1. Liberty Bell

Invented and designed by a San Francisco mechanic named Charles Fey in 1895, the Liberty Bell is the first slot machine. The main symbols here include horseshoes, stars, spades, diamonds, hearts, and Liberty Bells. Once three bells are aligned, the machine pays 50 cents.
Having a coin slot at the top, it features small reels in the middle and a paytable at the bottom. It works like this - players insert a Nickel and pull a lever on the right-hand side to spin the reels. Although the Operator Bell and Liberty Bell have been removed from casinos, the original Liberty Bell on display can be seen in the Liberty Belle saloon in Reno, Nevada.

2. Lion's Share

One of the most famous slot machines, Microgaming’s classic slot Lion's Share, gained a lot of success back in 2014, due to news channels that discussed the topic on how Lion's Share's progressive jackpot hasn’t been hit for two decades. Thousands of people have tried but no one was lucky enough to pull it off.
Although the machine only featured 3 reels and only 1 payline, Lion’s Share has managed to become one of the most popular releases in Vegas, so popular that people waited in line just to put a coin into it and try spinning those reels.
Eventually, a New Hampshire couple hit the $2.4 million progressive jackpot in MGM’s Grand’s Lion’s Share. Soon after, MGM Grand made a decision to retire the Lion's Share machine since it required a lot of maintenance. Still, the game became part of slot history with a jackpot that took 20 years to win.

3. Megabucks

Created by IGT, Megabucks has managed to become one of the world's best progressive slot machines. The game is also responsible for numerous big wins throughout the entire jackpots’ history. Also known as the biggest money jackpots of all time, Megabucks slot machines are described as simple games with a massive progressive jackpot. One of the biggest wins was when an anonymous engineer won a staggering $39.7 million at Las Vegas' Excalibur, back in 2003.
As for the other big wins hit on this machine, there was a cocktail waitress Cynthia Jay Brennan who snagged an incredible $34.9 million at Vegas' Desert Inn, as well as a retired flight attendant hitting $27.5 million at Vegas' Palace Statio­n. J­ohanna Huendl won $22.6 million whereas an Illinois businessman hit $21.3 million on the very first spin.
However, after winning the prize, one of the winner's family members had a tragic accident, which (as some believe) only supported the theory of a Megabucks curse. Other unfortunate stories are just believed to be urban legends, including anecdotes about underage players, as well as casino employees, being big winners but not being able to claim their jackpots because of specific state laws and regulation.

4. Wheel of Fortune

IGT’s Wheel of Fortune has proven to be the second most famous slot machine of all time. Featuring a bonus feature just like the real show, the slot machine is usually played by many slot fans and can be found in numerous casinos all over the globe. Although the game comes in more variations, probably the most popular one is still its 3-reel version, with a colourful wheel at the top.
The Wheel of Fortune multiplayer game features a bank of machines where every player gets their own screen. What makes the game even more exciting is the multiplayer edition where people can play the bonus round together, which really intensifies the game show aspect.
In a 5-reel Wheel of Fortune slot, however, Wild symbols will help players land winning combos and, if you’re lucky enough, you may get a Super Wild that will boost your win up to 5x! Last but not least, the Triple Action Bonus is activated by getting at least 3 Triple Action Bonus symbols anywhere on the reels. But still, none of the newer Wheel of Fortune slots measure up to the original one because of the large progressive jackpot involved.
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5. Mega Fortune

Featuring 5 reels and 25 paylines, NetEnt’s Mega Fortune slot became very popular among players as it usually grows into a multimillion-euro amount before being hit. The main symbols here include luxury cars, yachts, and expensive jewellery, Mega Fortune is an online slot machine game which justifies its theme that comes with the largest ever online slot jackpots.
The game offers a few different features that make the entire gameplay more fascinating, however, by far the most interesting ones are the 3 different progressive jackpots: Mega Jackpot, Major Jackpot and Rapid Jackpot. There are counters for all 3 of these that are displayed above the reels. Champagne is the Scatter and if you land at least 3 of them simultaneously, you will trigger Free Spins bonus round. Likewise, Wheel of Luck is the Bonus symbol, and if you land 3 or more symbols in succession from left to right on an active payline, you will activate the Bonus game.
What’s interesting about this slot is the fact that a Finnish man won a huge jackpot worth €17.8 million while spinning the reels of Mega Fortune. This record from 2013, has been passed by Mega Moolah, but the game is still proof how rich players can get after playing Mega Fortune.
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6. Mega Moolah

Powered by Microgaming and being among most popular slot games, Mega Moolah is a 25-payline progressive slot which has served as a competitor to Mega Fortune's big jackpots. Followed by African safari music, the game features antelopes, elephants, giraffes, lions, monkeys and zebras as the main symbols.
Landing at least 3 Scatters at the same time will trigger 15 Free Spins. What’s more, all wins hit during Free Spins are tripled, whereas Free Spins can also be retriggered. Players can win one of the 4 Progressive Jackpots within the randomly triggered Bonus round.
The game paid some of the largest slot machine jackpots that have ever been triggered. In 2015,for example, Mega Moolah gained international recognition when a British soldier Jon Heywood won a massive €17,879,645.
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7. Cleopatra

Inspired by the famous Egyptian theme and Developed by IGT, Cleopatra is a 20-payline classic game that managed to stand out above similar releases. Featuring ancient Egyptian music, the main symbols here include Cleopatra, the Eye of Horus, scarabs, and pyramids. Landing at least 3 Sphinx symbols will trigger the Cleopatra Bonus, which awards 15 Free Spins. All prizes, except for the 5 Cleopatra symbols, are tripled in the Free Spins round.
The game has been so successful that it inspired its creators to make a sequel, Cleopatra II, with richer graphics and engaging sound effects. But even if you choose the original game, you'll be playing a classic that's still enjoyed by various players today. And, in case you land 5 Cleopatra symbols you’ll get a jackpot of 10,000 coins.

8. Book of Ra

Having a popular Ancient-Egypt theme, Book of Ra has always been one of the best choices to play in land based and online casinos. Powered by Novomatic, Book of Ra is a 9 payline video slot that offers plenty of bonus features and big payouts. With entertaining narrative and energising gameplay, there are numerous ways to win here.
In case you land 5 archaeologists simultaneously, you’ll get an impressive 5,000x your line bet. Earning big bucks, however, comes from the Free Spins feature. What players need to do is land at least 3 Scatter books to trigger the Free Spins feature. Pages of the book will flip and randomly determine which symbol will expand during the 10 Free Spins.
Although hitting the jackpot may not be easy, with only a few one in between, when big wins come, they can be big.

9. Starburst

There’s no denying NetEnt’s Starburst slot became kinda legendary in the iGaming universe. With its dark background and shiny space looking gemstones, Starburst slot features 5 reels and 10 paylines. The well-known futuristic music in this release is also easily noticeable, as is the game’s expanding Wild.
More precisely, the Wilds may only occur on the reels 2, 3 and 4, and, once 1 or more wilds appear on those reels, the Starburst Wild feature will be activated. During this feature, Starburst wilds expand to cover the entire reel and remain while the other reels re-spin. Should a new wild land during a re-spin, it expands and stays along with any previously expanded Starbursts for another re-spin.
Another cool feature is that Starburst pays both ways, instead of only paying you for landing at least 3 identical symbols on adjacent reels starting with the reel furthest to the left. The maximum single spin payout for a person (betting the $200 maximum) is $100,000. But, in order for that to happen, you must land five bars on consecutive reels on an active payline. Players love this slot, probably because it’s suitable for both newbies and experienced players.

10. Immortal Romance

Powered by Microgaming, Immortal Romance is based on sci-fi and the cult of Vampires which has become one of the popular casino slot machines in the last couple of years. Apart from superb graphics and great audio and visual effects, the slot features 5 reels and 243 paylines, and the theoretical RTP rate of 96.86%. The four main characters are Amber, Troy, Michael and Sarah.
When it comes to features and bonus games, Immortal Romance offers different variants. Wild Desire feature can occur randomly, and as soon as it does, it can turn 1 to 5 reels completely Wild. Likewise, landing 3 or more Scatters anywhere on the reels in this game, activates the Chamber of Spins feature which cannot be triggered during Wild Desire.
The game is still among the most popular slots, as many players still try their luck in this slot in the hope to get the highest multiplier possible.

11. Gonzo’s Quest

Beautifully designed video slot powered by NetEnt, Gonzo Quest features 5 reels and 20 paylines. The story is based on the famous conquistador Gonzalo Pizzaro who is on his way to the Peruvian ruins and just about to experience the unique quest.
Now, Gonzo’s Quest has become one of the most popular slot games of all time, probably because it comes with a few interesting features, Avalanche Multipliers feature being the most interesting one of all. In Essence, the reels in the slot move in a cascading manner which resemble an Avalanche. As you activate each new Avalanche, you will win a multiplier. Multipliers are displayed above the reels, and go up to 5x, that is if you land 4 or more avalanches simultaneously.

12. Age of the Gods

Being among famous slot machines and inspired by Ancient Greek mythology, Age of the Gods is a 5-reel, 20-payline progressive slot powered by Playtech. The main characters are Athena, Zeus, Hercules, and Poseidon power up 4 free game modes that offer extra wilds and win multipliers! Once you start spinning, you’ll come across a series of bonus features, such as Athena Free Games, Zeus Free Games, Poseidon Free Games and Hercules Free Games.
Wild logo is the game’s wild card and it substitutes for all symbols, with the exception of the Scatter. Landing at least 3 Scatters anywhere on the reels simultaneously triggers the Bonus game. Moreover, landing 5 God symbols in any order on an active payline will get you 200x your line bet!
During the main game, any spin can activate the Age of the Gods Mystery Jackpot. This mini game guarantees a win of up to 4 progressive jackpots. All you gotta do is click on the coins to reveal jackpot symbols, and if you match 3 identical ones, you will win that jackpot.

13. Money Honey

Having a cute theme, Money Honey is a 5-reel and a 243 payline slot themed around honey. With Wilds, Free Spins, Scatters and multipliers, it is a fast-paced exciting creation featuring vibrant colours. Likewise, it is a mobile-optimized slot which may be an excellent choice if you’re new to online gambling or if you’ve been playing for years.
Just like in other games, Wilds will help you win payouts as they are able to replicate most other symbols on the reels once a winning combination has been made. Another symbol you may want to keep your eyes on is a Money Wheel card. Once you manage to land at least 3 of them on your reels after a spin, the bonus game begins, and you spin a big wheel to choose a prize.

14. Quick Hit

And our selection wouldn’t be complete without Bally's Quick Hit slot. Featuring traditional Las Vegas symbols with sharp graphics and relaxed music, the video slot has 5 reels, 3 rows, and 30 paylines. Once you decide how many paylines you want to bet on, your gaming adventure can begin. There are Scatters symbols and three bonus games to benefit from.
The biggest payout here comes from landing the triple seven symbol. Should you land 5 of these lucky numbers on the reels at the same time, you will win 5,000 coins, whereas if you land five wild symbols, you’ll get 12,500 coins.
Those looking for hitting a jackpot should pay attention to Quick Hit Platinum symbols as 5 of these contribute to 5,000x players’ original bet amount – and even more, with the max bet activated. The second-highest jackpot can be hit by landing 9 Quick Hit Slot symbols. Both the Quick Hit Platinum and regular Quick Hit symbols must occur on or within one position of the first payline to be eligible for a jackpot win.

15. SlotZilla Zip Line

And now something completely different. We’re finishing our selection of famous slots in style, with the world’s largest slot machine - StotZilla Zip Line - 128 feet tall which has two take-off levels. This $12 million SlotZilla zip line took more than a year to build and opened its doors in 2014 and has already had more than 2 million riders so far.
The 11-story slot machine is decorated with over-sized dice, a glass of martini, a pink flamingo, video reels, coins, and two showgirls - Jennifer and Porsha. SlotZilla offers two different rider experiences - the upper Zoomline and a lower Zipline. This unique machine has a huge video screen with reels and a gigantic arm, replicating a true slot machine experience.

8/26 Update - Added Star Slots information
This is the "Casino Games" section of my Swagbuck Games post: To All The Swagbuck Games I've Ever Played.
If you are interested in other types of Swagbuck games, refer to the previous post for links to additional game groups. I had to break the original game post up because the word count was too long to add any more content. This post will be updated as I complete new Casino offers. I will update the first line of this post with a quick summary of changes when new information is posted.
The following is a list of the games discussed in this post. For those who are new to Discover offers or feel less comfortable with mobile games, in the following list I have marked easier offers with "(Beginner)". Items marked with "(Beginner+)" are on the easier side but with a bit more complexity. This is a standard marking I use across all my lists.
Here is a brief list of the games:

• Pop Slots (Beginner)
• Huuuge Casino
• Billionaire Casino
• Club Vegas
• Star Slots

Other items to note:

• I am an Android user. The offers below may only be available for Androids. I will note when they are for Android only when I see that in the disclaimer.
• I have not spent any money to complete any of the following games.
• I always recommend having accounts with multiple sites that have offer walls to compare offers. Here are some other sites that I have accounts at and have also done offers at:
  • GG2U (most recommended) (Ref | NonRef)
  • RewardXP (Ref | NonRef)
    • Full Disclosure: Have not used this site yet, but received a good recommendation from someone who has been using these sites for longer then me, saying they have some of the highest payouts they've seen. The company also reached out to me to inform me that they had a higher offer for War and Magic then I had commented in my guide. They have good offers, a good payout rate, PayPal and Amazon options, and low cashout minimum.

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Pop Slots ($25)

This was by far and away the easiest Swagbucks game I've played to date. I completed it in under 2 hours. I wrote up a tutorial here.
Time to Complete: Level 28 offer took me less then two hours and I wasn't completely passive. Level 35 offer (which I helped my sister-in-law with on a non-Swagbucks site) took me 2 days, but we just had the phone sitting on the counter while we did other stuff. Needed a restock on tokens the next day for the level 35 offer.
Credit Experience: Credited immediately without issue.
Biggest Con: None
Overall Recommendation: Would definitely recommend. I've seen the offer amount go from $25 down to $5 back up to $15, so I would say hold out for atleast a $10 offer.
Guide for Reference: [Guide] Pop Slots

Huuuge Casino ($20)

Another slots game like Pop Slots, but they also have some non-slot games like poker and roulette.
First off, I did not complete this offer. This was one of the first offers I did on Swagbucks and I didn't know how to really gauge if offers were doable or not, that offers have different completion times, etc. Unfortunately the offer I selected was a level 200 in 10 days offer. By day 6 I was at level 164 and low on chips. With how much I was having to bet on slots or roulette with each level, I knew there wasn't any hope without spending money at that point.
Fastforward a couple weeks later and I learned a tip that would have probably saved me: you can create a private roulette table! This significantly reduces the time each turn at roulette takes! In hopes of helping others looking at this offer, I wrote up some game tips that are probably good to look over before starting Huuuge. If I had known all these before I started, I would have definitely made it to level 200.
Today there was a post on the forum from someone who says they reached level 200 in 6 days after buying a $6.99 chip pack with 800+ million chips. They also commented that the roulette grind was rough, taking 15+ minutes per level. Otherwise their tips were the same as what I had posted.
Time to Complete: Did not reach level 200, but without making any purchases I would say don't take an offer that was less then two weeks. You can run the slots passively, but the non-slot games need interaction for each round/hand.
Credit Experience: n/a
Overall Recommendation: I would not recommend any level 200 offer unless it was not time constrained or if you were planning on making a purchase. There is usually also level 100 offer for less money (~$8). Give that an attempt on a double SB day.
Guide for Reference: [Guide] Huuuge Casino and Billionaire Casino

Billionaire Casino ($20)

8/26 Update: Swagbucks increased this offer to $50 for level 160 in 14 days. This is up from $20 level 150 offer that they had been running on and off for a while. It had jumped up to $40 for about a month before it jumped to $50.
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I honestly hate the Huuuge branded slot casinos. They just aren't fun to play and you need to be semi-active for the roulette grind. This offer was to get to level 150 in 14 days, so the grind was much less then the level 200 Huuuge Casino offer. Yuck! I had some good luck getting 2 Charm event packs completed for big chip wins so I was able to complete in 3 days, grinding roulette when I had the time. The offer went pending after maybe 10 minutes. (Note: the Charm event was a limited time event)
If you're planning on doing Billionaire Casino, my tips write-up for Huuuge Casino also applies as they are basically the same exact game: here.
Time to Complete: 3 days, but lucked out with some event chip wins
Credit Experience: Pended immediately
Biggest Con: The grind! It can kill your spirit and your soul, especially if you're unlucky with wins, events, or the lottery wheel.
Recommendation: I would only recommended level 150 offers or lower. Pended without any issues, so expecting to credit in the next couple days.
Guide for Reference: [Guide] Huuuge Casino and Billionaire Casino

Club Vegas ($12.50)

Another casino offer. There are times in the middle of these casino offers that I just wonder why I put myself through this. I was at this point with about 15 levels to go and only 5 million chips when I happened to stumble across my own personal gold mine! It was the slot Spartan Gold. I am usually one of the unluckiest people when it comes to casino games, but I would hit huge win after win after win with that slot, including two Grand jackpots, one valuing over 400 million! I honestly think that slot might be bugged.
Remember to collect free coins each day at a site like this one. When first starting the game, click offers starting with the most recent and going backwards until they stop crediting.
Time to Complete: About 3 days to reach level 70
Credit Experience: Pended immediately
Biggest Con: You can't put the game on auto. There are "spin" or "collect" screens that will just wait there forever for you. I couldn't find any slots that didn't have this. So you need to be able to check on the game every couple minutes.
Recommendation: The time limit was 30 days, so even without the crazy luck I had, I wasn't concerned about eventually getting there. I'm just bored out of my mind of casinos so its hard for me to recommend. If you like casino games and can babysit the game, then yes I would recommend.
Guide for Reference: No guide found....might need to write something up for this one...

Star Slots ($8.50)

I finished this offer a couple weeks ago, but wasn't able to write up a report on it until now so I'm trying to refresh my memory on this one. Thankfully I had a helpful commentor on the main thread who I'm referencing to jog my memory.
This is another casino by the Huuuge brand casino slots. It has similarities to Huuuge Casino and Billionaire Casino with two notable differences: (1) how clubs work and (2) no roulette table. Clubs do not have daily challenges (although they have a note saying they're coming). Instead clubs provide benefit by percentage increase of free chips as well as some free chips when members hit jackpots.
Remember to collect free coins each day at a site like this one. When first starting the game, click offers starting with the most recent and going backwards until they stop crediting.
Time to Complete: About 5 days to reach level 80. I wasn't focusing on it much over those 5 days so its possible it could have been doable in 4. A commentor on my main post added this about the recent level 110 offer on Swagbucks.

The 110 offer in 14 is definitely doable, but might be a bit tough without good luck. I got to 80 in about 6 days.

Credit Experience: N/A as I completed the offer on a non-Swagbucks site
Biggest Con: The slot machine minimum bet amount continues to increase as you level. Between that and the relative shortage of free chips, the likelihood of running out of chips increases. This just means you have to wait to replenish, but it does slow things down a bit. One hint is that the minimum bet amount only increases once you leave a slot and then start another one.
Recommendation: The level 80 one is easy to hit if you have 10-14 days. Be a little more cautious about a level 110 14 day offer. If you have 20+ days, I'd gauge that you'd have no problems either.
Guide for Reference: No guide found

This guide is meant to help people farm the Wynn Slots app for gems (to get free rooms!)
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Please note that I have only been using this app for about 4 days, but I already have 658 gems (639 when I started writing this) and I have a day job and other hobbies I participate in daily (working out, writing, playing video games to compete,) so believe me when I say you do not need to play this app 24/7 in order to make good progress, BUT it's important to note that you probably don't want to sit on auto spin either. This guide is based on my experience with the game as well as various reddit posts I have read regarding it. I will not be able to cite anyone in particular, but I'll let you know if something I tell you was learned elsewhere.
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Also please note that I literally made a reddit account just for this and it's my first guide to anything ever-- I literally just felt I had to share my experience with this game because I am very close to getting a free room and I thought others might like to know ways they can too.
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Annnd I think it's worth mentioning that all of these are JUST MY OPINION-- especially when it comes to the slots. I have provided in-game indicators that I make my own judgments by, but they are NOT a guarantee that a slot WILL hit. If you have any corrections to make, any comments, tips, or feedback on how I can make this less of a giant chunk of text, please let me know! Anyway, let's get to the point.
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Oh, and I am assuming that you've already installed the app and linked it to your Facebook. As far as I can tell, that's the only way to get your first free lump sum of gold to start playing with, so make sure you do that if you haven't already. And if you do play this game already, I recommend browsing the Tips and Tricks section. If you want to read the whole thing, I hope you find it useful!
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----ROOMS & COST----
Rooms (the only option being a Standard King, not a suite, per another redditor) cost somewhere between 1.5k-6.6k gems, with the cheaper 1.5k usually landing on Sunday-Monday. If you are looking to stay on a Saturday, expect to pay an average of 3.3K , though as of today (5/17/2019) there is a Saturday room for 2.2k on June 15th. Given the time it takes to get gems, I would do myself a favor to consider anything above 4k as a blackout date. It is my understanding, based on other redditors posts, that one of the advantages of the Wynn Slots app (versus MyVegas) is that there are no resort fees, so the room is 100% free. If anyone knows differently, please comment.
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----HOW TO GET GEMS----
You need gems in order to buy rooms. You get gems by spinning. Period. That's it. At the end of the day, the app does not care if you have 10k gold or 200 million gold. The purpose of getting gold in this game is so that you can spin so that you can get gems. Do not forget that.
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----GUARANTEED WAYS TO LOSE----
Tournaments. Once you get the hang of things, you will begin to place between 200-600th place without even trying. DO NOT try to get to the top of the list, the amount of effort and gold you will put in vs the amount of coins you will get back just doesn't make sense. Furthermore, you would need to play for the full duration of the tournament, or score high toward the end so that there's no time for anyone to bump you down the ranking. Not worth.
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Battle Mode. This is a joke. Avoid this at all costs, as you must put up 200k gold and unless you win, you will not get any of the gold you earned. You're better off committing to 20 spins on a 10k bet in a game outside of battlemode, at least then you are almost guaranteed to get some of your money back. Yes, sometimes you will win in battle mode, but again, cost > reward.
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High Roller Room. Although I do not have much experience in this section, my overall strategy is to spin spin spin. According to another redditor, you do not get any extra gem meter for betting more, so keep your bets low so you can spin more. EDIT: (Thanks to redditor aaron8941, we now know that you DO get more gems the higher you bet. "Depending on your level, earning a gem requires betting a certain amount of gold, no matter the number of spins... The amount needed per gem increases with every level you increase.") With that said, the High Roller Room may be beneficial, I am too broke to comfortably play in there with only 1 spin.
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----EVENTS----
Your bread and butter. Each event will offer 4 missions that will net you Bronze, Silver, and Gold scratchers. Match 3 amounts on a scratcher and win that amount in gold. These scratchers are very important because they are how you will keep your chip count up-- you need to spin a LOT in order to earn gems.
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Although you can do the event missions in any order, the first mission will typically require you to play a specific game for X amount of times (most of the time, but not always.) Go ahead and do it-- don't worry about if you're winning or losing because they're going to give you your money back on a scratcher anyway. These silvegold/platinum scratches are giving up 3-8M gold, but even catching 1M from a Bronze scratcher is pretty juicy.
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The rest of the missions are typically non-game specific and require you to hit insane amounts on the slots. Thanks to another redditor, I find that using the 3x HyperBonus on the Hung Bao game really is the quickest way to do this, and honestly you should just grind this out.
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Make SURE that you are clicking HyperBonus BUY and selecting the 3x multiplier with 8 free spins, or 2x multiplier with 7 spins if you're broke. If you click the 5x/3x/2x/1x multiplier on the side, you do not get any free spins and you're just upping your bet without a good chance of it paying out. If you do HyperBonus BUY, you should make at least your money back 70% of the time.
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Other than that, don't worry about if you win or lose-- again, the scratcher will pay you back. But you need to spin quite a bit even with the 3x HyperBonus Hung Bao strat, so just do your best to power through without getting arthritis. This game alone should cover the other 3 missions. Honestly, completing an event should only take about 20-25 minutes if you're focused.
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----NON-EVENT SLOT PLAY----
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While you're waiting for an event, it IS in your benefit to play the slots if you have free time. Someone else on Reddit said it wasn't worth it, but again the goal here is to get gems so you should want to SPIN AS MANY TIMES AS YOU CAN. Furthermore, sometimes I make decent gold while spinning the regular slots so I'm going to talk about how you can avoid losing all your money doing so.
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IF you have a considerable lump sum of money, it is absolutely worth farming Hung Bao with the 3x multiplier + 8 free spins. Each time you select this option, you get a big lump of gems (in my case, at level 30, I get roughly 2 gems for this each time I do it.) There is no secret to winning this, just let it do its thing for as much as you're willing to lose before you move on to a cheaper slot. If you get low on coins, take your little behind to one of the slots mentioned below and bet low.
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Because you get gems from spinning, every game is worth playing for at least some amount of time. Decide how much money you're willing to lose per round (for me, usually about 100k,) do those spins (usually about 10 spins) and then move on. IF you sense that the game is about to hit (usually signaled by special icons appearing, which I'll talk about below,) then go ahead and spin for another round. If it still hasn't hit but it really looks like its about to, go ahead and give it up to another 3 spins MAX, but that's it!!! MOVE ON. There are 21 games to play and they are all worth playing to some extent. Furthermore, I regularly hit bronze and silver jackpots off of at least 10 of them, so if one isn't hitting move on to find the one that will.
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Please note that while you may only stay even on these slots or only win 300k, 700k or 1mil, the point is that they will allow you to keep spinning (aka earn gems,) without draining your gold. I have 100mil gold right now. I could have infinity gold-- it still won't get me a free room. You need to spin and that is the only thing you need gold for is to put it back in the machine. PUT THE GOLD BACK IN THE MACHINE. You can absolutely bet higher on these games to get more gems, as mentioned, but if you get low on funds you can bet low and play smart to get your coin count back up.
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P.S. Mystery Jackpots are basically bait to get you to make higher bets on crappy slots. Don't bother upping your bet for this, it could be 8mil or it could be 800k-- regardless, you can get that gold elsewhere.
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--------------Special Icons By Game<----------------
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[Top Tier Picks]
Games worth playing "two rounds" (or up to 200k, as mentioned above.)
MAYAN RUBY - Pretty lackluster game in terms of sound/visuals. I say that because it says "New" like I'm supposed to be impressed, but it's not worth turning the game volume on for this one. Look for the ruby to start appearing. If a ruby appears in the top middle position, you will get to spin the Mayan wheel which will give you some gold back, free spins (always welcome,) a multiplier on your next spin, or a jackpot. If you start seeing these show up back to back, definitely stay put for another round.
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JOKER WHEEL 7's: You'll see a LOT of people hitting platinum jackpot on this, but I don't think it's worth chasing. Look for the Joker Multiplier symbol, which will signal the slot is heating up. You can usually get some good, non-jackpot wins around this time if it keeps appearing. Also look for the Bonus wheel symbol. Three Bonus wheels will let you spin the Joker wheel where you can hit a Silver or Gold Jackpot, or win a lump sum of gold.
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DRAGON POWER: Another game some redditors mentioned liking. It's pretty fun. Look for gold shells/emblems? I don't know what they are, they look like a cross between a fortune cookie and a paper hat, but they're a very bright gold. If you start seeing 1-2 recurring, give it another round. You'll know you're on the right track when the gold orb at the top center of the machine literally heats up and burns a streak down the middle.
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MONKEY GOD: This game is OK. Honestly, you should only be betting 1 line on this game. It's pretty expensive, and pays OK with just the one line. You can still make decent money on this game with only 1 line, but it's not a loose slot so don't bother upping your bet unless you want to go broke. I also find it's hard to get free games with the golden money bonus icon on there, so don't bother fishing for it. Monkey God does have a special mini game after you have collected enough jade orbs, where you are guaranteed to get a nice little sum of gold back.
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MYSTERY MINE: Probably the most fun and underrated game, in my humble opinion. You will know it's heating up when the dynamite starts appearing. The dynamite can turn into gold which can offer re-spins or instant jackpots. If you're playing to enjoy, definitely turn the game sound on for this one if possible.
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DESERT GEM - The only thing really keeping this game from being on the low-tier list is the fact that you can accumulate chests which will then net a mini game just like Monkey God. However, this slot is pretty tight if you're only playing 1 line-- I think it suffers from the same over-sizing issue that Atlantis Thunder does.
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MAMMOTH CHASE - This one's kind of loose, imo. Stay for another round if you start hitting mammoths on the first two columns, or if you start seeing 1-2 recurring Wild diamond icons, and definitely if you start seeing the Bonus mountain icons in pairs. She pays, she gives free games, she's an overall fun gal to be around :)
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TIGER CLAW - Kinda boring game in terms of visuals and sound unless you're in free spin mode. Look for the peacock eye/tiger eye? Again, no idea what it is, but it's an eyeball encased in gold embellishment. If you start seeing those reappear, especially in a pair, expect to get 3 soon for some free spins. Other than that, there's really nothing to look out for in this game. You'll see some multipliers pop around, and a few pennies tossed your way, but nothing to get excited about.
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ENCHANTED MANOR: Look for the pumpkins to start recurring. I believe these are wild and will net you some decent gold back. This is the main reason for sticking around in this game. Every once in a while, the gates will shut and the game will do its "replicating reels" thing, but that is not a guarantee anything interesting will happen unless you get 3 green gargoyles in a row. If you have multiple green gargoyles, but they're spread out, expect little more than disappointment. If you happen to get 3 green gargoyles in a row, you're guaranteed to win whatever you would win from that by itself, plus whatever spins into the mix. If they reveal to be haunted mansions, you'll win a small jackpot, but most of the time the gargoyle thing isn't a sign that its heating up as it doesn't really happen back to back and even if it were to happen back to back, your total winnings are still likely to be 0.
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LION KILL: A reddit favorite for some reason. Maybe due to the slight Lion King-esque images? Look for volcano symbols to start showing up often and you'll know you're either close to hitting or getting some free games in. There is also an icon that is a red square with a lion in it, if you start seeing those en masse, you can expect to be winning some money.
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SHIELDS OF FORTUNE: Another sleeper! This bad boy pays just enough to keep you going, and once you hit free spins it really gets good. If you see the colluseum icons show up by itself or in a pair, frequently, this is a good time to fish for some free spins. Once you're in free spin mode, you'll run across shields that will give you decent money if you collect 1, better money if you collect 2 and they are not scarce. Honestly the game is pretty generous when it's in the giving mood. If you are low on gold, I highly suggest giving this one a whirl to see if it can't pick your spirits back up.
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[Low-Tier Games]
If they're not hitting, don't bother doing more than one round.
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ATLANTIS THUNDER: This game is just weird. The playing field is too big and off-kilter for it to ever hit anything while playing 1 line only, and it's too expensive to play more than that. It does offer a HyperBonus, but Hung Bao is a looser slot imo. Honestly, this game won't even give you peanuts. For what we're trying to do (bet low, spin a lot,) this game is the absolute worst.WYNN WHEEL: Wack. 20k per spin, which is way too much considering how quickly it will drain your funds/how rarely it hits. Again, we want to bet low and spin a lot. This game will not sustain you whatsoever.
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TREE OF GOLD: OK Game. If you start seeing the 4x and 5x multiplier, maybe stick around, but otherwise just put your one round in and move on. I don't remember if this has any free games, but I suspect the answer is no it doesn't.
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BANGKOK DREAMS: Another game that offers a Hyper Bonus. I have not tried to this feature, could be a good alternative to HungBao if necessary (though I think HungBao does great on its own.) The visuals are really intense and while you will see multipliers pop up they're pretty much good for nothing other than making this machine look even more cluttered than it did before. There is a Bonus castle image in a circular icon that, if it appears frequently in a pair, you should try to hit for 3. It also has a little mini game where you collect the lotus flowers, same as Monkey God and Desert Gem. Not enough to hold this game together though.
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WYNN JACKPOTS - See Wynn Wheel.
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GATES OF BABYLON: This is a pretty fun game. Visually pleasing, fun to play, and pays out OK. There are three columns in which a gold icon of a ruby spitting man will animate and he spits the gold ruby to the top. If you collect 3, it will turn that entire column wild which is worth at least another few spins until the wild bar goes away. If you start seeing columns of Wild gold bars show up on their own, or the Bonus ruins icon showing up in pairs, try taking it for two rounds. No jackpot.
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ROYAL ROMANCE: Doesn't hit much and even when it does it's never an amazing amount, but you do accumulate hearts which will eventually just give you the amount (I think somewhere around 50k if you're betting the minimum, not sure what it is if you bet higher.) I can't even tell you what the hell qualifies for a hit on this thing or how to see it coming, and that's because it rarely hits. The only reason to ever take this past one round is if you know you'll get the last few hearts needed to get your payout. It does offer bonus games as well, but I find the free games happening way less than those in the Top Tier list. Also, it's kind of gross to look at in a Barbie dream kind of world, except sometimes it's hilarious to see 20 princes surrounding the 1 princess. No jackpot.
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GYPSY RICHES: Another cheesy looking game. If you see the red carriage pop up in pairs frequently, feel free to take another round with it-- 3 red carriages will get you some free spins. Just don't waste too much time on this thing, not only is it ugly but it just doesn't pay well. No jackpot.
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GOLDEN WILD: What can I say about this game? Do not recommend. If you start seeing the cherry blossom temple looking icon show up in pairs, maybe give it a few more spins but this slot is tight and frankly not that fun to look at or play. It also doesn't have a jackpot. Try not to fall asleep at the wheel.
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CANDY, CATS, AND CASH: Blah. If you're into cats, maybe you will like this. For some reason, these cats are obsessed with strawberries and will throw them at your screen, but rarely does that ever amount to anything. If you start seeing stacks of cash on a platter crop up in pairs, maybe stick around-- three will get you some free spins-- but this is just... not it. There is no special mini game, no jackpot, and the visuals are super simple and boring at best. Plus it pays peanuts.
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----DAILY REWARDS----I think this is really what sets Wynn Slots apart from the MyVegas app. These daily rewards are pretty sizable amounts of gold that will sustain you, and the smaller Silver Chest is available every 15 minutes. There is also a Gold Chest and a Wheel Spin, but those are only like 1-2 times a day if you're not chasing them. Between these and the event scratchers, you never need to spend a dime on this game. Meanwhile, MyVegas will give you literal scraps and then badger you to tell all your friends on Facebook about it.
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----TIPS AND TRICKS----
Mash the spin button, it's faster than auto spin and easier to stop. Just make sure you're sticking to the rules you've set for when you will move on to the next game. Seriously, don't even bother trying to get excited about where it's gonna land or whatever measly coin you got, and if you get a Big Win, do your best to skip that animation so you can KEEP spinning. You can also mash the PLAY/STOP (spin) button during any Free Spin situations to make that shit move faster too. Do NOT play slow. Spin spin spin!
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I am hesitant to say this in case it suddenly gets fixed, but as of right now you can PARTIALLY scratch the corners of each space on a scratcher, meaning that you can PEEK at the amounts underneath to make sure that you are selecting the HIGHEST VALUE. This is absolutely bonkers. Honestly, I'm not sure how long I will leave this tip in this guide for the simple fact that I do not want to lose this feature.
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Keep your phone charged. Nothing is worse than catching the last 30 minutes of an event with only 10% battery life. This ain't MyVegas; there is no browser version to play.
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Sometimes the main page/home screen gets stuck if there is a tournament starting/ending or an event starting/ending. If you don't want to deal with this, be aware of when those times are and avoid trying to do anything during that 3s transition period. If the game glitches out during a free spin or some other epic occurrence, don't panic; you can close the app and go back to the game and it should still be as you left it.
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DO NOT go to Vegas the moment you reach your gem goal. Honestly, this game is designed to train you to pull the lever over and over, gamble your life away, feel nothing about losses, and to believe in your heart that the win is right around the corner. Real slots cost real money and they are way tighter than these e-slots. Do yourself a big favor and give yourself at least two weeks of zero gameplay before you actually go to Vegas (unless you trust yourself not to gamble at all.) I mean, I love this game, but I can recognize that I'm being conditioned to behave a certain way. Don't play yourself.
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DO NOT let this game take over your life, similar to how I have spent the last 2 hours writing this damn guide. Honestly, once you get the hang of things you'll want to grind all the time, and that's fine as long as it's REALLY fine. Playing during non-events can only help if you're smart about it, but real life obligations take priority. If you find yourself consistently putting this game before promises you made to yourself, your boss, or your friends/family, you need to take a big step back. You've been warned.
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Again, any comments concerns etc are welcome. Enjoy!
I will be taking comments/corrections and ammending this. Once there is a sizable amount of corrections to be made (and I have a little more experience under my belt) I will probably rewrite this guide, but for now I will make edits with redditor's names and the info they offer.

TLDR: Wisconsin casinos feel "rigged" to where they can control the payout percentages throughout the day, or I may just be the most unluckiest gambler on planet earth and have no idea what I am talking about. haha
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Sorry for the rambling but I just had to rant and get this off my chest.
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I will start by saying that I really enjoy gambling and I understand that it is an expensive hobby and that losing often is part of it but I feel that something sketchy is going on. I know that all casinos are "monitored" closely but it feels like they can control the payout percentages whenever they feel like it by pressing a button on a computer. My last 20 casino trips I think I only came out ahead one time and it wasn't much. I am a low roller and play it very safe with my money and often try to do strategies to make my money last longer for more entertainment. I only bet minimum and try to only spend five or ten dollars per machine so that I can enjoy more machines. When I turned 21 (2013) I was really excited that I finally got to play slots and table games (I played bingo since I was a little kid with my grandparents and they would often go to casinos without me). My bankroll used to be only 50 bucks and sometimes a little more if I wanted to play longer and it would usually last a long time. Now days I feel like you need to have at least 300 dollars to have a chance and have to be extremely lucky to come out ahead only betting minimum. I can't afford to bet higher or max because the machines just take the money, so many dead spins in a row. Even betting minimum I lose 50 bucks within my first half hour of being there and am trying to win my money back from that point on which rarely happens. It's gotten to the point where it's not fun anymore. I once stopped going for 10 months but then got the urge to go on my birthday because I always go on my birthday every year and it didn't feel right not going. )Yes, I have a reward card but never use it except on birthdays and when family gives me their free play coupons. I don't like knowing that my playing is being tracked and them knowing what my favorite machines are. It's a scam, they give you "free" food and hotel rooms so you can come and spend 3 times the cost of those things on slots.) Recently I will stop going for 4 or 5 weeks and the day I decide to go, on the drive there I know that it's a bad idea. Basically donating my 100 bucks every couple of months and not having fun but I am addicted because I remember all the fun times I used to have.
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Back to my feeling about the casinos being "sketchy". Sometimes when I am losing and don't want to leave right away I will walk around very fast and see how the other people are doing. Quickly glancing at screens and seeing the facial expressions of the players. Usually the people playing are not smiling and they slap the buttons and they curse etc. What I find strange sometimes when it's really bad sometimes there is one person who will be waiting for a handpay of over $2,000 while every one else in the entire place seems to be losing. The only people who tend to be happy are either drunk or are noobies who don't know what they are doing or how the game works and are just excited that the machine made a noise. I have noticed at one casino I go to, the machines quickly reset to 0 amounts when someone cashes out so you can't see what they won or their ticket amount. Also, workers are quickly to the spot to move the chair in to make sure people don't know someone just sat down there. My 5 or 10 dollar method per machine often doesn't pay me anything so sometimes I will spend up to 20 or even 30 of my 100 dollars on one machine, finally triggering the bonus or spins and it pays less than 10 dollars actually that would be a "BIG WIN!!!!!!" if i won that [according to the machine], it's more often less than 5 dollars. My biggest win in the past 6 months was a 50 dollar bonus and it took my last 30 bucks to get it so after that 20 dollar profit on that machine I was still down 50 dollars of my 100 bankroll. Always chasing my loss. Since everyone only talks about their big winnings, I will share mine. In my 8 years of gambling I have only got one handpay for $1700 and it happened to be on my birthday of all days. It was a random triggered progressive pick bonus and I picked the 3 Major symbols. I can tell you without a doubt that within 17 casinos trips I gave all of it back. Another time I triggered a progressive wheel and landed on the Maxi wedge for $1000 and my last big win was on a free spins bonus (I was pissed from losing and bet max with my last 20 dollars) and won $750. Did that experience make me want to become a max better? No. Max betters lose more in the long run, sure they get the thrill of seeing "big wins" but have to spend more money to get them and they have to pay taxes on handpays while giving all of it back later in the year.
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I remember how loud the casinos used to be with the machine bells going off and people cheering and yelling, now days when I walk in it's like a funeral home, all the volume on the machines defaulting to the lowest setting and not much talking only whispers of complaining to the people they came with. When I go now days I know I am basically putting my hundred dollars in a paper shredder but get a good laugh overhearing people saying how bad they are losing to one another. It used to be bragging about wins now all I hear is "Oh you think getting one dollar on a bonus is bad, try getting 200 free spins and winning only 6 dollars!" I have never seen so many crumpled and ripped up tickets before with a few cents on them from people who are angry. (No the ripped tickets are not from the custodians in these situations)
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Maybe I should save my money and go to Vegas or travel out of the state of Wisconsin....but whenever I think about doing that I think that it will just be a longer trip home after losing my money, better off throwing my money away at the closest slot machine from my house. Why don't I just play all the slot machine games on my phone for free? There are 13 apps that have the real slot machine games on them and I can play with pretend credits.....but that doesn't give me the same excitement than playing with real money does and it just gets me more hooked. I know how all of the games work and which ones have the highest potential of winning something good because of how the game works but when I go to play it in real life it never pays out the same as it does on the app game.
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Maybe I should stop playing slots and put my entire $100 bankroll on a black/red spin of the roulette wheel or one hand of blackjack.....well that's not "fun". It's so funny that the companies no longer call it gambling, they call it "gaming" because that way they feel better about themselves ripping people off because they are playing a game not a slot machine. They are slowly raising the minimum bet on machines to $1. Right now I see 50 cents being the lowest I can find, but you used to often be able to find 30 cent ones. Now you have to pay 75, 88, or even 90 cents to get the same payout as you would betting on an old 30 cent machine, paying more to get less. Paying for the new flashly lights and animations experience.
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All Wisconsin casinos are located on Indian reservations and the Indian tribes are not required to release information on their slot machine percentage paybacks. What kind of BS is that? 90% of the time it feels like the percentages are really low, but sometimes you go to the casino at the perfect time and everyone seems to be winning a lot of money but only seems to last for about 30 minutes and then the go cold again just enough to get you hooked thinking you will keep winning only to realize you are giving all of your money back.
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I often look at the reviews of the casino I went to the same day and sure enough everyone is giving 1 star and bad comments. A lot of the Wisconsin casinos have recently remodeled and expanded in the past couple years for more slots for people to lose on. I find it really funny when the machines I like to play (because they seem to pay a little money back) are often gone the next trip I take to that casino and replaced with a machine that gives frequent bonuses but very little pays.
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TLDR: Wisconsin casinos feel "rigged" to where they can control the payout percentages throughout the day, or I may just be the most unluckiest gambler on planet earth and have no idea what I am talking about. haha

Gambling has always been a popular pastime amongst Australians, be it a few spins on the pokies, a bet on the footie or few dollars on the horses. A night out at the local casino is part of the Australian way, it’s a little-known fact that Australians make up the highest gambling participation rate in the world.
Australians embraced advances in technology and took to online casinos like a duck to water, after all, this is Australia, the land of tomorrow. As virtual gambling grew in popularity more players turned to online or mobile sites. It’s all about entertainment, some harmless fun, spending some mindless time playing a few games and maybe every now and then getting some small payout, but winning is not why we play, we understand how these things work, you win some you lose some. Australian gambling laws were put in place to protect players, especially problem gamblers and to ensure responsible betting practices. Just like other countries we had the freedom to choose if we wanted to gamble our hard-earned money or not.
What ever happened to freedom of choice? What ever happened to my right to decide what I want to do with my own money? As it stands, the new Australian gambling regulations prohibit gambling service providers, local or offshore, from providing any gambling services to anyone residing in Australia, this has gone into effect as of September 2017. However, the laws focus on the gambling operators and the services they can or cannot provide to Australians and not on what Australians are allowed to do with their own money, so it doesn’t look like they are trying to control where and how our money is spent. Gambling over the net is still legal for Australians such as lotto and sports betting as long as they are licensed and regulated within Australia but the Interactive Gambling Act bans all online gambling operators from providing a service to Australians.
Last November the Australian Government introduced the Interactive Gambling Amendment Bill 2016 into the House of Representatives. Many changes were proposed mainly to plug any loopholes in the original IGA from 2001 that allowed offshore casino providers to operate in Australia. The IGA Amendment Bill has just gone into place which means that offshore online casino or poker sites can no longer accept or continue to service Australian players or they are risking harsh penalties.
Now here’s the really interesting part, the IGA Amendment Bill doesn’t address any penalties for Australians who continue to gamble online, “the average Australian citizen cannot be punished for signing up and gambling online,” (IGA, 2001). Although most of the big casino brands have pulled out of the market, what’s to stop Australians from registering through a remote proxy? More importantly the contradictions presented in the IGA and Amendment Bill are blatantly clear, sports and lottery betting are still permitted but online casinos and poker betting is not. If these laws where put in place to protect the gambler why are sports and lottery online betting still allowed? Aren’t they fundamentally the same thing? As far as I am aware there is no proof that even implies one being more harmful than the other. And what really gets my goat is the fact that land based casinos and pokies are still operating around the clock all across Australia, lottery tickets and Keno games are available from news agencies, petrol stations and shopping centres all of which contribute substantially to the government tax earnings.
Back to the Future
Land based casinos and betting outlets are able to operate legally provided that it is kept in strictly regulated spaces. Land based casinos operate under the Casino Control Act of 2006 and must adhere to strict regulations. Licensed gambling establishments also abide by the same strict regulations. Each establishment also operates within the independent guidelines set by each state.
Online Casinos have been subjected to completely different set of rules, they are completely prohibited from operating within Australia and it is also prohibited for overseas casino sites to advertise their services to Australian residents. “It is prohibited to provide interactive gambling services to Australians unless they hold a license under the law of an Australian state or territory”. Unfortunately, there is no regulatory body in place to specifically license and regulate online casinos therefore there no online casino license currently exists or will exist in the foreseeable future.
It seems to me it’s the classic 2 step forwards 3 steps back scenario. While the rest of the world strives forward with technological advances Australia seems to be regressing under the control of a passive aggressive dictatorship. This outright banning of online casinos in Australia means that land-based casinos will regain their monopoly. The Liberal Party has made it crystal clear that they are all about tightening the gambling laws and making it very difficult if not impossible for Australia based players to place real money bets on foreign casinos.
Gambling has always been a hot topic in Australia, some politicians were in favor of banning all gambling activity and an altogether nationwide ban of slot machines, a gambling prohibition so to speak. Have you ever heard anything more ridiculous? Australian gambling laws “aim” to promote responsible gambling, supporting the idealist idea of gaming establishments partnering up and offering counselling services to players with gambling issues.
The future of online gambling in Australia looks bleak as most of our favorite casinos pull out of the Australian market (2 of my favorites Slotty Vegas and Betat Casino informed us today that they will no longer be accepting registrations from Australian IP’s) in order to comply with the new laws. It doesn’t look like things will change anytime soon so in the meantime I will be looking for ways of by passing the system, after all, I’m not breaking any laws! 😉

(With apologies to Uncle Steve)
Jay Everett stared up at the towering Twin Pines Hotel, one of the largest buildings this side of the Las Vegas gambling strip. It was a jutting structure built entirely out of steel beams and black glass. The Hotel was surrounded on all sides by the flashing neon lights of Casino Row, which danced across its glossy surface like the ghostly imprints of colored flames. Apparently this place offered some of the swankiest penthouses in the entire city, but Jay wasn’t here for a room. He’d only come here to gamble.
He pushed through the front doors and entered the lobby, a spacious room with potted plants crawling up the walls like ivy. The place was packed with men in tuxedos and women in loose evening dresses. Jay felt smothered in his own suit, and he tried easing up the collar with one finger. It didn’t help much. He still felt like he was being throttled by his tie.
Most of the crowd was moving toward the check-in desk, but Jay snuck his way through until he could see the flashing lights of the casino. A large metal beam stretched across the entrance. Beneath it was a sign that proclaimed TWIN PINES CASINO in bold, electric blue letters. A bear and a turtle and various other forest animals gamboled across either side.
He managed to slip through the bustle without being too pushy, and then he was in. Light background jazz swept across him as he stepped into a world lit up by colored bulbs and strips of eerie black light. The casino actually wasn’t too crowded this early in the night. He almost had the entire place to himself.
He stopped before a large, circular game machine emblazoned with the words GOLD KING. The game itself was nothing more than a large spinning disc divided into colored slices. Most of the sections were given small monetary values, but there was one tiny sliver that had been painted a solid gold.
The game itself didn’t get too much activity, but the large statue perched above it could be seen from anywhere in the casino. It was a cartoony sculpture of a king wearing red robes and a golden crown. In his hand he held a royal scepter, which would flash brightly and let off a chorus of clanging bells whenever anyone hit the jackpot. Right now he was silent. His blank eyes stared out at the crowd, his mouth open in a creepy cartoon smile.
You have until the Gold King goes off to make $19,000. Otherwise…
Jay shivered. He couldn’t get Farrow’s threat out of his head; it echoed in his ears like the growl of a distant animal. Farrow himself was nowhere to be found, but Jay knew he’d stationed his cronies in every corner of this place. Some were probably disguised as security guards, others as bartenders or casino patrons. He couldn’t trust anybody. Any one of these people could be waiting to turn him in to Farrow the moment he backed out of this job.
So he did what he was told to do. He took a deep breath, let his eyes sweep over the casino, and strode over to the game that stood out to him the most. He had a lot of money to win and not much time to do it. This was a world ruled by chance, where the simple roll of a die could decide a person’s fate, and any ordinary man would have been sweating in his suit by now.
But Jay Everett was no ordinary man.
Jay had always known how different he was, even as a kid. It wasn’t that he looked or acted stranger than other people. He was just perceptive. He knew the answers in class before his teacher even finished speaking, although he quickly learned to keep this to himself. He could find things too. When little things went missing around the house, Jay always knew just where to look. He couldn’t explain how. He just did.
He also had an uncanny skill with numbers. He’d never used a calculator in his entire life and he couldn’t understand why his classmates were so helpless without it. By the time he’d reached 9th grade, he was already taking the highest level math courses his high school could offer. It wasn’t long before he caught the eye of several prestigious business schools, which practically tripped over themselves getting him to apply. He never had to worry about his future. Jay ended up leaving high school early and heading to Stanford, where he started down the fast track to a career in finance.
He was snatched up by Tony Salvatore right after graduation. Salvatore was a business tycoon who’d left his footprint in every major city across the country, and he was eager to take Jay on board as his new head of finance. “I’ve been waiting for a kid like you,” he’d said, clapping Jay on the shoulder. “Someone who knows how to crunch the numbers and keep his mouth shut.”
It was true that Jay hardly ever talked; it was a habit from his youth that he hadn’t yet outgrown. He just didn’t trust himself to speak. He knew things about Salvatore, things he couldn’t possibly know – like how he came in late on Mondays because he’d spent the night before drinking and hitting his wife, or how he’d gotten bite marks under his collar from a violent fling with his receptionist. Tony would walk into the room and the knowledge would hit Jay in the face like a foul stench. He valued his job, so he kept quiet.
He discovered Salvatore’s biggest scandal completely by accident. Jay had stayed late at the office that night to finish up one of his revenue forms, which kept coming up $100 short. It was baffling to him. He’d never had an issue with numbers before, not even a minor issue like this, and he didn’t understand why he kept finding the same inconsistency. So he pulled up some other forms to see if he could trace the cause of the missing hundred.
It would have been a cold trail for anyone else, but Jay was good at finding things, and he managed to dig up an encrypted file with a bunch of forms that had never made it into the system. He set up a program to decode the files and discovered that they were all bank deposits – deposits of exactly $100. The missing money was being funneled into an account under the name “Enrico Balazar.”
At first Jay didn’t know what to do with the info he’d dug up. This was fraud, fraud of the highest degree, and Salvatore had to be turned in. Jay had no desire to defend the crooked son of a bitch. But he wasn’t stupid – he knew Salvatore had connections in low places, and if Jay made this information public, he’d have a target on his head. He sat in the dark for a while and cycled through his options.
When Salvatore showed up for work the next day, Jay intercepted him right outside his office. “Sorry to bother you, sir,” he said. “I was just about to send the tax forms to our Boston division when my computer crashed. Is there any way you could send them out for me?” The bit about the computer was true; he’d just neglected to mention that he’d crashed it himself.
Salvatore stared at the papers in Jay’s hand with bleary, reddened eyes. He just had a shot of whiskey in his car. As usual, the thought hit Jay completely out of the blue. Salvatore eventually reached out and took the papers, crumpling them a bit in his fist.
“Hold on a sec,” he grunted. He took the papers into his office and set them on the desk, then leaned over to type his password on the computer. Jay’s eyes followed him carefully. Then Salvatore placed the forms in his scanner and began the uploading process.
Jay stayed late again, waiting until the last of the workers had left the office before typing a quick command on his keyboard. There was a brief popping sound. The power in his part of the building flickered for a moment, and Jay knew the cameras were disabled. He had a good hour or so before they came back on again.
He’d kept a pair of gloves in his briefcase all day, and he slipped them on now as he headed to Salvatore’s office. The tycoon’s personal computer sat in the corner, its screen flashing with an insistent message: PASSWORD?
Jay leaned forward and typed it in, his fingers copying the same pattern Salvatore had used this morning. A quiet beep, a loading bar, and he was in. He got to work immediately.
When Jay arrived at work the next day, a police car was parked outside the building, lights flashing and everything. He arrived just in time to watch the cops shoving a handcuffed Salvatore into the backseat. Jay made sure to keep his face hidden, just in case, but Salvatore had his eyes turned to the ground.
“What happened?” Jay asked one of his coworkers.
“You’ll never believe it, man. Some kind of virus got into Salvatore’s computer and made all of his private files go public. It turns he was channeling a big chunk of his clients’ cash to this mob boss in New York. Balthazar or something.”
“No kidding,” Jay replied. He watched as the car carrying Tony Salvatore turned the corner and disappeared down 5th Avenue.
It was then that he noticed a figure who was standing at the edge of the crowd, his face hidden by the brim of a dark baseball cap. Everyone else was staring down the street, but this man was facing Jay instead. He had his hands tucked into the pockets of a black leather jacket and a thin layer of dark stubble on his face. As soon as Jay noticed him, he lifted a hand from his pocket and gestured for Jay to come over.
Jay was hesitant, but it was broad daylight and he was surrounded on all sides by people. It was safe. He circled around the crowd and approached the dark stranger.
“Do I know you?” he asked.
The man didn’t answer right away. Instead, he reached out and slapped something small and square into the palm of Jay’s hand. Then Jay finally got a glimpse of his eyes beneath the cap. They were shrewd and calculating, a glassy blue that made Jay think of the surface of a frozen pond.
“I saw,” he said. “And if you’re interested, I could use your kind of expertise.”
Jay glanced at the object in his hand. It was a business card, nothing but a name and a set of digits. He frowned. “I’m sorry, I don’t –” But when he looked up, the man had already disappeared.
That was the first time Jay met Rick Farrow.
Jay sipped from his wine glass and watched as people tried their luck on the Twin Pines slot machines. In theory, the outcome of these games was completely random. But Jay knew that most of these machines cycled through a random number sequence, and unless it had been rigged to prevent this issue, one could theoretically spot a pattern. The casino owners needed to make sure that some people walked away winners, after all. Not everyone. Just enough to keep people playing.
There was a pattern, but it was so subtle that the average person would never have noticed it. 19 pulls got you three cherries and a decent amount of cash. 95 pulls got you a row of three gold coins. And after 171 pulls of the lever, three 7s would plunk into place, bells would go off, and the ring of bulbs around the game would burst into life. Jay watched the colored lights dance across the face of each excited winner.
So he sat at the bar, ordered another wine, and waited. He made a mental check mark every time someone new stepped up to play the game. And when the 170th person walked away, he set down his glass, strode over to the machine, and played.
The wheels whirled for a good few seconds before settling on the jackpot. The lights flashed, the bells rang, and a flood of coins spilled out of the machine.
He collected his winnings without a smile.
Now that Tony Salvatore had been removed from his position as CEO, his offices in New York got shuttered. Jay suddenly found himself jobless and in desperate need of cash, as Salvatore had been paying for him to live in a nice apartment on the east side of town. Despite his impressive work history, he seemed to carry with him a kind of stigma for being even somewhat associated with the Salvatore name.
So, with no other options, Jay contacted Rick Farrow. The mysterious man arranged to meet with him at once. He conducted Jay’s interview in a rented office space not too far from the old Salvatore building. Farrow asked most of the questions, and he nodded along pleasantly as Jay talked about his passion for numbers and his experiences studying at Stanford.
Farrow was a curious character. He never seemed to take off his black leather jacket, which looked slightly too big for his slender frame. His cheeks were sharp and bony and his facial hair was carefully trimmed. It was a fairly imposing look, but when he smiled it completely transformed his character. He was a charismatic individual. One way or another, he seemed capable of winning anybody over.
Farrow was impressed by Jay’s experiences, especially by the way he had so cleverly exposed Salvatore, although he refused to tell Jay how he’d seen that particular bit of espionage. In any case, Farrow thought Jay’s skills were perfect for the job, and he told Jay he would take him on immediately. Housing would be provided in one of the apartment complexes near their base of operations. Payment was substantial and would come in on a monthly basis. Jay hardly heard any of this; he was just excited to be welcomed into such a secretive underworld.
The weeks passed by quickly as Jay got initiated into his new life. Farrow explained to him that Salvatore had just been the tip of a very large and very dangerous iceberg. CEOs all over the state were funneling illicit cash to various crime bosses in the city, and Farrow had made it his goal to cut off the head of the snake. Multiple snakes, in this case. That was where Jay and the rest of the tech specialists came in. They had an eye for the little details that could bring a corrupt CEO down from the inside.
To accomplish this, Farrow and several of his associates went around the city and placed cameras in strategic locations. Sometimes they even hacked into company networks so the tech-heads back at the base could break through any encrypted files. It was tireless work, but Jay loved it. He had never felt more in his element. It gave him a thrill to think that he was doing something with his life, that he was using his knowledge to make the world a slightly better place.
Most of the time they operated out of an abandoned warehouse in one of the emptier sections of the city. Farrow had the whole place rigged up with state of the art security systems and a few dozen computers. Jay and the other tech-heads spent most of the time cracking codes and analyzing the footage from Farrow’s secret cameras. If they found any incriminating evidence, they were to report it right away. Then Farrow would take some of his cronies and disappear into the city for a few days.
In very rare cases, Farrow would ask one of the tech-heads to come with him on an assignment. This only ever happened if the job required hacking skills that Farrow himself didn’t possess. Jay was fairly new to the whole game, so Farrow usually passed him up for one of the more experienced techies. He didn’t mind; in fact, he was nervous about returning the field. The Salvatore affair seemed like it had happened ages ago. He wasn’t quite sure he was ready to sneak around in gloves and a ski-mask again.
Jay was busy scanning footage one evening when he heard the slam of a door and the sound of muffled shouting from below. He frowned and took off his headphones. It was definitely Farrow shouting – Jay would have recognized that gravelly voice anywhere. He just couldn’t make out any of the words. Placing the headphones gingerly on the monitor, he got out of his seat and tiptoed over to the door.
The main operations room was on the second floor, so Jay peered over the railing on the catwalk to see what was happening below. Farrow and a few of his masked associates were gathered around one of the other tech-heads. Jay thought it looked like Bruno, the guy who worked with him on Tuesdays. He had his back against a drainage pipe and was holding his hands up helplessly.
“You took off your fucking mask! Do you know how serious this is?” Farrow was yelling. Even from this high up, Jay could see the angry crease in his eyebrows. “They’ve got your face now. It’ll be all over their security cameras. Your stupid slip-up could have put our entire operation at risk!”
“I-I-I’m sorry,” Bruno stammered. “It won’t happen again, I promise!”
“You’re damn right it won’t,” Farrow growled. Then he drew a gun from inside his jacket and shot Bruno in the head.
Jay clapped a hand to his mouth to stifle a scream. Half of the techie’s face was missing, bits of his skin and brain tissue spraying out onto the warehouse floor. His blood splattered across the drainage pipe and trickled to the ground. Jay could hear the steady drip all the way from the catwalk.
He ducked back inside the operations room before Farrow could look up and see him there. His heart was pounding out an erratic beat on his ribcage. As quickly as he could, he slid into his seat and stuck the headphones back over his ears. He hummed a senseless little tune under his breath, trying to make himself look as carefree and oblivious as possible. If Farrow knew what he had just seen… he held back a shudder.
Farrow appeared in the doorway a few minutes later, the specks of blood completely wiped from his face. He’d changed into a cleaner jacket too. As Farrow walked past the row of flashing computer screens, Jay tried to calm his racing pulse.
“Any good news?” Farrow asked. He placed a hand on Jay’s shoulder, peering down at the monitor.
They shoved his body in the wood chipper. The knowledge hit him like a jolt of lightning, clear and strong. It took every ounce of his willpower to force a smile.
“Nothing so far,” he said. “It’s pretty quiet tonight.” He was amazed he could keep his voice from trembling.
Farrow stared at the screen for a few painfully long moments, then coughed. “Keep up the good work,” he said. He let go of Jay’s shoulder and drifted toward the exit. The masked associates followed him like obedient dogs.
When Jay was finally sure he could breathe easy again, he wiped a line of sweat from his brow. He was badly shaken, and not just because he’d seen his coworker shot in cold blood. He was questioning himself now, questioning the whole purpose of this assignment. If Farrow could do something so cruel and violent in the walls of his own compound, what was he doing out in the real world?
After making sure the coast was clear, Jay opened up a web browser and began searching for names. He’d been so busy working this job that he’d never bothered to check the papers, to see what was really going on outside the compound. All the news about the crooks they’d toppled had come through Farrow himself. But the search results Jay found online painted a very different story.
Farrow had said that the elderly Mitch Cullum had been arrested for siphoning funds to a New York crime syndicate, but Jay managed to dig up the old man’s obituary. Cause of death: gunshot wound. Nancy Deepneau, a leading member of a dental corporation in New York City, had gone missing three months ago. And David Tassenbaum, a prominent figure in the computer business, had been mugged to death in an alley, his body so beaten it had been almost impossible to identify. Jay found a dozen more examples of the “corrupt CEOs” Farrow had supposedly brought to justice. The only thing they had in common was that they’d all been very rich, and there had been discrepancies in their corporate funding following each death or disappearance. The police were unable to track down any leads.
His fingers trembling, Jay shut down the browser. For a moment he could only stare at the screen in front of him. What the hell could he do? It wasn’t like he could play dumb forever. He was an expert at staying strategically silent, but a secret this huge would find its way out eventually. His body language would betray him first. The moment he started fidgeting too much, Farrow would know the truth.
So he did the only thing he could think of. He disappeared.
Erasing yourself from existence is next to impossible. You would have to delete every record of your birth, your social security, your education, your medical insurance, your credit card accounts – any and all places where your name could be found in writing. But Jay was persistent, and he knew things. He accessed every database he possibly could and systematically wiped himself off the map. There were some records he knew he could never touch, but if they were out of his reach, the chances of Farrow finding them were slim to none. He was an invisible man now.
Once he was done, he put down the headphones, shut off the monitor, and strode out the front door of the warehouse. It was only a matter of time until Farrow noticed his absence, but he planned to put a few thousand miles between them before that happened.
He was free. He’d been shaken to his core, but he was free, and that was all that mattered. He’d have plenty of time later to think about the horrors he’d seen. And who knows? Maybe this was it. Maybe this whole affair was behind him, and one day it would just become a ghastly dream, a nightmare from someone else’s reality.
But deep down, he knew it wouldn’t be that easy.
“Red 38,” Jay stated. He handed his chips to the croupier, who stacked them on the side of the table with the bets from the other players. Then he gave the roulette wheel a spin. Jay watched as the colors bled together, streaking in an ugly smear of crimson gray. After a few seconds, the croupier tossed the ball down the spinning track. It bounced and rolled every which way before coming to rest in one of the 38 slots. Red 38 exactly.
“Damn, you’re on a roll,” the croupier said. He handed Jay his original chips plus the payout. “Sure you want to keep going? This luck of yours can’t last forever.”
“I’m sure,” Jay answered. He took a deep breath, waiting for the answer to wash over him like it always did. Then he placed his chips back down on the table and stated, “Black 13. Last bet.”
The croupier shrugged and took the chips. They went through the same routine. The roulette wheel spun in its blurry circle, and the ball bounced around for a while before plunking into its final slot. Black 13.
Jay ignored the astonished remarks of the croupier and accepted his winnings silently. He couldn’t stay at this table forever, so he turned away from the Rose Bowl Roulette and cast his eyes across the casino. The night was lengthening and the room was filling up with players, most of them clutching thin glasses of cognac and laughing with their friends. He searched for any sign of Farrow’s men, but it was useless – he’d never find them in this crowd.
He didn’t want to look, but he couldn’t help glancing at the Gold King’s looming statue. It was still dark and silent. Now that the place was getting busy, though, the chances of someone winning the jackpot had risen significantly. Time was running out.
Jay hated using what he knew to win games. It was one thing to find the pattern of outcomes for a slot machine; anyone with half a brain and enough time on their hands could do the same. But what he could do was cheating. No one could ever catch him at it, which somehow made it worse. He’d decided a long time ago that he’d never do exactly what he was doing now.
But he didn’t have a choice. He was over halfway to his goal, closer to three-fourths, really, and he couldn’t afford to waste time now. If he had to cheat, then so be it. Too much was at stake tonight.
The years following Jay’s escape passed in a dreamlike sort of blur. He moved out west, hopping briefly from town to town and spending his nights in cheap hotel rooms. He had to pay in cash, of course, since his credit card account had recently ceased to exist. Luckily he had plenty to go around. He had a natural talent for hustling, and he won most of his money by playing pool games or dealing hands of poker in the back of shady bars.
He never stayed with the same car for too long. He always knew when some idiot driver had left their keys in the ignition, and he took every opportunity to hop in a new vehicle and continue the journey west. He felt a little guilty about hijacking so many rides, but it never bothered him for long. He was far more afraid of Farrow catching up to him.
Occasionally he would seek out some underground sources who had a reputation for forging documents. He needed a new identity, which meant a new birth certificate and social security card and everything. He eventually settled on the name Jay Everett – “Jay” after the first letter of his old name, and “Everett” after a small saloon he’d passed through in Denver. He didn’t get all his documents forged in one location. He staggered them, picking up a new one every few stops to try and throw Farrow off his trail.
By the time he reached Nevada, he figured he’d placed enough distance between himself and Farrow to finally settle down. He got a low-level office job and rented out a tiny apartment at the edge of Boulder City. As the years passed and his stint with Farrow faded from his memory, he finally began to live a normal life again.
He fell in love. He married a beautiful girl named Marcia Thorne who knew nothing about his past, and they had a son together. Trace Everett. He grew up like any ordinary boy, kicking soccer balls around the yard and playing hide-and-seek with the other kids in the neighborhood. When he turned seven they even bought him a small black-and-white dachshund that he affectionately dubbed “Billy.” From that point on the boy and the dog were inseparable; they often went on walks together before his parents called them in for dinner.
Jay was happy. He’d gotten away from his past; he’d moved on from a life he thought would haunt him forever. He made love to his beautiful wife and watched cartoons with Trace on Saturdays. It was a perfect routine, and he never wanted it to end.
Then one night, ten years after Jay had made his escape from Farrow’s compound, a power surge went through their entire house. The Everetts had been enjoying their Sunday dinner when it happened. The bulb above the kitchen table gave a loud sputter before dying out completely. Billy gave a loud bark and began running in circles around the table.
“Calm down boy, it’s just a blackout,” Trace said. He got out of his chair and restrained the dog before he could knock into any of the table legs.
“That’s funny,” Marcy said, peering out the window. “The neighbors’ houses still have power.” Jay joined her by the window, frowning.
“Hmm. Must be something wrong with our circuit breaker,” he said. “You two go look for some flashlights. I’ll see if I can fix the problem.”
The three of them wandered off, stumbling their way through the dark. Jay found the door to the basement and began climbing downward, clinging carefully to the railing. He knew the breaker was located at the bottom of the steps, right next to the garage. He reached the end of the stairs and fumbled in the gloom for the circuit box.
To his surprise, the door to the box was already wide open. As Jay’s eyes adjusted somewhat to the darkness, he saw that every single wire in the box had been snipped cleanly in half. Shit, he thought, oh shit, I should have known. But it was too late now. He felt the muzzle of a gun dig into his shoulder blades.
“I’ve been looking a long time for you,” Farrow said. His voice floated through the darkness in a soft, amused sort of growl. “You’re the one that got away. Isn’t that cute? You wouldn’t believe how many goddamn hoops I had to jump through just to track you down. But now I’ve got you.”
“It’s been ten years,” Jay hissed. “Ten fucking years. What could you possibly want?”
Farrow made a disapproving sound with his tongue. “We’ll get to that in a moment,” he said. “First, we have some introductions to make.”
Right on cue, Billy began barking furiously in the kitchen. Jay could hear Trace’s high-pitched voice trying to shout over him. “No, no, what are you doing, stop, he’s just a dog HE’S JUST A DOG STOP IT –”
Then a gunshot, a muffled whimper, and a shriek that could only have been Marcy. “Jay!” she screamed. “Oh god, oh god, there’s men in the house, they’ve got guns! They shot Billy!”
“Time for our big entrance,” Farrow laughed. He shoved Jay in the back with his pistol, forcing him up the basement steps. Jay plodded forward, hardly able to feel his feet. This must be a nightmare, he thought. I’m going to wake up any second now. But he knew that wasn’t true, the same way he knew so many other impossible things.
When Farrow pushed him into the kitchen, four dark shapes were waiting for him there. Two of them were Trace and Marcy, their hands behind their heads, their entire upper bodies trembling. The other two were some of Farrow’s masked associates. Each one held a pistol to the head of the prisoner beside them.
Marcy let out a sob when she saw Jay climbing up the steps. “Oh god, Jay, not you too?”
“Quiet,” one of the masked figures ordered. His voice sounded strangely distorted, like he was speaking through a filter. Marcy drew in a shuddery breath but stayed quiet.
“So, the gang’s all here!” Farrow exclaimed. “Wonderful.” He performed an exaggerated bow, his gun still nestled in the small of Jay’s back. “I’m Rick Farrow, a man of many trades. Right now I’m a man with a gun. Funny how that gives you so much power, doesn’t it?”
Jay said nothing. In his mind’s eye he could see the gun Farrow was holding, a thin barreled pistol that looked like something out of a Western. A Colt Paterson revolver, his brain spat out uselessly. As if it mattered. It would put a large hole in his chest no matter what type of gun it was.
“It appears you folks have already met my men,” Farrow went on. “They’re pretty low on the corporate ladder, but they do what they’re told, and what more could a man ask for?” He lifted the gun from Jay’s back to do a mock sort of clap with both hands. Jay wasn’t fooled; he didn’t move an inch. He was still Farrow’s prisoner, even if he was no longer at gunpoint.
“What do you want with us?” Marcy asked. Her face was damp with tears, but she’d managed to steady her breathing. Trace leaned against his mother’s legs with a scrunched up expression of anger in his eyes. He was trying so hard not to cry. Jay did his best to look away from the furry mass on the floor that used to be Trace’s beloved dog.
“What do I want?” Farrow said. “Ah, therein lies the question.” He turned his attention back to Jay, his eyes still bright and glassy blue in the darkness.
“So, you go by ‘Jay’ now, do you?” He said it again, slowly this time, as if to savor its taste. “Jay. I like it. Nice and low-key. It suits you well.” He gave Jay a casual tap on the shoulder with his pistol. A toothless smile appeared on his face when he saw Jay wince.
“You were good, Jay,” Farrow said quietly. “You were one of my best, actually. When you took off like that, I knew it wouldn’t be easy to find you. But I kept trying. The other tech-heads made stupid mistakes, botched their missions; they were disposable. But you. You were the grand prize, the golden fleece. I needed you back. You did stuff with numbers that could make a fella’s heart sing.”
Here Farrow paused. His glassy eyes were staring more intently at Jay this time, a careful sort of scrutiny that made his skin grow cold.
“But it’s not just numbers, is it? You see things. Patterns, clues, tiny details other people would miss. That’s what makes you so special. That’s why I need you.”
“Just tell me,” Jay spat through clenched teeth. “Tell me what you want to do. I’ll do anything.”
This time the smile that creased Farrow’s bony cheeks was wide and toothy. “Now that’s more like it,” he said. “Have I got a job for you, big boy. This one’ll be right up your alley.”
Jay said nothing, waiting for Farrow to break the silence first.
“Here’s the thing,” Farrow said at last. “There’s a man out in Las Vegas by the name of Jonas Carver. He runs a big casino in the heart of the city called Twin Pines. My men and I have been eyeing the place for years and we’re just about ready to strike him where it hurts.” He pointed an enthusiastic finger at Jay. “What I want you to do is take a hefty chunk out of this man’s wallet. Let’s say… $19,000. Enough to make him question the security in his casino. Afterwards, when he’s checking for cracks, we’ll sneak in and do our part.”
“Are you going to kill him?” Jay said. His voice came out hoarse and weak.
Farrow grinned. “Don’t worry about Mr. Jonas Carver. He’ll be in good hands. You just focus on playing the right games and making the most moolah.”
Jay’s neck felt stiff as a board, but he nodded. “I’ll do it,” he insisted. “Just let them go.”
“Ah,” Farrow said. “We’ve reached that little snag.” He began pacing the kitchen floor in front of Jay, swinging his revolver like a baseball bat. “See, the thing is, I can’t do that. I need a little insurance here. If I let them go, what’s stopping you from running off to the West Indies for another ten years or so?”
“I won’t,” Jay managed to choke out. “Listen to me, goddammit. I won’t run. Just let them go.”
Farrow pretended to think about it for a second. “Nah,” he decided. “Tell you what. Let’s play a game instead. Inside the Twin Pines Casino, there’s a wheel-of-fortune type game called Gold King. You can’t miss it. It’s got this ugly fucking statue of a cartoon king on top. Every night, without fail, someone wins the jackpot and bells go off and that statue waves its flashing staff at everyone. But only once. For the rest of the night it’s just a statue.”
When Farrow turned to Jay again, his eyes were icy. “Tomorrow night,” he said. “You have until the Gold King goes off to make $19,000. Otherwise your family gets it.” He made a careless gesture at them with his pistol. “One shot each, right in the head. Boom. Boom. And you have to watch.”
“I’ll do it,” Jay repeated. “I’ll play your goddamn game the way you want. But unless I fail, you’d better not lay a finger on them.”
Farrow was examining something under one of his fingernails. “Done,” he stated. He waved his hand absently toward the door. “Take them away, men. You know where to go.”
The two masked men dragged Marcy and Trace out the back door, both of them crying out and struggling to get free. “Be quiet,” the first masked figure said in his distorted voice. “If you don’t shut up, we’ll make you shut up.”
Both of them immediately quieted down, but they couldn’t hide the expressions of pure fear that were plastered across their faces. Jay felt blood pumping furiously through his veins as he watched his family getting dragged away. Farrow lifted his hand and gave them a pleasant wave as they disappeared out the back door.
In the side window of the kitchen, Jay managed to catch a glimpse of Marcy’s face for what he hoped wasn’t the last time ever. He blew her a kiss with trembling lips, but the masked men shoved her and Trace into a waiting van before she could see it. Then the two of them were gone.
Jay was in the middle of a poker game when the Gold King bells went off.
He’d managed to keep his cool throughout the entire night, but the blood drained from his face when he heard the loud clanging noise echoing through the casino. He turned to see the cartoon statue gamboling in place, flashing its toothy smile at the surrounding players. The scepter in its hand was dancing with flecks of neon light.
No, he thought in disbelief. No, not yet! I was almost there!
He’d been so close to the $19,000 mark that this poker game would probably have pushed him over the edge. The Gold King had gone off just as he was about to play his final hand. Now he watched the statue spin in lazy circles, its hideous bells still ringing in his eardrums.
“Hey,” a voice said suddenly. It was the dealer, trying to get Jay’s attention. “Hey buddy, this is the last hand. Are you calling or folding?”
Jay looked at him in surprise, then down at the cards in his shaky fingers. He hadn’t even bothered to look at them yet. What was even stranger, his usual powers of perception were failing him. He knew what all the other hands looked like, he knew who was bluffing through their teeth and who posed a legitimate threat, but he didn’t even know what cards he was holding.
He wondered how long it would take for Farrow’s men to cut through the crowd and take him away. He figured he had about thirty seconds, a minute at most. Was it possible? Could he make enough off this hand to complete Farrow’s sick challenge? The Gold King hadn’t finished its death knoll yet when the final hand was dealt. It was a technicality, but he was banking on it. It might just save Marcy and Trace’s lives. Now it was up to these last five cards to decide if they saw the light of another day.
He offered a quick prayer to a God he never believed in. Then he turned the cards over and stared down at the hand he’d been dealt.