Group High Limit Pull

At the Coushatta Meet and Greet in August, sponsored by Slot Fanatics, we are having a high limit pull... everyone that wants to participate will put in $20 or $30 or so and we will all go to a higher price machine $5 to $25... and as a group spend the money... hoping we can hit something big and share it. The only time I have ever done this was many years ago... when only 7 of us put in $20... we played and when we got to $1600, we each took $200 and played the rest, but got nothing more.
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Have you ever participated in one of these... do you usually win or lose... have any of you ever hit it really big on one of these... Just curious????

 

I've done them before with groups of people from work. A couple of things to consider before starting:

Who's card goes into the machine while playing?

If you hit big, who does the W2-g forms?

They are a lot of fun. One time we made a few bucks but overall it was just fun.

Good luck!

 

last weekend 4 of us played in a slot tourney and pooled the winnings. one of us made it to the finals and was in second place with 30 seconds to go, but ended up finishing 5th, just out of the money. but we still walked away with 2k FP between the 4 of us. we played it in some $25 machines and hit absolutely nothing ... until we were almost out ... hit a pinball and 2k cash. then a couple of spins later we hit triple diamond ... triple diamond ... and ... blank. that was a real heartbreaker one more triple diamond for the $62.5k jackpot, but anything but a blank wins us at least $5-10k. instead we got $250. bleh.

 

Someone has to pay the freight for winning so prior to dividing the money I think you must take out "X" amount of money for taxes and THEN divide up.......otherwise there are hard feelings.....if u clarify up front u r in good position for all to be amicable...and if a proper amount (%) is determined it is part of the risk...

 

There are a bunch of videos by a group called AC meet and greet on YouTube. They do the same thing and really look like they are having fun. I am too much of a control freak to do that. When they turn $500 into $1000 they have to make a group decision to stop or continue. If I didn't agree with the majority it would make me nervous. Sometimes I feel bad about stupid decisions I make, I don't want to resent others. If you can handle the pressure it could be profitable.

 

The only "Group Pull" I've done is with my dad on the Lions Share at MGM.

 

Sounds interesting but also sounds like the potential for some headaches.

 

I once did a "group pull" in Vegas. The group consisted of me and a good buddy both putting 100 bones in the pot and heading to the $5 slots.

Upon doubling our money - I wanted to go for the kill. Buddy wanted to cash out. Ended up in an argument and him not talking to me until the next morning.

Bottom line - money means different things to different people. Risk and reward tolerances play a huge role in this.

My thoughts - bad idea. Never again.

Two key points
1. Who's card goes in the machine for comps??
2. How do you handle the taxes on 1200+??

My advice. Think this out carefully before ponying up.

 

One idea could be to take turns who's card is in the machine. Rotate it every 5 spins or something like that. That way, everyone gets pretty close to the same number of points.

 

the way we did it is each person takes an equal portion and plays it in the machine of his choice. his card is in the machine for his portion and he takes the hit on the 1099. in that way, it's a bit like Russian roulette. you hope to hit, but you hope it's when someone else is spinning.

but yes of course you have to decide beforehand when you're going to stop. in our case, we decided to run through the exact amount of the FP and split up whatever was left. after I got my share, I ran the rest through another machine on my own while others kept theirs, but at that point it was up to them. you have to pick a designated stopping point. the best idea is to say X pulls and then you divvy up what's left. it's a bad idea to say you'll pick a dollar amount to stop because what if you get close to that number, but never quite get there and then start losing? if you're playing for the jackpot, you can say that you'll keep playing until you hit the jackpot or all your money is gone, but the likelihood in that case of leaving with $0 is very high.

 

Group pulls seems like fun. I've never participated in one unless you count my wife and I pooling our money and playing a machine together. (It's actually "our" money but we like to keep separate bankrolls just to see how we do on our trip.)

One thing I think is important is who you play with in a group. Some people change when big money is won. If someone you know is selfish, inconsiderate of others, or just a plain jerk, don't play with these people.

Yes, yes, I know. Why do I know these kind of people? I have no choice. Some of them are family members....

 

I have done a few of these over the years, some where we were playing as little as $10 per spin and others up to $60 per spin.

I only join in on these when the game of choice is a video slot and I like the choice of game being played... I never do these where the game selected is a three reel slot - that would just be a stupid waste of money.

The last one we took part in was on $1 Jungle Wild machine where each player bought two $30 spins... because we hit the bonus a couple of times each players cut was a little over $3000

And thats one of the keys to all this: you really need to hit a bonus game in order for this to win you much of anything and thats why game selection is pretty important: do you go for a machine where the bonus rarely comes up but has huge potential? or a game where you can hit bonuses pretty regularly and so the group has a better chance of getting at least one?


Reading what others have said it pretty much sums up what I was going to say is the most important thing: you need rules.

For this group play its important to know if this is the first time they are doing this or if some/all have done it before. The group should have a "leader" who will determine what to do and keep things organized.

This is because you need to do things like somebody should hold everybody's buy in or make sure players have converted their buy in money to a TITO ticket - to prevent people from trying to scam and rip off the group by doing things like saying they will participate and then opting to go last and if the group is winning then thats great they play, if the group is losing then "uh oh" they forgot their money or they decide to opt out after the group pull has started because things aren't going so well or something.

The group should also have an idea beforehand of what they are going to do after everybody has done their pulls: IE: if you have 10 people each buy in for $100 and they each do 5 pulls on a $20/spin machine and then at the end of the whole process you still have $500 in the machine do you play on and hope to hit a big one and just cycle that money through until its done? Or do you cash out and give everybody back $50, in this example?

This is important because if you have 10 people and each person buys in for $100, as an example, and then after going through your spins once each if there is now $3500 in the machine... what do you do?
Everybody will have different financial considerations: to some cashing out and taking $350 is going to be awesome! But to some of the richer players they might want to increase the bet and everybody punches SPIN again to go after the really big prize... if you are one of the smaller time gamblers you may not want to risk your $350 by playing it through over and over again or maybe you have other plans to go and do and don't want to be going through this cycle all night long (sometimes these group plays can go fast, sometimes they can go so slow)

Also you should have an idea of how you handle any tax situations that might come up...
IE: if one of the players is a Canadian and on her pull she gets a $20,000 win
Because she did the pull she has to pay the withholding tax ($6000) - you can't just have somebody step up and say they'll take the tax hit when the slot attendant comes to do the W2G because the casino might visually verify the play on the cameras... and then you hit the problem of: if this person goes home and files to get the taxes back and gets most of it back (say $5000) does she have to pay the others back out of that? how do you know if she gets anything back? or that she even filed to get it back?

So in this case the organizer should make sure that if there is anybody from outside the USA that they just give their money/TITO to an American player and that player pulls for them (or for here at home at our Canadian casino we do that with American players: they give their money to a Canadian to play for them because if one of us wins the money is not taxes, but if an American player wins there is a US withholding tax)


Overall these things are fun and can be pretty exciting... you just really want to make sure that you cover your bases so you know what to expect and that you don't get ripped off

 

My brother and I will go in on a high dollar machine. Last one we did was at MGM playing a $1 100 play double double bonus. We did 2 spins. We didn't hit anything with a huge payout...2nd hand we hit a few full houses. We only lost about $100 each but it was fun playing $500 per spin.

 

There's IRS From 5754 which handles this matter of shared winnings/jackpots. You would have the casino fill it out, you would just need everyone's individual name, address, and SSN. This is the way you would do it if you wanted to keep it as equitable as possible.

http://www.irs.gov/uac/Form-5754,-Statement-by-Person(s)-Receiving-Gambling-Winnings

 

I buddy and I did this on the 50-play and got dealt trip Jacks. It was definitely an adrenaline rush. Even more so for me, since I dumped the W2 on him

 

Nice!

My brother and i also did a 10 play super times pay $1 ($60 a spin). We were going to give it 10 hands. On our first hand we were dealt 2 pair with a 5x multiplier. We ended up with 4 full houses and 6 2 pair for a win of just under $1000. We didn't even give it a second spin.

We've done a few $100 credit double diamond machines but never hit more then a cherry or mixed bars.

 

I've always thought it would be the most awesome thing ever to flop something big like quads, SF, RF on one of those 100 play. that would be quite the w2-g. flopped RF on $1 100 play = 400k. wow.

 

That's the dream scenario. It would certainly fund some good future trips

Here's an equivalently awesome deal that I found: http://i.ehow.com/images/a04/q0/1k/royal-flush-video-poker-1.4-800X800.jpg

 

That's pretty nice. I think the sick person in me would have given it a couple more spins/presses, just in case it was my lucky day. You're making me want to talk my buddy into doing it (again) when we're out there next month!

 

When we do a combined play like that we usually play 4-5 machines with 10 pulls on each one. Some VP, some slots, even huge bets on random table games. Usually the rule on the machines will be hitting something that is 5x our bet or better we cash out and move on. On a double diamond machine (which has a 1,600 credit jackpot) we may give more play since those hit a little more often then a triple strike machine that has a 7,500 credit jackpot. VP is dealt trips or better especially if we hit a multiplier on Super Times Pay. Last time we were dealt 7's and 9's with the 5x on the first shot and figured why not take a $900 profit on a single spin. 9 more hands winning pretty much nothing would have eaten up most of our winnings. For tables we'll do $700 across on craps ($400 outside and $150 on 6 & 8) and give the shooter 4-5 rolls pressing whatever hits and then coming down. If you can dodge the 7 for just a few numbers it works out nice. We had a guy at Red Rock throw 4, 4, 9, 4. We full pressed each time. 4 went from $100 to $300 to $900 and after the 4th roll of the 3rd 4 we took our bets down tipped the dealer and shooter $50 each and walked with +$2800 or so....of course we've also put our money down and sure as shit that nasty seven would show up and that would be a quick one roll that cost $700. That has happened more then I care to remember we occasionally will do baccarat, blackjack, or war (only as Cosmo since they will take a $1000 bet where as most everyone else is $500 or less) but craps is more fun for a hit and run session. Neither of us are any good at picking numbers at roulette so we generally stay away from that.