Is Imperial Casino worth a visit for an old-school night out?
Old-school is exactly the word I'd use for the smaller floors around here. Did a similar trip last year and the best bit wasn't even the pokies, it was how quick the cage was when you walked up. No queue mid-evening is rarer than you'd think, some of the bigger joints have you standing there watching your drink go warm.
One thing I always wonder about these smaller venues though. The pokie selection tends to be tighter, and the variance on a short session can feel brutal when you've only got twelve machines to pick from. RTP is the long-run number anyway, your spin sample is tiny on a night out, so the hit rate on whatever you sit down at matters more for whether the evening is fun. Did the tables have much action when you were in, or was it quiet?
RTP is a long-run number.
Rob, you nailed the cage thing, that's half the night out right there. I've been in places where you queue up with 20 fellas and their buckets at midnight, felt like the post office before christmas. Last weekend the staff just smiled, counted it out and sent me on my way. ah well, we grind on 😄
Busted more than you've deposited 😉
Cage that quick usually means not many winners that night. Still, a painless cashout with no queue beats the midnight bucket line anywhere.Same experience here, though I always wonder if a quiet cage just means nobody won.
Hype isn't a payout.
Naive question here 😅 when you cash out at the cage do they pay cash on the spot or is it some chit you take elsewhere? Total noob, never been to a land casino.
Learning to clear wagering, go easy 🙏
FreespinLord, cash in hand on the spot, no chit, nothing fancy. You hand your tickets or chips over the counter, they count out the NZ$ notes and off you go. Same as JandalKiwi said about last weekend, quick count and a smile and you're back on the floor. Nothing to be nervous about. ah well, we grind on
It's all hit and busted before, folks.
Paul_Win might be onto something with the quiet cage theory, but I'd temper it. A fast cashout mid-evening could just mean the floor was steady without a rush, plenty of punters still feeding the pokies instead of lining up. I've sat in bigger places where the queue is half an hour of blokes clutching tickets and hoping the machine doesn't eat their session while they wait.
What I'd want to know from the OP is how the pokies themselves felt. Smaller floors can run tight, and I've had nights at the six-licence joints around here where the machines felt like they'd been wound back. Enjoyed the night? Fine. But "worth a visit" is doing a lot of work until someone shows a decent cashout receipt, and one painless cage trip doesn't prove much either way. Long-run it's still minus, no matter how friendly the counter staff are.
RTP doesn't lie, win screenshots do.
A quiet cage mid-evening is usually just sampling noise, if you ask me. On a small spin sample the number of punters heading up to cash out tells you almost nothing about how the floor is paying, because most sessions end at the machine or the table, and the payouts that do hit get partly fed back in before anyone walks to the counter. You'd need a whole night of ticket-out data before I'd call a fast cage a sign of a dead floor.
Where I'd actually read the room is the machines themselves. Were the pokies busy when you walked past, was there a wait for the tables? That's the real pulse. If the floor was humming and the cage was still empty, that's just good staffing and decent timing, nothing sinister. Sounds like a solid night out either way, keen to hear how the tables ran.
I keep my own spin/hit spreadsheet 📊
NeonMaster's got it right. A quiet cage means nothing about how the floor's paying. I'd want an actual cashout screenshot before believing much hype anyway.
Cashout screenshot or it didn't happen.
@Win24 fair enough, a screenshot would shut me up too 😅 but I just love the vibe there, last Friday arvo I fed NZ$40 into the pokies and it kept me buzzing till midnight, not huge but the hits kept coming. Quiet cage or not I'm going back 🎰🔥 ah well
One slot, one love 🎰
@Win24 fair point on the screenshot, though I'd add a cage queue tells you more about how a punter's night went than a payout screen ever does. If people are cashing out smiling, something's hitting somewhere. Last time I went in I set myself NZ$100 and walked when it was gone, that discipline kept it a fun night instead of a munted one 🎰 The floor pays what the floor pays, you just have to manage your bankroll so you're around when it does.
Bankroll discipline wins 💸
I'd back the sampling noise crowd on this one. A painless cage visit is lovely, but it tells you about staffing and timing, not about the floor paying. I keep a session sheet on the pokies I play regularly and even a decent sample of my own nights wobbles all over the place, so one queue-free Tuesday means very little statistically speaking 📊
Still, a fast cage is genuinely part of the verdict for me, because a night out is about the whole experience. If the staff count out your NZ$ notes with a smile and you're back spinning within five minutes, that's worth as much to me as whether the volatility suited my bankroll that evening. Anyone else been up to the cage there later at night, or does it stay that calm?
I keep my own spin/hit spreadsheet 📊
Is the atmosphere really massive? I'm a bit nervous about walking in, maybe I'm being dumb 😬
Asking dumb bonus questions, that's the job.