SUPERSTITIONS AND LUCKY CHARMS....ARE YOU A BELIEVER???

[Bettor Slots]

Just curious...anyone ever get a nice hit on a slot machine and walk away saying "well I expected that to happen"....or do you walk away saying "that was LUCKY"???  I have to believe that to one degree or another that everyone believes in "luck"....good and bad.  And for some, along with that comes superstitions and/or the need lucky charms to "improve your luck".


Here's Webster's definitions:

LUCK:

1. Your overall circumstances or condition in life (including everything that happens to you); "the luck of the Irish".
2. An unknown and unpredictable phenomenon that causes an event to result one way rather than another; "bad luck caused his downfall".
3. An unknown and unpredictable phenomenon that leads to a favorable outcome; "it was my good luck to be there"; "they say luck is a lady".
4. That which happens to a person; an event, good or ill, affecting one's interests or happiness, and which is deemed casual; a course or series of such events regarded as occurring by chance; chance; hap; fate; fortune; often, one's habitual or characteristic fortune; as, good, bad, ill, or hard luck. Luck is often used for good luck; as, luck is better than skill.


SUPERSTITION

1. An irrational belief arising from ignorance or fear.
2. An excessive reverence for, or fear of, that which is unknown or mysterious.
3. An ignorant or irrational worship of the Supreme Deity; excessive exactness or rigor in religious opinions or practice; extreme and unnecessary scruples in the observance of religious rites not commanded, or of points of minor importance; also, a rite or practice proceeding from excess of sculptures in religion.
4. The worship of a false god or gods; false religion; religious veneration for objects.
5. Belief in the direct agency of superior powers in certain extraordinary or singular events, or in magic, omens, prognostics, or the like.

LUCKY CHARM

3. Something believed to bring good luck.
6. A word or combination of words sung or spoken in the practice of magic; a magical combination of words, characters, etc.; an incantation.
7. That which exerts an irresistible power to please and attract; that which fascinates; any alluring quality.
8. Anything worn for its supposed efficacy to the wearer in averting ill or securing good fortune.
9. Any small decorative object worn on the person, as a seal, a key, a silver whistle, or the like. Bunches of charms are often worn at the watch chain.

[Bettor Slots]

Now luck, superstitions, and lucky charms....this is of course a learned behavior.  It's a way to explain, justify or try to control an outcome that could never be predicted.  Now for me...I'm all that and to an extreme...a crazy extreme and I admit it.  I have OCD tendencies.  In my shop I work in a chaos of parts and machines around me, but the focus product in front of me is turned into something as perfect as possible with the resources I have around me or that I know I can get regardless of the costs to such a degree that many would look at it and call it crazy.

I grew up learning about luck and superstitions from my grandparents.  I learned all the things we all learned about "not crossing a black cat's path", or "finding a penny heads up", or "never walk under a ladder".  But today as an adult I take things to extremes....my mind just expounds to ridiculous levels of these thoughts that my logical side knows are ridiculous, but alas for me, there is no control over the subconscious.  

Want some examples...okay....

Numbers are always on my mind...I'm always crunching them.  I'm one of those types that can have 10 different numbers thrown at me and I can add them up in my head in a matter of a couple seconds.  And I'm always looking for a relationship between the numbers or patterns around me and relating them to outcomes or expected outcomes.

Now I was born on the 17th of the month.  I met my wife and had our first date also on the 17th of the month.  Crazy enough...yep, she was also born on the 17th of the month which I did not know until after a few months we had been going out.  And yes, you can damn sure bet we were also married on the 17th.  The number 17 bugs me to no end.  The housing development we live in...well our address starts with the number 17.  When I set my alarm in the morning....NEVER do I set it for an even number and NEVER for the same time every morning.  It will always be set my some factor of 17.  So it's set for 8:17 or 7:47...makes sense right?  Hell no.  Why do I do this???...hell...I have no idea....I guess I don't like fixed patterns....but really I think it's because my subconscious feels it would be unlucky to do otherwise.

And here's a good one.  If I'm at the casino and I happen to walk by a roulette table and there are 17's up there on the board for recent spins...well I won't gamble till they all clear.  And if I happen to be having a bad run at the slots...I will stop playing and take a walk to the nearest roulette board...and sure enough...there it is....17's.....and then get pissed at myself for not checking the board before I dumped all my dough....because that has to be the reason right??  Nuts!!

And how about superstitious tendencies.  When I sit down in front of a slot I have to go through a certain process before I play.  The players card only goes in 1/4 of an inch and just hangs there until I put the money in.  Now if the bill spits back at me then I walk away from the machine.  Or if the money goes in, and then I push the players card in but I get a card reader error "please reinsert"....well then I cash out and walk away.  Or if I do anything out of order I cash out and walk away most of the time.  This behavior is borderline insane right?  Others out there must do dumb shit like this right???  Please tell me I'm not alone???

And lucky charms...yep I carry one or two to the casinos.  I have one in my pocket right now.  Nuts!!!

[Bettor Slots]

Lucky streaks???  Yeah they happen.  Four trips to the casinos and four resultant Royal Flushes after playing only a total of about 15,000 hands of video poker...now that's a lucky streak.  Statfreak....do the math.  On most video poker games you are only going to hit the Royal on 1 out of 40,000 hands.  To hit 4 in 15,000 hands....that's "LUCKY"....and a "LUCKY STREAK"....and in my head I have to believe it is luck since there is no other explanation.

I could go on for hours on other examples, but you get the idea.  So what's the point of this post??? 

Well it's two fold.  ONE, I would be very curious to hear how luck, superstitions and lucky charms influence any others on the site. 

And TWO, well I have a very serious concern and worry coming up in my life and need some support....read on....

I have a client...actually I consider him much more of a friend than a client....that just ordered 3 machines from me.  In fact he is a NLG member.  I think he's bought around 5 or 6 machines from me at this point for his collection over the past 4 years.  Now this guy is VERY unlucky....in fact I am certain he is CURSED....and his bad luck and curse spills over and effects me. 

Now in my day to day life of troubleshooting machines, typically on the S2000's and I-Games, 044's, and Alphas that I work on I can determine a problem(s) on a machine and have it fixed in a half hour or usually not more than an hour and only occasionally a half day....just lots of practice and repetition.  This is normal for anyone, but once the machine is fixed well then typically no other "surprise" problems follow.

But with this guy...he seriously curses me.

[Bettor Slots]

Now the first machine I sold him kind of went okay....but it was a S-Plus...not much can go wrong with them because there friggen tanks.....but I've just been informed that he is trading it back in.  Now when I give away a machine...I don't want it back...so I think that's unlucky in itself.

Machine number 2 was a  Reel Touch.  Now this was several years ago, they were new on the market and parts were very hard to come by.  Now this machine I had running in my shop 2 weeks before I was to meet him on his 10 hour drive for a pick up.  And I mean it was turned on the whole time.  The very day before I was to meet him the damn top box died.  He had already left town to stay in a hotel so I had no choice but to do something.  I ended up heaving the thing into the back of my truck and driving 10 hours round trip that day to get the parts or to get a whole new machine.  I ended up getting back around 6:00 PM with a new machine, running, but dirty as hell.  I didn't have time to get the machine down and take it down into my shop by myself to work on so I cleaned it up and detailed right in the back of my pick-up truck.  Now keep in mind this was August, hot as hell and I am sure it must have been 120 degrees in my garage.  I damn near died of heat stroke in the process.  I finished at 4:00 AM having to leave a few hours later to meet him.  

Now this is VERY unlucky.

Machine number 3 was an I-Game.  Now I-Games are typically the easiest machines to work on and troubleshoot.  There is just not much that can go wrong with them and if something does well it's an easy troubleshoot and fix.  As is my pattern I had the machine running for over a week with several on and offs before he came for the pick-up.  This time he decides to make the trip all the way to my shop and even brings his wife just to check things out.  The night before they come I have it in my shop to finish up some custom details and software settings...no problems.  I turn the machine off and go to bed a happy camper.  The next morning I turn it on a half hour before they arrive and the damn thing suddenly has "door open M errors" and I cannot get it clear.  I end up making them wait around for an extra 2 hours while I figure out the problem.  I changed out all the normal things that you would do...main board, power supply, cherry switches, check grounds, power distribution box, and so on.  It ends up that somehow the mother board has fried by itself overnight with the machine being off the whole time.  Now those of you that have worked on these machines extensively know that the motherboard is just so rare to go bad on these...I mean RARE!!!  And how it went bad after being turned off all night I don't know...this is damn creepy.

Now this is VERY unlucky.

Machine number 4 was an I-Game conversion to an 044 GK 6.0.  Again the machine was running for at least a week before I was to meet him.  In this case it had not been cleaned until a day before simply because we were swamped.  The day before it was turned off and cleaned.  Now I have my helpers unplug the harnessed to blow out and vacuum the dust bunnies that get stuck on the boards and such.  It went back together and I turned it back on late the night before to key the machine and set up some custom settings.  All of sudden there was no sound at all!!!  Okay...it's 1:00 AM in the morning...time for some fun.  In the panic I went right to changing out the board, motherboard, power supply with no good results.  Finally I discovered that the 1 x 2 power harness for the sound amp in the top box had been accidently reversed.  A simple mistake by my helper that had not ever happened on the previous 40 or so I-Games that went out before.  And I made the mistake of not catching it before turning it on again.  The result was the top box sound amp and both satellite speakers were blown and just needed replaced.  But it was another 3:00 AM night having to leave town to meet him by 7:00 AM the next morning.

Now this is VERY unlucky.

Machine number 5.  Now this one takes the cake and is just plain nutty.  This was a 5-reel Bally Alpha.  I had successfully shopped and delivered over 12 of them at this point with only minor fixed issues and no call backs.  His machine sat running with several on-offs for two weeks with no problems.  I like this particular game title and left it running so I could play it once in awhile.  Now the day before I was to meet him...the damn machine went haywire for no reason with several errors....like 6 or 7 error messages.  I spent an hour on it changing out the computer board, I/O's, and power supplies with no good results.  I said no problem...I have two other cabinets ready and just moved his game kit including his computer board to another machine....STILL another late night.  Now here is the weird part....early the next week I went back to the original cabinet to see if I could figure out what was going on with it.  All I did...and I mean the only thing I did was turn it on and it fired right up.  I decided to keep this machine and it has been sitting here running with multiple on-offs with never an issue since.  

Now this is beyond unlucky at this point...but downright CREEPY !!!!  Point is....ALL of these events spread over several machines and years is WAY beyond the norm and unexplainable.  He is unlucky and cursed and vexes me (no offence my friend   )

[Bettor Slots]

So what I have on my mind is that I now have 3 machines to deliver to him in about 2 weeks time.  I am past worried...but scared at this point as to what will happen the day before.  I want to nip this problem in the bud right now.  To all that listen and care...please send your good Karma vibes. 

And to my cursed buddy....you know who you are....just mailed out to you Priority Mail is the following items.  Please carry them with you at all times over the next 2 weeks...I would very much appreciate it.

1)  A Lucky Troll Doll.
2)  A lucky Dream Catcher.
3)  A lucky Lady Bug charm.
4)  A Chinese lucky Golden Bear.
5)  Some Egyptian lucky Scarab Stones.
6)  A lucky Four-Leaf Clover key chain.
7)  A lucky #7 charm.
8)  A lucky Rabbits Foot.
9)  A lucky Penny...it's heads up.
10)  A lucky Dice.
11)  A REAL Four-Leaf Clover

[FORDSBS]

Jim I'm sending you a  & hope that it will bring you luck.
These 3 have to be the lucky ones. If you have trouble with these Then I'll say a prayer for you & him.
Ford

[Buzz]

Jim   A couple of things in this thread I don't quite understand,  WHO gets to sleep in until 8:17 ??  And why do you only have one NUT in your pocket ??  (QUOTE)  "And lucky charms...yep I carry one or two to the casinos.  I have one in my pocket right now.  Nuts!!!" (end quote)  Golly I hope you didn't forget the other one and left it at home !!  I've sort of got attached to both of mine and take them every place I go.   

I think it's your  duty to tell us who this unlucky person is. I know if I ever get around him I would want to reach in my pocket and stroke my rabbits foot or what ever you have in your pocket that needs stroking !! 

[Bettor Slots]

hope that it will bring you luck.

Thanks Ford...much appreciated.

WHO gets to sleep in until 8:17 ?? 

LOL...well Buzz you see that's one of the benefits of being self-employed...you can set your own hours.  On the downside typically I work at least until 3:00 AM but typically past that.

Nuts!!!" (end quote)  Golly I hope you didn't forget the other one and left it at home !!

   I really need someone to proof read my words before I put them out there....

I think it's your  duty to tell us who this unlucky person is.

I leave that to him.

[jdkmunch]

Lol - I think your logic is flawed


Look at it this way - you delivered working machines right?  So from his point of view bad components have been replaced and potential problems have been eliminated.   I'd say he is pretty lucky!  Have you heard from him to see if his machines are still working?

[staz]

jim hope this brings ya good luck buddy!!!!!! ..... k+ for good karma!!!!!!

[uniman]

Ah, the number 17. It's the birth day of my first born. My wife always has a 17 in her keno numbers.

Ohio was the 17th state in the Union. And the Ohio state flag has 17 stars, of course.

The Italians believe 17 is unlucky. There is no 17th floors in Italy. Air Italia has no 17th row on their planes. In Italy the roman number 17, XVII, looks too much like vixi, which means, "I am dead".

[stayouttadabunker]

I have OCD tendencies.

Welcome to the club there man! 
Also, we will have more unfinished projects than most people in the world.
Now how these two ideals fit together is beyond me.

I think we need help but don't want it....

[jay]

Chinese 4s are unlucky, 8s are very lucky.