A couple of years ago, my mom and I were playing some old video poker machine. You could try to double your winnings in the game by picking the high or low card.

An elderly couple was sitting next to us and the man noticed how conservative my mom was with her playing, and kept encouraging her to go for it. He definitely made it more exciting by getting us to take more chances, and we were all having a lot of fun.

An hour or two later, when he and his wife got up to leave, he wanted to give me their two buckets of quarters. I tried to decline several times, but they both insisted, saying that I had made their night. Later, mom and I counted the quarters and found out that there was almost $400 in those buckets!

My story takes place in the city of Tbilisi (Georgia), where I lived for three years with my father. We used to go to the casino in the city often, but I’ll never forget this one night because the next day we had to catch a plane to Italy to attend my sister’s wedding.

After several hours of gambling, my father noticed that he had played all the money we had, including the money intended for my sister! We only had 100$ left!

My father took the remaining $100 and played video poker games, making 10 to 100 credit bets. After 3 or 4 games, my father held the A, Q & J of hearts in his hand and discarded the other two cards. Next thing we knew, we were hearing jingles and the machines siren lit up. My dad had been dealt the K and 10 of hearts, scoring a Royal Flush. We won 5,000$!

I still have the photo from that casino session, a day I’ll never forget. We were able to give my sister a more beautiful gift.

My hubby and I are a part of a team of ghost investigators. We were an hour early before our "lockdown" at the prison we were investigating, so I decided to waste that time in a casino near the jail. This was my first time ever to any casino.

I sat down at a slot, put in a handful of quarters (yes it was a long time ago) into the machine and tried my darndest to figure out what the heck I was doing. My hubby, who had been sitting next to me, said he was going to the restroom and would be right back. When he was gone, I pulled the handle of the slot and lights started flashing all over the place.

“Oh no, I am in trouble! I broke something,” I thought, as I sat there not knowing what to do and then a man showed up.

I apologized and said, "I'm sorry, what did I do?"

He said, "You hit!"

I said, "I hit what?"

He responded with, "A nice one."

Then my hubby returns with a very confused “Now what did she do?” look on his face.

Well, it turned out I went into the casino, pulled the handle of a slot once, and walked out with $1,300! Oh, and the ghost hunt was a success too!

During a visit to a casino with friends, I wanted to impress the girl that I liked, so I bet everything I had on roulette. Once the ball started rolling, I was filled with courage and I kissed the girl, right in front of her boyfriend for good luck.

The result: I left the casino with a black eye, a new girlfriend and a small fortune.

I’ve never been particularly lucky at gambling. Before heading to a real casino, my only gambling experience had been with scratch cards and I wasn’t successful. However, my boyfriend really liked to play the slots, so one evening we decided to play in a real casino.

Entering the casino was a surreal experience for me. I’ll never forget the mixture of elegance, austerity and adrenaline that surged through the place.

Immediately, my partner bet the two free chips we received upon entrance on two numbers of a roulette wheel. I followed him around as he played slots and video poker, feeling both curious and intimidated. However, as the evening went on and he continued to lose, I grew bored, especially when it became clear he had eyes only for the screens.

I decided to play 10 Euros on a slot just to pass the time. I didn’t know what I was doing, which became obvious to the person who was sitting at the machine next to me who asked me if it was my first time in a casino. I answered, “Yes,” and continued to press the buttons of the slot randomly, staring listlessly at the screen.

He replied, “Well, for your first time, you’re lucky! You just won 200 Euros with bonus!”

I was in a state of shock and disbelief and didn’t even realize I’d won. I immediately fetched the ticket and cashed out. I went back to my boyfriend, who hadn’t realized I had gone or won. He didn’t even respond when I asked, “How are you, love?”

Not interested in wasting any more of my time on him, I put the money I’d won in my wallet and went back to the guy who had pointed out my win and offered him a drink. He accepted and we started talking. I found out that he was there for a bachelor party, but not being a veteran of the casino, he was bored. He gave me his number and I gave him mine.

My boyfriend, meanwhile, had managed to lose half his salary and came over to me asking me if I had money in my wallet. I didn’t give him any. We left.

The next day, I broke it off with my boyfriend and am now happily engaged to the sweet guy I met and befriended at the casino. At each anniversary, we celebrate with a dinner and a game at the casino that brought us together.

My Players Insider coupons for May included 4 tickets to the Michael Jackson tribute show, “Man in the Mirror”. It was decision time: “Who do I take to the casino?” Do I take the hardened bitter cynic, or fresh meat for the casino grist mill, or do I take those to whom I owe some favours?

I opted for a combination and decided on someone to whom I owed a favour and who was also new to the Casino Lifestyle. They did not have a player’s card, so it was better to drive the first time to the casino and get registered as players, instead of taking the bus. The cost of the casino bus without a player’s card was $30 each and to drive only cost $18 there and back, so we saved $42 by driving. The player’s card is free and knocks the price of the bus down to 5 bucks each instead of 30.

Once we got to the casino, parked the car and picked up the show tickets at 1:30pm. We entered the casino and were going to go to the buffet, but the line was over 1 hour long. The show was at 3pm so there was no time for the buffet. Instead, we walked outside and hit the local Subway sandwich shop.

Although we were prepared to spend about $100 for the big buffet, we spent only $35 at Subway. My assorted cold cuts sub was good and I felt like we saved another $65.

The show was very enjoyable. The music was familiar and the singers and dancers were good. It was a great production.

Before we hit the casino, I gave my usual lecture to my friend.

“If you gamble you will lose. The machines and games are designed to win all of your money eventually. If you play long enough, you will lose all your money, etc., etc.”

Overall, it was a good day at the casino. It cost us $18 in gas, $35 for food and $57 in gambling losses.

Considering the four show tickets cost nothing and were normally $100 or more, I felt that we almost made money!

I was playing online slots games from only $40 in Australia.  I got up to $700, but then I got greedy and lost everything.

I was 18 and my college roommate and I took the midnight Greyhound from LA, which dumped us on the Las Vegas Strip at 5 am. With only an ice bucket of coins we'd been hoarding for months, we started walking LV Blvd., making the most of every casino's free booklet of coupons - Free roll of nickels, free matchplay, free souvenir, free hot dog, free drink. It was pretty easy not to spend a penny.

Luckily, we found a motel off-strip and got a room before continuing our stroll. By dinner, we had about $30 and sat down at the Stardust and started playing $2 roulette. I'd wait for five or six blacks and play a red, and win. I’d wait for a bunch of reds and play a black, and win.

In an hour we had $800! This was serious, serious money to a broke 18 year old college student in 1980. We fled, saw David Brenner, had a huge dinner and went to bed happy and with $700 still in our pockets. Wow. The guys at school were going to be blown away.

So, being stupid and 18, before we caught the bus the next day, I asked Dave, "So, if we could make $800 starting with $30, how much could we make starting with $700?!"

Good question. And the answer is that we shared a 40 cent ice cream cone in Barstow and hitched a ride from the bus depot in LA back to school where not one person believed us.

I go to a local casino in the Netherlands every once in a while with a friend, he likes to play a certain "parrot" mechanical slot machine with 9 reels.

Basically, to get maximum return, you need to play the bonus game: get at least 4 parrots, and then they hold and you have 5 spins to try to get more parrots to show on the other reels.

I hated the machine for some reason, likely because I never had any luck on it. You would have to spin and spin and wait for those 4 parrots to show to get a bit of action going. All the other pay-offs basically got you up to 10 times your bet back, but most were even money.

On a sunny Saturday, we decided to meet at 2pm in the casino. I was there just a few minutes early when he called to say he was in a traffic jam and would be 10 minutes later. This gave me 15 minutes to spend on my own. I decided to wait near the parrot machines, as he would head there to play them.

While waiting for him, I played some other video slot machines and won 100 EUR. With just a few more minutes to wait, I decided to play one of these parrot machines (9 machines, all available). I picked one of them at random.

I put the 100 EUR in, chose a 9 lines bet (4.50 EUR/spin), and a few spins later I was up to 200 EUR.

Now I started to like the machine, so I went for max bet. With 18 EUR/spin, money goes out quickly, so I was like, "Oh well, he'll be here quickly," and I continued. Then I hit 4 parrots, with max bet, in my final spin.

4 free spins later, the machine hit the 8th parrot. By this point, I had already accumulated 1400 EUR. People where standing and shouting around me, wishing me luck for that final spin. I hit the button and jackpot. 200 times bet (3600 EUR) + 1400 EUR ended my final spin in 5000 EUR, taxfree. At 2:10pm, or so, in the afternoon, 15 minutes in, I’d won.

A number of years ago I was playing slots at the now closed Trump Plaza in Atlantic City. A young girl sat down next to me and also started playing. I noticed, however, that she was very drunk and her money was just falling out all over the place. I wanted to help her, so I started to pick up the money and put it back in her purse. As I did this, I thought about the various cameras in the sky and considered the possibility that my benevolent actions might be misconstrued.

So I decided to try to return her to the people she had come with to the casino.

I grabbed her hand and asked her who she was with. She could not talk clearly and gestured towards the Blackjack tables.

I held her hand and started walking towards the blackjack tables. Talk about trying to find a needle in a haystack!

Finally, a group of people saw her and started waving towards us. As we approached they saw me holding her hand and gave us the strangest looks!

As English was not their primary language, it took a few minutes for them to understand that I was trying to help what appeared to be their daughter. As I turned her over for safekeeping, one of the gentlemen stopped me and held out his hand in thanks. After a few awkward bows, I grasped his hand, and was surprised to see a fifty dollar chip left in my hand. I tried to return it, but they insisted.

I turned that chip into dollars and decided to reinvest the gift into my lucky machine. As luck would have it, I wound up winning over 500 dollars that day from play on that original fifty! I will always remember that day and how a helpful gesture really paid off in so many ways!