Las Vegas-Sin City gambling
Spend any time in Vegas and you will eventually be drawn into one of the many casinos either on the glamorous strip or on the outskirts. Nevada is full of flashy lights, upscale shows, the lure of winning it big! Last year’s visit to Vegas, I think I lost $30 or $40 and quickly stopped gambling. I was aware that I could easily put money down and lose it real fast. Uncomfortable with the idea of losing money that I had worked so hard to ear, I opted in on a game that moved me through various casinos but did not lose me lots of money. Mike thought of the idea of taking $1 and playing only penny slots. We would only play one spin in each casino until we either ended our casino tour or lost all of it. Since losing a dollar did not seem so threatful, I played and lost it, but had fun along the way. This year, we played with bigger stakes. Mike’s opinion of Vegas is to lose the $; to think of gambling as entertainment, but I had a difficult time absorbing this. It was hard to think that $20 could be lost in 1 minute. How much entertainment was that? I started playing some penny slots and actually winning $10 or $20 dollars until I tanked and lost all I was betting. I quickly realized I had no concept of when to stop. I mean, if you are winning and losing every periodically, then it only follows that you will eventually win, right? Well, yes and no. As I discovered during my gambling bit in Vegas, I could win and lose everything if I didn’t know when to walk away. I also learned that if you had enough $$ you could create better odds that you will win more than lose. The latter I found could still leave you in a deficit since the winnings may not make up for the losses. On the last casino outing, Mike’s gift to me was to bet with some winnings he’d made off of a slot machine. I was lucky and knew the machine I was playing had paid out more than what was lost so I used his $6 winnings to make $44. I figured that was a good run and should quit before I tanked and I gave up the machine to find him and his friend at one of the poker tables. I didn’t want to disturb them so I waited just outside the room where there was a quarter machine that tempted me to play. Seventy-five cents on one spin and I was 200 quarters up! I tried the next two machines and started losing so I stopped. As Mike and his friend, Kenny, came out from the poker room, they started comparing notes and quite animatedly continued to go on describing their experiences. I listened for a moment, then found ourselves back at the paying slots with a position open. I stepped in for a moment and after a few spins won another $11. I was struck with how easily I could get addicted to these machines and the notion of ‘big’ money. I thought I had written off slots, but this demonstrated why people play them. I think I have better odds trying blackjack or poker (if only I know how to play well), but this payout was redeeming. I actually made back most of the money I had lost over the course of our stay and felt that my luck may have turned. I probably would have stayed all night hoping for the next ‘big’ win, but luckily, Kenny and Mike made me leave. I’m still not a fan of risking money on casinos, but I can appreciate how some people find entertainment in gambling. I am also acutely aware of how easy it is to turn this entertainment into an addiction. It’s a pretty fine line between the two, in my opinion.
