Friends: Help or hindrance?

14 February 2017

By Frank Scoblete

It’s nice to have friends. Certainly it’s nice to have one or two good friends in whom you can confide, who you can sympathize with, and with whom you can play in the casinos. That last one can be good or bad, depending on the type of friends you have.

If you are playing in the casino, it is great to be able to share the high and low experiences. Some games you might play alone, and some games, such as craps, you might play with your “crowd.”

But sometimes, friends can work in a fashion that you don’t want as you play casino games. What if they are the type of people who bring out the worst player in you? What if they just love throwing their money around, and they ignite that spark to get you burning as well?

So let’s take a look at some casino friends that people have. You can decide if they are the type of friends with whom you’d want to share your casino experiences.

MARTIN: I am a craps player and my two buddies, John and Charles, love the game too. John is a very conservative player and he only makes pass line and come bets with odds when a number is rolled. Charles is a little crazy -- well, a lot crazy.

Charles just throws himself into the game and makes all manner of bets, mostly the bad ones. He makes the table feel exciting even if he is losing.

My problem is that I tend to be like John in the beginning of my play, but after a few shooters I start to get into Charles' way of playing. First I’ll throw out some hardways bets and then I begin the process of losing my head and usually losing my money as I bet way too many bets.

Charles is a bad influence on me.

DANIELLE: My friend Sara is a very nice woman most of the time, but when we are in casinos I have to admit she can be a real pain you-know-where. We play slots in our own sections of the casinos because she likes to smoke and I hate smoke. But here is what bothers me about her. She always claims to be winning, sometimes a little and many times a lot. It makes me feel that I have to catch up to her.

I know it is a silly thing for me to do but I will – I am so embarrassed to say this – often go to five-dollar machines to try and get a hit that allows me to come back and say to her, “Oh, you think you won a lot,” then I show her my slip, “Check this out.”

I think I prefer to go to casinos without her, but how do I do that when she is always bugging me to let her know the next time I am going? Tell her to buzz off? Other than the casinos, she is a good friend.

DAVID: My best friend is Jerome. I love to go to the casino with the guy because he keeps me reined in. I would tend to play too long and, as time passed, I would tend to bet more and more money especially if I am losing. Jerome is not like that.

Jerome likes to take walks and sit in the lobby to watch the people. Sometimes he makes up stories about a person’s life. He’s very funny. He even has a thing he says about some weird types, “That guy has bodies in the basement.” Sometimes he rates the women as “yes” or “no” as to whether he’d want to date them. He has (David laughs) very high standards. He’s divorced by the way.

He also likes to eat at the best restaurants and our meals last about two hours. He does gamble but he seems to really enjoy the whole experience, including going to the shows.

He has probably saved me a ton of money because of how he approaches the casino experience. I’m lucky he’s my friend.

DONNA: Well, this is a reverse for me, your question, because I am the friend who keeps my friend Janet controlled. All she wants to do is play, play and play. She practically glues herself to a machine and you have to pry her loose.

But I don’t want to sit at a slot machine all day so I kind of force her to take breaks and do other things. In Vegas there is so much you can do that you don’t have to gamble away every second of the day.

ADAM: My friends like to drink a little and when they do they get a little rambunctious. They jump around from table to table and they tend to be somewhat – OK, a lot – loud. I find that I shy away from them after a while because of the looks the other players give them.

Don’t get me wrong, they are nice guys but booze loosens them up and they often don’t realize that other people may not be in the mood for their humor. They aren’t staggering drunks or anything, but the booze eases their throat muscles.

FRANK SCOBLETE: I go to the casino with a single friend and we play a couple of hours a day. His rhythm is much like mine. We go slow and enjoy all aspects of the casino environment.

Okay, there you have it. What are your friends like?


Frank Scoblete’s new books are I Am a Dice Controller: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Craps; Confessions of a Wayward Catholic and I Am a Card Counter: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Blackjack. All available from Amazon.com, Kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores. Visit Frank's new web page at www.frankscoblete.com.