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Hi all,
So I registered for this forum because I felt like I just had to tell someone about the amazing two-day run I had up at the Ameristar and Lodge casinos in Black Hawk, Colorado this week. I go up to Black Hawk, which is about an hour from my home, about once a month to play slots, video poker, and some live poker. I also go to Vegas about 2-3 times a year if I can manage it to do the same thing. I became sort of addicted to the Game of Thrones and Walking Dead (New version) slots when I was out in Vegas last month. I had great success on Game of Thrones at the Venetian, but I feel like you really can't win much more than $200-$300 on a single spin unless you hit one of the higher progressive jackpots. I just discovered the new Walking Dead machine at TI when I was in Vegas. Seems like an incredibly streaky machine, but you can win some serious money on a regular line hit. I hit for around $1200 in a free spin bonus while I was out there.
My video poker game of choice is 10-play Triple Double Bonus Extra Draw Frenzy. I think this is a really fun game where you're awarded around 15-18 extra hands when you're dealt three of a kind. I've never seen anyone else play it myself, but I've had some great success on it and it's fun when you're dealt three Aces, 2, 3, or 4 since you can win some pretty good money on those when you hit four of a kind. I play nickels, so we're not talking crazy money here, but I've had two hand-pay $1500-ish jackpots playing this game in the last year or so when I was dealt four Aces.
Anyway, I drove up to Black Hawk at around 8:00 PM on Monday night and sat down with $100 at one of the poker machines with Extra Draw Frenzy. About 15 minutes in, I was dealt four 2's and hit a few kickers. Not a bad start with about a $440 hit:
I cashed that out and moved to a neighboring machine. I played that for about 30 minutes before being dealt four Aces with a kicker. I play these games pretty fast, hitting the deal button quickly to get through hands. At first I was afraid that I had hit the deal button accidentally and threw all the cards away, but the game automatically holds all the cards and awards the jackpot when you have the best possible hand. There's another $2000:
I also played a lot of Game of Thrones on this trip but had absolutely miserable luck. I think in about 5-6 hours of play total at $3 or $5, I managed about four bonuses and never won more than about $80 in any given bonus. I had one line hit for $75 but otherwise lost probably around $800 on this machine. I was way more liberal with the money than I would normally since I had won $2400 previously.
Despite the fact that the Ameristar website lists the Walking Dead as one of their newest slots on their website, I wasn't able to find a machine there, so I walked across the street to the Lodge late that night to see if they had one. Their casino is on three different floors and I got a little turned around and ended up on the third floor accidentally. I was about to leave after I searched the first two levels and didn't see one, but lo and behold, they had one machine tucked in the back.
I sat down and promptly dropped almost $300. As I said, this machine is incredibly streaky. I rarely even got two bonus symbols much less three. The Michonne attack and Wild Horde features are so incredibly rare too, even when the machine is running hot. I might've seen one Wild Horde in my whole session to that point and I think I won like $25 or something. I was betting $3/spin and was down to $2.96 when I finally got a Michonne Attack. She brought along her walkers too which changes more symbols. I happened to have a x6 in the final line and that resulted in this hit:
$1400+ and a hand pay. Very nice! I staggered back to the Ameristar to go to bed at about 2:30 AM.
Next day, I played a little more video poker and Game of Thrones at Ameristar without any success. I then headed back over the Lodge to play more Walking Dead. I was generally having great success. Getting lots of free games and Jackpot bonuses, but no major line hits. Then, I got this line hit:
It brought me up from $160 to $790. I kept playing for a long time, still getting lots of Jackpot bonuses, but I was always hitting the Mini. I hit the Mini for like $10.03 once (it resets to $10 each time it hits) because I had just won it like three spins earlier. There was a huge Buffalo Run machine next to me and I started letting the lady sitting there choose the 'floating heads' for me to see if she'd have better luck. She said she had won the major x3 last month for something like $1400. Alas, she kept getting me Minis too.
So anyway, I was up to over $1200 thanks to a lot of bonuses and decent line hits when the unthinkable happened. I got another Jackpot bonus and went about quickly choosing the heads like I always do. I don't put a lot of thought into it. Boom! Grand jackpot x2! The Grand jackpot was at $2700+ at the time. I couldn't believe my eyes. $5498.50! You can see a quick glance of the three Grand tiles below before it switched to free games. I couldn't get out my phone fast enough.
I didn't win much in the free games, but got another jackpot. This one for $5496.66. And I was already at over $1200 (up roughly $900) in the machine!
I cashed out about 30 minutes later because I really needed to use the restroom and someone quickly jumped over and took the machine. They were only playing 75 cents per spin but had won about $140 before they went on a losing streak and lost most of it. Even though I hit the jackpot and figured it would probably not pay out again for a very long time, I decided to play some more. Once again, after a slow start, I had turned my $200 into around $664 by getting a lot of jackpot free game bonuses and generally having amazing luck. And then, out of the blue, I get a Wild Horde. It gets to the point that you don't even think about them because they seem to happen so rarely. The Horde turns columns 1, 3, and 5 into wilds with the last one being a x4. Usually it only turns one or two columns into wilds so I was just hoping for some symbols to line up. Sure enough, to big strips of Michonne in the non-wild columns. I'm thinking that this is another hand pay but didn't know how much it would be. The counter finally stops at $3855.70 and I'm basically in shock.
Picked up over $13k (mostly on a single machine) in two nights. After having them take out the taxes and losses from donking away too much on Game of Thrones and other poker machines, I came home with around $10,500. Not too bad!

Expect the worst and you will never be disappointed. I AM NOT PART OF GWAE RADIO SHOW

If the House lost every hand, they wouldn't deal the game.

Congrats on the big hits. Now, the bad news: this is the worst possible thing that could have happened to you. You're playing 96% video poker and slots that return about 90%. Those rare big hits have to be paid for with a LOT of losers. It figures to be your turn next to be on the wrong side of the bell curve. With the amounts you bet per spin/hand, you could lose several thousand in an evening. Will you stop playing if you lose back $3000 of your winnings? $5000? $9000?
The terrible truth is that you'll remember all those big hits and dump back your winnings and more besides. The net effect for you--and all but a tiny fraction of temporary big winners--is that you'll wind up actually worse off than if you had never scored those big hits at all.
Of course, you could prove me wrong by converting that win into something that can't be stuck back into a slot machine, like a nice used car. I would love to see that, actually.

the next time Dame Fortune toys with your heart, your soul and your wallet, raise your glass and praise her thus: “Thanks for nothing, you cold-hearted, evil, damnable, nefarious, low-life, malicious monster from Hell!” She is, after all, stone deaf. ... Arnold Snyder

Last edited by: Mosca on Aug 25, 2016

Take care out there. Spare a thought for the newly poor who were happy in their world just a few days ago, but whose whole way of life just collapsed..

Good reporting and great pictures! Welcome to the forums!

Thanks for the feedback guys. I suppose I'm not an ideal candidate for this forum. I'm certainly a recreational gambler. I play the games to have fun and realize that these fancy licensed slots are probably the worst for returns. Trust me, I've been on the losing end in the past. This isn't an avenue for me to make money, I just go to casinos every now and then and play for fun. I would never turn up the next day and drop more than a couple hundred bucks thinking that these kinds of wins are 'the norm' or anything like that. I was just really excited about my luck and thought I'd share in case anyone found it interesting. My mistake for not reading more about what this site is all about before posting. Best of luck guys!