Just Missed $10K
Last night, Lisa and I went into Reno-Sparks for New Year's Eve celebrations. We thought we'd try the Atlantis for their buffet, but when we saw the queue stretching back down the corridor out into to the casino, we balked and went over to the Nugget, where we'd initially stopped and where there was no queue. Mind you, the Nugget's buffet isn't really all that great, but we made the best of it.
We spent the evening gambling in a desultory way. Lisa won a few dollars, and so did I. She had good luck on the Paradise Fishing slot machine, while I finally hit a bonus jackpot other than the "mini" (smallest, usually less than we've spent to get the bonus round to trigger), showing about a $9 win. However, the casino was so crowded that a lot of the machines we wanted to play were in use, which is probably just as well.
We hung around the cabaret stage for the Midnight countdown, with travelswithkuma dancing with us. Lisa tolerated me being distracted by the dancing of the Nuggettes, the two showgirls who showed up anywhere someone won one of the "lightning loot" jackpots they were giving away. (The lightning loot jackpots hit someone playing, and anyone else playing at the same time the jackpot hits gets $10 in free play. Alas, we were not on a machine when someone hit a lightning loot jackpot last night.
Our slot machine luck is very low-grade, but Lisa has a rule that anytime her credit balance goes above whatever she put into the machine, she quits. That could be as little as five cents over, but it means she either loses what she could tolerate or has a slight win. Surprisingly, most of the time it means a slight win. I reckon most people who win just a little bit like that just plug the money right back in, playing for the Really Big Jackpot, but not Lisa. So instead we end up with enough spare change to pay for the tip at dinner or for doing laundry, and we get some entertainment out of it, so that's okay.
After a short walk outside to clear our heads - casinos are one of the last refuges of the free-range smoker - we came back over for the 12:30 AM drawing for $10,000. We had earned two entries for the drawing, and we watched the names scroll by. I saw may name flash past maybe one second before the first winner was drawn, so it was a close one. The first winner didn't show up (and boy won't she be unhappy if she ever hears that she missed $10K by going home early), but the second one did. Lisa and I decided we'd had enough, and that we wanted to get rolling before too many drunks got out on the road ahead of us, so we headed home to Fernley, getting home about 1:30 AM.
We'll probably go back into Reno this evening to do our main weekly shopping, but we also plan to be back at the Nugget again tonight, because there is one more $10K drawing tonight and the entries we earned yesterday roll over into today. We know my name was in the mix, and if you don't show up, you can't win. We certainly could use the money. I also think it was considerate of the Nugget to schedule the first prize draw for shortly after midnight, as it meant the winner wouldn't have to pay the taxes until 2013.
We spent the evening gambling in a desultory way. Lisa won a few dollars, and so did I. She had good luck on the Paradise Fishing slot machine, while I finally hit a bonus jackpot other than the "mini" (smallest, usually less than we've spent to get the bonus round to trigger), showing about a $9 win. However, the casino was so crowded that a lot of the machines we wanted to play were in use, which is probably just as well.
We hung around the cabaret stage for the Midnight countdown, with travelswithkuma dancing with us. Lisa tolerated me being distracted by the dancing of the Nuggettes, the two showgirls who showed up anywhere someone won one of the "lightning loot" jackpots they were giving away. (The lightning loot jackpots hit someone playing, and anyone else playing at the same time the jackpot hits gets $10 in free play. Alas, we were not on a machine when someone hit a lightning loot jackpot last night.
Our slot machine luck is very low-grade, but Lisa has a rule that anytime her credit balance goes above whatever she put into the machine, she quits. That could be as little as five cents over, but it means she either loses what she could tolerate or has a slight win. Surprisingly, most of the time it means a slight win. I reckon most people who win just a little bit like that just plug the money right back in, playing for the Really Big Jackpot, but not Lisa. So instead we end up with enough spare change to pay for the tip at dinner or for doing laundry, and we get some entertainment out of it, so that's okay.
After a short walk outside to clear our heads - casinos are one of the last refuges of the free-range smoker - we came back over for the 12:30 AM drawing for $10,000. We had earned two entries for the drawing, and we watched the names scroll by. I saw may name flash past maybe one second before the first winner was drawn, so it was a close one. The first winner didn't show up (and boy won't she be unhappy if she ever hears that she missed $10K by going home early), but the second one did. Lisa and I decided we'd had enough, and that we wanted to get rolling before too many drunks got out on the road ahead of us, so we headed home to Fernley, getting home about 1:30 AM.
We'll probably go back into Reno this evening to do our main weekly shopping, but we also plan to be back at the Nugget again tonight, because there is one more $10K drawing tonight and the entries we earned yesterday roll over into today. We know my name was in the mix, and if you don't show up, you can't win. We certainly could use the money. I also think it was considerate of the Nugget to schedule the first prize draw for shortly after midnight, as it meant the winner wouldn't have to pay the taxes until 2013.