The part of a visit we had to learn was not how to pick a game. It was what to do when a ticket is actually worth cashing.
If we take that cash straight back to the floor, it is easy to treat it like found money. It goes in faster than the money we brought, and a little later the win is gone and we are into the bankroll we meant to keep. We still play. We just do not hand the whole cashout back to the machine by default.
The budget before we sit down
Before the first machine, we pick the money we are willing to play that visit. A win is not a new budget. If we already decided what the day is worth, a cashout does not raise that number unless we stop and choose that on purpose.
We also decide what part of a cashout we are taking home. Sometimes that is half. Sometimes it is everything over what we walked in with. The split can change from trip to trip. The point is we choose it before we are standing at the cashier with the money in our hands.
What we do at the cashier
We cash the ticket. We count it. We split the bills that can go back to the floor from the bills that are done for the day. The done bills go away before we walk back to the machines. If they stay in the same pocket as the play money, they get played. We have done that, and it is a bad feeling on the way to the car.
Cashing out is also a pause. It is a chance to see the number instead of watching it sit on a screen, where it still feels like credits we might as well keep spinning.
The pocket lock
A pocket lock is how we make the split real. The key stays at home. Once the bills are in the box, getting them back out is a hassle, which is the idea. We are not locking up the money we meant to play. We are locking up the part we already decided to keep.
We use the Gamblebox pocket cash lock. The smaller one, with a slot for bills, is the Winners Bank pocket safe. Either one lives in a pocket or a bag. We drop the keep bills in while we are still at the cashier, not later at the machine, when it is easier to talk ourselves out of it.
Then we go back and play whatever budget we still have. If that runs out, the visit is over, even if the box has cash in it. That cash is the part of the win we kept.