Just Ask Scobe and A.P.

Dear Scobe and A.P.:

My friends think I'm nuts but I find that casino gambling is a great leisure-time activity. I would rather go to a casino and play blackjack than go to a movie. My friends say I am wasting my money. I am a $5 player. What do you think?

F.C.

Dear F.C.:

If you go to a first-run movie, you can spend $8-$10 on the ticket; another $8-$12 on popcorn, candy and soda. The movie will last approximately two hours. At the end of two hours you have "lost" between $16 and $22. If the movie was good, you will feel that it was money well spent. If the movie was a disappointment, you will feel that you wasted your money. No matter what, you always leave minus your money.

In casino gambling, a basic strategy blackjack player will be out one average bet (in your case $5) every two hundred hands. If you play 80 hands per hour in a two-hour period, you can expect to be down about $4. These are long-term figures, of course, and on any given night you could be way ahead or woefully behind. So, a movie costs between $16 and $22 dollars per two hours; blackjack costs about $4 -- and the drinks are free! You also have a chance of coming home on a given evening with more money than when you left. So who's wasting whose money? Hmmmm.

Win or lose, an evening of blackjack play is exciting; at least we have always found it so. However, we can't say the same for most of the movies we've seen. Most of the big Hollywood blockbusters are derivative, formulaic and predictable. But we've never been able to predict what will happen next in blackjack!