I Like Casinos

I like casinos.  I would have expected, having led a healthy, non-smoking, thrifty, intellectual life, to be disdainful of the whole idea of a place full of smoke where people spend incredible amounts of time and money sitting in front of  noisy machines, pressing buttons and hoping to “hit it big”. 

My casino adventures started with my first trip to Las Vegas in 1994.  My husband’s Mom and Dad invited us to meet in Vegas and to stay with them at Circus Circus.  They drove from Ventura, California and we flew in from Seattle.  Michael’s Dad, Lou, met us at the airport, which was surprisingly filled with slot machines and advertisements for Vegas shows, including the long-legged showgirls in red, scanty, sequined outfits, showing maximum amounts of probably enhanced boobage.  I realized right then I was in a bizarre land. 

My husband’s Mom and Dad had been going to Vegas for many years, even taking their kids in the early days.  They had been staying at Circus Circus for decades. It was inexpensive, and right on The Strip.  As we road in Lou’s boat of a car, a Monte Carlo with wide, cushy bench seats, he told us about how things had changed over the years.  “Mike, this used to be a vacant lot, and now they’ve put up another casino! You used to be able to drive in this town, not any more.”

Circus Circus was new and shiny once, but by the time we saw it, it was getting dusty and shabby and the smoke smell was heavy.  The rooms were papered in garish pink, with clown paintings on the walls.  Thank goodness it was before the bedbug scare of the 21^st century or I would have developed a psychosomatic itch.  The rooms looked overused and abused; cleaning couldn’t take the ancient stains out of the carpets anymore. 

Lou had brought coffee, a coffee pot, mugs, sugar. Michael’s Mom, Anta, had brought a cooler full of lunchmeats, tomatoes, mustard, lettuce and bread for sandwiches. Their trip was all about saving money wherever they could so that Anta could spend more money at her gambling.   Even though they were better off than they had been when they brought their kids to Vegas, the habits of those years still persisted.  Aside from the breakfast coffee and lunch, we spent very little time in our rooms.  Anta is Greek and her time schedule is the same as it was when she lived in Athens.  She goes to bed at 2:00 in the morning and doesn’t get up until 11:00 a.m.  Lou never adjusted to her habits and so he was up at 7:00, ready to take us to Ethel’s Chocolates or the discount mall, complaining, “Your mother isn’t up yet. Let’s go!”

Later we would come back to the hotel room, have the improvised lunch and then take Anta out to find a machine she liked, while Michael and I would find other things to do.  We’d meet for dinner and try a new buffet every day.  In the 90s the buffets were a bargain, but as hotels in Vegas became more extravagant the prices of the buffets rose from $10 a person to $20.  We still tried them; Paris, The Venetian, The Bellagio.  They were fancier than the less expensive buffets, with Ahi and shark along side the more common prime rib and turkey.  Lou particularly liked the desserts and would load his plate up with cheesecake, brownies, cookies, apple pie, while Anta scolded him for taking too many.  She, on the other hand, filled her plate with beef, turkey and lamb.

Michael and I explored the newest casinos, went to Hoover Dam, visited the dolphin habitat behind The Mirage, watched the Treasure Island pirate show, the Bellagio fountain show and watched people.  There is no better place to see a huge variety of people than Las Vegas, from the oldest, most poignant looking to prosperously decked out young business people and everything in between.  It was shocking to see men and women in wheelchairs in front of slot machines, or very elderly people with oxygen tanks in tow, inside the smoky casinos.  At the more posh places, like Paris or The Venetian we’d see designer dressed and artfully coifed women in extremely high-end stores like Prada or Christian Dior.  Minorities, mostly Latino, worked the buffets and were the maids who cleaned the rooms.  Young men on the street passed out fliers for sex shows or call girls.  We once followed a tall, beautiful blond young woman, carrying a red rose, as she met with what looked like a businessman in the lobby of a hotel.  We were convinced he was meeting with his paid escort.  Most of the people we saw, though, were like us—from small towns, dressed in ordinary clothes from Penney’s or Target, awed by the glitz, glitter and glamour of the bright neon Strip. 

We’d eventually meet with his parents who would end up at New York, New York or The Alladin, where Anta would have found a “good” machine she didn’t want to leave.  Good meant it was giving her back more than she was putting in.  She always played the 25-cent video poker machines, because she felt her skill at poker would help her win and it usually did.  She would bring $200 to gamble and always took home more than she’d brought.  Lou spent his time fetching coffee for her or watching high rollers at the Craps table.  Sometimes he would play, but not often.  When it was time to meet for dinner it was hard to pry her away from a machine that she was having luck with.  “How can I leave now?” she’d entreat.  “It’s geeving!”  We learned to approach her long before we were really ready to eat.

These early days were when I developed my fondness for finding an interesting slot machine to play.  I would look for good graphics or a whiz-bang twist—a machine that started spinning wildly when certain symbols lined up.  These were still the days when you put real coins in the machine and you pulled the “arm” of the “bandit”.  The excitement of actual coins falling, clang, clang, clang into the tray was hard to beat, even if they were only pennies or nickels.  I didn’t gamble any more than $20.  I didn’t have that much extra money to throw around and in those days, playing nickel machines, $20 lasted for days.  Every now and then I’d win.  The first time it happened was in Treasure Island.  I was putting in nickels.  The machine started to make all kinds of ringing and clanging noises and the light on top of it started to flash.  I didn’t know what was going on.  I thought the machine was broken until an attendant came by with a chit to receive $45 from the cashier. This was after only the second nickel so I really did get a windfall.  I bought a Cirque de Soliel sweatshirt with my winnings and still had money left over.  Most of the time, though, I’d end up gambling and losing my $20 and that was alright, too, because I was entertained.  $20 wasn’t that much to pay for a couple of days of being amused. 

We have gone to Vegas many times since that first time in 1994.  Until the last couple of times it was always with Michael’s parents.  Lou died in 2005, so now it’s his Mother and us.  She longs to be there and it’s always a popular suggestion.  “Want to go to Vegas, Mom?”  She’s almost packed by the time we get off the phone.  The same routine follows:  my husband and I go around to all the new places, visit some of our favorite old ones, do a little shopping and check in with Anta at “her machine”.  Michael is the one who brings her coffee now and cashes in her credits.  She doesn’t bring the lunch fixings or the coffee service anymore.  I guess she must feel a little more prosperous now or maybe all that was Lou’s idea.

 For several months before she came to visit us last Fall, we scouted casinos in the  Puget Sound area.  We tried out Snoqualmie, Little Creek, Muckleshoot, Suquamish and 7 Cedars casinos.  We checked to see if they had her video poker machines, which they all did.  We took her to all of them when she was here and she found a good machine in all but the 7 Cedars.  The video poker machines were not “giving” up to her standards but she found a Black and White slot machine that gave her jackpot after jackpot.

Now the machines are automated and it has taken me a few years to get used to the new, cartoonish graphics.  There is one based on “I Love Lucy”, another has lots of weapons and explosions, there was a Lucky Charms game with shamrocks and leprechauns for a while, but I think that one has gone out of favor.  Every year there is a new crop, but all are based on the same old theme—get symbols lined up in a row and you win something.  Get lots of symbols lined up, or a special symbol lined up and you win something better.  I look for machines that have classic illustrations, like Neptune’s Kingdom or Rembrandt’s Riches or Secrets of the Forest, so that the game is pretty to look at while it’s eating my paper credit, which is what you get now in place of real money.  The machine tries to make sounds like the pennies or nickels clang, clanging into the tray, but it’s all illusion.  They play music now and have screens that come up to give you bonuses. If you get three treasure chests in the Neptune game a screen appears that allows the player to pick several chests that will give you free spins or multiply your winnings.  That always gives me a surge of happy adrenalin.  But the old clicking, clanging machines are a thing of the past.  And so are the dirty fingers from handling the coins.

My husband and I have now started to go to local casinos by ourselves.  We up the ante a little by making our visits overnight trips, giving us a getaway along with the slim chance of going home with more money than we came with.  Most casino hotels in the area have hot tubs and pools, though they lack the lions and dolphins and lavish stage shows of Las Vegas.  Tulalip Resort Casino has outlet stores within walking distance, not as much fun as the Siegfried and Roy’s Secret Garden behind the Mirage, but still a draw for a bargain hunter.  True to tradition, I do the gambling and my husband makes sure I am hydrated with water and coffee.  He can’t make himself gamble.  He’s much too frugal.  Like his father he observes and enjoys watching me hopping from one machine to another while I look for a good machine, one that will give.