So dad immediately went for the slot machines, letting me know that he "had the feeling" today. I laughed. "Silly old man. There's no such thing as "getting lucky" and "having the feeling." I'm an engineer. Let me teach you about probabilities and about how slot machines have to pay out 98% or so and . . . . holy crap you just won $150." And the day was off to a lovely start.
However, my disdain for "the feeling" continued. If my dad just won $150, it's because that particular slot machine hadn't paid out sufficiently lately and odds are it won't pay out much again in the near future. "It's simple probability, you crazy old man. You're an engineer, why don't you get this? And if you keep playing for the next 2 hours, he's bound to lose that $150 back, and then some."
I get all my logical thinking from my dad, but unlike me, he's often able to suspend his engineering mind for a particular subject. Case in point - aliens. Logically, sure, with a billion planets across the universe, there's bound to be some kind of life, intelligent or not, on some planet, somewhere. But he's more of the abduct-a-redneck alien believer, and thinks the only LOGICAL explanation for the pyramids and Stonehenge is alien technology. Supposedly there's no history of Alzheimers in the family, but I have my doubts .
But none-the-less, we grabbed more drinks, went back to the slots, and each put in $20 into separate machines, agreeing to split whatever we won (or likely loss). And . . . the "feeling" struck again for dad. This time, his machine hit for another $150. What .. . the . . . hell. And we're not playing $1 or $5 slots, where winning $150 isn't that much of a stretch. We're playing quarter slots like the middle class folk we are, hitting on a 300-to-1 shot on a 2 quarter bet. I don't think I've ever won anything over $10 at a casino, and now dad's "feeling" has just bought us a free lunch and Lions tickets? Not a believer yet, but I guess I'm rolling with it now, as it brought us a nice little Thanskgiving treat.
And so a couple weeks later, I headed down with a carpool of friends to Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut, mainly to see comedian Lisa Lampinelli, but hoping to also see if "the feeling" is going to carry on.
Yeah, I've been to a casino before. I've been to Vegas. But Foxwoods is more like a New England institution list item. 7 years out here and I had yet to go to there or Mohegan Sun, the other giant indian casino out here. Iconic enough that when I mentioned going there for the first time to someone at work, it was worthy of a "you've NEVER been to Foxwoods?" response.
At first, we hunted down the available poker tournaments. That WAS an actual item that had been suggested - to compete in a real non-home-game tournament, against real live strangers. However, the only option available was for the mathematically challenged. 10 players. $60 entry. $300 for 1st place and $150 for 2nd. And for those aforementioned mathematically challenged, that means the casino's keeping 25% of the total entry fees, when the average casino will only keep 5 or 10% of the total. Simple gambling lesson to live by - if it pays worse than keno, you really shouldn't be playing.
Next, we tried to gamble on jai alai, a sport in which my entire knowledge consists of the episode of Jack-Ass where Johnny Knoxville and Steve-O get pelted in the ass with oranges.We expected to just bet on Team A or Team B, but in reality, the betting card was more like a tax form than a lotto ticket. Strike 2.
So it was onto blackjack. Good ole blackjack. Good ole "lose every single time I play despite the fact that the odds are close enough to even that I should have won at least ONE time by now son of a bitch why does this keep happening" blackjack. And as luck would have it, the cheapest tables available were $10 tables, despite me never having played more than $5 tables. Thus, I threw down $100, fully expecting to lose it all (again), and just hoping it would last long enough for a couple free drinks.
Detroit casinos? No freed drinks. Foxwoods? Vegas-style freebies. We steal their land, they give us free booze . . . what a country! And for some reason, we ordered drinks like we were sporting fedoras at a 1940's horse race. We started with a round of Tom Collins, another first for me. Then, we progressed to a round of sloe gin fizzes, again, a first. You stay classy, Foxwoods.
And as the booze kept coming, so did the cards. For the first time in my life, my stack at a blackjack table actually grew . . . and so did "the feeling." So after an hour or so, when the pit boss upped the tables from $10 to $15, like game show contestants without a Whammy, we pressed our luck, and I finally got a little taste of what my dad had suggested before. The additional $5 per bet brought no fear. I was, as they say, on a roll. And it's a hell of a feeling to have the dealer start asking if you'd like to start changing your $5 chips in for $25 chips. "Do I want to look like a middle-class bad-ass, with green chips in my stack? Yes sir. Yes I do."
When all was said in done, after two hours of play and free drinks, I walked away up $230. Maybe it was the illogical "feeling", or maybe it was just the simple probability that I couldn't go 0 for 10 (or whatever it was up to that point) at a blackjack table in my life. In either case . . . damn, it felt good. After an hour or so of slots, and a post-Lampinelli round of backjack, the net result was +$210, a fine day's work at Foxwoods. Just like Thanksgiving, "the feeling" paid for the day's events, and my faith in the gaming establishment was restored.
Related "feeling"notes, as it seemed to carry over into my football gambling:
- Shortly after Foxwoods, I came in 1st and 3rd in 2 of my 3 fantasy leagues.And fantasy football requires some skill, but a whole lot of luck.
- That same week, I won both of the pickem pools I'm in (and for the sports gambling challenged, these pools are 98% luck)
- I took the Chicago Bears at 11-1 to win the NFC back in April. I immediately regretted it, but now they're a #2 seed.
- I also had taken the perpetually shitty Detroit Lions to win more than 5.5 games. A month ago, they were 2-10. They just now finished the season 6-10, after winning 4 straight for the first time since, I don't know, WWII was going on?
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