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…….