First Posted: 2/4/2014
When it comes to games of chance, I’ve never been much of a Brett Maverick. Now, I realize an allusion to James Garner’s iconic role as an Old West poker-playing card shark is more than a bit dated, but then again, so am I.
I think at one time gambling has been thought to be more a manly pursuit, but, of course, that’s not always true. This month’s AARP magazine features quite a revealing feature on older Americans and gambling, and one of the examples of games of chance run amock involves the former mayor of San Diego and once an heiress to a $50 million fortune, Maureen O’Connor, that is, until she managed to blow through pretty much every nickel of a pile that should have lasted generations. Her addiction was to casino gambling, specifically video poker.
Any time I’ve engaged in games of chance, they’ve pretty much been noteworthy only for their futility. Occasionally, my pals will entice me to play along in some sort of gambling pursuit. In one of my more infamous gambling moments, I was in Las Vegas with some teaching pals over the George Washington’s Birthday holiday weekend some years ago watching a football game that I’d bet on in a sports book.
Needing only a team to execute a punt from its own six yard line with six seconds to go and not allow a runback for a touchdown, I was right in line to win a hundred bucks.
Now, while you think you may know where this is going, as in the punt was blocked and the other team fell on it in the end zone or there, indeed, was a runback for a score, you’d be only half right. The punt was blocked, but, in a fashion I have never seen before or since, by the punter’s own teammate, who was retreating while blocking and actually blocked his own guy’s punt with his fanny, sending the ball into the end zone, where it was recovered for the touchdown. That and an extra point took that hundred that I’d already started spending in my head and redirected it right back to the casino!
I felt such a crazy scenario and some near misses in other ventures pretty much were telling me that I should avoid games of chance. So, it was with some reluctance while enjoying a little libation and fellowship with my dear pal Dennis Bauman a few weeks ago at Fat Jack’s that I yielded to his cajoling and played, for the first time ever, Keno, an Ohio Lottery Commission game that’s been around since 2008.
As I read the back of the Keno card, I discovered the rules are pretty simple. A player can select between the numbers 1 and 80 anywhere from 1 to 10 numbers, called spots. Each game is called a draw, so a player selects how many draws he wishes to play. And, of course, he also selects how much he’ll wager. The computer pulls out 20 of the 80 numbers, and the more spots you select that the computer selects, the more you win.
We decided to play five spots for five draws for five bucks. We filled out our slips, gave them to our server and turned our attention to the electronic board on the wall at Fat Jack’s, waiting to see if the numbers we selected matched the computer’s. I had to match the minimum for a five-spot game, which is three, and the more I matched the more I’d win. Simple, right?
Now, when it comes to selecting numbers, most people who play the lottery have superstitious reasons for the numbers they select. I chose 6-7-51 (my birthday) and 9 (my baseball boyhood hero Roger Maris’ jersey number) and 61 (the number of homers Maris hit in 1961).
What I was hoping for was a match of four numbers, which would have returned a whopping 18 smackers, over triple my wager. As for the big score, matching all five numbers and winning $410, well, that was out of the question.
As it turned out, even three matches, which would have basically gotten my five back, turned out to be out of the question, as all five draws went by without matching even the minimum three spots.
So, we shrugged and sipped and continued conversing, figuring nothing ventured, nothing gained. But, while talking, I kept watching the board for the very next draw, a game I could have played had I wagered one more dollar and played six draws instead of five.
Of course, you know what happened. Every single number, the 6, the 7, the 51, the 9 and the 61 were among the 20 the computer selected! So, for one more dollar ventured, I’d have won more than $400? I played the cynic and comforted myself with the thought that had I played one more draw, the computer would have simply selected a different set of numbers, but I really don’t know that.
That my friends, is gambling’s big tease, that siren song luring me back to go just a bit farther and hang in there for my big score. It’s, for those addicted to gambling, an irresistible enticement, that the next game has to be the one that will pay off. While with me, it may have, I think I can pretty much resist that siren’s song.
