My Descent into the Clutches of Gambling

Just before we left for Hawaii, Laura’s mom, Pat decided that she wanted to take Laura’s brother, Paul, Laura and me to Lake Tahoe for a couple of days. Lake Tahoe is the largest alpine lake in North America, located on the border of California and Nevada. It is a major tourist attraction, with a number of ski resorts.

California didn’t allow gambling but a lot of Californians went to Lake Tahoe to gamble on the Nevada side. I grew up being taught that gambling was a great evil. There is no specific prohibition against gambling in the Bible but it violates a number of Biblical principles and usually leads to great loss.

In Laura’s family, some minor gambling was seen as just a little fun if one kept it from getting out of hand. Before we left, one of Laura’s uncles gave us a little money just to use for just that purpose. We needed money for our move to Hawaii so I was thinking that I would just keep the money and Laura’s uncle would be none the wiser.

We got up to Tahoe and were enjoying our time together. That evening, Pat and Paul decided they did want to do a little gambling. We went along with them and since we were there, we decided to just go ahead and use the money from her uncle. I had always heard that most gamblers usually lose and the money is gone pretty quickly. I wanted the money to last a little a while so we decided to just try the nickel slot machines.

Sure enough, the nickels were soon gone. But in the meantime, both Pat and Paul were playing the quarter slot machines and were on the upside. I was just sitting watching Paul with his bucket of quarters and he told me to take some. So I started playing again…and started winning as well. And that’s when I got the fever. I was on a winning streak and I was hooked.

Laura wasn’t playing. She was just going back and forth, watching us all. When she saw that my bucket was getting pretty full, she made me give her two thirds of the quarters to cash in, knowing that they would also soon be gone. She cashed in $90 and sure enough, I lost the rest.

The next evening, we saw a show at one of the hotels and outside the theater was another casino where Pat and Paul started playing again. Many gamblers are given to great superstition, thinking how they do particular things and certain numbers are good luck and the like. I got sucked in. 

I calculated that I had started winning when Paul had given me the quarters the night before so I asked him to do it again. I was going to pay him back but I wanted everyone to pretend that he was just giving them to me so that it wouldn’t mess up the juju. I was getting into some bad psychological territory but…it worked! I started winning again. Fortunately, Laura did her cash in trick again and got $60 and I lost the rest.

That night I was so frenzied about winning that I couldn’t sleep. All I could think about was getting back to gamble. I watched a movie on TV while Laura slept and I waited for 6AM when the casinos opened. I sneaked out without waking her. This time there was no one to give me any coins but I was thinking my mojo was now strong enough to win on my own merit. I cashed in $20 and decided to go for the $1 slot machines…and promptly lost it all. I slunk back to the hotel room where Laura was still sleeping. I slipped into bed and got a few fitful hours of sleep. 

When Laura woke up I told her a “white” lie. As she had fallen asleep while I was watching the movie she asked,

            “Did you sleep?”

            “Some.”

            “What did you do while you couldn’t sleep?”

            “Just watched the movie.”

Later on she noticed that there was $20 missing and it all came out. She was not happy. Pat tried to defend me but Laura was right. And that is the story of my descent into the clutches of the evils of gambling. It went from greed to superstition to obsession to lying to my wife.

Tahoe


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