You see some of this at other games. A Blackjack player may carry a talisman of some sort. A Craps player may only want to stand at one position on the end. The lady playing Baccarat won't allow anyone to sit on either side of her. A Roulette gambler plays red only when the sun is shining, black only after midnight, and would never consider placing a chip on 13. Slot Machine players? Let's loook at these players' habits and superstitions.

Like the lady who won't gamble unless she has her stool situated precisely between the two machines she is playing.

The person who always closes his eyes every time he pulls the handle. The person who hits the Play 2 Credits button, then pivots in a cirecle which lands him back face to face with the machine just in time to see the last reel come to a stop. The person who refuses to use the currency acceptor and will only purchase coins from Janet.

The man who progresses from outlandish to just flat stupid. Always uses the Play 2 Credits button exclusively. Nothing silly about that. In the early rounds he depresses the button by striking it softly with thumb. If he is winning, he continues to use the thumb. If he is losing, he switches from his thumb to the palm of his hand. Still okay. If he continues to lose the progression includes his elbow, then his nose, and then his forehead. Wacky? Fortunately, he plays at the same casino all the time and they are accustomed to his unusual habits, Still, when he gets to the nose stage the security folks are soon at his side. Which, I discovered, was for the casino's protection as well as his own. Seems he got carried away one time while using his forehead and bloodied the machine so bad they had to disinfect it.

Another lady plays uprights, and slumps her head over the base of the machine so that the symbols are hidden from her view. She plays by using the Bet Max Credits button on her favorite machine. She assumes the position and never raises her head until notified by the machine that she has a winning combination. On larger pay-offs her machine starts playing "You are In The Money" and the digital tabulator noisily adds credits to her total. On smaller pay-offs there's no noise but the digital tabulator still make a racket when it adds the credits.

An older gentleman only plays while wearing white gloves...on the wrong hands. Left glove on right hand, and vice versa. Usually totes five or six pair, but stays with any pair of gloves which is helping provide winners. I've seen him toss away perfectly clean gloves after losing less than 20. And when he spins to riches, he turns to anyone standing nearby, thrusts out his hands showing the palms, like a song and dance man, and says, "It's all in the hands! I've got magic hands!"

Another man shoots pretend six-shooters into the air to celebrate even the smallest of pay-offs. Of course he also provides his own sound effects.

The man who buys in for 100 worth of quarters, dumps them all into a coin cup, then starts at one end of the casino and plugs two or three coins into every quarter machine he can find. One try per machine, win or lose. Stays on the move with this frantic look on his face, like he's afraid he'll run out of machines before he runs out of quarters.

An older lady says, "This one is from me" on all odd-numbered insertions of coins, and "This one is from George" on all even-numbered insertions. If her coins produce a winner, she takes full credit by saying something like, "that's all mine." She doesn't turn her head, so I can only assume she is speaking to the machine. Naturally, as you might expect, if a pay-off shows up on one of George's insertions she usually says something like,"There you go again, George! Don't be so greedy. That should've been mine."