>When it was coins you found abandoned credits on the machines, coins in the treys, coins on the floor, pigeon holes underneath the bartops where quarters that didn't register wound up, even the public coin counters that would spit the dimes to a trough down below where people never looked. Hey, may as well make a finger swipe through all the coin returns in the phone booths too.
>You never just walked up to a machine and punched the credits off. You had to muddy the situation up in case you caught heat. So you put a coin in and made a spin or played a video poker hand. Then you cashed out. "What are you talkin' 'bout man! I played this machine!"
I've done my share of credit hustling, but once, at the El Cortez,
when I was looking at the pay tables on many machines, they thought I
was doing this and took me to the back room. That I had no coins on
me was enough evidence for them to let me go.
