Andy Alligators

A few days ago we found several Andy Alligators cards in one of our drawers, so Emily and I decided to go check the place out.  When we arrived Emily first saw the bowling alley, so we played a few games over there.  Then we moved over to all of the games that would spit out tickets at the end: whack-a-mole, sponge bob, etc.  As we were walking around Emily noticed the "Deal or No Deal" game and wanted to try it.

The layout was pretty simple, it had all the case numbers on a panel in front of her, and it asked her to open certain number of cases each round.  At the end of each round, she could either "cash out" or keep playing, by hitting the "Deal" or "No Deal" buttons.  This wasn't the interesting part, however...

When we first sat down at the game, it started by asking us which case to choose as our own.  The highest ticket "spit out" is 200, so I guess that's the "million dollar" case... Anyway, I told Emily to pick a case.  She didn't have a clue what I was really asking, but she picked a case randomly.  We played through to about the end, and she hit the "Deal" button and won about 40 tickets (check the pictures at the bottom, it's funny watching her face as she played - she didn't have a clue what was going on, but she knew to smile if the girl on the screen smiled after opening a case, and frown if the girl frowned..).  After that, the game shows you what was in your case, and sure enough, Emily had picked the 200 ticket case.  Nice coincidence, I thought.  Then she wanted to play it again..

We played through another round, and she got about 37 tickets on this one.  Strangely, her case that she selected was the 200 case... AGAIN.  Okay, now I understood, this is how the game sucks you back in to play more and spend more money.  Nice trick Deal or No Deal...  We'll just see how this goes.  I start the game this time, and when Emily started reaching for the case she wanted to pick, I said, "I'll pick this one..." and I did.

About three cases into the game, we opened the 200 ticket case.  There went my theory.  Picking a 200 ticket case is an odd coincidence on the first go around, but two times in a row?  That's some luck.  Anyway, we moved on and played some more games.

Before it was time to leave, I had a thought... This is the same type of thought I had while playing at the Golden Nugget in Vegas some years ago when I had just won $500 and decided to leave the casino a winner.  I was congratulated by the dealer and the people in the money cages, as "not many people have the strength to walk out of here with money in hand..."  Until I neared the exit and noticed an empty table with $100 minimum bet... I had always wanted to be one of "those" people (man, lots of quotes in this post...), so I started nearing the table.  The dealer behind the table was shaking her head at me as I approached, and when I was near enough, she said to me, "Sir, you are almost out the door.  Go back to the hotel a winner, don't waste any more time here tonight.."  A nice thought, but it was too late.  30 seconds later I was out of money..

Anyway, back to my thought at Andy Alligators.  Why not try one more time?  We plopped down at the game, and for the third time, I let Emily choose her case.  Several times in the game she wanted to hit the Deal button, but I wouldn't let her.  We reach the end of the game, and it was down to two cases.. Guess who picked the 200 ticket case, for the third time in a row?  You got it, and they were all different cases, each time she picked... AMAZING..

Just 17 more years.. just 17 more years...