I've never really been a gambling man, and when I do gamble... I am pretty conservative about how much money I am willing to dish out. (Even when I play Facebook Poker... with fake money, I play it safe.) But now that I'm on tour, I've been playing riskily with what little money I have with per diem.
A few weeks back, when we were staying at the Isle of Capri in Biloxi, Mississippi, I tried to limit myself on how much I spent in the casinos, capping myself off at $20 dollars at the slots. But after I had gone through that much and left the casino, I found out that Mara had won about $70 at the Ebay slot machine (A machine I dabbled with a little earlier on in the day). So naturally I thought, if Mara can win big, I too can win big. So, here's the deal with the Ebay machine: it had 5 individual slots machines which were connected to a giant screen slot machine. Occasionally, there would be a bonus round in which the giant slot spins 10 times, and everyone playing benefited from whatever points came from those spins. So I kept playing hoping for a bonus round, trying to figure out what triggered the bonus games, while putting in more and more dollar bills. Anyway, long story short, I eventually got a bonus round, but it didn't help me much, and I ended up being down $55, a whole days worth in per diem. And then I said to myself, next time if I'm losing money early on... I need to just walk away.
Well, today in Nashville... I had a little bit of issue doing that.
Today, Josh and I, after dropping off Virginia and Colleen at the Country Hall of Fame, made our way to the glorious Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center. It was glorious hotel with a bio dome like world inside with shops and boats on a mini river. Here are some pictures to help describe what I mean.
Well, Josh and I discovered the Arcade, an arcade with huge prizes. (Gambling for Kids.) There was a grab claw machine that gave you a shot at winning a... Sony PSP! (Whaaaaaa?!?) I didn't even want to try that one, cuz I never get anything with those games. But then we found other machines. There was the stacking machine, in which you had to stack, row by row, electronic blocks which were moving back and forth horizontally very quickly on a screen by pressing a button to stop them. You had to press the button in time so that the blocks stopped on top of another set of blocks or else it was game over. (Think Tetris, but the object of game is to get your blocks to hit the top of the screen). If you made it to the very top, you got a choice of taking home an IPOD or a Nintendo DS! (The stakes man!)
But this here is the machine that hooked me:
So, this game had a small plastic box (containing a key) standing on a rotating turn table. The object of the game was to try to knock the box off the turntable and into a hole using a thin metal rod which was triggered by a button. If you got the key, you be able to open the case on top of the machine which contained... a Nintendo Wii!!!! So it was all a timing thing. And I got close... too close... too many times. I actually got the rod to touch the little key box, and even got it to push the box up against the walls right next to the hole, but never into the hole. I started by getting $2.50 in game tokens to play with, which was all I was I was willing to waste at first. Then it was another $5 in coins. Then another $2. I still hadn't won, but I thought if I could only just play a little more, I would get it. Josh allowed me to use another $5 dollars, and held my wallet, so I wouldn't be tempted to spend more. So I played some more, and nothing. So at that point I walked away having spent $14.50 (That could have two meals!)
I think I need to stop gambling with money, because if my total losses at the end of this tour amount to the value of a Wii, I will slap myself.
Josh... keeping me from my wallet.
No comments:
Post a Comment