The first time I ever went to a casino, I was 21. It was right at then end of a semester of college, and two of my friends were driving up to one of the Canadian casinos. “What the Hell?” I figured. “I’ll ride along, soak in the experience and maybe have a little fun.”
I’d played most card games a few times and I’d seen “Casino” and “Swingers.” That was pretty much the sum of my knowledge. Based on what I knew, I had formulated a plan for the evening:
- Dress up like a high-roller
- Lay $50 down on blackjack
- Lose my $50
- Have drink
Unfortunately, my friends had other plans. What is obvious to me now is that I went with the wrong crowd to have fun a casino. Allow me to elaborate.
Friend number one was a Puerto-Rican dude, with one eye, who drove a minivan and had an obsession with computer-science. He was also perhaps the most uncool kid I knew. And I don’t mean that with disrespect, because he’s sweet, smart and funny guy. But seriously, he made the inventor of Dungeons and Dragons look like John Shaft.
Friend number two was a six foot, female socialist who lived on a spiritualist commune. She was a very strange mixture of hippie and red-neck, because she was born and raised in a small town outside of Buffalo, NY. As a result, she had never actually SEEN a hippie, before college, and had sort of made up her own opinion of what they were. So she ate venison steaks, listened to Ani DeFranco, grew long hair, but drove a pick-up truck. I’m not really sure where the socialism came from…My guess is that she knew that people were protesting something in 60s, but never really figured out what. So just picked a random movement ending in “ism.”
So my friends came to pick me up and let me tell you, I looked like a million bucks: Black suit, black button-down shirt, black tie, black fedora, pulled down at an angle, silver tie-clip and cuff-links. It looked like I was three drinks and a bottle of cologne away from giving someone a dead fish wrapped in a newspaper.
My friend’s battered minivan rolled to a stop, and I opened the door and looked at my friends. Hippie girl was wearing a gortex hunting coat and jeans. The Puerto-Rican kid was wearing sweatpants and a ripped hoodie. It was like they had been picking through the trash all night and had decided to find threads appropriate for drinking the day away in dumpster behind a liquor shop.
“What the hell? How come you guys didn’t dress up?”
“Why bother? We’re just going to the casino and back.”
“You’re right. In fact, why bother with basic hygiene? Eventually, you’re just going to get dirty again.”
So we rolled into the casino that evening and I tried to salvage my optimism for the night. I was young, looked good, was prepared to lose some money, have drinks and maybe meet a cocktail waitress and tell her that I was "the guy behind the guy behind the guy." If you don’t know what that line means, for God’s sake, go rent “Swingers.”
Plus, I had a posse with me. However, little known fact: your posse loses credibility when they wear sweatpants and drive a minivan. My friends instantly found the nearest change machine and converted all their money, along with their remaining dignity, into tokens. I was trying to re-enact the high life of 1970s legalized gambling and they were intent on blending in with the group of seniors on a field trip from the retirement castle. What was next on the list for them? Prune juice and high-stakes shuffleboard?
Let me explain something to you: No one really has good odds when they walk into a casino. The whole purpose of the place is to make profit, so they’re not going to set up any games where you REALLY have a good chance of winning money—at least not THEIR money. If you sit down at poker, you’re going after the money of other players. But every other game is set up to be unfair. That shouldn’t be a shock to anyone. But the biggest scam of all is the slot machines. If you sit down to play the slots, you’re better off listening to Lewis Black’s plan for an evening in Vegas:
“Convert $500 to quarters, go your room, empty the quarters out on the bed and stare at them for a long time. Why? Because you’re never going to see them again. Then go into the bathroom and one by one, flush the quarters down the toilet. And the nice part about that is every once in a while the toilet will back up and you’ll feel like a WINNER!”
As unfair as the other games maybe, the slot machines are the only spot in the casino that NEVER have a losing day for a joint. Dice tables might get hot, someone could hit it big playing baccarat, but slots NEVER lose. BECAUSE THEY’RE LITTERALLY PROGRAMED TO NOT PAY OUT.
Needless to say, my evening did NOT go well. I lost my $50, got a drink and then had to wait around for 4 hours while my friends flushed their money away, playing nickel slots. My casino virginity had been taken and, figuratively, I was lying in a corner weeping, while scrubbing desperately at the dried semen and shame that was dripping down my pants legs.
A different group of friends and I are going to visit the Borgata in Atlantic City tomorrow. They’re a lot more socially graceful, a whole lot better dressed, and generally a lot of fun, but stepping back from the whole thrill of going, I have a difficult time of figuring out WHY people love to go. Because I know, the plan for everyone is to have some drinks and lose $300 at poker. The weirdest part is we’re going down to celebrate someone’s birthday. It’s a really strange present when rather than give anything, you take the birthday boy to a location where they’re more or less guaranteed to lose, everyone knows it, and everyone still wants to go anyway. Men are bizarre.
3 comments:
Listen here Al-gazira, I don’t know about you but I am going tomorrow to win, have fun and look at the cocktail waitress’s. I never got there to lose, if I do well shit happens but if I win well shit happens. And besides we are playing a game where the odds are basically even, if you have a good feel at the table, you can sit there all night while they get pissed, drunker and dump more money to you. There have been times where I could not hit a flop and it sucks but we all have fun anyway. It’s the idea that at any give time you can make your monthly salary that you slaved all month for in a couple of hand or roll of the dice. It may be false hope but it’s not hopeless and if you are lucky that night in that time you could hit big. My point is that you don’t know if lady luck is going to stand you up or be blowing you under the table while you’re making money playing a game.
Good Blog Baby!!
That's the best description of Greg I've EVER heard.
Post a Comment