About a week ago, I'm dicking around online, as I like to do. And what do I see?
A big purple banner announcing a quick ALC promotion: $20 of promo cash for anyone willing to spend $20 on Instant Win games.
Hot diggity!
Not just the promise of money, but my favorite kind: free money!
Okay, well, it's not so much free money as free(ish) "money" because you I gotta pay to get it (so not quite free) and I can only use it on the ALC site (so more like a gift card than money).
But none of that matters. Gambling $20 so I can gamble another $20 is a good deal to me, so I deposited the cash and got down to business.
For it to count toward the promo, the dough had to be spent on Instant Wins only. So none of the slots on the Casino section of the site, and no video poker either (💔).
So I made a quick plan. I'd decide ahead of time exactly how much money I'd spend on which games. That way, I wouldn't be tempted to double down on my wins or chase my losses. Just spending my 20 and promptly walking away without putting in a penny more.
Since I'd be getting the money right back, I was kind of tempted to blow it all on a few big moves. Like throw around some $5 bets and see if anything comes of it. Or pop the whole thing on a single game of Crossword Spin.
But I'm not one for huge bets. I prefer keeping my wagers modest and frequent.
Plus, the hope is that I'd walk away with at least a portion of my investment here. And doing a Crossword Spin means there's only a 1 in 2.5 chance of that actually happening.
I decided my best chance would be to start small-ish and then round it out with a few mid-sized bets. So here's how it all shook out.
Round 1: Deuces Wild
First up, four 50 cent runs on Deuces Wild.
The idea is simple: uncover 20 cards, if any of them are a 2 you win the corresponding amount. Uncover three Jokers and you get to play a bonus round.
And I saw no deuces, no triple jokers, just a whole lot of nothing.
So, off to a rough start.
Total Wins: $0
Super Cash Bolt
After that fail, I moved to Super Cash Bolt for another quad of 50 cent rounds.
And this time, I actually managed to get a win. A full row of lemons, which would normally pay 50 cents but because I scored a couple of Prize Boosters, it bumped up to a whole dollar.
(It wouldn't let me take a clean screenshot for some reason, so you'll just have to take my word for it.)
That's half my money back. Which is quite decent when you're playing lotto games.
Total Wins: $1AL Cash Expander
Not much luck on my first few bucks, so I moved on to the slot-style games. Starting with AL Cash Expander, because expanding my cash is exactly what I'm aiming for here.
I went for 10 spins at 20 cents a pop. And three of them actually paid off - but for less than a dollar altogether.
Slightly less decent than what I got on Super Cash Bolt, but better than coming out empty handed.
Total Wins: $0.72
Monopoly Progressive Jackpots
Same deal here: 10 runs for 20 cents each. Except this time, the smug little Monopoly guy is watching me gamble.
They say if you want to become rich, you should surround yourself with rich people. But I guess that's B.S. because even with that top hatted son of a bitch right there in the corner, I only got 24 pennies out of these spins.
Total Wins: $0.24
Bingo
The slots-style Instant Wins weren't coughing up any big wins. So I decided to spend my last $12 on the ones that are more like digital scratch-offs.
Normally, they're not worth your time. Not because you can't win at them or anything like that, but because the tactile experience of playing a physical scratch ticket is so much more satisfying. If you're going to blow the money anyway, might as well treat yourself to the real deal.
But this is a special situation, so digital it is.
Starting with a single $2 round of Bingo.
Pay your money, watch the balls pop out, and cross your fingers that the numbers will match those on your card.
And enough of them did, because I got a single line on card #3. The lowest payout you can get (other than $0), so I broke even.
Which at this point, felt like a true victory. Genuinely excited to just get my money back.
Total Win: $2
Casino Roll
A completely random pick. If Casino Roll ever was a scratcher, it's since been discontinued because I haven't seen anything like it around time.
But it reminded me of the new $20,000 Casino (except it wouldn't be able to take me to the cleaners) and the odds of winning something were pretty decent at 1 in 2.7. So I gave it a whirl.
A short-lived whirl. I wound up on the wrong side of the odds and I'd sunk $3 in one go - and without the satisfaction of putting coin to ticket.
Total Win: $0
Lucky 7
After that smackdown, I decided the next $3 would be better spent on three goes at Lucky 7.
This one has a physical counterpart. It's the only $1 scratch-off available so it's a nice way to round out any purchase. And the first time I did one, I won $7 on that sucker, so I have a certain fondness for it.
For a buck, you get to uncover a 3x3 grid. If you get 3 identical dollar amounts anywhere on there, that's your prize. If you uncover a 7, you get a cool $7 (and if you uncover four, you can take $7,777 to the bank - can you imagine?)
Now we're talking!
No sevens, but I got $10 on my first round, which is about as sweet as you can expect a loonie ticket to be.
Normally, I'd move on after a 10x win. But I committed to three rounds, so three rounds I did.
And as you can expect, the last two were losers. Still, I came out on top and that's what counts.
Total Wins: $10
Set For Life
Four bucks left to go.
And there's only one scratch-off that costs exactly that much.
So, I ended this Instant Wins session by nurturing my love/hate relationship with Set For Life.
Rats.
Total Win: $0
So Long and Thanks for All the Promo Cash
I knew Set For Life was a mistake. I probably would've done better with four more rounds of Lucky 7. Or maybe two more shots at Bingo.
But gambling's no fun if you wallow on your mistakes. So I brushed myself off and took stock of how it all went.
Grand Total: $13.96
So in one way, I lost a little over $6 here.
But if you look at it from a different angle, this means I paid just $6 to get $20 in promo cash.
That's some money moves right there.
Or at least it will be once I gamble away the promo money and turn it into cold hard cash (or lose it all trying).
But that's a story for next time.
Tally
Wagered This Session: $20
Profit This Session: -$6.04
Total Profit Overall: -$49.04
Thanks for reading and feel free to support my nonsense.
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