Closing the Generation Gap

23 February 2023

By Royal Flushes

CINDY: Bob Dylan sang “The Times They Are a Changing” and I can tell all of our readers that the time has changed big time for me.

ABBY: And for me too.

CINDY: It didn’t happen overnight; it happened over years but those years have made the world quite different for me. Each thing I talk about is seemingly minor but it has a profound effect. The world of my growing up, at least until I was 25 years old, seemed to be level in most things. I am a product of the 1960’s and early 70s but the Vietnam War was over and “flower power” was wilting.

ABBY: We can use the casinos as an example of the profound changes that have occurred. I find myself in a casino and, at times, I think I have entered another reality.

CINDY: So, let us be superficial and see how these events actually mean that something is going downhill for us.

ABBY: The way women speak now seems far more from the lower class. I am talking about dealers who do not hide the fact that they dislike certain players. They make faces when the payer makes a wrong move as if to say to the rest of us, “What an idiot that guy is.” Yes, that guy or woman may be an idiot but the dealer should be neutral in dealing the game. We are not choosing dealers for their ability at “commentary” on the players.

CINDY: Female patrons are often festooned with tattoos. I don’t know how many people today agree with me but tattoos are not beautiful. I don’t care if wearers of these stains injected into one’s body proclaim they look great. They don’t. When I was growing up, the sailors had them but women tended to look on them askance. Please, picture Audrey Hepburn in “My Fair Lady” going to the ball in a beautiful gown with tattoos all over her body. Horrible.

ABBY: How about cross talking by dealers while players are at their tables? I am not talking about something that has to be said by one or another dealer, but actually carrying on a conversation? What? That rarely happened in a casino in the past.

CINDY: Even worse is crosstalk from the dealers in a different language. At craps this is a very annoying thing. I do not remember that going on much in the past. I actually think dealers were told to refrain from that. It actually feels as if they are squeezing the players out of their world. You begin to feel self-conscious. Why aren’t they speaking in English and just what is it they are speaking about? Can the game have that many permutations that they must speak extensively about it in another language?

ABBY: If a player speaks to a dealer? That’s okay. But dealer-to-dealer conversations? Not good. The dealers should affect the idea that they are there for the players.

CINDY: They don’t have to love the players but they must pretend they at least like the players. I would think that would be their jobs.

ABBY: How about the dealers who come to the tables smelling of smoke? I thought players couldn’t smoke on their breaks but I haven’t found that at most of the places where we play.

CINDY: And we do play at the best places too.

ABBY: We have even heard dealers use foul language at the tables. What the heck is that? Dealing with the public in any way means you have to be above the lower things in life, at least in the public life. We used to call low-class language “cursing.” It was seriously frowned upon. Now? Not so much.

CINDY: Are all dealers like this? No. Most aren’t but the ones who are pushing the envelope down the drain have a negative impact on the players.

ABBY: There’s more but I think we laid out why to us things are going in the wrong direction. I look at the last 30 years and I see the slide down the hill clearly.

CINDY: Or we’re just getting old.

ABBY: Possibly.