Won some ReelMONEY at the Mirage
On the 4th night of our March 2013 trip we were staying at the Mirage. We had nothing planned and we justed wanted to relax, enjoy some drinks and play the machines (and hopefully win some money). The ReelMONEY slotmachines are our favorites and since you can find them at most MGM International Resorts we decided to walk through the casino to check if the Mirage had them as well.

After walking around for about 15 minutes we found a bank of ReelMONEY machines. Here’s the basics of the game: it has 5 progressive jackpots you can win during a bonus game. The bonus game is triggered by getting at least 3 ReelMONEY symbols on the 5 reels. Every reel has a ReelMONEY symbol. The number of ReelMONEY symbols determines how many times the wheel will spin. A ReelMONEY symbol on reel one gives you the chance to win the first progressive, the ReelMONEY symbol on reel two gives you the chance to win the second higher progressive jackpot, etc. This is a penny machine and naturally you can only win the full progressives playing max credit at $1,50 a spin. You win a progressive jackpot if the bonus wheel stops at a big coloured dot. The colour of the dot matches the colour of one of the 5 progressive jackpots.

We sat down and immediately noticed something interesting. Normally when there’s a bank of four machines, these machines are connected and all have the same progressive jackpots. If you hit one of the progressives all 4 machines reset the progressive to the starting point. For example, if you hit the lowest progressive bonus, all 4 machines reset to the amount of $10. Well, not at the Mirage. We looked at all four machines and sat down at the 2 machines with the highest progressive jackpots. We generally look at the level of the lowest 3 progressives because the chance you’ll hit the 4th or 5th progressive is really small.

After about ten minutes a cocktail waitress came by and we ordered a Maj Taj and a Malibu & Coke. We inserted $40 each and started playing two machines. We got our drinks and tipped the waitress a little more than usual, just to make sure she wouldn’t forget about us and come back soon. Well, that’s exactly what she did and after a few minutes of play one of us lost the first $40 while the other won the 1st and 2nd progressive jackpot during a bonus round. Total prize: $70.18 (see pictures below). Not a bad start since we were up $30.

We got new drinks about every 15 to 20 minutes and the machines gave us some decent play. We played for hours and had some nice wins spread out throughout the night.

Here’s a selection of the different wins we had:
A selection of four diamond symbols with the 5th diamond just one position away from an even bigger hit. So, lucky and unlucky at the same time. Total prize: $57.50
Another ReelMONEY bonus round. Total prize $53.00
And yet another ReelMONEY bonus round where we won $60.35

Our last big prize for the night was a lucky and unlucky one at the same time. We had 4 jackpot symbols in one line with the 5th jackpot symbol one position too low. This was a very decent $102.00 win. But to be honest, we were very curious about the amount we would have won if the 5th symbol would have been in line with the other 4.

After playing for over 4 hours, giving eachother high fives for every silly small win, and having had just a little too much to drink, we cashed out. Our profit was about $100 by the end of the night and we added about 15,000 tier credits to our Mlife account. We had a lot of fun, a little too much to drink, some decent action at the machines and we ended the night ahead. Even small wins are wins right? Couldn’t all nights in Vegas be like this?