About eight years ago when I first moved to Reno, I went up to Virginia City quite frequently. In the corner of the old Delta Saloon they had a "Flip-It" machine. Essentially, a large machine with three glass sides, that had about three levels of pushers, and a rotating bar at the bottom, right in front of the player. The goal of this machine was to insert a $1 token, and have it flipped up to the top, where it might land in a position in front of a pusher that other coins might fall. A big win on the machine would have been $10! Most people who have seen these machines know how bad they are. Other people would play for 4 or 5 coins and then walk away.

On the one day in question, a guy was playing the machine, and had about $40 in front of him in tokens. Thinking the guy was a BIG winner, I complemented him and said that we must have been very lucky. He replied to me "Shoot no, this is all I have left of the $500 I started on with this machine!" I guess that they guy was quite easily entertained, and that he had essentially lost his entire paycheck to flip-it, probably the first and only time that this has happened.

-John