Have you ever been to a casino? There are different ways to gamble and play, but the real noise and shine from a casino floor comes from the slot machines. Most are digital now and consist of screens that display moving graphics and video inviting you to “Win big!” and informing you that “1000 Winners per Week” are indeed fantastic odds.
There are many sorts of slot machines, but the popular ones are often the penny slots, where instead of $1 or $5 tokens, each bet is only a penny. Of course, besides the attractiveness of “only” betting a penny with each press of the spin button, the numbers when won are also impressive: 500 tokens, 1500 tokens, and so on. Any simple math shows the winnings are almost negligible, especially in a city that charges $6 for a slice of pizza and $30 for a 3-mile taxi ride. The truly amazing bit is the fact that people consistently lose money this way, enough people to warrant keeping Las Vegas around for longer than 50 years and continuing to build new casinos.
Actually, I think “lose” is too strong a word. Maybe “discard” or “throw away willingly” would be better. It’s a personal preference, mind you, but I feel the practice so horribly wasteful, I’ve tasked my wife with forcibly reminding me not to ever gamble.
Do you hear that? My wife is allowed to slap me if I ever throw my pennies down a Vegas slot machine.
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