My family has a real defeatist, fatalistic streak. "You're gonna lose, you're a <insert last name here>." "<last name here>s don't win." That's the attitude that my family has.
But I'm trying to overcome it. I went to Atlantic City having played some roulette online, having done some charts to figure out how to play to win, and taking enough of a bank that I could win but wouldn't kill myself if I lost it all.
The upshot of the trip is that I'm down $73. That doesn't include parking ($10), buffet for 2 ($46), gas ($13), and maybe a toll or two (my sister paid a lot of those). It also doesn't include the $10 that a neighbor gave me or the $20 my dad gave me (neither of which are getting their money back).
What's more important is that I went, and I played with the attitude that I could win. I was out to play roulette. My friend wanted to get me to play craps, but there's way too much going on in that game. So I stuck with roulette, didn't play a single slot machine either. We started off at the Borgata. This morning started off pretty bad, I think it was the karma of the croupier, who was a sour guy. So before I had played for more than an hour, I was down $200. With my last $100, I sat back down with my friend, he lost all his money and told me to play red 21. The croupier had been getting a lot of those, and it hit. $35 more towards my bank. Then he told me to play black 17, which was what he had been playing, so I put $5 on that. That hit, giving me back $175. I had had a hit or two previous to these, so I was up to $352, and I cashed out. But the croupier shorted me a $25 chip and I didn't notice until after I had walked away. So I was really only up $27.
Then, this evening, we went to the Showboat to have the buffet, and we played some roulette after we ate. My friend lost some more money, and at one point, I think I was up like $80. He left, and my luck turned bad for a while. At one point, I had just about blown my entire bank ($300). Then my number hit, and I was still in the red, but at least I had 7 chips on the number, so it paid out $245, and I was a lot closer to breaking even. I put the $200 away and played the rest of the chips that I had (probably $60 or $70), lost all of those, and went home.
It was quite a thrill, and I can see how people get addicted to it, but I don't think that I have the stomach for it right now. Right now, $300 seems like a lot of money since I'm in school and don't have a job. I was shitting bricks when I had lost almost all of it and I was still putting $20-$30 in chips down on the table (in order to make up for the money that I had lost, I had to put a lot on each number). But it was an interesting experience, though I don't see a repeat performance happening any time soon.
When everything is said and done, I will have spent between $100-120 for my day in Atlantic City. It was my first time gambling (lottery doesn't count), I got to experience some highs and lows, and I think it was worthwhile. I think breaking out of the defeatist/fatalistic philosophy that my family has going is worthwhile, in any area of my life.
Except that the worst part might come tomorrow. The worst part being what I might hear from family members.
"I told you so."
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