With a sigh I thought, Why am I in a casino?
I didn’t gamble.
Which begged the question: what was I doing dressed to the nines and standing in the middle of The Lodge at Deadwood? As I glanced around the large open space, I struggled with where to focus first. From along the walls, giant free-standing slot machines lit up the center and called to passing patrons with their bells and whistles. Their colorful graphics beckoned with everything from a buff Tarzan-looking character whose green eyes lasered in on anyone strolling by to curling magenta-colored dragons breathing their hot machine message toward the players sitting in the plush leather chairs in front of them.
On the opposite side of the room, massive big-screen TVs covered the walls, each showing a different sporting event—from baseball to horse racing to soccer. A row of comfy-looking leather couches and chairs faced the screens, separated from the rest of the casino by a dark wooden half-wall. A long brass pipe was mounted along the top of the wall, adding a touch of opulence to the partition between the sports bettors and the Blackjack tables that ran down the middle of the room.
Wendy Wilson, my friend who’d met me in the casino to show me the ropes, led me to a side room off the main one where slot machines ringed the space, each of them vying for gamblers’ attention with their multi-colored lights and over-the-top cartoon graphics of everything from gold mines to exaggerated gem stones to cartoon characters like Yosemite Sam from the old Bugs Bunny shows. With purpose, she walked me to what she said was a nickel machine.
“Meaning?” I asked with a raised brow.
“You put nickels in and hope more nickels come back to you.”
In confusion, I stared at the machine. Nowhere on it could I see where to put in or retrieve any coins.
“Metaphorically speaking, Sadie, darling.” With a little grin, she pulled a five dollar bill from her purse and fed it into the cash slot on the machine. “You’re betting nickels, but none of the machines work on coins anymore. Here’s where you’ll see your credits.”
She pointed at a line that showed a hundred credits, one for each nickel in a fiver. “On this machine, you need to line up three diamonds in a row or three nines or a bonus in order for it to pay.” Running her finger along a line on the big screen in front of us, she indicated where the figures needed to be. “You set your bet here.” She pointed to a button on the flat surface of the machine. “And you spin here.” Her fingers hovered over a bright white button opposite the bet. “I’ll show you.”
Setting her bet at a dollar, she pushed the spin button. The images spun and dropped into a mishmash of unmatched pictures.
“Bummer. Let’s try again.”
Again, she bet twenty credits—one dollar—and pushed the spin button. And lost.
“I can see how this game could eat a lot of money in short order,” I mused as I stood beside her and watched the images fall into place with no payout.
When she bet again, she doubled down and bet forty credits. This time, she matched two pictures and a wild card and won back two dollars and sixty cents.
“Or not.” Her eyes twinkled when she gazed up at me from her seat in front of the machine.
“What happens if you win and want to keep the money?”
“You press the cash-out button here.” She pointed to a button and pushed it. “My cash-out is three-sixty.” Pointing to another place on the screen, I saw where her “winnings” were listed. “The machine will spit out a ticket here.” Right then the slot beside the currency slot lit up and a ticket printed out. “You can take this to one of the cash-out machines you’ll find near the back of the casino, or you can take it to the cashier at the front.” With a grin, she added, “See? Easy peasy.”
“Easy peasy way to burn through a bunch of cash.” I grimaced.
“That’s why I told you to come with a set budget of what you can afford to lose.” She slid the cash-out ticket into her wallet. “The house usually wins.” Her eyes sparkled. “But sometimes, you get lucky.”
I wandered over to a machine with one of the dragons on it. Something about a mythical creature hoarding treasure appealed to me. Perhaps it would give up some treasure to a novice player who honestly didn’t have a clue about what she was doing. This one was a penny machine, but the minimum bet was fifty cents. I figured I couldn’t go wrong with that until I glanced up at all the lines.
“Um,” I began.
“No, this is good. You have more chances to win. Slide your money in,” Wendy encouraged.
I dug a five out of my clutch and fed it into the machine.
“You can follow my lead or you can read the instructions.” She indicated a corner of the machine I hadn’t noticed. “Either way, start with a small bet and see what happens.”
After placing three separate fifty cent bets and losing them all, I shot my friend a this-is-supposed-to-be-fun? side-eye.
She laughed her infectious alto laugh. “The machine is warming up. Bet a dollar this time.”
With a shake of my head, I set the bet at a dollar and pushed the button. In the old nineties movies like Honeymoon in Vegas and Bugsy I’d watched on YouTube, the slots had long handles the gambler pulled after loading the machine with coins to place the bet. Pushing a button seemed a bit anticlimactic and not something over which I had control. Somehow, I’d thought I’d be pulling those levers, timing the pulls, and having some sort of say over how the icons in front of me spun into place.
Then three pink diamond icons and a funny cloud-looking wildcard icon rolled together on the screen. The LED lights stopped flashing randomly to chase each other around the sides and top of the machine while a bell chimed as my little dollar bet morphed into a fifty-five dollar payout. I stared dumbfounded at the machine while my friend jumped up and down and squealed like a wild woman.
“You won! Sadie! You won!”
“Now what do I do?” I asked in confusion.
“You can cash out at eleven times your bet or keep playing.”
“What do you recommend?”
Her grin was irresistible. “You can keep playing on house money, which is always the goal. I’d cash out and play up, take ten dollars of your winnings, and find a nickel machine that appeals to you.”
Doing as my friend suggested, I slid my cash-out ticket into my clutch, extracted a ten dollar bill from my budgeted gambling money, and looked around for another dragon machine that played nickels. An older lady with a ferocious scowl on her face stood up from her chair in front of a nickel dragon in the corner, and I zeroed in on it. Wendy gifted me a quizzical raised brow, but I had a feeling about the dragons.
The leather chair in front of the machine reeked of stale cigarettes, so I pushed it to the side and slid my money into the slot. Feeling brave, I bet two dollars and promptly lost them.
“What’s your strategy, girlfriend?” Wendy asked when she saw how many nickels I’d lost right out of the gate.
I tucked my chin. “Strategy? There’s a strategy to pushing a button?”
Planting her hands on her hips, she clarified, “No, your betting strategy.”
“Oh. Well, the previous player didn’t appear to have any luck, but that’s how I started on the penny machine, too. So I thought I’d give this one some incentive to pay with the first bet.”
Crossing her arms over her generous chest, my friend’s mouth flattened into half a grin and she nodded to the machine. I took that to mean “carry on,” so I bet another two dollars and came up empty. Feeling an uncharacteristic sense of courage, I bet three dollars and pushed the button. Breathlessly, I watched the icons fall into place, four emeralds, and jumped when the machine started chiming, its LED lights chasing each other in a multi-colored dance.
Wendy started screaming and grabbed my arm, jumping up and down and dancing. Only when several nearby gamblers sidled over to see what the fuss was about did I look at the pay line to discover my seven dollars in bets had paid $1,200.
“Omigosh! Omigosh! Wendy! Do you see this?” I gushed.
“I do indeed, babe.” She lifted her hands and we high-fived. “Now you have real house money to play with.”
I cashed out the machine, sliding the ticket into my clutch with the first one, and slipped my arm through my friend’s, the corner of my mouth quirking up. “Now I see why this is fun.”
With a “Harrumph!” the scowling older lady brushed my other arm as she pushed past me to return to the machine that had made me over a thousand dollars richer on a single push of a button. Wendy and I exchanged a wide-eyed look and managed to save our giggles until we were back in the main room.
“Let’s grab a drink to celebrate your awesome start to the weekend,” she suggested.
“Sure. I’ll buy.” I smirked, and giggles overcame us again.
After ordering vodka lemonades, we wandered over to the big screens. Wendy confessed she loved to bet on the horses. She checked the spreads, studied the information on the horses and riders that the attendant gave her, placed her bets, and settled into a plush leather seat facing the big screen where a race was about to start. Sliding into the seat next to hers, I sipped my drink and tried to find some enthusiasm for the ponies. But not even my friend’s emotional roller coaster as we watched several races—a couple in which her horses placed and a couple they flat-out lost—could keep my attention on the TVs for long.
Knowing she’d bet on more races, I said, “If it’s all the same to you, I’m going to look around at what else there is to do here.”
The bell signaling the start of yet another race chimed, and my friend waved a languid hand in my direction, her eyes glued to the screen in front of us. “I’ll catch you later.”
I wandered into the saloon at the back of the casino where more TVs took up another wall. From the looks of things, the bettors sitting in front of the big screens were gambling on soccer and rugby maybe. Not being a big sports fan, it was a little unclear to me what games were actually playing. The lack of crowd noise that normally accompanied a game intensified my inability to follow the action. One thing was certain: the people watching the games were more about their bets than true fans of the teams.
I sipped my drink, enjoying the cool liquid sliding down my throat, and wandered on to another room that sort of wrapped around from the saloon back to the casino. Slot machines filled this area, too. From the looks of things, the casino at The Lodge mostly catered to people who liked a lot of bells and whistles with their gaming.
My meanderings led me back to the lounge area where I spied Wendy placing another bet. A glance up the TVs informed me yet another race was about to start. Vaguely, I wondered where in the world so many horse races were going on at once. I toyed with the idea of rejoining her, but I truly had no interest in the ponies.
As I strolled around the end of the partition, I scanned the Blackjack tables. Most of them were full. At every seat of the table nearest me sat a player, all of whom looked to be pros or something from the intense way they played their cards. The dealer maintained a stoic professionalism that only reinforced my idea about the game at that table. The adjacent table gave off the same vibe, and with no open seats, I had no temptation to join players who no doubt played far more often and for much higher stakes than my friends and I played for fun on the occasional Saturday night..
The third table in the line only had three or four players, but right as I stepped closer to them, a pair of couples who were laughing and teasing each other strolled up and grabbed the last seats.
With a sigh, I kept moving, scanning the remaining two tables for an open space.
My stomach did a cartwheel when the most handsome man I’d ever seen glanced up from his cards and locked eyes with me. A slight nod drew my attention to the open seat next to him.
And my luck changed again.