True Unicorn Stories

[tableplay]

The following is a true story. It is a story about how I blew a Unicorn opportunity. Around 2004 (IIRC), there was an online casino called CasinoSilver.com. It was a Parlay Entertainment site. What lured me there was that they had the 104% deuces wild that paid 5 coins for one coin bet not only for the 4K but for the FH too. They thought the bastardization of the 5K,WRF and SF was enough to do the RTP in, but it wasn't. But here was the thing - Parlay Entertainment software has a gaff setting, random (fair) setting, and a demo (for fun - no wagering and no login required) setting based on my exploitation of bingo sites that had this software back then (you got bingo sized bonuses up to 500% and video poker was considered a "side game" that counted towards wagering requirements which were 10x or less back then). The plan was to wager some hands at low levels to determine if it was the fair setting and then do the necessary 4% grindfest if it was the fair setting. It was pretty easy to tell if it was on the gaffed setting - nothing would get through. It has been too many years to quantify it - but you know what I mean hopefully.

So I start playing some small wagers (5x5c or 25 cents IIRC) and I am getting dealt ducks left and right. And it was raining 4Ks,5Ks,and WRFs on the draws - along with 4 ducks more often than it should also (I can't remember exactly so I am not going try and quantify it - but it was amazing). I cautiously step up my bet sizes and the ridiculous avalanche of duck showers continue. I'm up to about $1000 in no time starting from a $50 bank roll. What's more, you could go up to 5x$100 which I was too scared to wager at (I toggled it up that high but never placed a wager). Well I didn't want to torch it, plus I wanted to test the withdrawal from this possibly rogue casino, so I withdrew around $1500 IIRC to my Neteller account. Well they processed my withdrawal over the next few days.

Obviously then, it was time to get down to business - so I typed in the casinosilver.com URL into my Netscape browser or whatever the fuck I was using at the time, and low and behold, the site was down and never came up again. LMFAO.

So what happened ? Let's break it down:
1. The fuck-up admin who set up the site obviously put the wagering Parlay software in demo mode which played at some ridiculous astronomical +EV RTP. I should have known this anyway since you could toggle up to $500 per spin which you would never be able to do with the proper implementation of the software in real/wagering mode.
2. Other people, who weren't as dumb as me, almost certainly torched the site and that was that (they probably made millions or weren't paid out, or were paid out some fraction of what they actually won). I should have torched it of course - who the fuck cares if they lose their $50 deposit; well me I guess, LOL.

Don't blow your once in a lifetime opportunity, like I did.

That is the first and possibly last post in this thread - successful Unicorn stories, failed Unicorn stories like mine, and totally unrelated posts (except for Monopoly Game piece posts) are most welcome.

[redietz]

I have one for you. I was saving this for my autobiography, but what the hell.

The year was 1989. A sports daily, named The National, was due to start publishing in January 1990. During the 1989 football season, The National ran a series of money-making promotional weekly football contests. You called a 900 number for $5, picked the games in a lineup of a dozen that they featured each of 12 weeks, and if you had the best record for a week out of tens of thousands of people, you became one of a dozen "guest handicappers" who would sign a contract to be featured for the following (1990) season. They paid you 5K. The deal was you would write and handicap games for The National, and at the end of the 1990 season, they would hire one of the "guests" as their permanent featured football expert. You didn't have to outperform the other 11 necessarily, but the understanding was that you had to demonstrate that you could write and handicap football.

The 900 line contest went for 11 weeks, and I never entered because it was clear there were 20,000 people in the thing each week and you would have to win all of the games (outright, no spreads, but the games were all toss-ups). I wasn't going to waste five bucks a week on nonsense.

Then the 12th and final week, I peeked at the lineup -- all college games -- and I thought, "You know, I think I know who's going to win these games." About half of the games were not toss-ups. And I liked a couple of underdogs to win outright. So, what the hell, I spent my five bucks, called, and put in my selections. I believe there were a dozen games.

Well, what do you know, I won all of the games. And sure enough, The National called, told me that I'd won, and faxed me a contract for 5K to handicap and be in their paper for the 1990 season. Mike Lee, who I learned through mutual clients did things similarly to me, was the sports editor for The National. He was in charge. The guy who coordinated the contest and the 12 people was named Cy Cerro.

So I signed the contract and sent it back to them.

I figured, I get 5K. I'm just one out of 12, but I'm likely the only ex-journalism major, sportswriter, and professional handicapper to win one of these weekly things out of 20K people each week. They are probably going to love me. Mike Lee will probably love me. Unless I bomb out against the spread (always a possibility), I'm likely a shoo-in.

Well, the 1989 football season ended, 1990 started, and The National began publishing, on a very limited basis in New York. I was supposed to start writing for the next football season. When summer came, The National expanded to more cities and began their national distribution. They bombed horribly. In a span of a couple of weeks, they underperformed in an unbelievable fashion and headed right onto the rails of bankruptcy. They ceased publishing before the 1990 football season even kicked off, which was incredibly bad scheduling on their part. Their national distribution lasted just a couple of weeks.

As one of the 12 "winners," I was left high and dry. No fame on a national stage (which would have made my career by itself, whether I was the eventual hire or not). No working under the legendary Mike Lee. No calls from the networks -- LOL. And no, because I never got to write about football, I didn't even get the 5K.

All because I made a good gambling call recognizing when I had a chance and then outperforming 20,000 other people by going undefeated.

C'est la vie.

[accountinquestion]

I haven't read the thread where there was unicorn talk last night because I don't currently wish to deal with the various trolling I will inevitably have spawned. Live by it die by it.

So at one point i was hanging out on a crypto forum. bitcointalk.org. There is even a climate change thread out there where I take on a fucking squad of deniers single-handedly. There was a crowd-sourced token announced on here. One of the very early ones. So you could get 1/4000th of the coin by paying like $40 in BTC and having a unique email address. So I sat and did about 10 of them before guilt kicked in and I stopped. So this project goes on for some time and I don't pay much attention to it but I own 1/4th of 1%? I forget now. I just see a lot of pumping about community and that stuff. Nothing really suggested the token

So at some point people are able to cash out before the blockchain goes live. The main guy in charge of it says he was taken by an auto-completion + spreadsheet mistake on his part and he just shipped off funds to some unknown person. Very sketch. The whole project just didn't really seem to be going anywhere so I decide hey, I will 10x my $500ish investment and have 4.5k. Easy enough. Executed. THen over the next year or 2 I see the market cap grow and grow. It has went down now so if I had held on it appears it would be worth 500k. The peak was 5 million.

I have lots of other stories though but they're just from projects that I let stall out that would have almost been guaranteed to have made me wealthy if I had finished execution and stuck with it. oh well. life isn't exactly hard for me so how can I complain. It was always my own fault. Well, mostly. If there is one thing I am that is a fuck-up.

[regnis]

About 40 years ago, the Fairgrounds Race Track in New Orleans increased win place and show bets to a $3.00 minimum from the normal $2.00. My bookie at that time did not know that and paid me during the entire meet at $3.00 payoffs for a $2.00 bet. Now that is an AP play!!!

[Tasha]

I won $90 on a .01 bet This was back when I was only doing .01 bets. Even people who ragged and dragged me for only playing.01 bets were like,"$90 on a .01 bet is actually a beyond phenomenal payout. "

[Gottlob1]

[Dan Druff]

"How the Colorado Rockies almost cost me $1,000,000 in 2000"

[accountinquestion]

THis just happened tonight. Well I play slots at this CET property and had some freeplay. There was a drawing that started at a certain time. At drawing time I am looking over someone's shoulder and I see a grid of buttons with prizes. Everyone is confused. "What do I do? just press one?" $2500 FP on down. Promo chips and the items they were giving away. Everything had a button !

Turns out all you had to do is press one of the buttons. I didn't think much when I saw it over someone's shoulder and ended up at a different kiosk because of lines. Why would one ever expect such a thing? At the new line the woman 2 in front of me is talking how the guy before her got 2500. She was able to pickoff 2 prizes for like 1750? These appeared to all be small players. The guy in front of me gets like $1000 in promo chips then his guaranteed $40. The bigger buttons were greyed out. By the time I was up there most of them seem to be picked over so I made like $900ish. I don't remember what buttons I pressed but I believe I had 2 picks but they were well picked over by the time I was up.

IMO someone fucked up big. $40 FP players pulling down $1000 by just hitting a button. The lady 2 in front me had her night made. She was questioning whether she would get the $1750 FP.That mistake likely cost at least 100k although a ton will just be dumped back. THe expenditure was far more than their typical weekend giveaway by at least 10x.

Someone gonna be fired.

[DGenBen]

THis just happened tonight. Well I play slots at this CET property and had some freeplay. There was a drawing that started at a certain time. At drawing time I am looking over someone's shoulder and I see a grid of buttons with prizes. Everyone is confused. "What do I do? just press one?" $2500 FP on down. Promo chips and the items they were giving away. Everything had a button !

Turns out all you had to do is press one of the buttons. I didn't think much when I saw it over someone's shoulder and ended up at a different kiosk because of lines. Why would one ever expect such a thing? At the new line the woman 2 in front of me is talking how the guy before her got 2500. She was able to pickoff 2 prizes for like 1750? These appeared to all be small players. The guy in front of me gets like $1000 in promo chips then his guaranteed $40. The bigger buttons were greyed out. By the time I was up there most of them seem to be picked over so I made like $900ish. I don't remember what buttons I pressed but I believe I had 2 picks but they were well picked over by the time I was up.

IMO someone fucked up big. $40 FP players pulling down $1000 by just hitting a button. The lady 2 in front me had her night made. She was questioning whether she would get the $1750 FP.That mistake likely cost at least 100k although a ton will just be dumped back. THe expenditure was far more than their typical weekend giveaway by at least 10x.

Someone gonna be fired.

Reminds me of the time San Manuel had the free play error where they were giving away $500 or $750 to their high tier players & there was a system glitch that caused all those players to get $50,000 or $75,000 in error.

Don’t think many people made off with much money though because their machines lock up & go to a hand pay if you try to cash out $3,000 or more so people were down loading the freeplay, playing it through & then the machine would go to hand pay if they tried to cash out & several people in the high limit room had this happen at once so the casino figured out pretty quickly what was going on.

Obviously better ways to extract the free play quickly & leave with out locking up machines if one was so inclined.

[accountinquestion]

THis just happened tonight. Well I play slots at this CET property and had some freeplay. There was a drawing that started at a certain time. At drawing time I am looking over someone's shoulder and I see a grid of buttons with prizes. Everyone is confused. "What do I do? just press one?" $2500 FP on down. Promo chips and the items they were giving away. Everything had a button !

Turns out all you had to do is press one of the buttons. I didn't think much when I saw it over someone's shoulder and ended up at a different kiosk because of lines. Why would one ever expect such a thing? At the new line the woman 2 in front of me is talking how the guy before her got 2500. She was able to pickoff 2 prizes for like 1750? These appeared to all be small players. The guy in front of me gets like $1000 in promo chips then his guaranteed $40. The bigger buttons were greyed out. By the time I was up there most of them seem to be picked over so I made like $900ish. I don't remember what buttons I pressed but I believe I had 2 picks but they were well picked over by the time I was up.

IMO someone fucked up big. $40 FP players pulling down $1000 by just hitting a button. The lady 2 in front me had her night made. She was questioning whether she would get the $1750 FP.That mistake likely cost at least 100k although a ton will just be dumped back. THe expenditure was far more than their typical weekend giveaway by at least 10x.

Someone gonna be fired.

Reminds me of the time San Manuel had the free play error where they were giving away $500 or $750 to their high tier players & there was a system glitch that caused all those players to get $50,000 or $75,000 in error.

Don’t think many people made off with much money though because their machines lock up & go to a hand pay if you try to cash out $3,000 or more so people were down loading the freeplay, playing it through & then the machine would go to hand pay if they tried to cash out & several people in the high limit room had this happen at once so the casino figured out pretty quickly what was going on.

Obviously better ways to extract the free play quickly & leave with out locking up machines if one was so inclined.

I am not sure if the rumors of Caesars being hacked are true or not but it'd be funny if the hacker got into all promo system and just jacked them up so each casino gave away 10x what they intended.

[Tasha]

THis just happened tonight. Well I play slots at this CET property and had some freeplay. There was a drawing that started at a certain time. At drawing time I am looking over someone's shoulder and I see a grid of buttons with prizes. Everyone is confused. "What do I do? just press one?" $2500 FP on down. Promo chips and the items they were giving away. Everything had a button !

Turns out all you had to do is press one of the buttons. I didn't think much when I saw it over someone's shoulder and ended up at a different kiosk because of lines. Why would one ever expect such a thing? At the new line the woman 2 in front of me is talking how the guy before her got 2500. She was able to pickoff 2 prizes for like 1750? These appeared to all be small players. The guy in front of me gets like $1000 in promo chips then his guaranteed $40. The bigger buttons were greyed out. By the time I was up there most of them seem to be picked over so I made like $900ish. I don't remember what buttons I pressed but I believe I had 2 picks but they were well picked over by the time I was up.

IMO someone fucked up big. $40 FP players pulling down $1000 by just hitting a button. The lady 2 in front me had her night made. She was questioning whether she would get the $1750 FP.That mistake likely cost at least 100k although a ton will just be dumped back. THe expenditure was far more than their typical weekend giveaway by at least 10x.

Someone gonna be fired.

Reminds me of the time San Manuel had the free play error where they were giving away $500 or $750 to their high tier players & there was a system glitch that caused all those players to get $50,000 or $75,000 in error.

Don’t think many people made off with much money though because their machines lock up & go to a hand pay if you try to cash out $3,000 or more so people were down loading the freeplay, playing it through & then the machine would go to hand pay if they tried to cash out & several people in the high limit room had this happen at once so the casino figured out pretty quickly what was going on.

Obviously better ways to extract the free play quickly & leave with out locking up machines if one was so inclined.

I am not sure if the rumors of Caesars being hacked are true or not but it'd be funny if the hacker got into all promo system and just jacked them up so each casino gave away 10x what they intended.

But Casino Players could get into trouble for taking advantage of lucrative glitch bonuses like that. A woman got an unexpected $300 free play added to her Player's Club Card. She thought,"How nice, the Casino gave me an unexpected gift!" And played the unexpected $300 free play. She came back like a year later and asked for a new Player's Club Card and was told she was actually on the ban list for playing a $300 free play glitch that she was never meant to have. She was shocked as she legitimately thought the unexpected $300 free play was an unexpected gift from the Casino and would never have played it if she knew it was a glitch.

[accountinquestion]

But Casino Players could get into trouble for taking advantage of lucrative glitch bonuses like that. A woman got an unexpected $300 free play added to her Player's Club Card. She thought,"How nice, the Casino gave me an unexpected gift!" And played the unexpected $300 free play. She came back like a year later and asked for a new Player's Club Card and was told she was actually on the ban list for playing a $300 free play glitch that she was never meant to have. She was shocked as she legitimately thought the unexpected $300 free play was an unexpected gift from the Casino and would never have played it if she knew it was a glitch.

It is hard to imagine customers who came in on a promo day and gambled away for a shot would have their cards cut-off. This was an option on a Kiosk as part of an advertised promo where people gambled to win. I hear what you're saying but I would be surprised. Casinos need customers and not to alienate them over their own fuckups.

That woman was happy as a lark getting $1700 while expecting like $50. She didn't even believe it'd be on her card. God I'd love to hear the internal deliberations over this.

[jdog]

I am not sure if the rumors of Caesars being hacked are true or not

Oh I don't think it's a rumor. There are legit reports all over the internet. I'm keeping a close eye on my CC charges because of it.

Caesars was able to keep it quieter than MGM because their customer-facing systems were not affected.

[Tasha]

But Casino Players could get into trouble for taking advantage of lucrative glitch bonuses like that. A woman got an unexpected $300 free play added to her Player's Club Card. She thought,"How nice, the Casino gave me an unexpected gift!" And played the unexpected $300 free play. She came back like a year later and asked for a new Player's Club Card and was told she was actually on the ban list for playing a $300 free play glitch that she was never meant to have. She was shocked as she legitimately thought the unexpected $300 free play was an unexpected gift from the Casino and would never have played it if she knew it was a glitch.

It is hard to imagine customers who came in on a promo day and gambled away for a shot would have their cards cut-off. This was an option on a Kiosk as part of an advertised promo where people gambled to win. I hear what you're saying but I would be surprised. Casinos need customers and not to alienate them over their own fuckups.

That woman was happy as a lark getting $1700 while expecting like $50. She didn't even believe it'd be on her card. God I'd love to hear the internal deliberations over this.

I personally used the glitch woman's cautionary tale to heart when I was expecting like $3 in free play at a Casino and saw I had $13 in free play (This was back when I was still mainly only playing.01 bets, seems like a lifetime ago, ) and I immediately thought of the glitch woman and went to Player's Club to make sure that extra $10 was REALLY my free play and I was told I was getting compensated for a day I had played hard and wasn't just playing .01 bets and that extra $10 was REALLY my free play. I used the extra $10 in free play.

[accountinquestion]

I personally used the glitch woman's cautionary tale to heart when I was expecting like $3 in free play at a Casino and saw I had $13 in free play (This was back when I was still mainly only playing.01 bets, seems like a lifetime ago, ) and I immediately thought of the glitch woman and went to Player's Club to make sure that extra $10 was REALLY my free play and I was told I was getting compensated for a day I had played hard and wasn't just playing .01 bets and that extra $10 was REALLY my free play. I used the extra $10 in free play.

Very interesting. You may be the only person on this board with real honest true to the bone integrity.

[DGenBen]

But Casino Players could get into trouble for taking advantage of lucrative glitch bonuses like that. A woman got an unexpected $300 free play added to her Player's Club Card. She thought,"How nice, the Casino gave me an unexpected gift!" And played the unexpected $300 free play. She came back like a year later and asked for a new Player's Club Card and was told she was actually on the ban list for playing a $300 free play glitch that she was never meant to have. She was shocked as she legitimately thought the unexpected $300 free play was an unexpected gift from the Casino and would never have played it if she knew it was a glitch.

It is hard to imagine customers who came in on a promo day and gambled away for a shot would have their cards cut-off. This was an option on a Kiosk as part of an advertised promo where people gambled to win. I hear what you're saying but I would be surprised. Casinos need customers and not to alienate them over their own fuckups.

That woman was happy as a lark getting $1700 while expecting like $50. She didn't even believe it'd be on her card. God I'd love to hear the internal deliberations over this.

I personally used the glitch woman's cautionary tale to heart when I was expecting like $3 in free play at a Casino and saw I had $13 in free play (This was back when I was still mainly only playing.01 bets, seems like a lifetime ago, ) and I immediately thought of the glitch woman and went to Player's Club to make sure that extra $10 was REALLY my free play and I was told I was getting compensated for a day I had played hard and wasn't just playing .01 bets and that extra $10 was REALLY my free play. I used the extra $10 in free play.

Wow, the heavy day of playing must have been strong for them to more than quadruple it from $3 to $13

On the heavy day of playing were you doing 2 cent bets? Or were you high rolling it with nickel bets?

Good thing you confirmed with them the $10 was not a mistake.

Very tempting with that kind of money to just take it, but you don’t want to risk a ban hammer coming down & lose out on the chance to get $90 jackpots on 1 cent bets in the future.

[Tasha]

It is hard to imagine customers who came in on a promo day and gambled away for a shot would have their cards cut-off. This was an option on a Kiosk as part of an advertised promo where people gambled to win. I hear what you're saying but I would be surprised. Casinos need customers and not to alienate them over their own fuckups.

That woman was happy as a lark getting $1700 while expecting like $50. She didn't even believe it'd be on her card. God I'd love to hear the internal deliberations over this.

I personally used the glitch woman's cautionary tale to heart when I was expecting like $3 in free play at a Casino and saw I had $13 in free play (This was back when I was still mainly only playing.01 bets, seems like a lifetime ago, ) and I immediately thought of the glitch woman and went to Player's Club to make sure that extra $10 was REALLY my free play and I was told I was getting compensated for a day I had played hard and wasn't just playing .01 bets and that extra $10 was REALLY my free play. I used the extra $10 in free play.

Wow, the heavy day of playing must have been strong for them to more than quadruple it from $3 to $13

On the heavy day of playing were you doing 2 cent bets? Or were you high rolling it with nickel bets?

Good thing you confirmed with them the $10 was not a mistake.

Very tempting with that kind of money to just take it, but you don’t want to risk a ban hammer coming down & lose out on the chance to get $90 jackpots on 1 cent bets in the future.

Hey, that $90 on a 1 cent bet was no joke! I made 9,000 times my bet on that bet! I could have made like $500 if JUST the Top Symbol , Queen Cleopatra by herself had showed up. I got a mix of the main Top Symbol and the second top symbol, Pharaoh Ramses. Cleopatra Symbol multiplied the Pharaoh Ramses by like 9 times. Pharaoh Ramses by just himself was like $ 10, but her multiplying him by 9 times gave me $90 on a .01 bet! Queen Cleopatra multiplies herself too by like 10 times, and a row of her is $50. So her multiplying herself by 10 is a $500 win! Aw man, can you imagine if I had won $500 on a .01 bet?! It would have been 50,000 times my bet!

[Gottlob1]

$39.7 Million – Excalibur Casino, Las Vegas

The largest jackpot on a slot machine at any casino took place at the Excalibur Casino in Las Vegas. Way back in 2003, the winner was a young software engineer who chose to remain anonymous. This gambler from Los Angeles dropped a mere $100 into the slot machine. Another Megabucks slot with a huge progressive jackpot, had to pay out to one lucky person at some point, and it ended up being his day.

[Tasha]

Here are two full lines of just Queen Cleopatra by herself. And another one had almost a full line of Queen Cleopatra. This is just the base game and he won over $2,000 on just a $2.50 bet.

In the bonus game, she multiplies herself by like 10 times, so this could have easily been like a $40,000 win on just $2.50! :O

[accountinquestion]

Here are two full lines of just Queen Cleopatra by herself. And another one had almost a full line of Queen Cleopatra. This is just the base game and he won over $2,000 on just a $2.50 bet.

In the bonus game, she multiplies herself by like 10 times, so this could have easily been like a $40,000 win on just $2.50! :O

When you hit 40k jackpot - mind on sharing your plans.