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Gambling

In Australia, we have gambling machines that we "pokies". The term is short for "poker machine" because you can play, as the name suggests, poker on them. Or rather, you could. The actual poker playing machines are actually quite uncommon now, but not as rare as the "one armed bandits". In Britain they are called "fruit machines" and in the USA, they are called...

Slot Machines

Years ago the older gaming machines had 3, 4, or 5 tumblers that rotated and were painted with either fruit, bells, numbers.
You inserted a coin and pulled the lever arm (hence the name 'one armed bandit') and if you got 3 or more symbols in a row, you won some coins, or even the jackpot of all of them!

Slot machine

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Block-chain Gambling

Now, with the help of @steemslotgames, these games of chance are available on the block-chain, and accept both Steem and SBD. Their first game is called "Steemerald Fortune".

It's a simple matter of logging in with Steem Connect, depositing the amount of Steem or SBD you wish to play with
and then press play.

A black pop-up screen will open up. Be patient, it's loading. Soon you will get an a screen that looks like this:

Notice the 5 tumblers?

I decided to invest $5 Steem and gambled $0.10 at a time and nearly gambled most of it until I got down to $0.40, and decided to increase the bet from $0.10 to $0.40 as a last spin before leaving.

Next thing I knew, the screen goes wild and says "Big Win!" and then it says "Mega Win!" in the middle of the screen, with animated gold coins spilling out everywhere. I was so shocked in seeing the winnings counting up on the screen, that I forgot to get a screenshot. But I did manage to get the screen after:

It turns out that I won $22.80 Steem on that $0.40 spin! (But it was a $5 Steem investment).

Not a bad parting gift

Results are not typical, and you should only gamble what you can comfortably afford to lose.

I have dabbled with Magic Dice in the past, with a modicum of success, but this is most I have won on a single spin.

If you get involved quick, there is a referral program, get up to 16 Steem for every person that signs up.
That's pretty good, even if you aren't interested in playing the game.

These are my referral links:
https://steemslotgames.com/?referral_name=shaidon
https://magic-dice.com/?ref=shaidon

Gamble Responsibly

As a general rule, I normally don't encourage gambling as I feel "the house always wins" long term, but I have had some success with small scale dabbling here and there in the short term. It's about minimising your risk. By using Steem rather than FIAT, I feel there is a lot less risk of not being able to pay your bills, etc. if you lose.

If you have a problem gambling, please ring your local Gamblers Anonymous and get counselling.