Be Excellent To Each Other

Not a bad afternoon at the pub.

Each of these is a £20 bag.

One does have to wonder if the shocking clangers that are in the code of some pub AWPs are bribery, corruption, incompetence, or a mix of all three.

Whatever the truth of the matter, I'll certainly take the cash. I got fucked by the AWPs to the tune of tens of thousands in my teens and twenties, so I'll take all the payback I can get.

Nice one!

Don't cook the money!

Gah, no wonder I'm always skint again in the morning.

Doing consistently well out of only playing EV+ bonus offers at online casinos.

(There's an explanation of this earlier in the thread - viewtopic.php?p=745851#p745851)

Jackpot Party send me regular bonus offers, most of which I crunch the numbers on and then ignore, but once in a while they'll send a 100% match offer on a 10xB WR, that's hugely EV+ and should always be taken. Now just because random chances says something should happen doesn't mean it always will (short term variance can put the cosh in on that), so even a 10xB WR can result in a bust out, but overall, it works.

Also got one through from Redbet a couple of days ago which was offering 150 free spins on their Space Wars slot if I deposited €50 into the casino to play slots, with a 40xWR on the free spins winnings. You have to watch out for these free spins offers because they're almost always at the minimum bet per line (usually 1p) with all lines played. Therefore on a 15 line slot 150 free spins are only worth £22.50, which would make the offer a poor one.

Space Wars however is a 40 line slot so the minimum spin value is 40p, so 150 free spins on that are effectively €60 worth of credits for just a €50 deposit, and at a 96.8% RTP you'd expect to realise most of that as bonus winnings.

Whilst a 40xWR is very harsh and I've never take it on in a million years at Jackpot Party (92% RTP on the base games with a further 3% from the JPPs, and a higher variance profile), NetEnt's slots all roll at 96-98% RTP and tend to be very low variance (and I know exactly which ones are the lowest variance), which makes it doable on average luck (just).

It was a marginal call, but I decided to give it a go since my exposure was only €50. The free spins yielded €49 which is a bit disappointing, which put me on a WR of nearly €2000 with a bankroll of just €99. Given the size of the task at hand I set about a medium variance slot (Evolution) to start with where I did need a bit of a luck, fortunately that was forthcoming and I got my balance up to €340, at which point I decamped to a slot called EggOMatic which is almost disgustingly low variance. (Seriously, on a straight deposit it's practically impossible to win on it, but it does have a high RTP.)

Long story short it worked out OK and I got out of there with around €124, which from an original deposit of €50 represents a nice little raise. (By the time all the currency shenanigans in and out of my Neteller account had been sorted, it worked out to £44.59 in and £102.80 out, which is £58.21 profit for not really doing very much. I just have the casino running in a window up the top right of my monitor and leave it auto-playing as much as possible, so it's not exactly a demanding operation.)

Overall the online casinos are averaging me a profit of £50 per week (this is a long term average, sometimes I'll go a couple of weeks without making a deposit anywhere so obviously don't win anything), with the AWPs in the pubs managing more like £100 (again, long term average, and sometimes I'll go MONTHS without playing if the machines around here are all shit) - it's not the kind of cash I'll be retiring to the Cayman Islands with any time soon - but it is free money at the end of the day, just needs a bit of number crunching and discipline. (And in the case of the AWPs, a fine chap in the UK who feeds me information about the shockingly incompetent/bent coding in a fair few £70 AWPs.)

LOL, just as I finished typing that post I decided to do my periodic check on the promotions page at Sky Vegas (they've stopped sending me emails about their promotions for some reason, but they still appear on my cashier page) - and there was this waiting for me.....



And yes, you are reading that right, I deposit £10, they give me a £30 bonus, for a bankroll of £40.

I'll only need to turn that £30 over once, (i.e. £30 worth of play on the slots, or a 1xB WR), at which point I can withdraw whatever I have left, which is 100% guaranteed to be more than £10 as I'll have had a few wins of varying sizes as I wager the £30.

Literally free money, it really is. All I have to do is cast a periodic eye over the promotions page, this one has 4 days to run and I've had no notifications that it's there for me, and in another 4 days it'll just disappear, so a degree of vigilance is required.

If you've got a Sky Vegas account, just log into it once a week or so and check the promotions page, because not everyone gets the same stuff at the same time.

I'll have to have a look for that. They never send me any emails apart from the odd really bad value ones.

Hmmmm not exactly astounding, won £17 off the £30 of free bets playing Rainbow Riches at 20p per spin. Only hit one crappy wishing wells feature that paid £4.

Still, that's a £27 withdrawal from a £10 deposit, it all adds up!

I put £60 into my Neteller account on Friday evening and should be able to withdraw £200 by the close of play today, maybe a bit more, as I still have a VIP offer at 3Dice to play off. (100% match on a £40 deposit, to give me a bankroll of £80 and I need to wager £400 before I can withdraw, so a 10xB WR, which is a very EV+ proposition.)

Even if that one goes completely tits up it'll be a £160 withdrawal.

Heh, Sky Vegas have already paid me (they often take less than 10 minutes to Neteller), so I've got £206 in there at the moment, but it costs me £3 to make a withdrawal with my NET+ card from an ATM, and of course that's in multiple of tenners, so the cash in my hand will be £200, or a £140 profit.

However, if 3Dice goes tits up that'll be reduced to £100 profit, but if 3Dice goes well, it'll be more than £140 profit.

If you're prepared to put a little bit of time in and maintain quite a lot of casino accounts, there is free money out there to be had.

Yes there's free money to be had mate, but at the cost of playing fruit machines (or whatever), feeding the gambling monster.

Fuck that, they can keep their "free" money. Drugs dealers give "free samples" to begin with as well; these people ain't stupid and they know full fucking well that, one way or another, they'll get their money back and then some long term.

No, I'd rather keep my mind free of that "pollution". I can't tell you how, 12 years on now, how relieved I am that I can now, finally, just walk into a pub and not give the fruit machine(s) lurking in whatever dark corner even the most cursory glance or thought, and could not tell you the first thing about the stuff that's been out there for the last decade. If I even think about them at all, which is very rarely, I just think they're just stupid, puerile, corrupt, unregulated, cheating money-stealing boxes with flashing lights, preying on the young and/or stupid (like I was, very much so). Sames goes for online; at least in the pub you're, like, in a pub and hopefully have a long-suffering mate or two with you, and a pint in hand. Staring at a glowing laptop screen at home whilst playing some virtual fruit machine is even worse; thank heavens these things weren't around when I was pumping hundreds of my family's money into them on a monthly basis, lining some low-life's pocket with my wife's lunch money and yet another year without any holiday for her or the kids.

I've never been happier (or richer). I seriously think that another 3 months later than I did finally kick 'em into touch (and even then only because I absolutely had no choice), my marriage would've been over and who knows how I'd have ended up. And that was in the days where the only machines you could play were 20p/spin maximum (except in a casino, where they were up to 50p/spin) - as opposed to up to *£700/spin* from the convenience of your browser lol (even a mobile phone FFS).

I wouldn't play these things any more than I'd inject myself with heroin. I'm hardly a man free of vices, but these were - and are - just something else. Pure evil.

The thing is Cavey you're seeing this as an 'either one thing or another' type of scenario, whereby one is either a pathetic addicted gambler who's being preyed upon by evil gambling conglomerates, or a virtuous non-gambler who will have nothing to do with any of it - and what I'm saying is that there is something in-between.

Don't get me wrong here dude, I entirely respect and admire your way of doing things, you hit a point where something had to change, you changed it, and you've stuck by that ever since. That's cool, and it takes some serious presence of mind to do so (I remember back in the early FF days when this was all a lot rawer for you, I believe it was a 'done' £1000 Grand Slam in a casino that took you close to the edge) - so please understand I'm 100% behind your take on this and how you've fixed it.

But, and there is a but, that's not necessarily the answer for everyone. You know full well I've been to the same dark places as you with gambling addiction and then some, I've had the smashed up cars and the fucked up relationships and the lost friends and the unpaid bills and the bad debts and spilled the blood (literally) and all the fucking rest of it to prove it.

However, where I ended up with it all is consistently beating the fucking things works better for me. The online casinos are just a question of maths, you can work that stuff out pretty quickly just on the numbers alone, yes it takes a certain investment of time but I don't mind that, in some regards the satisfaction of winning even relatively small amounts far outweighs the actual cash aspect of it. (Like earlier today when I got a £17 profit out of Sky Vegas, not even enough for a takeaway for the family, but it's still real money that flows from them to me.)

As for the AWPs, yes you do still have to get your 'hands dirty' to an extent as it were, in that there's no getting around the fact it requires travelling around pubs to find the preferred machines, but even there I've neutered it to a large extent, in that I only play in my home town (i.e. all within walking distance) and when I do have a session it's on a Sunday afternoon after I've run Mrs AE and AE Jnr up to the in-laws. I stay for a cup of tea and a chat, then I get 3 hours or so to myself. If the machines in town are shit then I'll play videogames or something like that back at home, a bit of downtime, if the machines in town are good then I'll pop out for a session and a few pints of fine Okells bitter.

If I was being properly serious I'd jump in the car and scope out the pubs in towns and villages all across the island, financially it'd be worth it, but far more involved that I want to get with it - the satisfaction for me is consistently making a reasonable little chunk of cash out of something that used to kick me around for fun and then stamp on my head when I was down.

The point here is Cavey that I think we're both doing the same sort of thing but in very different ways, you've chosen total abstinence and that's 100% valid and I respect that completely, but I've decided to dance with the devil a little bit, and pick his pockets when he's not looking. A bit grubbier maybe, but it works for me.

Either way neither of us have gambling fucking us up - which is the main thing.

3Dice worked out quite nicely, for a while I was looking at a cashout around the £130 mark (from only a £40 deposit remember) but then Payola (one of my favourite slots there) went on a very nasty dead run for a low variance slot and I met wagering with £100 to withdraw.

Still, that leaves £263 in my Neteller account, less the £3 withdrawal fee is a £260 cash withdrawal from the original £60 deposit on Friday evening, so that makes £200 profit across four different casinos, which I think is pretty good going for a few hours of slotting (an activity I quite enjoy anyway) over the weekend.

Payola is a fab slot, 3Dice have written their own 3D engine (hence the casino name) so their slots have some pretty fancy graphics shit going on, Payola features a built in sound-to-light engine and prompts you to have some music playing on your PC when you play it, so that all the lights on the old-timey jukebox pulse in time to the music.

When you get a bonus round it adds a disco ball and a load of stage lights to the mix and it all gets quite funky, I like to play it with the Radcliffe and Maconie show courtesy of Radio 6 on the BBC iPlayer whilst I play the slot.

Had a slightly disconcerting experience last night....

Was out for a few beers with a mate and made sure I visited my favourite earners in the local pubs.

Went into the pub that has the real 'AAA' unit and it was turned off. Asked the barmaid if it was broken or just turned off, and she immediately replied that it was broken. I was rather dubious because modern fruit machines just don't tend to break, but what can you do?

Sat down and had a yabber with my mate for a bit, and as we were ready to get another pint, the shift changed and a new barmaid took over. Got the pints in, and by the time I'd taken them back to our table the new barmaid was turning the fruit machine on, 'Is it not broken?' I asked her, 'Don't think so', she said.

True enough it booted up alright so needless to say I was all over it like a cheap suit, 'It's got to pay something out I reckon, it's taken loads over the last few days', the barmaid advised me. (This will of course be because I leathered it on Wednesday and it's been recovering ever since.....) Now as I started playing a bloke came through from the other bar and took a good look at me, then returned to the other bar. A bit offputting but I continued anyway. Cycled through the method three times and managed to make £65 profit (not bad for 15 minutes work), collected my bank out, we finished our beers and off we went.

As we got outside my mate said to me there was something odd going on, for starters he'd picked up that we were being bullshitted when we were told the machine was broken, and not only had he seen the guy come through from the other bar and properly eyeball me when I started playing the machine after the new barmaid turned it on, but what I hadn't seen is that he then went straight outside from the other bar and made a 'serious looking' call on his mobile.

Didn't get any aggro anywhere else though, so maybe it's nothing. (And TBH it's not like I got any 'aggro' there, it's just that the guy was clearly taking an interest in me and the machine.)

The final nice twist of the evening was going for a beer in a pub that's got a bit of a shit machine in it (literally just munt a tenner through and hope for the best), except when we got in there the shit machine had gone and it'd been replaced by the same 'AAA' unit that the other pub has

Those two units alone should net me a four figure sum before they're moved on, but I am slightly bothered by the interest I got in the other pub. For starters the machine was clearly not broken but the barmaid had been told to say it was broken, and the guy who came through from the other bar when I started playing it was more interested in me playing the machine than I'd like.

Unless he's just the guy who's been hammered by it since Wednesday, to get from where I left it on Wednesday to where it was last night, it'd need to have taken about £300.

Either way, got home pleasantly squiffy and with over £100 more in my pocket than I'd gone out with, so can't argue with that.

Awesome mate, I love all the MR2s, all marks (though the angular Mk1 is my particular fave). Small, light, mid engined roadsters, rwd, lovely reliable twin cam NA power. What's not to like? Great little motors, top down tastic. Mk3 is a real hidden underrated gem.

Doh wrong thread Belm. Have to fix when I'm back at laptop, that was meant to be in reply to Wookie's MR2 post.

WORST POSTS EVER.

Oh please don't move that post, or at least just paste it into the correct thread but leave the above as is.

I was just skimming this thread and saw everyone talking about betting and stuff, then suddenly you're talking about a car and I was thinking (in a good way), what's he on about?!

I personally think Hush was a rather overrated episode, and one that's been built up in people's minds as this"magical silent thing". There's loads of dialogue in it, for starters.

GET OUT OF THIS THREAD.

Heh! Your wish is my command; the above post will stand as (yet another) testament to my abject incompetence and belmery. It has the added bonus of slightly miffing AE as well.

(Hey, all that's needed now is for someone from Audi forums to post advice about how to cream the fruit machines - then this thread will be complete, I feel. )

Needs more "VAG"

That's what your Mum said... (etc etc...)


P.S. No offence to your Mum.

P.P.S. I never feel confident making a Mum joke.

... Ah yes, if only Volkswagen Audi Group made fruit machines eh!
(They'd be boring, overpriced and rubbish of course, but we'd no doubt be told we were doing it all wrong and they play *so* much better as long as you only put freshly minted, super-shiny pound coins in them, not lowly "normal" money - and only if powered by "premium" electricity )

I'll fetch my (non motoring franchised) coat.

DOWN WITH THIS SORT OF THING, YOU CANCERS ON THE ARSE OF BEEX.

You're the arse of Beex.

More free money, what the hell is wrong with Sky Vegas?

Obviously I will take their free money though.

If you've got a Sky Vegas account, check the promo page!

Exactly the same scenario as here, basically - viewtopic.php?p=778501#p778501

Mine does not have any promotions - i think they may be throwing that free money at you since your spending money with them ?

But I honestly can't remember the last time they actually made a profit out of me, and my lifetime results with them are well in my favour.

Yes I do generate 'cash throughput' with them I suppose, but if I'm always taking more out than I put in, surely whatever automated system it is that comes up with these promotions should just stop sending them to me at some point?

Not that I'm complaining, of course.

A rather disappointing return of £17.50 from my free bets led to a £27.50 withdrawal from my £10 deposit. Although looking at it another way, £17.50 for about ten minutes 'work' isn't really bad going.

Also had a 200% match on a £10 deposit offer at 32Red to take up, albeit on a far nastier 30xB WR. So a £10 deposit gave me a £30 bankroll with £600 to wager before I could withdraw.

The only way to try and do that is on high variance slots so I played the likes of Immortal Romance and Bust The Bank. Peaked at over £100 and was hoping for a decent withdrawal but some suction towards the end saw me finish with £55.50 to withdraw, which still represents a £45.50 profit on my deposit.

So that's £63 profit for a few hours slotting, which basically does itself on autoplay anyway so it's not exactly high intensity. Roll on next month's offers.....

Just saw this in the windows store

AE fully approves of this epoch-defining televisual entertainment.

Is that promotions page only on the full site? Can't seem to find it on the mobile one.

Not sure TBH as I've never looked at the mobile site, can't you just load the normal website on your phone and look at it that way?

Not to my knowledge. It just switches back to the mobile site. I'll check it from my desktop tomorrow.

All Android browsers I've used have a setting called something like "Request desktop site" that'll get you away from the mobile version, I presume it just spoofs the user agent. I dunno of iOS/Windows Phone have similar though and I can't remember what type of phone you've got so this might be utterly useless!

Most times that I use the Desktop option on iOS then it goes to the full site for one link only. Try and request desktop on the subsequent page and it will often revert to the main page again.

And again.....

Yes thanks Sky Vegas, I will have some more of your free money....

If you've got an account there, check the promotions page!

Amazingly I managed not to collect any free money.

The £30 of free bets paid absolute shite (about £12), which left me in a position to withdraw £22, so still a free £12. However I deemed myself unhappy with this result and proceeded to lose the lot playing Rainbow Riches at 20p per spin.

So whilst there is such a thing as a free lunch, if you're enough of a numb cunt about it, it's still possible to end up paying for it.

Haha! Good work!

I checked my account and there were no offers there. Probably only for people who play slots, I guess.

Won a fiver at Blackjack from money I had from footy bets and then quit out.

Up for the weekend. Arsenal won me a tenner and an accy came in for another 26. Today would have hit a bigger one, but Newcastle boned me. Still, profit for the weekend

Just got four sixes on PKR - I won $26.30!

Played for 30 minutes with $22 I had in my account for ages, I've now got $82.92

Table full of numpties!

How much have you got?

Whoops!

Now I've got $270

Given your skill level demonstrated at the cottage, where is this site?????

PKR.com. I've actually got $270, because it was a $40 buy-in so I've got $40 in the bank still.

Also, nob off, I'm great at poker when I can't talk to anyone and screw it up.

And hey, at least I didn't ask you what you thought of my cards while you were playing against me

Lost a fairly big hand (I had a full house, mother fucker had four threes!), but cashed out $254. Not too bad!

Nice!

That was epic. TFF had a GazChap brain at that point.

I went on PKR.com with a bankroll of $50. Within an hour, I'd wiped out the UK's entire GDP.