This was an interesting case, and it probably happens more than a lot of people realize. I was able to catch it right after it happened on camera too.
So here’s what happened: A lady, probably thinking she was min-betting for around $0.75 per spin, inserted her voucher or money and accidentally bet a lot more than she realized. I couldn’t see exactly, but it could have been $100 on just one spin. When you think you’re going to be on a machine for a while min-betting and you get one spin and dust off all your money, that can be a shock. And she sure was shocked, judging from her reaction.
I could see she tried explaining what just happened to a slot attendant or some kind of casino worker, and he said something like, “Oh wow,” while laughing at her. It was a ridiculous reaction on his part if I’m being honest, as she was clearly distressed.
Why did this happen? Well, when an advantage player is looking for plays, he often flips through every bet and every denom. On a game such as Rich Little Hens, the denoms go all the way up to $5, which I think is lunacy. Why do all of these machines need such high denoms?
Anyway, after an AP checks every bet for plays and doesn’t find anything, he’s going to move on. But the last thing he checked was the max bet on the max denom, and some machines won’t automatically go back to the smallest bet after being idle for a few seconds. Instead, they will lock in place, so the next person who sits down will need to scroll over to whatever they feel like betting.
This poor lady didn’t realize and accidentally spun on whatever the machine was last left at (a huge bet). Unfortunately, she doesn’t have much recourse. What if her accidental bet resulted in a massive payout? It would be a story to tell her friends, not a story to tell casino security.
Bottom line: I think it’s awful that so many machines have so many denoms. What in the world is the point of that? It leads to confusion, where people sometimes have no idea how much they’re betting. But maybe that’s the whole point.
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