As vices go, nothing gets the adrenal glands pumping quite as
much as gambling. Thoughts of vats of chocolate and gallons of
liquor might send tingles down your spine; dalliances with the
law might give you kicks; I’m sure sex in public places is
an acquired thrill; but you can’t beat gambling: the
anticipation of wining big – it’s a vice that really
lets you know you’re alive. And so having a flutter, at first sight, is harmless enough.
It won’t add two hundred pounds to your already ample frame,
won’t put you in a coma, won’t get you arrested. But,
as with all vices, if indulged in often enough it will still pave
the way to your ruin. It was with this in mind, and a hundred
quid in my pocket, that I headed to Las Vegas, Mecca for gamblers
the world over. Vegas: the city of vice, the centre of hedonism,
the place to party. Vegas is the celebration of sin. They’ve
made it legal, made it 24 hours, dressed it up with whistles and
bells. There are many great gambling tales set in Vegas, glorious
examples of fortunes won and lost. Kerry Packer, the Australian
Billionaire, once lost $20 million at the Bellagio playing poker
at $200,000 a hand. But of course, there’s a flip side to
the coin; he also won $26 million at blackjack at the MGM Grand.
Bond himself, Sean Connery, once aquired $27,000 (in 1963)
playing Roulette and betting on number seventeen three times in a
row – odds of fifty-thousand to one. It’s the idea of
beating odds like that that gamblers live for. For, as all
hard-core gamblers will tell you, gambling is not about the
money. It’s not even about the win. It’s about the
odds. The psychological impulse behind the drive to bet is the sense
of achievement and victory at beating the house. Without the
chance of losing, wining would mean nothing. And the bigger the
odds the bigger the victory rush. An old episode of the Twilight
Zone showed this perfectly: a gambler, having lost all his life,
dies and in the afterlife finds himself once again at the gaming
tables. He’s delighted to discover that he wins every hand
he plays. Then his delight begins to wear off. He can’t
lose. The ‘gamble’ has been taken away from him. He is
in Hell: destined to spend eternity playing the same game with
the same result. Without the chance to lose, all the
gratification of winning has been taken away. It’s an empty
victory. This poses an interesting question about human nature and the
nature of happiness. Most people (bar the odd sadomasochist)
would, given the opportunity, wish to be happy for the rest of
their lives. But would that really be Heaven? Perhaps we need the
lows in life to have the highs. Perhaps without them life would
flatten out into a serious of meaningless moments, accentuated
and heightened by nothing. Remember that when you’ve just
been dumped, your tutor says you’re the dumbest student
he’s ever had and you’re forced to spend your summer
working in MacDonald’s to pay your tuition fees while the
rest of friends are sunning themselves on a beach in Maui. Tell
yourself that these moments are the necessary stones that’ll
pave your way to the days of utter bliss and joy ahead of you.
It’ll be small consolation no doubt, but consolation
nonetheless. In Vegas every gambler I met could instantly be put into one
of these two categories: hard-core – those in it for the
odds, and soft-core – those in it for the money. The sort of
people who played the tables hoping to make their fortunes are
the same sorts who play the National Lottery. This is not
gambling. No self-respecting gambler would play odds of 14
million to one. The odds have to mean something. And the lottery
winner doesn’t jump up and down screaming “I’ve
beaten the odds, what a sense of achievement!” unlike those
who aim at cheating the system. They jump up and screaming
“I’m a f***ing millionaire!” And every week the
other five million or so unfortunates who didn’t win tell
themselves they’ll have better luck next time. It is often said, with much justification, that the National
Lottery is a tax on the stupid. There was also a third category
in Vegas: the ludicrously rich. These are those sad folks who
have so much money they have a hard time spending it. Once
they’ve bought all the fast cars they can reasonably drive
in a lifetime, a couple of Leer jets, and a small island in the
South Pacific, they turn to other things: trading their millions
for a few seconds of thrills. As with US shock-jock, Howard Stern, who attempted to place a
$1 million bet on a single hand of blackjack. Unfortunately for
him he had to squander his wealth elsewhere since every gaming
house in Vegas refused to take the bet. However you choose to
waste your money, remember this: gambling is only a mug’s
game if you actually expect to win.ARCHIVE: 0th week TT 2004
All or Nothing
