I was just thinking how I was either so happy to find a big jackpot waiting to be won on these machines and how memorable they were to me.

I won a Big Ben over $200 at the Meadows after putting over $200 into it and playing it all night. I tried low betting it 1, 5,10 lines, 25 lines and started to try 75c bets and had just dumped a lot more in, in no time. After 8 hours on it, I walked outside to make a call and heard church bells. I went back in, put a dollar in it betting 1 line and it popped 12. At the time(2007 or 8) I was clueless how they worked bet proportionally and hurried to bet 25 lines so my neighbors wouldn't find out the "secret". I tried this method time after time and it never worked again. I still try doing it if I am on a machine I want to hit just in case.

Sometimes the best feeling is beating these things when someone talking to you is pretending to be your friend. At Seneca, I was playing a Big Ben over $240 early one morning and a local, every day old man player kept bugging me. I don't mind talking to people, but it was kind of obvious his sympathy was fake when he would cheer on the bonus when he knew I was playing 1 line at the time. I don't like the feeling of a bad streak in front of people I know, so I lowered the bet. 12 hours later I make up my mind to never bet less than 25 lines and it finally goes to 12 after teasing 11 a few times. I won probably $250 minus about a hundred in it. After all the time I spent grinding away all day on that machine, I walk around and all the other good machines are hit, so I play whatever and waste the BR on random slots in no time much less pleasurable than all day on the Big Ben.

Another time there, I finally got back to that corner there after losing most of my BR elsewhere and see a Big Ben for $250. I think to myself, isn't this wonderful having forty bucks left. I put in a twenty and after a quick bit, change the bet to $.50, get the gongs the first spin and the JP. I went straight back to losing right afterward the same as before. It is kind of demoralizing and demotivational playing these things for $100 after you win on one for 2.5X more. Your mind just says "WARNING WARNING TROUBLE" so you decide to play anything trying to win $100 and usually cannot. Playing for progressive bonuses takes a lot of discipline and luck of course.

I think the highest win was on Lucky Fortune at the Rivers. I had put a little money in 1.5 days before when it was $120 and was so glad I left the last time to play at the Meadows, thinking staying would have been for naught. This time it was for $280, the highest I had ever seen on any of these types. Plus I felt lucky because it was about noon and nobody was on it. I kept putting in the FP $20 at a time cashing out more than I used every time. I remember it was really surprising me with free spins, respins, more free spins. It was really a treat to play and I hit it as soon as the FP was used up on the first twenty in. I always loved these games there and had some nice hits.

After writing all this, I remembered hitting a $150 JP betting 1 line times 2 and also $150 on the $50 credit prize times 3. I liked those games, but assumed they were in the bunch of unapproved games the casino got busted for having, since after I read the article about them, I go back and they are all gone. It's really a thrill playing those type games when there is a considerably higher JP on them and still have them play nice and spit out a $150 prize besides the progressive for a quarter. I'm sure these "fair games" are the way of the Dodo and the casino doesn't appreciate the marketing value of hundreds coming to the casino hoping to find a big, simple progressive anymore. There might be some who leave with every penny they win from this type of game every time, but not most.


So what are your biggest hits on these "clones/cousins" and why were they so memorable???