A few days ago I had an opportunity to stay in a hotel resort and casino. The comfortable hotel room met all my requirements for a good night's stay, but I could tell that the hotel did not make up the majority of the business transacted at that location. The first clue came when I checked in. The registration desk, small and almost inconspicous. reminded me of one of those old fashioned post office windows where I used to buy stamps. In fact, I had a difficult time finding the hotel part of the resort and casino. There seemed to be no clearly marked entrance. The main entrance to the facility, with a covered drive and valet service, took the visitor directly to the casino.
I have not quarrel with the "gaming industry" and I have been known to have visited a casino and even bet on horses at race tracks, but this is not something I look forward to and have very little confidence in the whole process of "gaming."
Don't you love that euphemism, "gaming." It's like children out in the back yard playing in a sand box, or as in my army days we "gamed" a problem to decide what tactics to use or to discern what the enemy might do next. Possibly, there is a connection between the two, army men trying to discern an outcome and putting money into a machine or betting on a horse. If I worked hard enough at it, maybe the connection would be more evident to me.
Anyway, I was at the hotel resort and casino actually to perform a wedding and the bride's family arranged for the hotel room. The religious duty that brought me to the hotel resort and casino did not mean I could not investigate the casino part of the hotel resort and casino.
So, later in the evening my wife and I walked to the casino, which is called "the boat." That gets me everytime I hear about one of these places. Missouri law requires that casinos be on one of the two rivers that give most of Missouri its character--the Missouri and Mississippi. I believe the supposition had been these places would actually be boats floating on the river; however, none that I know of are. To get around the river requirment the casinos are constructed near a river and then some sort of moat is dug around them making the place something like a boat. Nevertheless, the boat quality is lost when you discover that the structure is not floating but is solidly constructed with a foundation down to hard rock.
As we crossed onto the "boat" we were greeted by smiling hosts who encouraged us to have "fun" and wished us "good luck." We walked into what I would think Dante would have included in his description of hell. Lights blinking in a darkened space big enough to house a 747 airplane. The blinking lights did not illuminate the space, just blinked and announced that you could be the next winner of thousands of dollars. First, we were confused. We had walked into the casino with a twenty dollar bill and could not figure out how to reduce it to nickles or quarters. Finally, we found a person with a badge announcing employee status. We were told we did not need coins. The machines took twenty dollar bills. However, there is alternative, we could go to a machine that seemed to me to require a degree in electical engineeing to operate or we could talk to a human being at the cashiers' desk.
We chose the latter. The young woman at the desk gladly handed me twenty one dollar bills for my twenty and told us that the machines only took bills, not coins. As she finished counting she looked up at me and said, "Good Luck, sir; have fun."
We strolled about this din of iniquity looking at the machines and the various "gaming" tables to get oriented and try to figure out how to have fun. Everywhere we looked we saw bored people sipping on bottled beer aimlessly pushing buttons in hope of winning a ton of money. Because no coins are used, there was no sound of winning. As we moved about the people at the slot machines looked like zombies inhaling deadly cigarette smoke (at least we thought it was) and downing beer after beer. There were no shouts of glee. In fact, it appeared to us that no one was having fun or good luck.
Nevertheless, we had to try. The ten one dollar bills each of us held in our hands were demanding to be spent. We found a machine that seemed interesting, we put a dollar in the slot pushed a button, watched numbers spin in front of us, and then waited for something to happen. Nothing happened. Pushed the the button again and nothing. Finally one more time and card zipped out over my head. "What's this?" I asked. I had apparently won a dollar. I found if I slipped the card into the money slot it let me play again. That was the end of "good luck" on that machine.
We thought we would try another. So, we roamed about looking for another machine that seemed interesting. We found one that someone had just abandoned and took it on the theory that it might now be ready to pay off. Instead of paying off it robbed me of a dollar and broke down. We had to get someone to come to fix the machine, but it never really got fixed; only robbed me of another dollar. Anyway, I will say the young man who came to fix the machine was very polite and when he had finished making the machine more robber worthy he said, "Have fun, sir and good luck."
We looked about at the glittering misery of the place and decided we had all the fun we could stand and all the luck we needed. We walked out and went to our room to have fun and the good luck of being together.
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