Whatever Happened to Timmy?

3 October 2024

By Royal Flushes

CINDY: This is an oldie.

ABBY: Go ahead.

CINDY: Whatever happened to Timmy?

ABBY: Oh, my, I remember him. Wow!

CINDY: He was a mainstay when we first started playing in the old days.

ABBY: The good old days in Atlantic City.

CINDY: He was always at the Claridge or Sands in Atlantic City. I used to think he lived there. Every time we went to Atlantic City, Timmy was there.

ABBY: He had a tribe of girlfriends; every widow on earth seemed to want to take care of him.

CINDY: How old was he when we first met him?

ABBY: I don’t know, maybe 80? Somewhere around there.

CINDY: He taught me everything about how not to play the games.

ABBY: I am thinking that everything he did was wrong from a strategy decision. He played blackjack wrong; craps wrong, everything I ever saw him play he played horribly. Even games like roulette where it was basically just pick a number he would bet too much and lose his bankroll at that table. Awful.

CINDY: He was also the happiest player I think I every saw considering I only saw him win a few times. He was never in a bad mood.

ABBY: I thought of him as almost a necessity at those casinos. The second we walked in I wanted to look for him. Actually I did look for him.

CINDY: He used to call us his “beautiful girls.” He’d say this and bow the way gentlemen did in the old-time movies. “MY beautiful girls,” and bow. He was a heck of a nice man.

ABBY: He was alone. I know his wife died some years before we met him but he had so many friends in those two casinos. The dealers would go “Heyyy! Timmy!!!” when he came into the casino.

CINDY: He was a five-dollar player who was treated as if he were a thousand-dollar player.

ABBY: I remember once he won, oh, I don’t exactly remember, but it was a big amount and he went around the tables and gave many of the dealers tips! On what and why, I don’t know? He just said, “I love you guys” and gave them chips.

CINDY: I do know that the casinos gave him comps galore.

ABBY: Those bosses with the power of the pen made Timmy feel really good, really welcomed.

CINDY: I doubt that in today’s casinos anyone could just give today’s Timmy comps galore.

ABBY: I also remember that as an old guy, he did not smell like an old guy. He was clean and always smelled as if he were going out on a date.

CINDY: I think he was dating every woman in the place!

ABBY: But he was, let’s be honest again, a terrible gambler. He’d parlay like crazy and make the absolutely worst bets at craps.

CINDY: Do you remember that in those days in Atlantic City many craps players tipped other players who had good rolls all the time? That was a thing. You don’t get much of that anymore in any casino around the country. Timmy got tipped because he was Timmy.

ABBY: Yes, I liked those times, maybe because my youth was being opened to a world I was just discovering.

CINDY: Me too.

ABBY: I am guessing that Timmy is in heaven now.

CINDY: Without a doubt.