On Gambling

To my great surprise, my father has got semi addicted to the casinos on our ship. I find this incredible, as he is normally very tight with money- I mean, he was born in Glasgow after all, and a Scot and his cash are separated only with the greatest difficulty. At least so goes the stereotype. But something about the randomness of mindless gambling seems to entertain him. I cant understand it really. He gave me 5 dollars to play with on the slot machines, but to be honest, I was bored by the time I had spent 3. I find it hard to get excited by something that requires nothing but luck, especially as I am not particularly lucky. My father did slightly better. With his first 5 pounds, he won 44 dollars, and decided he could use that money to keep going, although he would not allow himself to invest more. While he played away, I watched the other players, which I found far more interesting than playing myself. Some of them were clearly in a zombie stage of addiction, with glazed eyes glued to the screens as their fingers mechanically pressed the same combination of buttons time after time. Others were filled with the excitement of the relatively new player who, like my father, has had a little bit of success and hopes for more. I am convinced the house will always win, which is part of the reason I don’t enjoy playing. But some even have theories about that. One elderly lady assures me it is all rigged from the start- you can only win big on the first two nights of the ship’s voyage. That way, everyone else on the ship will quickly hear the stories of those who did win, and become convinced that they too could win big….but they cant, as they winnings have been already dished out, and the next round is only in a different lifetime….