Sigma Derby a nostalgic favorite, and it's running strong at The D in Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Sigma Derby might be the most fun you can have in Las Vegas with a roll of quarters.

The popular coin-operated horse racing game lives on at The D Casino & Hotel, drawing fans to the second floor day and night for a chance to see a little bit of gambling history.

And when Mystik Dan is running at the Preakness on Saturday, you can bet there will be a big crowd at The D. But it will be all about Sigma Derby — a love of horse racing is not required. Mystik Dan’s 5-2 odds to complete the second leg of the Triple Crown won’t draw quite as much interest as odds ranging up to 200-1.

It runs on quarters, not tickets. (There’s a change machine nearby.) You can’t put a dollar bill into it, and there’s no slot for your player’s card. When you cash out, the distinctive sound of quarters pouring out into the metal hopper will take you back.

“This thing will run as long as I can keep it going,” Slot Director Allen Randal said last week as a handful of players pumped quarters into the machine around 10 a.m. on a Tuesday.

“If you look around a casino at 4 in the morning, I don’t care which casino it is, probably not going to be full. But that Derby might be. With people screaming at it,” Randal said.

Randal has an opinion on what makes it so popular: “Everybody who sits down at that Derby becomes a friend, at least for a few minutes,” he said.

“We have a gentleman that comes up here every day and he calls it his retirement plan. He just loves to come and spend hours on this. The camaraderie that develops on this game is unlike anything I have ever seen,” Randal said.

International appeal

Space on the casino floor is prized in Las Vegas, and ever-evolving computer graphics tempt gamblers to try their luck for progressive jackpots that boggle the brain. But Sigma Derby’s nostalgic look and feel is a nice break, a return to the days when coins would leave your fingers a little gritty after a night out.

The game was created in 1985 by a Japanese company, and for years there was one inside most Las Vegas casinos.

“It draws people from all over the world just to come and see it. It’s literally the only one in the country that you can gamble on,” he said.

“As slot machines go, it’s the most popular,” Randal said. “I don’t know if it’s the most profitable. But it makes up for it in marketing by far.” He likes to say it’s the only slot machine at The D that has its own Facebook page.

These days, a casino would put 12 slots into the space needed for Sigma Derby.

The D’s marquee on Fremont Street advertises the game’s presence, and it’s a frequent topic of posts on their social media. Fans spread the word online whenever the game stops working.

Keeping it running

Randal and his team have the job of keeping 1985 electronics running today.

“It’s kind of a double-edged sword. It’s easy to keep running because the technology is so old that you can still work on it. If you take a board out of one of these brand new machines, we can’t do anything with it. It’s all layered, surface-mount stuff. This, I can still take a diode off and put a new diode on. So, we can still make it work,” Randal said.

“When we bought this, and we put it on the floor I believe in 2012, we bought two at that time so that we would have one in backup for parts. And we’ve since bought another one from a location in Tahoe so that we can continue to keep this running,” he said.

When it breaks, it’s usually a chain. That means the velvet ropes come out, along with a sign asking for understanding. The horses are just tired.

For years, Randal was the expert, but now he’s the manager and his techs do the work, which can mean pulling the top off the machine to get to the inner workings. “I can’t do that in the middle of swing shift on a Saturday,” he said.

And you’d better believe it’s a priority to get those horses out of the starting gate again. Fans are patient, but if you book a room at The D specifically because Sigma Derby is there (one of those Tuesday morning gamblers, for example), you are there for the experience.

A couple of times a year, the machine is shut down for a week to undergo maintenance, so you might ask if you’re planning a trip to see it.

Love of the game

At a 2022 event marking Sigma Derby’s 35-year anniversary, Derek Stevens, owner of Circa, The D and Golden Gate, said he loves the game.

“When Derek Stevens first came to town, one of the first games he ever saw was the Sigma Derby, and he loved it,” Randal said, telling a story he’s told many times before. “So when he bought the Fitzgerald’s and started making all of his changes, one of the things he wanted to was to bring that in. And it has been iconic for us. It’s been a huge hit.”

Now, it’s the only one operating in Las Vegas — possibly, in the world. Randal said he’s heard of one on the East Coast that’s just for entertainment, but you can’t place a bet.

And these days, even if another casino could get their hands on one, there’s another problem. Very few places are set up for coin slot machines anymore.

“It’s why I have a Derby here but I don’t have one at Golden Gate or Circa. Because you have to maintain an entire coin room for that. It’s a whole different set of bookkeeping,” Randal said.