Just Say No to 69

The heat in Vegas in August is hard to describe, unless you know what it's like to be a piece of bacon in the pan.

When driving in these conditions, it helps to know where you're going. I didn't.

My rough plan was to find a liquor store, and a grocery store. I drove a couple of miles east. Then I turned north. Then I passed Lee's Discount Liquor, too late to get over the 19 lanes across frenzied rush hour traffic to get there.

I also passed XO liquors with no way to get there as it was on the other side of the median.

Finally I pulled over and searched for grocery stores on my navigational computer. It sent me two miles west, back the way I'd come. I realized I could get some cheap booze at a grocery store, and Albertson's was soon on the horizon.

When you are a cheap, lying, no-good, tight skin-flint on a budget, you do things like room camping. At least, I do. I'm pretty good at picking the right amount and the right kinds of food, having overbought more times than I can count. Which is more than three.

In short order, I rounded up some punishment cheese slices (jalapeno jack), some turkey of shame, a small bottle of mustard, a loaf of austerity hard tack, a tub of no fun yogurt, and for good measure, some cherry tomatoes. And a $10.99 bottle of Evan Williams, for making travellers.

Thirty bucks total, and enough for quite a few meals.

Twenty minutes later, I was parked back at Wynn, and shlepping my supplies up to my free gratis room.

I got a bunch of ice and used the two reflective insulating bags from Amazon Prime Now to make an in-sink fridge.

I relaxed for a while, had a drink, made a giant traveller, and then I was ready to go and gamble.

There isn't much video poker to play at the quarter level, or really, at any level at Wynn / Encore, unless 6/5 and 7/5 Bonus suits your fancy. But I did play some, and also scoped out some video keno paytables. Would you believe they are some of the best I've seen?

That doesn't matter when you don't hit much.

I had only a couple of hundred on me and if I lost it, I'd be down $500 on the day, something I really did not want to do. Within fifteen minutes of dollar a throw video keno, I'd already lost $80. Another $20 went to video poker which went nowhere. We're talking one of those one minute twenties.

Shit.

I decided to change my approach. I'd do a quarter on only one card, six numbers, and bang it until it either hit or I was broke.

And I needed to change it up, so I headed across the casino and down the long corridor to Encore, where I knew a quiet place to play.

But as I was walking along, I muttered an ongoing dialog to myself. "I'm going to walk up to the first machine I see that has video keno and I'm going to pick six numbers. I'm going to play a quarter at a time. And... there's a couple of machines. Right on the corner of the casino. Those are the lucky ones. That's where I'll do it."

I got ready to play, checking the paytable (good!), putting $20 in the machine, putting my card in. I hadn't even sat down yet. "No, I'm going to make this more do-able, six out of six is too hard, I'll go for five. I need numbers. The old ones, that's the ticket."

The numbers would be 9, 18, 19, 23, 34, and 69, numbers I've played on and off since 1993.

I pulled up a card, bet one credit, and punched in my choices. Should I go for a six number card or the easier five?

"Just say no to 69", I muttered and left it off.

I hit the Deal button and the numbers rang in. A couple of mine came up, and just as I finished sitting down, three more did.

"Well. That was easy."

Holy shit. I'd walked up to a machine I'd called lucky, voice my strategy of playing until my five numbers hit, and done it on the first play.

And 69 hadn't hit. I would have had five out of six, for a very measley hit instead of this chunky delicious one.

First play, one credit, five numbers, $209.50 won.

I laughed and called the Quad Queen to recite the tale. Then I called Jimmy Poon and laughed and recited the tale. He told me, "Shut up and Deal."


With this infusion of cash, a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders. I cashed the ticket out and put in a new twenty. With a little more room, I played two cards - one five spot and one six spot.

I played along, chatting with a young fellow next to me who was playing Caveman Keno. Nine numbers. He didn't stand a chance.

Wouldn't you know it, my numbers hit AGAIN.

The red numbers flash on and off, the photo is in betweenish. But the WIN display tells the tale. Another 838 quarters.

After a few more pulls, I cashed the ticket and moved on. After kicking my ass for $400 in the last few sessions, video keno had given it back. What the hell?

I settled in elsewhere and played more without much happening, then switched to video poker. The traveller had done its work and I was having a grand old time. I employed the Strict Rules of Parlay, and made it up to 50 cents, but had to de-parlay and finally went out without hitting a quad.

Fuckers.

It was time to call it a day, as I'd actually gone through quite a bit of my winnings. Like $200 worth, sort of before I knew it. Oops.

I wanted to play $20 on Buffalo and see if I could win back some money, but I had only my large ticket, and a hundred dollar bill left.

"I have discipline. I can do this. I can play only $20 out of this hundred and then have the discipline to cash out at $80."

This has never, ever worked before.

But guess what, I caught a bonus round, and it was a beauty.

When that was done, I pressed the button again and hit a second bonus round. Back to back bonii! It wasn't as good, but still added $20 to my wallet.

I cashed it out and retired to the room to make a sandwich, stopping on the way to ferret some mayo out of the Drugstore eatery thingy.

"I forgot to get Mayo," I said, neglecting to mention that I hadn't actually bought anything to forget the mayo for.

Mayo in my pocket, up I went to enjoy a delicious sandwich, and wallow in happiness.

Somehow, after being on the cusp of being $500 down, I was down only $80 today, and that seemed like a bargain.