Walk Away Now!

I wanted to go back. Fortunately, Atlantic City was far enough away and I was far too busy to become a regular customer. However, once or twice a year, my best friend would venture that she was itching to head south down the Garden State Parkway to Atlantic City, and I was always game to join her. Summer weekend….the possibility of winning… a nice lunch… free vouchers to gamble “on the house” -- why not? It took me more than a few jaunts before I realized that uneasy feeling I left with every time I got sucked into a casino was depression.   

Since that first time with my dad and sister, I’ve rarely won, and never as much as I did on my first attempt. If I pour money into a machine, I feel depressed because I lose it. If I don’t pour money into a machine, I feel depressed because I am resisting a driving compulsion to play. I lose my first twenty dollars, then wander aimlessly around the casino floor arguing with myself, wondering what I am going to do for the next few hours.  “Oh c’mon,” I urge myself, “What’s another $20?”  Sometimes I give in, and break my second twenty. I rationalize that if I play the nickel and the penny machines, my money will last longer. But then there is the reality that in order to win, you really have to bet more “lines” and multiply your winnings x2, x3 and more. When a single pull of the lever yields close to a dollar deducted from my credits, I pull myself up sharply and remind myself that if I am going to be that frivolous, I might as well be playing the dollar slots. And that’s not happening.  

Sometimes I do not give into the urge, but find a stool that nobody wants for the moment and sit and watch other people as unobtrusively as possible. I am always struck by the intensity with which some people work those machines – some two at once. Some seem to be doing really well with that strategy and I wonder if they will stop when/if they are ahead. Many look older than I – some much more so. Some are attached to oxygen tanks. Even though they usually look like they know what they are doing, I worry. I wonder where their money comes from, if they are independently wealthy or dependent only on social security, and I wonder what will happen if they lose all their money. I wonder if they have been gambling all their lives or if they are relative newcomers to a novel and exciting way to spend their time.   

There’s always the chance I can win. There’s a greater probability that I won’t.  The times I’ve sat and watched three 7s (or whatever) almost line up in a row, I realized how easy it is to believe that they’ve just got to land on the same line sooner or later.  I’ve learned from my research that slot machines are the most addictive of all gambling types, and that when one’s first experience is a win, there is a greater likelihood of trouble down the road. It wasn’t long ago that I realized my casino depression occurred because I was constantly trying to recreate the feelings of that magical day in Atlantic City with my dad and my sister [See A Magical Day -- Gambling, Slots and My Dad, 10/24/2010)– and that wasn’t happening either.  Proximity is also a factor in the development of gambling problems. I can understand that as well. Besides Atlantic City to the south, there are Connecticut casinos to the northeast, no more than 3 hours away. There’s a casino in Yonkers, only a few miles south of where I live. And as I travel back and forth frequently across the state to western NY, I pass a casino in the town of Tioga.  Even in my old hometown, the race track has added a casino.  

Lucky [!] for me – although I totally “get” the allure of a slot machine and have experienced its magnetic pull, often with great conflict, I won’t be getting into trouble. There is the legacy of my risk-averse mother. There is my penchant for analyzing every feeling I have that I don’t understand. And there is my patient ability to delay gratification – hence, as I go about my business locally, traveling across the state, or in my old hometown, I consider the possibility of stopping and throwing away just a little money and say, “Maybe another time.”  Maybe – not.   And there is the text message I’ve saved that was sent to me a few year’s ago from a friend. Upon getting my text that I was “up $50” while on vacation and in a casino, he had sent one back to me – I look at it, as needed - it says, “Walk away now. Exclamation point.” 

A Magical Day -- Gambling, Slots and My Dad

I’m writing a paper on older persons and gambling for a seminar I am taking in my doctoral program. The assignment is to engage in a critical study of a specific area of social gerontology, which must include an extensive literature review, identification of gaps in the research, and examination of relevant policies and interventions. Because I would be living and breathing this paper for several weeks, it was crucial that I select a topic I could really embrace.

My father gambled in his later years. I don’t really know why he started. We lived in a town where there was a race track but my parents never went to it. It was at the other end of our town and was known to us mostly for the traffic headaches it created during the racing season. In the sixties where I spent most of my growing-up years, the only casinos were in Nevada. Though my family visited both Reno and Las Vegas on a cross-country road trip when I was in my early teens, entering the casinos was not on my parents' agenda. We drove by admiring all the lights, then parked in our motor home in a campground not far from the strip and turned our attention toward the swimming pool. I never heard any wistful conversations that involved ditching us kids and heading off to gamble. The casinos seemed slightly dangerous to me and I was afraid of them. I was happy to drive by the flashy signs and entrances but even if I’d been old enough to go inside, I would have been afraid. I’m not sure of what… gangsters…perhaps.  

So when dad was in his 60s and started going to OTB and the racetrack in season, it felt out of character. I know he went often but I don’t know how much he bet and lost. I only heard about his wins. He’d announce that he won a certain sum on the horses – $200 here, $900 there. Always looking for the big win, he worked hard on his own system of calculating which horses “should” win…. a system he wanted to teach me before he died so I could carry on and win big. Although I tried to humor him by attempting to understand his process days before he passed away, it was a complicated system that involved the horse’s gate position, his handicap, and other variables that I just didn’t “get” and would never be able to explain to a single soul, much less execute.

Many years later, when he was in his 70s, my dad visited me in New York City. My sister came up from her home in Virginia the same weekend to see him. Not quite knowing how to entertain him for the weekend, we decided to take a bus trip to Atlantic City. Somehow it seemed like something he would like to do. I’d never been – never had an inclination to go. We arrived at the Showboat casino at one end of the boardwalk just before lunch. I still remember how intimidated I felt when we walked onto the gambling floor teeming with people. I didn’t know what I was doing and felt I did not belong. There was a circus atmosphere, with garish lights, and the electronic musical sounds the slot machines made whether someone was feeding them or not. We fooled around with a poker machine but quickly abandoned that because we didn’t quite get how it worked. Then we settled down at slot machines -- three of us all in a row. At that time, machines still took real quarters and you still had to pull the arm to register your bet. Ding ding ding ding ding was accompanied by jingle jingle jingle jingle jingle. Now that is music to a novice’s ears. And we had beginner’s luck. I won $200. My father wisely told me to put it away and not use it, and I listened to him. My sister won $75.  And at the end of the day, in his last bet, my dad’s last dollar yielded a $700 jackpot. We were all flying high. I snapped the picture of him happily displaying his seven $100 bills in front of the winning slot before security informed me photos on the floor were forbidden.   It was a truly great day. 

I understood almost immediately the seductive lure of a slot machine. Being more or less obsessive compulsive, the repetitive motion of pulling the lever was appealing and calming.  Having sat through my share of psychology classes, I was aware of the principles of operant conditioning. Reward on an intermittent basis and keep them coming back for more. It works. They do return.

I hope my readers will too. More to come…….