Off-Topic Flood Evacuation Anecdote #1

During our wanderings we visited some of our friends and in a stunning display of adulthood we decided to take in "a show" at the local reservation casino. The closest I've ever come to a casino before this was a connection in the Las Vegas airport which is packed to the gills with slot machine. That time I left up to the tune of forty dollars, on the nickel slots no less. The nickel slots were not as kind to me this time, taking my whole dollar. Angela on the other hand, turned a 165% profit on her dollar.

The casino experts in our party lamented that the slots were a sucker play, but in honesty everything in a casino is a sucker play. Betting limits and tweaks to prevent 50-50 chances keep any Martingale shenanigans and unlike the Vegas casinos in the movies there is no steady supply of liquid courage. (There is however, and I am serious, an open soda fountain.) If one takes this somewhat pessimistic view of the entire casino being a system, then this is a system that can be gamed.

The eventual show was bad, real bad. The house began sparse but not deserted and none of the acts seemed to know how to deal with it. Even the headliner, who had already done one show, seemed entirely bereft of prepared material and depended solely on banter with a drunk retired trucker after striking out by mocking a blind man's glasses. The thinned out crowd worked greatly in our benefit come time for the door prizes.

All trades considered, we left up by almost sixty dollars. You just have to know when to not walk away.