The Gambler

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

I’ve often talked about my love for gambling but I never really talked about my experiences inside a casino. So, you know, why not? Some manly storytelling to follow-up last weeks talk of fuzzy animals.

My first experience gambling came when I was eleven. It was at my sister’s christening part at the Knights of Columbus in Red Hook. They used to have this slot machine in the back. Technically the kids weren’t allowed back there but this was a party, right? Our parents were giving us quarters and we were screaming out, “Come on, lucky 7!”

Well, I hit the three sevens. $250 bucks which, for an eleven year old, is a small fortune. I had to pay the bartender a 20% tip, according to my dad, so my prize money quickly dwindled to $175. But even after my first experience with greasing palms I still had enough to purchase the one thing I wanted to purchase: a new skateboard.

Early in life I learned that gambling = stuff I couldn’t afford. And I was hooked.

I bought a two-tailed Vallely. Decked it out with all new trucks and wheels – hooked it up nice. Couldn’t skate for shit but that didn’t matter – what mattered is how much I paid for this board. Absolutely nothing.

There were opportunities to risk my money after that, as well. I had a friend in junior high that would actually run a gambling operation in for some local guy. Football scores. I was twelve years old and betting a dollar a game, learning about spreads and over-under. I never bet more than I had (thankfully, I was a kid, but I still don’t bet more than I had) but I handed in my picks every week.

We started playing poker in junior high, too. In the lunch room – nickel, dime, quarter style. Poker became my game early on. I played through high school and as often as I could in college.

It was really the only gambling I did in college. No car, no money – my friends and I could sit around a table for hours, drink beer, and play poker. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that, despite my love for gambling, I didn’t play at a casino until I was 22 and out of school.

I went to Atlantic City with Robin and two friends, Max and Brooks. We stayed at this dirty motel off the strip. Robin went straight for the slots. She loves the slots. That girl actually bought a book on winning slot strategies. Since I have a diploma in mathematics, this absolutely freaked me out. I was like an evangelist that just found a Marilyn Manson CD and a bag of pot in my daughter’s room. But, you know, whatever passes the time…

Max and Brooks went to play blackjack. Me? I went to play Let it Ride.

Do you play Let it Ride? Because if you do, you’re playing the game with the worst odds. The one that non-gamblers play. I know this now. I spent the entire night at that table, up-and-down, until I eventually lost close to $200. It was a fun night, not a huge loss, no complaints.

As we were leaving I had my last ten dollar chip. Not wanting to cash it in, I went to the roulette table and put it on 14, my sister’s birthday. 14 came out – I won $350 bucks. I never played Let it Ride again. Of course, I also played the middle with a color someone else was playing. The guy was nice enough to tell the dealer that it was, indeed, my win and the dealer lectured me on proper roulette etiquette. I took my $350, bought lunch for everyone, and went home.

I started teaching myself blackjack.

My boss at my old job loved blackjack. After talking with him one day, we decided that I should learn to count cards. I have that math knack, after all, and I can catalog in my head pretty easily. So, I learned to count cards. By the time I was good at it I was already out of the old job and I never really had an opportunity to hit up Atlantic City with my old boss (you need at least two people to run a successful counting operation).

So, instead of using my new talents to get super-rich, I just used my new talents to burn my money really slowly. Bet a little higher when the deck’s hot, nothing noticeable, and a little lower when it’s cold. If the deck is cold, I’ll bet my win streaks like this:

1 – Minimum
2 – Minimum x 2
3 – Minimum
4 – Minimum x 2
5 – Minimum x 3

Repeat until I lose. If I lose, go back to 1. If the deck’s hot, I bet like this:

1 – Minimum
2 – Minimum x 2
3 – Minimum x 3
4 – Minimum x 4

Back to 2. If I lose, I go back to 1. It’s enough to sustain me for the night. I usually walk away a little ahead.

I’d still play roulette, too. I learned the secret to roulette, for me, is to play carefully. I was a casino in Gulfport, Mississippi playing roulette once. I’d put dollar chips down on five inside numbers. If I hit, a 7.6% chance, I get $35. If I’m ahead early, I get the fuck out of there, because everyone loses in roulette eventually.

Anyway, this one time in Gulfport, I hit the number 7 out of my first 10 spins. $16 dollars in, $245 out. I bought my coworker steak that night. Spent the rest of the evening breaking even at blackjack.

Blackjack is my real love. It’s that rush. One time I was at a casino with Robin’s brother playing blackjack. We were both at least a hundred up, I decided to call it in. He has $250 and he decided to play down to $200 so he goes $50 in. Two kings against the dealer’s three, what do you do? He splits them up - $100 in – and doubles down ON EACH. $200 in. He wins on one and loses on the other – breaks even on his bet. He figures, fuck it, and puts his fifty back in.

GETS THE SAME HAND.

Ends up $200 in again and wins on both, this time. We drink a lot.

And that’s a goddamn rush, right there. I play blackjack 90% of the time at casinos now. When Robin and I went on our cruise, we’d party and drink all night and then after I cuddled her ass to sleep, I’d go to the casino and play blackjack for two hours. I’m just lucky I don’t live closer to a betting establishment.

Robin’s into poker now, too. She comes out with me to my poker matches whenever she’s invited. She even won a local tournament and was invited to participate in the regional tournament but she couldn’t make it. We’re just a gambling family, I guess.

When our genes mix, our kids are going to be fucked.

Labels: brooklyn, dc, gambling

posted by Jason at 9:10 AM 3 Comments

Making Something From Not Much

Monday, November 20, 2006

I’m down in Southern Virginia this week for wineries, postcard shopping, and Bed & Breakfasts. I’m getting some work done as well, have the laptop with me and I’m taking in the brisk air, the smells of fall – the pumpkin cake and cider – and letting the creative juices flow.

I had a memory today and, since Robin’s taking a nap, I decided to turn it into a story. I got a whiff of chlorine today while driving from Williamsburg to Petersburg. Not sure where it came from, there are chemical plants along the way, but the instant I smelled the chlorine I was reminded of this pool we had back in Brooklyn. It wasn’t a large pool by any means. It was rectangular – probably around 12-feet long by 4-feet wide and around 2-and-a-half-feet deep. My family couldn’t afford a big pool but this was really all the pool we ever needed, anyway.

We used to load up this plastic container with chlorine tabs – it would bob around in the pool and, supposedly, clean the water. There wasn’t a filter on the pool so I’m still not sure how this processed worked but all I remember is how strong that water would be after the chlorine tablet dissolved. It would sting our eyes and burn our nostrils but we didn’t care, it was still the only pool on the block.

We treated it like any other pool. We found a way to dive into it – it was more of a head-first slide but it felt nice and smooth. Cannonballs didn’t hurt your tailbone too much, either, so we’d occasionally drop a cannonball in the pool. We actually played Marco Polo in that thing – it still amazes me. It was two-on-one and the polos got to stand and the marco had to stay on his knees. We played a baseball type game where the corners of the pool were the bases. I’m sketchy on how the ball was pitched and hit, I’m pretty sure we did it stoopball style off of the metal bar that went around the top of the pool. We even played that ring toss game except the people looking for the rings at the bottom of the pool were supposed to stay on their bellies and they were supposed to keep their eyes shut.

My parents treated it like a real pool as well. We had a skimmer to pull the bugs and leaves out of the pool. A pH kit to test the water levels. My parents would have the neighbors over and they’d all sit in the pool and have beers. Cleaning the pool was the best. We’d do it every couple of months – we’d start by siphoning the water out with several hoses. Once the water level was low enough we’d lift the pool 90-degrees and rest it on its side; spray the lining with the hose and scrub it down nice. Then we’d fill it back up – we’d sit around and watch the water level rise, anxiously waiting for it to get high enough so that we can take the first dive into the crisp and clean water.

It’s just funny – how kids learn to make the most out of what they have. Is there really any basketball hoop better than a metal garbage can? We can adjust the height of the garbage pail so that we can dunk on it and write the score along the side of the can in chalk. Kids didn’t need tall rims, a net, and a painted court – we just needed something we can throw a ball into, easily, that made a cool sound when we scored.

With a rock you can scratch out a hopscotch court and then used the same rock as your tossing stone. And, yes, the boys played hopscotch mainly so we could beat the girls as a substitute for kissing. If we found a piece of plywood we’d turn it into a skateboard ramp by just resting it on top of a curb. It appeared to give us a bit of lift and provided some fun before the inevitable break that caused someone to take a face-first digger on the sidewalk.

I think the happiest days where those when we found broken or discarded city property. Traffic cones where great for slalom biking or skating; payphones were great for breaking. Every throw a payphone off of a roof? It’s like the Juggernaut vs. Blob argument except the Juggernaut fucking explodes.

Stop signs – oh God I loved stop signs. Someone crashes into a stop sign and knocks the pole clear off and you have a great room decoration and a new grind pole for your skateboard.

I remember one time my friend David and I found a discarded LP deck. A real piece of shit, it hardly worked. We brought it into the house and spent the whole day using it to scratch my old records. “Pump Up the Volume” was no longer playable after that day.

Deserted cars – holy shit. If you were real lucky there were still some unbroken windows left behind – there’s nothing more satisfying than getting that front windshield to shatter. Looking back now, I wonder how many parked cars we smashed because some kid before us broke a window and slashed the tires – we just assumed it was deserted.

We were just all about making the most out of our environment. Good, cheap, wholesome fun.

Labels: brooklyn