The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
~Ambrose Bierce
We can now bet legally in Ohio. Which means, on the odd occasion you win the government gets to share your good fortune. Also, when you lose, the government exacts a little revenge by cutting into the winnings of the company who took your bet. They say the house always wins, but so does the government.
“I got four aces.”
“Well, that beats me, I only have three.”
Technically, you could have four aces, without having an ace.
Sure, it inflamed the purists, on the odd occasion one showed up, but it didn’t bother anybody who was really there to smoke a little weed and drink a few beers. Which was most of us.
One time my wife and I went to a small riverboat casino on the Ohio River, it was south of Louisville, on the Indiana side. They had a special on the motel room and threw in a fifty-dollar credit for food at the restaurant. Who doesn’t love a deal?
A long tunnel connected the motel to the riverboat. They had golf carts running back and forth, electric motor whine echoing off the carpeted walls. The tunnel had an odd drift, a plastic feeling of impermanence. It seemed to sway from side to side. There were a few doors opening on west side onto the parking garage, a solid concrete structure. Once you were past the glass doors though, the tunnel swallowed you, the outside world was a memory, reality was 12 feet wide and 10 foot tall, with carpet brown, maroon carpet, designed to hide stains and wear.
We never took the golf cart shuttle. It wasn’t that long of a walk. the walls were covered with pictures of the acts that had performed there, mementos of different shows, guitars, drumsticks, glittery gold outfits, and arcane bits of history from the area, fossils and old photos from early settlers. It was climate controlled, and we were in no hurry, it was a little vacation.
My wife won over $4.00 playing a penny slot machine, and I lost almost two dollars, playing a big money nickel machine, but ate enough popcorn and drank enough fountain coke, both of which were free, to make up for it.
Our first visit to a casino was on the Crow Creek Reservation in South Dakota. My aunt and uncle, who had lived in the area all their lives, took us. I dropped a quarter in a slot machine and won over $12.00 dollars. I cashed in and stopped. My aunt seemed to think I was crazy, “you can let it ride,” she said. All I could see was a pocket full of quarters and it could be mine, or it could be the casinos. It didn’t take me long to decide. At every rest area (Illinois has the best rest areas, but Iowa may have the best vending machines) from South Dakota to Ohio we stopped and bought stuff from the vending machine.
I could never understand gambling on sports, I can lose enough betting on cards, or buying lottery scratch off tickets. If you add two teams of five guys (basketball) or 11 guys (football) and point spreads, there are just too many moving parts. There was a college football player who dropped a pass that would have been a touchdown. There were death threats against him and his family. He was a college student, people threatened to kill him because he dropped a pass. I can’t prove it, but it was probably someone who had a wager on the game, I might even bet on it.
Life is filled with chaos, and controlling the variables is the only way to make sense of it. Gambling is only a risk for the people placing the bet, the people booking the bet aren’t gambling, not in any real sense of the word, and any government that sanctions gambling isn’t risking anything. It’s like buying insurance, you’re doing it just in case, they’re doing it because it’s profitable. We gamble all the time, driving to work, taking a flight, sending that email after a few beers, that’s enough for me.
—
This Post is republished on Medium.
—
Photo credit: iStock
