Gapped toothed carnies

[katalina]

NEWSCHOOLERS! today I lost 160 bucks playing a stupid game at a carnival.

i was playing to win an xbox...

here are the rules/game description:

there is a bucket thing that is slanted and it has a spring underneath of it. it's all greased up inside too...

you get this somewhat large rubber ball and you have to toss it into the bucket, without it hitting the rim AT ALL and it can't bounce out. you get ONE TRY to do this, and it starts at $5

if you miss, you match what you have paid so far. (if it hits the rim or doesn't touch the bucket at all, you get to shoot again)

i made three in a row, the goal is to make 10... not in a row, just 10. but remember, you must pay if you miss. once you hit the 10 mark, you win.

so i made some, missed. paid 5 more bucks. (10 total). made another and missed, then paid 10 more (20 total) missed, paid 20 more (40) made 2, missed paid 40 (80) i had ONE MORE TO MAKE. and at this point quite a few people were watching... nobody goes far in this game because they either run out of money or just give up. i doubled the 80 to make 160 fucking dollars and missed.

call me stupid, call me anything. i wasn't in the right state of mind... but if i had another couple hundred bucks i would have won. ALSO, if you win you get ALL of your money back, plus the prize. and he offered to buy the xbox for 300 from me if i won it. which means i would have made 300 bucks doing nothing basically, or had a new xbox.

but i don't. has anybody else played these stupid carnival/fair games and been successful? apparently a guy before me spent somewhere in the 3gs range and won a big tv and all of his money back. i don't know if he kept the tv or sold it back... but i'm so mad.

stories?! i'll never play a game like that again. unless i'm loaded. (not mentally but cashflow)

 

[treebeard]

so you keep paying till you make 10, then you win the thing AND your money back at the end, regardless of how much you spent? sounds like you literally can't lose.

 

[katalina]

you are basically guaranteed to win as long as you dont run out of money and as long as its still open....

i ran out of money. it adds up quickly once you get past 40 bucks because you have to match whatever you have paid so far. when i was at 160 to keep going i would have had to pay ANOTHER 160... and so on, which i would have eventually made it. but i feel as though they rig them somehow. i made the first 9 pretty easily. nobody else was doing as well as me and then somehow on the last shot i couldn't make it..

it's a sick deal though you just have to have enough money!

the carnie offered to buy the xbox back from me if i won... because having it there is worth more to him to entice people like me to play the game and then drop hundreds and walk away.