Tonight, one of my friends invited me to go to Gertie’s. I’m going tomorrow for the pre-season opening show and had some work to do, so I said I would ‘think about it, but to save me a spot.’

I finished what I was working on an headed over an hour later. Another friend was there as well as an RV park guest (my neighbour, in fact), and we spent some time gabbing over drinks and pizza. Finally, I decided to go try $5 worth of luck in the penny slot machine that paid me back last time I was at Gertie’s.

I fed the machine my bill and selected ‘maximum bet’, which was 45 cents. The machine spun. And spun again. And again. I was a bit bewildered, assuming that it was broken. The guy next to me laughed and explained that I kept on winning free spins! Someone said that I had ‘won big for that machine’ and that didn’t register; I was just too amused by the spinning bars, fruits, and diamonds. That was enough fun for the night and as the machines spun I hit the ‘cash out’ button so that I could get back $4 and play the other 55 cents.

Next thing I knew, there was a casino employee by my side handing me one of those big cups that hold coins and tokens for the slot machines. Seconds later, the machine starting spitting out tokens at me. *clang, clang, clang, clang, clang* I’d had this happen to me at the penny slots in Vegas, but there I was being paid in quarters. This machine was paying me in tokens worth $1 each. It finally stopped with my container about half-full.

I hurried over to the cash out booth and while the machine there calculated my gains, I applied for my free season pass.

Care to guess how much I ended up making on my 45 cent bet?

I walked away from the teller with $67, meaning that I came out of Gertie’s tonight with $62 more than I’d walked in with! Not bad for penny slots!

It’s rare for me to gamble, even on penny slots, so I’m pretty sure I’ve exhausted my luck for life! 😀