Everyone who enters a casino believes at least for a few moments that they may be able to hit it big. What is big? This article is for fun. Most of my articles are about life experiences, financial planning, and similar serious topics. This one is about life experiences, mine when it comes to betting on electronic gaming devices. Jackpots on the Mississippi Gulf Coast can be big even if you bet low.
Ok, everyone calls them slot machines. I wonder if millennials know where that term came from. Some of us remember putting actual coins in and pulling the lever. The first time I played one of the new machines that take money and pay out a paper ticket, I left mine behind. It was only a few minutes that I realized I had left it and well, too bad for me, it was gone.
A couple of years ago, my wife and I decided to visit the Golden Nugget casino in Biloxi just a few minutes from our home. There are two restaurants we like there and we went there to eat.
A machine called Zorro was a focal point of their main gaming area and it had a seat for two. After we ate my wife said, “look one is empty, want to pay for a few minutes?”. About half of our trips to the casinos result in just a meal and we go home.
We sat down and played Zorro
This time I said ok. We sat down and played the maximum which was I believe $3.00. After the second, (yes the second) pull, we won the highest jackpot $4,379.83. This was at this time, the largest that we had ever hit. Since two of us were playing at the same time I guess I only hit half so in this case, it was not the largest.
People were standing around as it counted up. You can see from the photo that the middle indicates $757.20, it took a long time to finish and made lots of noise. While the casino people were getting my money, I moved to the next machine to recreate my big win. Well, nothing there but in the 15 minutes it took for my payout, my wife returned with about $600 that she won at another machine.
We decided to move to the row of machines where she won and I promptly won another $600. When we win, we usually leave and take it all home. I know what you are thinking at this point, we were on a roll so why go home? My wife needed to visit the powder room (not sure what it’s called today, but probably the non-binary room).
I was supposed to cash out
I was supposed to cash out and wait for her. You know how it is, I could not resist playing her machine and within a couple of pushes of the button, I was rewarded with a payout of somewhere in the $600 range (must have been a thing with $600 that night).
I hit the button to receive the ticket but left it in the machine. My wife returned and asked if I was ready to go. I got up from my old seat and looked at her machine and said “why are you leaving your ticket behind?”. She pulled it out and looked at it with shock. For about 3 seconds she could not figure out the how and why. Then she asked me if I did it.
So moving on to about two weeks ago we decided to eat at the Treasure Bay casino as they have a crab buffet. We love crab and can consume a great deal. If the animal rights people only knew.
I played one of the eight machines tied to a $750,000 potential bonus and promptly won about $1,100. My wife came to my machine about the same time as her $300. We decided to leave and eat elsewhere because the buffet had shut down their line (too many people waiting).
As we were walking out the door
As we were walking out the door, we went to an area that we had never been in and I spotted the “Cats” machine which I had always down well at. A few minutes into it, I was up about $400. We decided to take our winnings and leave at least we get caught up in the gambler’s fever.
It’s nice to live near the casinos so you can leave when you win. People who stay at the hotel are captive and will often come back to spend their winnings. You have to love jackpots on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. My favorite casinos are Biloxi and Gulfport.
Ok, so down the road we drove. We decided to stop at the Golden Nugget and eat at the Asian restaurant bar. The food was great and while we were flush with cash from earlier, we decided to play a bit.
We were walking by the area where the Zorro game was two years ago. In its place was “Fear of the Walking Dead”. Again, nearly every time we were there, it was occupied. I decided to stop and pop in a few dollars.
Within about 3 minutes, the bells and whistles went off. I had hit a $7,500 win, not even a bonus. Ok, I am sure by now you think this is like a fish story. Well, I thought the same until a few minutes later. The casino people paid me off and I asked them if it was possible to recreate this bonus and they said yes.
I just won and moved to the next seat, same game
I decided to sit at the same game next to the one that paid the big bucks. As with the other machine, within about two hits of the button, I won $1,450. The casino staff was still in the area so they came over.
This time they did not need my driver’s license, I was well known. At this point, I had a problem. My pocket was bulging with cash. We could have gone home but we decided to leave a few dollars behind as a sign of goodwill.
At this point, I can get to the topic. After winning all of this money at these Fear of the Walking Dead machines, I wondered if anyone else had won more. According to the payouts on the machine, you could win up to 10 times about 2,500 or about $25,500 by hitting bonuses.
I watched some Utube videos that had titles such as “big win” etc. None of the videos in Utube won more than $600. Now that’s a big win for many people. As I mentioned above, it’s about scale. I will eventually post my two wins on Utube and spoil their posts with my apocalyptic win. Want to know how I calculated the potential win?
The maximum multiplier is 25
The maximum multiplier on the right side is 25. I hit 4. Divide $7,520 by 4 = $1,880 per single multiplier. Now multiply $1,880 by 25 = $47,000, much higher than the highest bonus payout.
If you are going to play more than the minimum of fifty or eighty cents, you need to look at the potential payouts for machines. In the example above, the character named Michone pays the most. You can see that I essentially filled the screen with this highest-paying character as wilds count. Why play a game that potentially pays much less?
You rarely see anyone looking at the payout area. It’s a good thing to do this, you can have more fun if you are winning more money. A $2,00 bet on one machine may return 400 times = $800 while a $2 bet on another may only return $600. Yes, there are progressive machines but that’s another layer. The majority of winnings come from what you earn by hitting that button.
UPDATE: As of December, the Golden Nugget removed one of the two Walking Dead games, the one that paid out $7,520. That’s ok because I won another $600+ on the remaining machine that I had earlier won over $1,400 on.
New Walking Dead story
The new year brought renewed optimism regarding the Walking Dead game. It paid out another $4,252. My wife was playing it, something she rarely does. She was doing ok betting $1.75 and playing for a long time, at least an hour. I was sitting there the whole time watching. She was tired of playing, it was getting late. She told me to take over, we had about $75 remaining.
I moved the bet to $3.00 (I usually play $3.75 at the max). I was down to about $15,000 when I hit a bonus. It was putting out several bonus rounds this evening. I was to pick from about 8 ugly faces to determine if I would win the top bonus. This is permitted sometimes, other times you choose from fewer faces and win X times free spins.
With this other iteration of the bonus, I selected enough to get the mid-placed bonus which was up to just over $840. When I selected the last ugly face, the indicator said x5. It happened so fast that my wife had to point to the fact I won the major jackpot times 5. Get this, I won 20 free spins as well and earned about $50 on the spins. Play the end of the video below.
The Walking Dead saga continues
There were two walking dead games at the casino. One is now another game that pays nothing. Funny, while playing walking dead, I watch others play the other game and put in big dollars to win the smallest bonuses. I stopped telling people that the game was a loser because I did not want to ruin their fun.
The video and photos above are of the walking dead game. This was a good win, not the best by far but a good one. The total from that bonus was about $800. That multiplier works wonders.
The photo above indicates the first picks when you hit the bonus. We hit four of the bonus icons so the award just for hitting was $50, it’s usually $10. This screen offers the opportunity to select one of the bigger prizes. The grand prize was about $5,500 plus any multiplier up to x10.
Just when you thought that the Walking Dead game had emptied the machine with payouts. We have more to share below. A friend recently called me from the Golden Nugget casino in Biloxi, MS. He wanted to know which machine he should play with. I told him about the Walking Dead. He texted me about half an hour later, he had won $300.
Believe me, the Walking Dead game is not the only one that pays but it’s fun to play. The video below was taken when my wife was playing as I stood and watched. This would be a good game to have two seats. I watched a person playing for a while then returned. He was leaving. Playing for only 75 cents, he won nothing. If he had looked above the video sign said, bet more to get more jackpots.
His wife was sitting next to the Walking Dead pulling in some nice income from her game. They both watched as our winnings rose above $500. We play the maximum on this game and you can see the results. I must admit that a few times, I have put in a few hundred and walked away with nothing. I think in the long term, we are still ahead in this game.
I bet low and use their money to bet higher
Don’t freak when you see the amount that I have bet. I start low and use their money to raise my bet when the machine is paying. I was recently playing a machine betting $2.00 then up to $4.00 then up to yes, $8.00. The wild wolf machine kept paying two and three hundred dollars. I played for an hour without hitting a bonus then it came. I was rewarded with $1,200. At this point it was late and I walked away.
My wife found me and we were going to leave when she decided to play the machine that I was winning on. With a $2.00 bet, she ran up a total of just over $500 in a few minutes. We pull it out and left.
I have included a gallery of some nice wins that my wife and I have experienced over the past few years. We find a machine that pays well and then increases the bet with the winnings. Worst case, we walk losing our nest egg.
The best outcome is multiple bonuses keeping us playing at one machine for a long time. We also like the entertainment value of the machine. Sometimes we play the low payout machines because they are more interactive and fun.
Gulf Coast casinos are nice, with free drinks and good food
In closing, the casinos along the Mississippi Gulf Coast are nice. Free drinks are always available, the food is good, the employees are polite and the atmosphere is pleasing. Remember if you gamble, walk away when you win big. Do not gamble with more than you can afford to lose.
If you are losing, don’t try to recover by dumping more money into the game. Leave most of your ATM cards at home and only take one to the casino with a low limit. Leave your credit cards behind as well. You have to love jackpots on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
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FYI, sometimes we lost too! Somehow I do not remember the losses. Check out the gallery below, we like to see others win so perhaps this will make you feel good that someone other than the Casino benefited from your losses. ( and ours). We will continue to add more photos to the gallery, assuming we win.
Another update
We dropped in at the Treasure Bay Casino in Biloxi for a lite dinner (on a diet). We had some free money to play with and used it to cover our groceries for the week. I hit it big on one of those four-game machines where you can choose which game to play.
It was already in Buffalo so I left it there. I started with the $4.80 bet ($1.20 per game). I won pretty well and kept stepping it up. I won several bonus rounds and several big hits over $100 each. Tonight was 3 points so it was a good thing my bet went up to $11.00. You think, well for that you should win. My strategy is and has been to use their money.
My bet increased as I was winning. You can see from the photos below that the wins kept coming. I played with this machine for about an hour and a half and walked away with over $1,000. I like this game because it keeps your mind busy looking at all of the possibilities as it keeps giving you additional spins when you hit two coins. It was a fun night.
I won the jackpot above playing the large Buffalo game at the Treasure Bay Casino in Biloxi. Frankly, I was disappointed because I had hit on 47 games at 2,3, and 4x. I should have won thousands. I have played with this machine in the past, the most that I have on it was about $1,200.
The maximum progressive jackpot is in the $800,000 range. This is the highest amount you can win in the casino. At least this is the highest amount presented. I have learned that some machines can pay much more than the posted jackpots. For example, I won over $7,500 when one of those game things popped up. Machine used her sword and cut into the screen giving me all Machine plus wilds and 4x.
Rhino on the four-screen machine
If you play the four-screen games where you can choose various games, pick Rhino. Why? This game gives free spins based on the number of rhinos that trigger the bonus. You need three across which can include the wild. The more rhinos the more games. You can select to play one to four games at one time. I chose to play four games. When you win a bonus, you play a single game unless you hit the Rhinos with circles around them. I hit nine with circles which gave over 200 games with four screens instead of one.
You may have to turn your phone sideways for the start of this video. I did not film the entire 30 minutes it took to play the games off but there are 10 minutes and the payoff was big. This video does not represent the highest jackpot that I have earned on Rhino but it’s good.
On another trip to the Golden Nugget in Biloxi, my wife hit it big with Rhino. A full screen of Rhinos. The only thing better would be the Rhinos with circles around them which opens to four or eight games. This hit won here over 400 free games. The photo above of the safari women is the maximum payout for a single screen. The safari women pay more than any other character on the screens. It’s very rare to get a full screen of them.
Want to see more about the Mississippi Gulf Coast?
Visit RetireCoast.com and read more about the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Learn why people who live on the Coast can afford to visit the casinos. Check out Christie’s Gulf Beach Rentals if you want to stay at a vacation rental while you are enjoying yourself. There are 12 casinos on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, plenty for everyone.
If you have a player’s card with MGM, Caesars, or Golden Nugget, use them at our Coast casinos. Please leave comments if you liked this article. We will constantly update it. One last thing, gambling is risky unless you have the attitude that what you spend is affordable and pure entertainment.
Reminder – Leave your ATM cards at home
Take only what you can afford to lose with you. Leave your ATM cards at home. Bet small if you just want the thrill of winning something. My sister won an $8,000 jackpot by playing 80 cents. Most of the progressives are available on any bet amount.
Remember, these machines are for entertainment. Only bet what you can afford to lose. Paying for entertainment is ok but betting to earn is foolish.
