When to Hold'em, When to Fold'em

With a temporary casino opening in Danville this year, it’s reasonable to ask: Do I gamble? Well, yes, quite modestly.. How can I not, when:

 

—My mother dropped a nickel in a slot machine in Reno when I was about 10 years old. Bells rang as she suddenly won a $7.50 jackpot.

—I spent two years as the Associated Press correspondent in Las Vegas. I would gamble until I either won $10 or lost $10 and quit. I avoided the low-paying one-armed bandits in grocery stores and the airport.

—For several years I played low-stakes poker with other journalists in Washington. (My hands shook when I had a good hand.)

 

It’s hard to gamble, though, when you have a wife who abhors the thought of risking any of your income on the roll of the dice.So my gambling today is on the World Series of Poker app on my ipad, in which I can win or lose $5 million in pretend money and never bat an eye. I wouldn’t dream of betting real money

on sports with my phone. Scary!

 

I still like to play poker in Reno, where my sister lives, with fairly low stakes. I can participate a long time without winning or losing $50 by only betting when I have a great hand. The players

don’t know me. Secret: I never bluff.

 

But gambling certainly has a downside. My aunt in California loved to gamble, probably too much, either on firehouse bingo or at the slots at nearby Lake Tahoe. After she died, a major

casino opened right in her small town. It’s probably a good thing she didn’t get to see it.

 

I used to watch motorists from North Carolina stop in Cluster Springs, right near the border, and give up part of their hard-earned money for lottery tickets before their state started its own

lottery. The gas stations had the kind of betting windows you would see at a race track.

And when Maryland opened up casinos in the last 10 years, I went to a poker table and won $50 in five minutes. I could have lost $50 just as easily. The stakes were too high. I’m outta here

—I never came back.

 

Let’s hope the stakes aren't too high in Danville.

 

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Don’t Miss “Four Freshmen,” at the Halifax County High School auditorium Friday at 6 p.m. and Saturday at 2:30 p.m. Tickets will be sold at the door only. Performances last fall were sold out. The play by Pat Crews is about four young men who integrated a Greensboro lunch counter.