores. I've gone to several meet and greets where I got to meet some of them.
One of the things that's always alluded me was something that is called a handpay. A handpay is when you win more than $1200 (though it's $500 in some places) on a single spin in any game. In the slot forums and later on Youtube, I would see folks who seemingly would win multiple handpays. A lot of times though the bets to achieve this were much higher than I could afford. But there have been folks who won it betting lower bets like I do.
So it's always been a goal of mine to get this distinction. The one sucky part of that equation though is that when you get a handpay, the casino takes taxes out of it. If you win the minimum $1200 amount, taking 25% tax would cost you $300 and you'd only get to keep $900. It's almost better to win under $1200 so you can keep all the money. There have been people who have played their ticket to have more than $1200 and that doesn't get taxed because they may have won $500 here and $400 there and $400 in another spin. Since those were won in different spins, even though the total is $1300, you do not get taxed.
The closest I've gotten to getting a handpay was in October 2017 when I visited a casino called Blue Chip. I remember I was playing a Cleopatra 2 game. I was playing fewer lines but a high bet. The cost of my bet was 45 cents (9 lines times 5X bet) which was basically 5 cents a line. So I wound up getting the maximum 5 scatters. That win was 450 times my bet. So my win was 45 cents times 450 times 5 (since I was doing a 5X bet) which totaled $1012.50. The bonus itself netted me another $100 something and I remember my grand total was $1176 which was a bit under a handpay.
My second highest win was at one of Four Winds Casinos in New Buffalo, MI where I won over $1000 getting again another max 5 scatter win. This time it was on a Buffalo Revolution game and it happened sometime in 2023.
So this time I was minding my business, making a quick pitstop at Firekeepers. The machine this time was one of those Dollar Storm games. It was on the Ninja Moon version of Dollar Storm. The Dollar Storm is one of the many, many incantations of the Aristocrat game where you have to land 6 balls with dollar amounts to be eligible for winning a grand jackpot, which can be over $10K. There are options to win MINI, MINOR, and MAJOR jackpots along the way if a ball with those words appear.
I've played various versions of these games over the years and once in a rare moon, I may win a couple hundred dollars. But I've never achieved getting the MAJOR ball let alone winning the GRAND, which happens if you fill the screen with 15 balls. The distinction that the Dollar Storm games have is that they give you the option to get a ball that's called the SUPER GRAND ball. The SUPER GRAND jackpot can be anywhere from $50K to well over $200K or more depending on the denomination of the machine.
Getting the SUPER GRAND ball gives you a shot at the huge jackpot but usually you get a minimum of $1000 win, though there are videos of folks that have hit the SUPER GRAND. I've gotten the SUPER GRAND ball once or twice in the past but as I've said earlier, you have to land 6 balls to be able to play. I would only get two or three balls including the SUPER GRAND so it would be just a tease.
So I made my pitstop to Firekeepers on Thanksgiving Day on my way to visiting my sisters in Detroit. The Ninja Moon was the second game that I played there. I decided to use my $10 free play and of course didn't win anything (par the course). I continued to play the machine but wasn't really expecting to get anything big.
So imagine my shock when this happened:
So the next thing to do was to push the SUPER GRAND chance ball which would reveal whether you won the SUPER GRAND jackpot which was $70,000+ or the minimum of $1000. I pretty much knew I would get the minimum and I would be happy with that. I wound up getting slightly more at $1500 which put me in handpay territory and had me making history.
Of course there was one guy who immediately recognized the win and congratulated me along with his wife. There were others that walked by to see since the machine was playing the saloon music that symbolizes that you achieved a handpay.
So it didn't take long for the slot attendant to appear to begin the process of collecting my information. There was a slot manager who appeared moments later as well to officiate the process. The attendant was asking me for my social security number but the slot manager stopped him and said they only needed my last four. So the slot manager took a photo of my driver's license and got my last four digits and then asked me for an email to send a W2. She also later gave me a paper copy.
Before paying me out she gave me the option to take taxes out of the winning or to collect the full amount. I decided it would be better to take the taxes up front which wound up being 25%. That reduced the winning amount which was $1520 by $380 which netted me $1140.
So finally the reason they call it a handpay took place. The slot attendant told me to take out my hand as he proceeded to count the money in my hand. It's customary to give the attendant a tip so I gave him $20 (I'm not sure if that was enough but oh well). Then before they left, I was asked to spin the machine one more time since I still had money in the machine. I spun it and then they left.
I immediately messaged Dom who told me I needed to leave now. *LOL*. I still felt like I was being watched so I played my machine for a little longer. The guy who congratulated me earlier played the machine next to me hoping to reproduce some magic. But like 99.94% of the time I play machines, it didn't give anything.
I remained in the spot for a while and played a little more and nothing else happened. I eventually got up and moved to another section of the casino. I looked around to make sure nobody was following me. I then moved a few more times. I wound up actually winning another $50 before I felt safe enough to cash out. I then ran to the restroom and after feeling sure I was safe, left the premises $1170 richer.
I was feeling a bit penny pinched this month having more expenses than expected. I wasn't sure I'd be able to put extra into the mortgage payment next month. But now I got the small boost needed. I plan to put most of the winnings into the extra payment and will maybe get a nice dinner with Dom somewhere.
Needless to say the unexpected winning gave me a much needed win after my finger fiasco. On that front I should be able to take off the splint in a few more days. I know it's gonna hurt like hell bending it but I'm ready to take it off.
No comments:
Post a Comment