Gambling, Tilting, And Winning: We Need A Name For This

They got a name for the winners in the world

I want a name when I lose

Those lyrics above are from Steely Dan’s “Deacon Blues,” and it got me thinking about one of my favorite topics in gambling: tilt.

Yes, tilt is one of my favorite topics. I’m fascinated by it. Mostly because I suffer from it. I can tilt with the best of ‘em. And much like the titular character in the song — a man who recognizes his own failures, albeit a man with a much cooler name — being aware of one’s own tendency to tilt has a certain romance to it. 

Yeah, I may not be the best gambler — or saxophone player — in the world, but at least I know it and am trying to figure out a way forward.

But a few weeks ago, I stumbled into an area of tilt I was previously unfamiliar with. In this scenario, I was the rambler. The wild gambler.

You say it’s a crazy scheme

OK, here’s me when it comes to online casino play: I wake up every morning and suck up all the promos I can here in New Jersey, where there’s tons of casinos to play around with.

Some days I collect (literal) pennies. Other days? Well, other days I get lucky. Sometimes I bank $5, sometimes $50, sometimes more. You never know.

Outside of that, I try to limit my casino play. I know the odds are against me, and I also know the pull these games can have on me. As a result, I generally keep $0 in all of my casino/sports betting accounts, only to fund them when I want to play or bet. It’s a great fail-safe mechanism.

Except I don’t do it at DraftKings, mostly because I play DFS there on a daily basis. I can — and sometimes do — go through the very slight hassle of setting casino limits for myself, but on this recent day, I didn’t.

I started with $170 in my account, and decided to play a few bucks’ worth of my favorite game — no judgments please — Lucky Larry’s Lobstermania Slingo. We’re talking 20 cents a game. That’s my standard unit for this stuff.

I’m playing more to pass the time than anything, hoping to win a few bucks in the process.

I lost a few heartbreakers, bonus round bupkis, upped the ante to 40 cents, lost a bit more, went on the beginning of a tilt, upped to $1, decided to try a few $2 spins to get my money back … you see where this is going.

Tilt came, and it came hard. It got to the point where I was down about $70 — which is about $68 more than I was comfortable with being down. My heart was beating fast. I didn’t like the feeling, but I loved the feeling, and I hated myself for loving the feeling and … while this isn’t a Steely Dan lyric … hello darkness my old friend.

I decided on one big shot to try and right this sinking ship — a $10 game. Now, with Slingo, you can buy more spins. I’m not going to get into the details, but let the record show I bought an extra spin for $9.44. And I was close to the bonus round. So I had a choice: Buy one more spin for $67.10 and be down more than $160 if I crapped out, or quit here and be down $90 or so.

So what did I do?

Well, this is a column about tilt, remember?

I hit “spin.” It was the most expensive wager I ever made in a casino, online or otherwise.

And … it worked. I got two slingos, won five free spins on the slot bonus game, and then about 30 seconds later won $516.

Not through skill, not through talent, not through persistence. Through dumb luck while on massive, massive tilt.

They call Alabama the Crimson Tide

After I went to the mall to self-defilibrate myself, it dawned on me: There really isn’t a term for what I just experienced.

When you’re winning — and in control — you can “let it ride” or “book a profit.”

When you’re losing? You can quit, you can “take the loss.”

When you’re tilting, you’ve made the decision to continue down this path until you’re empty, either financially or emotionally. You’re, quite simply, “on tilt.”

But when you’re tilting and winning? Outside of “relief,” we don’t have a term for this.

I mean, it’s definitely still “tilting,” but in a true tilt scenario, you don’t stop until you lose.

I stopped when I won. (Well, I continued for a few days after trying to duplicate the big win, and actually ran the ol’ roll up past $700.)

“Jonesing?” offered professional gambler Captain Jack Andrews — though he wasn’t thrilled with that.

But moments after my text exchange with him, his site, Unabated, had a scheduled tweet go out, where what I was experiencing was given a name: God Mode.

“Yes, ‘God Mode’ is a good way to term it,” he said. “You think math doesn’t apply to you.”

Yeah, maybe. But not really. Kind of. I mean, I knew math applied to me. I was basically just trying to lose everything and be done with it. Completely tilt out. But instead I won. 

All right, I don’t have a grand unifying point here. I tilted, I won. It’s a good outcome with a terrible — like, the absolute worst — process.

I need a name for this.

Deacon’s Bounce?

Nope. Keeps with the theme here, but doesn’t really capture the essence, which is basically half the opposite of the old saw, “a fool and his money are soon parted.”

Maybe … Fool’s Gold? I don’t know.

They got a name for the winners in the world, I want a name when I win despite my best efforts to lose. I wish Walter Becker was still alive.