Taking It All In

23 August 2022

By Frank Scoblete

I have my favorite casinos. They are not my favorites just because I’ve been particularly lucky in them but because I like the dealers, the hosts, the administrators and the stores’ staffs.

I enjoy their restaurants too. My saying has become “I eat, therefore I am.” Oh, yes, I have gained a lot of weight since my athletic days but the extra pounds will suit me well when I grow to six-foot-five.

You can say that the atmospheres of these casinos suit me just fine. The games? I don’t have to play them should a casino change them or the place is too crowded. I never feel compelled to play. I do not follow a casino time schedule. I tend to set up my playing days the way I set up my working days – and I basically work every day of the week!

I get up at about the same time as I do at home – in the vicinity of five o’clock; have breakfast, then play a session of craps. I often play with my good friend Jerry “Stickman,” a great casino player. We each take the dice three or four times and quit the game if our shooting is (1) not making us money or (2) is making us a lot of money and we’re tired.

If I am with my wife, we will play some blackjack. Her craps play is non-existent now since she hit a stickman in the eye with the dice some years ago while simultaneously hitting the boxman in the face. (This happened although I know it sounds impossible.)

Yes, I often play at places where I don’t want to stay. These places have the better games and the types of craps and blackjack tables I enjoy.

My serious play I do in the mornings and early afternoons. Evenings I rarely play. I prefer an uncrowded casino. I don’t want to be jammed in at tables with other jammed in players.

Evenings? Good meals as I have said. A show. (I had one year where I saw almost every show on the Las Vegas Strip. They could have made me a performer in Cirque du Soleil.) As important as anything else, just lounging around and having conversations with players is a joy. I get a lot of my ideas and insights from other players. I enjoy seeing how other players engage in their pastime. Good times, bad times, doesn’t matter. What do you feel when this or that happens? Yes, that is what I want to know.

The worst, of course, is when someone has been hammered by the casino. It’s a deep depression for some players, certainly those players who have been riding winning streaks into play. Getting blown away can leave some emotional scars. All players who have played any length of time in the casinos know that feeling of devastation.

Great victories? Many players have had them. The players will often feel that they are being given a gift from the gods. Certainly, the best time of play in the casino is when you are hammering the house and not when the house is hammering you.

All the best in and out of the casinos!

Frank Scoblete’s web site is www.frankscoblete.com. His books are available from Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, e-books, libraries and bookstores.