Many years ago I was invited to go on a bus trip to Atlantic City. For $20 I got a bus ride there and back and a $20 voucher that could be redeemed for $20 in cash at a casino.
On the bus ride home, the trip organizer got on the bus’s p.a. system and asked how we had done. Had anyone won any money? Everyone shook their head no, some of them answering that they had lost $20, $50, $100 —except one woman. She said she had won $500! The rest of us were amazed and wondering how she had done it? What had we done wrong, what did she know that we didn’t know?
She told how she had started with her $20 and soon lost it. But she had come with more money and used it to continue gambling. This happened so long ago that I can’t remember what game she played, but that’s really an inconsequential detail. Whatever it was, she gambled and she got lucky and she won $500!
“What did you do next? What happened to the $500?”, someone asked.
“Oh,” she answered, “I gambled it and lost it.”
When she told the whole story, it was clear that, she had gambled and lost — that just like everyone else on the bus who had gambled. Bottom line: She was going home with less money than she had come with. Something like $50 to $100 less, if I recall correctly. But somehow, in her mind, she thought she had “won” $500. Actually, she had, in effect, paid the casino at least $50 to let her hold $500 for a few hours. Almost as if she had borrowed $500 and the casino charged her 10% interest to have that money for just a few hours. Think about what 10% interest per 1/4 day would be in annual terms.
And that, I thought to myself, is the real reason that casinos make money. People go to a casino with a certain amount of money. They leave with less money. But they think they “won”. Yes, I thought, that’s why casinos are able to make money: Some people literally don’t know the difference between winning and losing.
(By the way: I redeemed my voucher for $20 in quarters. I took it home and used it to do my laundry.)
