The Dagley Dagley Daily

By Janet Dagley Dagley
Covering the world from the waterfront in Hoboken, New Jersey, USA

ISSN 1544-9114

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Union maid, part 4: Why gaming is not my game

I didn't bet a dime in Las Vegas, and to answer the question I've heard most frequently about that since I got on the plane to come home, no, I wasn't even tempted. My friends who do gamble from time to time say I'm lucky that the one time I did try putting a quarter in a slot machine, 20 years or so ago at a Nevada gas station during a brief stop on a long cross-country trip, I didn't win. To me, it was kind of like trying to use a Russian pay phone: you put the money in, nothing happens. You bang on the side, nothing happens: your money's gone, and for what?

It's just as well, my gamer friends say, that I've never experienced the thrill of wagering a pittance and collecting a bonanza. They tell me that if I had, it might not be so easy for me to resist taking a chance, just once, and taking along with it the chance that I might win a cupful of change and then finally feel the rush they were talking about. Some expected that my resistance would be worn down during four days in a casino hotel, surrounded by the flashing lights and siren songs of the one-armed bandits, that maybe, when I thought nobody was looking (a ludicrous concept in a casino!), I might pull a coin or a twenty out of my purse and just see what happened.

But when I walked through the gaming areas on my way to my room or to our meetings or to breakfast, it wasn't so much the lights and whistles I noticed, but the sad expressions on the faces of the people peering so intently into those machines. When I followed my friends into the human-operated gambling areas, I didn't see much in the way of opportunity, except the union jobs held by those employed there. I admired the precisely choreographed movements of the blackjack dealers, couldn't help but notice the roulette wheels spinning in my peripheral vision. I was impressed by the perfect physical specimens sashying past with trays of temptation, whispering a word you rarely hear outside places like this: "Cocktails? Cocktails?"

Mostly, what I saw was people reaching into their wallets and purses over and over to pull out cold hard cash and hand it over to someone who would stuff it into a hole in the table, where neither player nor dealer could ever get to it again. From time to time, I did see a dealer shove a few extra chips in the direction of a player, but only once did I see that lucky player pocket those chips and walk away. If I closed my eyes, I could hear the slot machines singing and the cocktail waitresses cooing and the excited murmur of a thousand conversations under it all, even the occasional cheer or groan from the craps or roulette tables, but only once did I happen to hear the chugging of a machine spewing out quarters. And I never saw anybody (not a single person) approach the cashier cages to cash in their chips. I admit that I didn't linger in the gaming areas for long, so I'm sure there must have been some exciting moments, maybe even lines at the cashier's window, when I wasn't there to observe. Then again, I wouldn't bet on it, (just as I didn't bet anything in Final Jeopardy!)

Every ride in the elevator, up or down, morning or night, was a perfect little minidrama:

The two silver-haired ladies staring grimly into empty plastic cups with pictures of coins and smiling people on the sides.

A young couple with three children under 10, going downstairs one morning. The husband asks, "There IS money, isn't there?" The wife doesn't answer.

A sloppily packed suitcase, only partially zipped, and a woman, her mascara running, hurrying to push everything inside and zip it the rest of the way. A man, his arms folded sternly across his chest, glares at her.

Although the casino hotel complex was a maze of twisty little passages, all different, the exit signs hard to spot what with all the other, brighter flashing lights, a small group of us did manage to escape one evening for a brief field trip down the strip to the quintessential Las Vegas lounge.

As we emerged, blinking like moles, from the hotel, the first thing we saw was a large tower in front of us, a small swimming pool at its base. People stood on a platform at the top. "Ooh, let's watch! one of my friends said, "This one's about to jump." Sure enough, just then a woman jumped headfirst off the platform, then bounced around awhile on the end of a long elastic cord.

"You want to try it?" someone asked. Once again, I was anything but tempted. Bouncing around upside down on a string like that just seemed too much like everyday life for a freelance writer.

posted by Janet Dagley Dagley @4:10 PM

28.9.03