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TIFU by hitting the jackpot at a casino

This happened on my 18th birthday, I'm 30 now so time has passed and the wounds have festered for over a decade somewhat healed.

My best friend and I were, and still are, avid poker players. We decided we would take our developing online skills (see: math nerds) to the casino when I turned 18 because I am the younger of the two of us by a couple months. We do the obligatory show of my ID to the bouncer, who in return does his obligatory Wonka-esq extend-one-arm welcome to a world of oxygen induced wallet abusal and wishes me a happy birthday.

We have no intention of fucking around. We're already fairly successful online players (although this is pre- Poker Black Friday). We don't ever play when we're mentally unsound, that means tired, angry, hungry, sad, and especially drunk. We are about to enter a place where we can seek out folks that are not only not-grinders, but folks who are drunk, and we are prepared.

We spend the night at adjacent tables, targeting the people ordering the most drinks and cruising through an easy and super fun night of poker. We play for 5 or 6 hours and then wrap it up, we each make a few hundred dollars on our buy ins and we're happy that we got to play with the grown ups.

I decide to buy exactly 5 dollars of slot play just so that I can see what they are like on the way out. I figure if I make some money, a trip back to the cage is fine with me, and if I don't then it's 5 bucks on my way out of Casino Niagara.

I play some cheap slots and lose until I'm down to exactly 1.00 on my ticket. Fuck it. Let's roll the Jackpot slots in the center of the casino floor. The degenerates among you know what I mean, the one with the big scoreboard above it keeping track of the amount of money it has scammed out of people who know damn well they have no shot at winning a Jackpot.

I win the Jackpot. This son of a bitch is all bells, whistles, and flashing lights while I watch the credit reader roll. This one reads in whole numbers instead of decimals, and as this god forsaken speedometer from hell spins from 1 to 10 I look to my friend and he says

"Holy shit. You just won the jackpot."

This robot prick goes from 10 to 100 as more people gather around.

"Holy shit. This kid just won the jackpot."

100 to 150 and rising. This.metal.piece.of.shit.

More people gather around. Staff now too, we are talking double digit millions here.

150 turns to 199 and then clink. 200.

I look up at the screen, congratulating me on being the only motherfucker in the universe dumb enough to spin a jackpot machine with the minimum bet. Had I saved my 5 dollars for that pull, I'd never have had to work again.

Tldr: tifu by winning the jackpot but only betting the minimum, resulting in winning 200 dollars instead of 20 million.

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