Times Pay continued....
In the "Watch For" phase there is always an exact number of coin-in to move it to the "Coming Soon" phase. In the "Coming Soon" phase you could trigger the game into the multiplier phase on the first spin or the 80th coin-in. The average was 40 coin-in to trigger the multiplier. This Double Diamond machine at the Flamingo had a 2X multiplier. You got 20 spins (40 coin-in betting two coins a spin). Once you go through the 40 coin-in at double pay the game reverts back to "Watch For." At that point all good hustlers cash out as there is no advantage playing straight through. The payback looked something like this:
"Watch For" phase= 40 coin-in.
"Coming Soon" phase = 40 coin-in.
80 coin-in X 68% = 54.4 coins returned.
"2X Pay" phase = 40 coin-in.
40X136% = 54.4 coins returned.
The total return would be 108.8 coins returned per 120 coins bet for a return of 90.67%. This is a lowballed number but it's close enough for the girls I go out with.
So how does one gain an advantage at this game? The main concept of advantage slots is OPM (other people's money). Suppose you walk up on this machine and the LED screen is flashing the red "Coming Soon." You wouldn't know exactly how many spins (coin-in)the prior player made into the Coming Soon phase. But you do know you can eliminate the 40 coin-in of the Watch For phase. So now the math looks like this:
Coming Soon phase = 40 coin-in.
40X 68%= 27.2 coins returned.
2X Pay phase = 40 coin-in.
40X136%=54.4 coins returned.
The total return would be 81.6 coins returned per 80 coins bet for a return of 102%. Now 102% is nothing to write home about but it's a lowballed number. The machine was probably in the 93% to 95% range. Whenever I walked up on this machine and it was in the Coming Soon phase I spun it off. I never knew how many spins into Coming Soon mode the prior player made but over time my coin-in probably looked something like this:
Coming Soon phase = 20 coin-in.
20X68%=13.6 coins returned.
2X Pay phase=40 coin in.
40X136%=54.4 coins returned.
The total return would be 68 coins returned per 60 coins bet for a return of 113%. Again, a lowballed number.
The Flamingo had lots of advantage slots at the time, Red Screen Bingo's, Bonus Playoff, Good Times, Slot Bingo, Bonus Pie, Mystery Bonus, Double Diamond Mine, Five Card Instant Bingo, Jackpot Cards, and a 14 machine linked bank of Flush Attack at the rear of the casino next to the River Walk. It was worth my time sometimes to hang out at the Flamingo on it's busier days, and pick up as many advantage plays as I could. Besides the money there were other benefits. Their slot club was "don't ask, won't tell" but I never got turned down for a meal comp. And sometimes, if I had a busy day where I picked up a lot of advantage play and ran heavy action, they would fire a mailer at me with a 3 to 5 day room comp, which I would work into my Laughlin RFB 362 strategy.
The bigger the multiplier the more lucrative the game could be. The biggest multiplier I ever seen was 7X on a two-coin $5 denom Triple Double Diamond Machine at the Grand Victoria in Elgin, Illinois. I arrived at Elgin to find the advantage slots were already monopolized by friends. There were 4 of those $5 Times Pay machines, but Danny L., a legendary machine pro had a small crew staking the machines out the whole time the casino was open. Another crew I knew from Laughlin had the rest of the advantage slots staked out. I talked to Danny and the other crew for awhile, but out of courtesy I pulled out of the spot.
I ran into Danny a couple of years later in Laughlin and he told me he made a couple of $50,000 spins on those machines.
