Yet a decade later, casino-resorts began popping up around
the United States. Little old ladies
from outlying neighborhoods were bused-in for BINGO! Night that was augmented
by flashing lights, music, and silliness.
I guess that is a lot bigger draw than sitting on the front porch
watching the grass grow. Young adults
would come out for an evening of poker and liquor and the fantasy of going home
in some way a winner. Middle aged people
stroll through the casino after enjoying a nice dinner in a nearby
restaurant. Out of town visitors came to
eat cannoli, enjoy the waterfalls (indoor or outdoor) and get a break from
their hum-drum lives. You get the idea.
For at least five years I held out against casino
gambling. My main concern was for the
people that would gamble away their social security and go home destitute and
sad. I don’t know any of those people,
but I am aware it happens more often than not.
I have a friend who grew up in Las Vegas and we had a conversation about
the sociological fall-out of gambling that always gives me pause. The Philadelphia area did a study quite
recently about the impact of smaller casinos that were opened in suburban
neighborhoods. Their study is an
important read for any community considering small casino placement.
But for my purposes, I wanted to check out the larger casino
environment and see what was to be seen.
My partner in this faux-crime coaxed her husband to come out with us for
dinner to check out a casino at a horse track.
It was a snowy, bitter winter night when smart people would stay
home. But then again, that describes
about five months out of the year where we live, so we acclimate and venture
out.
We sat down in a dining room that reminded me of a giant
chess board…. With large people as the pieces on the board. The buffet was mediocre at best. The ambiance, for a place that had recently
been up-graded, just didn’t have a cozy feel to it. We got up to venture to the gaming area while
her husband sat and “watched” our coats… and kind of napped I think. For each of us, we did pretty well on our
first machine and cashed out. We walked
over to her husband who presumed that we had been shamed by the Gambling House,
and clearly he wasn’t paying attention to our giggling like school girls. Once we got outside of the range of other
ears we both told him how well we did on the first machines we tried. I consider walking out with $40 in my pocket
very good when I had only put in ten. He
was incredulous that we had any luck. I
wonder if beginners luck has less to do with the beginner than it does with the
way slot machines respond to cards that have never been used before. It is a theory.
For our next outing, we went to a more resort-style
casino. I had already put my personal preservation
rules out verbally to my friend for the sake of not getting sucked in by the
siren’s call of the slot machines. It
went as follows:
#1) I set an amount
that I would use to play, and would not exceed that amount of my own money.
#2) I stayed on the
penny slot machines because you lose a lot more slowly that way.
#3) If the machine
did not give-back by the time I had put 50% of my money into it, I declared
that machine “cold” and switched to a different machine. (Actually my Aunt coined the term “cold” –
credit where it’s due.)
#4) If the machine
went up over $50 in winnings, I gave it three more pushes to keep going
up. If it just started to go down on
those three tries, I pulled the winnings and called it a day.
The corollary to all of these shenanigans is my friend’s far
simpler rule:
You play like crazy and once you win back your original
investment, you pull just that much out, put it in your pocket, and play on
what’s left. Theoretically, you are only
“losing” the house money. She treats the
game as a time occupier; while I treat it like an ATM. I want to pull more money out, not just keep
myself busy.
Here’s where the psychological study came to the fore. I asked questions and identified answers
like:
What makes someone choose a particular machine initially?
Does a woman playing the machine who is overweight or on an
oxygen tank choose a machine that has a sexy blonde on it because she wishes it
was her?
Does a man choose a slot machine with dragons on it because
he perceives himself as mystical and sneaky?
I played Queen
Isabella because I absolutely loved the sound of fireworks going off whenever
it gave me some winnings.
My one friend plays a
game that has the same name as her dog.
My other friend plays
the games with horses on them.
I enjoyed the game
Splitting Hares because the bunnies were cute, the lady bugs on the home screen
fluttered and moved around, and I, for some reason, did really well on that
machine. Then it disappeared. The machines were always being switched, moved,
jockeyed to another location on the floor.
I wonder why that is? Hmmm….
There is an unwritten code of Casino Etiquette. Or maybe
not. Perhaps some people have manners
that they utilize in any environment, and others are jerks and do not. Case in point: The woman sitting next to me
was smoking. The ash tray was on the
wrist board in front of me. I discreetly
moved it to the left to be on her area for her use. She held up her cigarette, as if she wasn’t aware
it was blowing directly into my face. I
cleared my throat. Soon thereafter I got
up and left. She won. Not the slot machine. She got to move the ash tray back and I
walked away appalled.
How do I feel when I win? I never played in competitive sports,
other than board games, so I don’t know what it feels like to kick the goal
that wins the game or provide a perfect assist.
When the computer, oops, I mean slot machine, in front of me leads me to
believe that I have “won” money, I feel proud.
I also coddle that feeling in a quiet way so that people around me don’t
know how happy I am to feel “lucky.”
Only occasionally I tap the wrist board like an excited rabbit. It’s quirky, I know.
When the money starts “crashing” and I’m losing fast, where
is my brain?
The logical part of me says:
This is gambling. This is what
this machine is designed for – to take my money – when it gives me money, that
is an aberration, not the norm. It is at
this point that a gambler can be “born” – the minute, in the midst of crashing numbers, that your brain says,“it will
rebound. It will come back up again,”
you have entered into the center of the boa constrictor’s zone. Repeat
after me: “It does not have any
moral obligation to rebound. It most
likely will not come back up again. This
is designed to engage you and then leave you penniless. That’s why they call it gambling.” This is a mantra.
It is necessary to not gamble unless you can maintain this concept, or it will
squeeze the cash right out of you every single time with you thinking there is
a shred of justice in the machine and it might pay you back this time. It is not designed to work that way. It is a tease-disappoint-tease-again scheme.
Do I feel compelled to go more often? If I have lost
my original $20, I walk away and am glad that I have also set time-parameters
on how frequently I can go to “make a donation” to the Casino employees. If I have won, I am also glad for those
parameters because it keeps me from being dragged into a mentality that somehow
I can replicate this moment. New mantra: I cannot make this happen again. No rabbit’s foot, no troll doll in my pocket,
no mystical feeling can predict the next time I will win. There is no water-witching divining rod for
this enterprise. There is just this
time, this way. There are no obligations
or givens.
How often do I intend
to do this? Not often. Mostly I can think of more exciting ways to
lose my money…. like lighting a dollar bill on fire. (and then you go to jail for a federal
offense and meet handsome jail guards?
Well, that’s not a given either.)
Do I plan to buy Life Insurance
any time soon? Nope.
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