Way to Go J.!!

I swore I wouldn't mention anything casino related for a good long while on these pages - but today was too epic to not mention. 

In spite of crushing losses the past few weeks (mostly @ Atlantis), we trekked there today for a Black Jack Tournament.  We've started signing J. up for them because he loves to play and how often do you get $10,000 in play to try to beat the house?  I almost stayed home - didn't remember until we were enroute that it is also a 'swipe (your card) and win' free play event today, too.  My free play was (only) $75 but oh well.  I'll take it. 

His round time was 1PM and we arrived a little before 12:30.  We didn't know there was a huge event at the Reno Conference Center (right next to Atlantis) so finding parking took a while.  J. dropped me off 'cuz I truly get so stressed out driving around a parking lot looking for a space. 

He headed up to start the tournament and I played at an older newly fave machine - kept myself going for a long time on not too much money.  Our host came by and got an earful from me about our recent experiences there.  While she couldn't really flat out confirm ('cuz she's a host after all and her employer is the house), she confirmed that she's hearing from a lot of players who are having similar experiences.  It's heartbreaking as long time Atlantis players/fans - you can't believe it's happening so you keep thinking any minute the machine will 'fix it' and you'll start hitting something.  Anything.  But no.  Mostly not much at all.  Going home down over and over is absolutely no fun. It was good to talk to her and get some feelings off my chest.  I know/see/realize there are big changes happening to the place she works and though she can't really talk about it, her responses let me know I'm not wrong.  The payback ratios are changing drastically to be better for the house.  

And one of the things our host did share is that the casino discontinued the technology that gives her notice if her players are in the house.  No more.  Cost saving change she said.  So she will only know we (or any of her assigned players) are there if we have RSVP'd for an event (like the tournament) or she happens to run into us.  Really?  I told her there's no more telling change than that - take away the only way a host knows a player is there - to save how much money?  

I told her we anticipate making changes in 2022 - to play more locally because while they don't offer all the events, etc. Atlantis does, they also seem to have way better odds for the player these days.  

J. let me know he advanced to the next round - which meant he'd have to kill 2+ hours between rounds.  He headed to the buffet.  I stayed at my machine.  He checked in before he headed upstairs.  I finally started moving to other machines, swearing I wouldn't play Dragonlinks there today.  But....I did go to Dragonlink.  Grabbed the machine with a $1,000 topped out Major - and it hit!  $1,102 was the final round total - and there were other winning rounds both before and after that helped get me back to more than even.  I was stoked!  

I shared the win with J. and he wrote back 'Yay! I'm going to be a bit longer'.  I replied 'Yay for you, too'.  I thought he'd moved on to another round which was fantastic!

Not much later, he called me and said 'we decided we would prefer cash vs. free play, right'?  And I said 'well that depends on how much you've won'.  He said 'how many fingers do you have'?  I said 'how much'.  He said 'I won the tournament'.  I said (loudly) YOU WON $10,000!!  Seriously?  WOOT WOOT!  He texted me the 'bit longer' at 5:02PM and I sent him the pic of my win at 4:59....

It was a monstrously epic amazing day!!  

And the best part of the day was being able to let B. know 'live' (once we were home) 'cuz he's back from maneuvers!!  Another HUGE WOOT WOOT for the day.