This is one of questions that doesn’t have one pat answer, but gave us some thoughts we wanted to share, so we’re running with it:
I was playing across from a woman who won 546 free games. During the course of those games she won close to 300 more! What if she had to catch a tourist bus or something before the games completed – what would the casino do for her?
Ann B.
This is one of those scenarios that give us a bit of stress, because while most slots don’t have long bonuses, there are certainly some that do, and so this falls into the realm of plausibility. But there’s a few things that can be leveraged here.
Rapid Firing
Most games like these that have lots of free spins allow you to speed through them. Planet Moolah, various Konami games like China Shores, you can move things along like skipping the count-ups. Newer iterations of these games with tons of spins even complete multiple spins at a time – we recently saw a China Shores variant that was working through a whole set of spins on a big screen at the same time, so you could complete them faster.
Long bonuses can sound attractive to us, but to the casino it’s a game that’s not making any money, and slot makers continue to take various actions to make a bonus resolve a little bit quicker. But even on the old school ones you can move things along.
Credit Prize Option
On those Konami games you also generally have the option to pick a credit prize, dispensing with the free spins altogether. That would certainly solve the problem of someone who had a time crunch and couldn’t stay around for 800 spins.
The credit prizes are randomized just like the free spins are, so you don’t know if doing one or the other would be better or worse, but it would ensure the player is able to leave with their winnings and not miss their bus.
Avoid Games Like This Just Before Needing to Leave
And of course it goes without saying that, if a player knows their time is short, it may not be the right game to play. Of course, once you trigger such a massive bonus, it’s a bit late for that decision making, but it’s good advice to players who may have this sort of time limit.
So, What Would Casinos Do?
Ultimately, there’s no one answer – casinos are governed by regulations, which vary by state and/or local jurisdictions. There’s also house rules for when those regulations don’t cover the scenarios or simply don’t have to.
Whether the casino is able to let a bonus play out while a player isn’t there, if it’s considered an abandoned machine, etc., will likely depend on the casino. A machine has to be on and active for a bonus to proceed, so they can’t, say, lock the machine and just pay out what it would be, because it’s not determined until the bonus is over on most traditional slot bonuses.
We’ve ourselves experienced a situation where a machine malfunctioned mid-bonus, and the slot tech on duty at the time wasn’t able to fix it, so it had to wait for the lead tech the next day. In that scenario, the tech fixed it, the bonus played out, and they called us back to claim the bonus.
So if a casino is willing to do that, presumably the scenario of letting the bonus play out and allowing the player to return and claim the bonus isn’t out of the realm of possibility, but we couldn’t guarantee every casino would have that policy.
So that last piece of advice still applies – to be super sure, don’t play a game that can have a very long bonus if you don’t have the time available to sit back and enjoy. Or perhaps be willing to speed it along and/or accept the credit prize should it happen.
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