ONLINE GAMBLING AND CASINO GUIDE

Sex and the City.

I’ve never watched the show.  Hell, I’m not even sure what it’s about.  From the conversations I’ve overheard, it sounds like a show about five over-the-hill hookers, but that’s an uneducated guess.  I suppose I could look it up, but the answer would probably just depress me.

Anyway, before or during their visits, several of my visiting friends and family have made it a point to ask me where they could find the new Sex and the City slot machines, and my answer was always the same.

“Why?”

Their answers never made much sense.  Apparently, there was a special on TV or some kind of other advertisement promoting the machines, and in the short amount of time that they have been available, a bit of a strange cult following has developed around this particular game.

Even though this has been the case, I have never sought out the machines.  I figured I would play them when I got around to it, and on Saturday, I just happened to run across a bank of SITC slots at the Tropicana.  It was finally time to find out what all of the fuss was about.

I took a seat in what felt like a Star Trek captain’s chair, looked at the video panel, and was happy to see that the Sex in the City games were penny slots.

Sweet, I could play the thing without risking any real money.  I decided to play one cent at a time until I got a feel for what was supposed to happen, and raise my bet as I figured out the objective of this particular brand of slot.  Given its popularity, I assumed that I was in for a fairly entertaining session.

I plugged a Hamilton in the feeder, looked down to bet a cool penny, and quickly found that this was not possible.  Instead, I was given the opportunity to bet “50 credits per game”, up to four games at a time.

Great, the old bait and switch.

Call me  old-fashioned, but a penny machine just doesn’t feel like a penny machine when the minimum bet is 50 pennies.  I mean, technically a $100 slot machine is really a penny machine with a minimum bet of 10,000 pennies, but the standard notation of “$100″ just seems more honest.

Alas, this is the new era of Las Vegas.  The era in which the house can pay 6 to 5 on twenty one, and still call it “Blackjack”. Such is the price of progress.

Whatever.

I suppose I should be used to it now.  Besides, this was the Sex and the City slot.  The most promoted, most exciting slot machine of the 21st century.  It was going to be so worth every penny … all fifty of them.

Having little other option, I acquiesced to the half dollar bet, and hit “spin”.

The small reels on the electro-display churned for an incredibly short amount of time, then unceremoniously stopped.

Eh?

What happened?

That wasn’t very exciting.  Where was the sex?  Where was the city?

I was a little concerned that the machine was skimping on the entertainment, so I decided to use the stopwatch function on my watch and time the spins.  From the time I hit the “spin” button until the time the reels stopped, exactly 1.5 seconds elapsed.  One … point … five seconds.

For Christ’s sake, is this what fifty cents buys in the casino these days?  One and a half seconds of entertainment?

For someone smacking the spin button continuously, that would be 2,400 spins per hour, or $1,200 of coin-in per hour on a single game.

So far I was underwhelmed, but I soldiered on.  I hit spin again, and again, and again.  After my tenth spin, I realized that I had experienced a full 15 seconds of slot machine entertainment.  It wasn’t doing anything for me, so I decided to play 4 games at the same time.  What the hell, it was still only two bucks per play, I mean … it was only 200 credits per play.

Unfortunately my new strategy did not avail me of four times the “fun”.  From spin to stop, the four games played out in exactly 3.1 seconds … or three quarters of one second per game.  This is nearly twice the rate of coin suckage as playing a single game at a time.  At less than a full second per game, I had absolutely no opportunity to experience the anticipation of the reels stopping.  The outcome was almost instantaneous.  I was irritated.

Never mind that I had absolutely no idea what the icons on the screen represented, I got almost non-existent audio/visual feedback from the game and did not enjoy it.  At all.  I won replays on a few hands, but the little icons typically just lined up in a random order.

After less than 1 (ONE!) minute of play, I had burned through my ten dollar bill.

It was without a doubt the most unsatisfying slot session of my life, and I still don’t understand what the hype is about.  In my opinion, the game is not only a money pit, but the low latency with which they are programmed makes them quite boring.  Blink, and the game is over.  I know that slot machines are greedy, but this particular machine feels a bit too greedy.  Obviously the theme is quite popular, but the machine fails to deliver any kind of exciting experience to the player.  It relies on branding to bring people in, then skimps on specs.  It’s the Apple Computer of slot machines.

Personally, I prefer minimal slots.

Brazilians, or a landing strip at most.

Coincidentally, this is also the way I like my video games.

Get it?  When I said “minimal slots” you thought I was referring to a slot machine, and I was, but afterward I pretended that I was talking about a vagina.  God, I’m clever.  When you are done picking yourself up after falling to the floor and rolling around with uncontrollable laughter, let me know.

Are you ready?

Ok, here w … god I’m so clever!

Sorry, I just can’t stop admiring my comic genius.

Anyway, I used to like playing slot machines every now and then, and I still do sometimes, but my favorite slots have always been the basic games in which the objective was clear.

I’m not interested in learning the objectives of “500 ways to win” machines.  If I can’t quickly spot a winner, then I don’t know what I am rooting for.  It’s like betting on a horse and having no idea what number he’s wearing while watching the race.  Which horse do you yell for?  Why bother watching the race if you don’t know?  For me, the fewer the reels, the better.  Line up three sevens, line up three diamonds, win or lose.  No fuss, no muss.

I also prefer higher-latency games.  Even if you know your horse’s number, who wants to watch a ten second horse race?  I like to watch the reels spin for awhile.  I like to hit cherries on the first two reels, and then hold my breath for the third cherry.  Anticipation is the very essence of gambling.  The brief second before the moment of truth is the primary reason people are entertained by the endeavor.

Too many of the new electro-machines completely remove that experience.

The last thing I still miss on slot machines is coins. I feel old-school for saying so, but carrying around 5 pounds of quarters after a big win is much more fulfilling than getting a freaking money order.  Compensating for this by making a coin-drop sound through speakers after big wins is kind of lame, and does not approximate real coins hitting real metal.

I’m all for a high-tech Vegas, but I would be more convinced about our commitment to technology if the town invested in a public Wi-Fi network that covered the entirety of the Strip and Downtown.  I think it would be a huge boon to the tourist corridor, and if I ever become Mayor, it will be one of the things I aggressively promote.  The corporate beancounters won’t like it, but fuckem.  Our elected officials and 20% accurate local media have to get Steve Wynn’s balls off of their chin.  Someone has to think about what best serves the people, and not just the bottom line.  The fact that visitors have to pay $14.99 per day for basic Internet connectivity in 2010 is humiliating.

I digress.  I just experienced another “I need Ritalin” moment.

My point is that I came, I saw, I played the Sex and the City machine, and I walked away without any enlightenment whatsoever.

If people continue to ask me where they can play this particular brand of slot machine, I will continue to respond in the same manner in which I have for the past several months.

“Why?”

Even after playing it myself, I still don’t get it.

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