Many, many years ago, I used to enjoy gambling. Blackjack, to be specific. At first, it was the mystique of the casino; the buttons and neon-colored lights on all the machines, the sounds of jackpots and semi-jackpots calling to you to empty the loose change from your pockets before you even get your wallet out and hit the cashier, even the smells of the casino.
Yes, there are smells....honest. Some are good...some not so good.
The good...the all-you-can-eat buffet, the occasional pipe aroma wafting through the air, and if you're lucky, the smell of a stack of bills as you walk out the front door with the house's money. The bad...the smell of mini-buckets of dirty nickels and quarters being hauled around under watchful eyes by little old ladies taking their weekly (sometimes daily) bus trip, the various odors of the regular degenerate gamblers who threw bathing out the window because 'they were on a roll and couldn't quit now', and the over-perfumed women (it's always Vanilla Fields...blech) who try to mask the scent of gin and Virginia Slims they constantly exude.
The very first time I ever went to a casino, I sat down in front of the first machine I saw, put in one quarter, and won $75. I was hooked. I was gonna be richer than Bruce Springsteen...I had it all planned out. Come up here a few times a week, bring a roll of quarters, and walk out on rose petals drinking a bottle of Dom Perignon with an escort on each arm like Ice-T or Hugh Hefner. My dreams were soon dashed. I realized very quickly that the house, not I, had the overall advantage. Then the scheming started...that didn't last long either. I figured out that if I was going to be a successful gambler, a real high roller, I was just going to have to learn how to play the games by the rules and win by strategy, not cheating. Face it...you can't cheat a casino. You might do it once, maybe even three or four times, but you WILL get caught and if you did, you might never be seen again. I didn't have the balls to try.
Soon enough, I found the blackjack tables. I started small, only playing at the three dollar tables. After a while, I learned how to play the game; when to hit, when to stand, when to hold, when to double...all that good stuff. I got pretty good, and I knew the game fairly well. I graduated up to the nickel tables, and once in a while I ventured into the quarter table territory, but not very often.
One night, I decided to try my luck at the quarter tables hoping to win some real money. After I sat down and started playing, I was having the night of my life. I walked in with around $200, and was up over $1,000. I couldn't lose no matter how hard I tried. I felt like Tony Montana...the world was mine and there was nobody who could stop me. Or so I thought.
After a while, a well-dressed man in a very nice suit came over and asked me if I'd like to join this table over in a little corner off of the rest of the tables, the one in a blue haze of expensive cigar smoke and smelling of Old Spice and whiskey. It was a hundred dollar table...somewhere I had only dreamed of playing. My eyebrows went up almost as quick as my heartbeat. I took my stacks and followed the nice man over to the new table and sat at the open spot. I was the youngest player there by a long shot...the next oldest guy there was at least twice my age, and they just got older from there. My luck seemed to follow me there also...soon enough, I was up over $6,000, and I was ON FIRE. Unstoppable. Unbeatable.
Until...it happened.
I caught some bad cards, and I started to sweat a little. My vast fortune was dropping by as much as $500 a hand, and all of a sudden it was like someone turned on a switch and the shoes turned to complete shit. I started to bet bigger and play more erratic to make up for my losses, and I could feel my luck slipping away. I'm sure the free drinks the waitresses kept bringing didn't help any, either. Those broads knew what they were doing. By this time I knew I had already had quite a bit to drink, but I was losing my ass in a big hurry, which took my mind off the booze. The only thing going through my mind at that time was despair and sorrow.
My last hand there was a $250 bet...a little more than I had in my pocket when I walked in the door quite a few hours and almost as many drinks ago. My 19 lost to the dealer's 20 and I was flat busted. Broke as a sonofabitch and I was devastated. I thanked the dealer and didn't say another word to anyone. I walked out with my head to the ground in shame and I couldn't forgive myself for not getting up and walking out when I had over SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS of the house's money sitting in front of me.
I learned an expensive lesson that day...and I haven't played a single hand of blackjack since.
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