Ahh yes, now I remember PENNY SLOTS. I had to dig deep in my memory when I last saw, much less played a penny slot machine. It was 1980 and I had only been in Las Vegas a short time and was almost broke but loved to gamble (thus the reason I was almost broke) and when I heard there were three places that still had penny slots, The Union Plaza, The El Cortez, and The Western.

I knew I still had hopes of living "off the land" Las Vegas style. I lived in a motel on South Fremont St. along with all the other down-and-outers who loved to drink and gamble and hated to waste time working since work didn't include the later two past times.

It was bad enough I had to waste precious time in North Las Vegas waiting in line at the unemployment office for my monthly visit, but so as not to waste the entire day, across the street was a casino that "specialized" in cashing unemployment checks and had a pretty good small limit Texas Hold 'Em game. But even THEY didn't have penny slots and that was twenty years ago. So by the end of the week with my bankroll looking about as secure as Osama bin Ladin's 401K Retirement Fund, I was lowered to going to The Western Casino to play their penny slots and drinking those great fifty cent rum and cokes.

I didn't have to search out the penny slots, they were the only bank of slot machines that were not only full, but had a few determined players who were willing to sit and wait quietly for a chance to play their pennies. One lady had an old army coat on and had both pockets bulging with pennies. There was a hole in one of the pockets and she was fighting trying to drink her beer and hold the hole so the pennies wouldn't spill on the floor.

She must have had 30 pounds of pennies. She walked up to the bar for another beer and as she tried to juggle one pocket while taking out fifty pennies from the other pocket to pay for the beer, it was all too much for her and the hole split the pocket open and hundreds of pennies spilled everywhere. She dove on the floor scooping up the pennies and as a few guys tried to help her she screamed to leave her and her pennies alone and screamed for security that they were trying to steal her pennies (and they probably were).

Now I knew I was in the wrong place, so on to the El Cortez. Las Vegan's fondly call it The El Commode, an appropriate name since it smells like urine with a combination of smoke and beer, and when standing by the penny slots you can throw in the stench of copper like what your hands smell like when you handle lots of pennies.

There was one penny machine open so I squeezed in between a really fat old lady with an oxygen tube in her nose, and another guy that smelled like a mix between the Clark County lock-up, and the sewers of Paris. They both smoked and what's worse, they both spoke English. I had two rolls of pennies I rolled up the night before and cracked them open while looking for a cocktail waitress.

The stanky guy next to me said "You're better off going to the bar and buying a drink for fifty cents." He knew what I was looking for. "Don't the waitress come around?" I said "Come around where? Here? Are you nuts? What, you gonna tip her a couple cents?" He was right, most slot player's tip out of the machine tray and even the El Cortez waitresses don't want pennies.

I walked over to the bar and ordered a rum and coke "its fifty cents pal and I don't take pennies." I took out a dollar and told him to keep the change (Yes, I'm a generous tipper, always have been.) Jeez, I thought, I must have picked up the smell from the guy next to me and mixed with the smell of pennies, he could smell me coming.

The drink was sadly watered down and as I snuggled in to play, the guy next to me puts out his hand to shake and lets out a huge fart and says "Howdy, welcome to Penny Land, I'm Frank" and I thought, "He musta said "welcome to Hell, I'm Stank." Then the lady on the other side pulls out her nose tube and a nice string of snot comes with it, it's a beautiful thing.

"That's it, I'm outta here." And I'm off to the Union Plaza with my last roll of pennies. The Union Plaza was at one time a decent place I guess, but lodged between the only bus station and only train stop in Las Vegas it just oozes class, it was a natural for penny slots.

The Union Plaza was a great argument for indoor toilets and underground sewers. Unfortunately they had neither by the smell of the place. The penny slots were situated next to the door where you caught the busses. The idea was taken from McCarran Airport where they put the dollar slots next to the gates so you'd gamble your last dollars waiting for your flight. Well the Plaza wanted those last PENNIES while you waited for your bus or train.

When you hit a jackpot in the airport they purposefully were slow in paying hoping the flight would leave before you got paid and they'd pocket the payoff. At the Plaza they didn't have to worry about that since the penny slots didn't pay off anyway.

Before I sat down I ordered a drink from the cocktail waitress and sat at the quarter machine waiting for the drink, gave her a buck and walked to the penny slots. They were empty which meant that the last bus must have just left. I sat down and put in my five cents and pulled the handle and on the first pull won 60 cents "I'm on my way baby." I turned to get another drink and saw the cocktail waitress looking at me from the bar with a scowl, so I took out a dollar bill and waved it in the air and thirty seconds later she showed up with my rum and coke.

Then a guy sat down at one machine and another lady at another and one more and I thought "there must have been a late bus." Yes they were frightening times, money was hard to come by, but I thought I saw the last of penny slot machines, and figured by the year 2001 they would only exist in slot machine museums, or worst, maybe still at the Western where the last 10cent Roulette game and 50cent Blackjack is still played.

Flash forward to 2001. I'm driving down Sahara Blvd. I drive down that street every day, I read the same signs that advertise the Palace Station, one month it's the Football Frenzy, one month it's the Saturn Giveaway. But November 1st the sign read "WE HAVE THE HOTTEST PENNY SLOTS IN TOWN" I was shaken to my core. It was the fear I felt when I heard they were putting lights in Wrigley Field, like hearing the Berlin Wall was being refurbished or Hugh Hefner was gay.

I felt betrayed, and angry at the same time. A few casinos have lowered themselves to $1 blackjack tables and that was hitting the skids, which was advertising to everyone that you couldn't make it on $2 blackjack games so you were willing to go as low as anyone would go in this town and offer half-priced blackjack. The Sahara tried it and the dealer's tokes went down 10%-20%, the players they got were mostly kids that didn't know how to play and certainly didn't know how to tip.

I remember when the Riviera, when hitting hard times, tore down a section of unused casino space and turned it into Nickel Heaven. And attracted all the loose nickel slot players that couldn't find a seat at Slots-A-Fun. I remember the Four Queens that at one time had the greatest lounge in Las Vegas…the "French Quarter" that had acts such as the Drifters, The Coasters, The Platters, Dave Brubeck, B.B. King, and many other great acts that was torn down last year to put in nickel slot machines.

But NO ONE in Las Vegas had the balls to actually put in, and advertise on a huge sign "WE HAVE PENNY SLOTS" like wearing it as a badge of courage. It's more like a steaming heap of horseshit pie on the face of Las Vegas.

What is Station Casino's thinking? Could it be there are countless people wandering Las Vegas with pockets full of pennies just looking for a home? Could it be our children will no longer be safe leaving their piggy banks out in the open in fear that their degenerate dad or mom may steal into their rooms in the middle of the night on a drinking and gambling binge and rip off their hard-earned pennies they were saving for UNICEF at Christmas time, or the starving kids in Afghanistan?

Or worse, maybe Station casinos are hoping to pass legislation legalizing gambling for little kids so they can make little mini-penny slots and lure the kiddies into their casinos with degenerate mom and dad so those pennies won't ever make it into the piggy banks?

If not, whom exactly are they hoping to bring into their casinos to play the penny slots?

Are those guys that walk the streets with shopping carts full of aluminum cans their new targets?

Are they going to build a recycling plant next to Palace Station so they can take in the cans and pay them in pennies and give them a free Continental Breakfast with each roll of pennies?

Will they start a penny slot club for the poor and wretched? Maybe comp them a free sleeping bag and a cup of Ramen noodles for the night?

Or are they just trying to spruce up the place with the presence of the smell of a mixture of Colt 45 and Thunderbird Wine and the perfumed scent of Ode De Sewer.

It's not bad enough that Station Casinos own most of the larger local casinos and have all gone to paper ticket poker machines which forces you to take your payoffs in little tickets you can only cash out at the cage if you don't mind waiting in lines for your money, or you can conveniently put the tickets back into another machine which means you'll never take any money out of the machine, or worse, you'll be sitting in a quiet casino without the sounds of money falling into the trays, who's winning? Who cares?

Don't forget to cash in that ticket because once you walk out the door it's useless unless you have some loose meat stuck between your teeth. Now throw in penny slots and the sleazy people they draw in and you have a sure looser. Now put those penny slots in local neighborhoods and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out this one.

So now when those quarter players lost all their money and have been drinking all night, and went to the nickel machines with their last couple of bucks and have been drinking all night, now they'll take their last fifty cents and sit down for a session at the penny slots and drink a little longer, then go out to the car and dig around under the seats for a few more cents and a few more drinks, then they'll go hock their buttons for three cents and another three pulls on the slots. Then it's out to the trash to dig up a few cans….well, you get the picture.

Here's Steve Wynn building a billion dollar resort and across the street Palace Station is hawking their hot penny slots. And if there's a spare 18 cents left in the machine, I guess they're hoping you won't want to stand in line to cash in your 18cent ticket. That you would be too embarrassed and just leave the 18cents in the machine and besides… how much do you tip the cashier?

--Ken Pearlman