I have several vices, but playing slot machines was never one -- until Friday. That is when I played in the first Celebrity Slot Machine Tournament at the President Casino on the Admiral in St. Louis.

About 20 celebrities and quasi-celebrities (like me) gathered to work the machines for charity and to have a few laughs.

It was good publicity for the casino and a nice windfall for some charities. First prize won $2,000, second won $1,000 and third won $500. Everyone got at least $100 for his or her charity of choice just for participating.

Some big local names were there such as radio personalities J.C. Corcoran, Vic Porcelli, Trish Gazall, Guy Phillips and Cindy Collins, television folk Donna Savarese and Doug Vaughn and hockey analyst and former St. Louis Blues great Bernie Federko.

The game was easy. We were to punch the spin buttons on the machines as rapidly as possible to get the maximum number of spins in seven minutes. Why seven minutes? I have no idea.

There was absolutely no skill involved, just the ability to push a button with a finger on either hand.

There was no lever pulling involved since most slot machines no longer are one-arm bandits. They mostly are push-button bandits.

I'm not sure the organizers weren't putting us on a bit. The sight of all of us maniacally punching buttons was pretty absurd. I suspect that we probably could have pushed the button only occasionally and have gotten the same results. But it was for charity, so we were all willing to act the fools.

I noticed my counter kept going backwards. I'm losing credits, I thought. Then someone told me that was my clock counting down.

Somehow I won my qualifying heat. I sat there, punching the spin button a couple of times a second and watching the reels as they spun, stopped and then took off again.

With a few minutes left my score was around 900, which meant I was way behind. Suddenly my score jumped by 1,000 for some reason, something to do with red, white and blue sevens, and I was in the lead.

I eventually won the heat with 2,990. Randi Naughton was second. In the other heat, Porcelli won with Carney finishing second.

That put all four of us into the final. I followed the same strategy in the final, pushing the button furiously. Naughton surged to an early lead and won easily. Carney finished second. I was third.

My money went to the Christian Activities Center in East St. Louis, an after-school program for youth.

I got to walk off the boat a winner, even though I had no money. Best of all, I got a canvas tote bag as an attendance gift and everyone I passed thought that I had won so much money I needed a bag to carry it.

Article by Wally Spiers