Unexpected Slot Machine Win
But the lie we told to get the money, is still used against me by my son.
We booked a 10-day New Year holiday to Atlantis many years ago. My 27-year-old son was 8 at the time.
My son’s greatest skill as a young boy was persistence. Like a dog with a bone, he would never let something he wanted, go. Some may say all children are like that. With 4 children under my belt, I don’t think all children are all quite like him.
In order to get to the water park, or anywhere decent in the resort, you had to walk through a gaming area with an acre of various shiny gambling machines lined up in neat rows.
Talk about impulse marketing.
Despite the signs saying “Nobody under the Age of 18 allowed to Gamble” or words to that effect, and a hundred explanations by his parents as to why he cannot pull the fruit machine once, my son persisted in asking to have “just one go”.
Given that he walked through the machines area, daily, a few times, it must have been hell for him.
Not even the water slide dropping him, in a plastic tube, 3 million meters through a pool of water, surrounded by sharks could keep his mind off the slot machines.
Neither could the ocean-parasailing to the stratosphere and back, deter him. On about the 3rd day I finally relented.
We had given him the parameters, it had to be close to the walkway, it had to be a 5-dollar limit, and it was ONE pull and no more. After him directing my wife to several wrong machines, he finally selected the right one. She loaded the machine and stood guard. I scooped him up and carried him to the selected machine.
He pulled. He hit the daily jackpot. Bells and alarms went off like Guy Fawkes. 10 000 dollars. We panicked.
I quickly carried him back to my daughter and incredulous business partner standing on the walkway, and dashed back to the machine. My wife was scooping up 1000 dollars in coins, but the rest had to be paid out by a supervisor who came to the machine to do it.
It was the most tension-filled exchange of my life. Mostly because I lied through my teeth about the manner in which the money had been won. The casino controller asked which of us was the ‘lucky puller?’ I said it was me, not wanting to incriminate my wife in any black market treachery. My son started to protest as he could hear the exchange.
“Dad … it wasn’t …”, my business partner shoved a doughnut from the breakfast buffet into his mouth to shut him up.
“Shhhh,” he said conspiratorially, “or they’ll not give it to us.”
My son winked. He had sussed the situation out and at that moment we knew he would be OK in life. He could read the room.
We collected the winnings and I walked immediately to reception and paid it into our hotel account. It almost covered the entire charge for our stay, and for my business partner and his fiancé's stay. A free New Year holiday from one pull of a slot machine.
We allowed my son a free purchase of anything he wanted on the holiday. I think he chose a Styrofoam boogie board to surf waves with. My daughter got something too. Everybody was happy.
I will admit though, for the duration of the stay I had visions of the security knocking on our hotel door to take me to the basement for a ‘gentle persuasive discussion’ to hand back the winnings, after reviewing the video footage. Thankfully the knock never came.
Trying to keep the news secret, with my blabber-mouth son wanting to announce the “win” to anyone who would listen, coupled with him begging to go back and win again, made it the hardest money I have ever earned in my life.
I wrote this in response to this delightful piece by Elizabeth Emerald — it reminded me of my own slot machine moment.
Who else has a slot machine or gambling story to tell?