The economy is ROARING and the Penny Slots are BOOMING!

[Ripley]

I just spent a couple of days in Biloxi (Vegas of the South) and man oh man. Went to a few different casinos and since I was there last year... amazing how many new Penny, yes one cent slot machines have been installed.

I always thought the nickel slots were silly, but Damn. In the casinos I went into the crowds were mostly at the slots, only a couple of craps tables and blackjack tables had people playing. And most of those table folks were the guys with gold neck chains nestled on their gorilla hairy chests showing through their fancy button-down shirts unbuttoned down to their mid chest with a dick-image-propper-upper absurdly blonde, absurdly shaped (think upside down ladel), half-his-age, glassy eyed female in sequins clutching a bourbon and Virginia Slim in one hand, on his arm.

I went to one place called Boomtown. First floor, kind of slow. Basement only had people at the bar and sporadic gamblers. Second floor? Well, that is where the penny slot gazillion machines are and it was packed.

Very depressing. It's a supposedly free country and all (we're number 1!) and yet to see so many mostly senior citizens dressed in cheap made-in-China clothes, smoking Basic cigarettes, hitting that spin button incessantly made me kind of sick.

Penny slots are tools of the wicked. It's not only a marketing tool for getting people to play (hey...I can get one hundred spins on a dollar!) but a deceitful way to make them feel like they really aren't spending that much money. You see, once you sit down in front of a machine that says 1 cents on it, you realize quickly that unless you play all 25 lines at 20 coins a play, you'll never win more than 10 cents in an hour. So in essence, they are the same money suckers as the 25 cent or dollar machines.

But with that "feel good" idea that you only played penny slots.

I felt like an anthropologist walking amongst these people. The decline of American civilization.

I'm not against gambling, obviously, hey, I walked out of there with $50 surplus this year (25 cent video poker for me).... but the mood in these places was very depressing and sad this time.

With less discretionary spending money, the people who frequent casinos for entertainment value is really down. The rich shits will always be in the high dollar rooms (25$ slots) and high-stakes poker. And there has always been the poor and gambleholics who frequent these places. But in all five casinos I entered, the most people were congregated at the penny and nickle slots. And they were overwhelmingly shabbily dressed and OLD. Trying to win money for meds?

And another thing, with the closure of Keesler AFB in Biloxi, I guess I can expect to see more people at the penny slots in the future.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. We are seeing it all over the place I know

[ewagner]

2. Amen to this

felt like an anthropologist walking amongst these people. The decline of American civilization.

I feel the same way most of the time...I make it a habit to watch people and their behavior in different settings.....

The sickness of rank-and-file Americans is overwhelming....

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. READ upton Sinclair's The Jungle

what you are seeing is what Upton Sinclair saw, desperation

[ewagner]

4. I've avoided it

since College.....maybe now is the time....

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Yes it is the time

Heck I may pick up a copy, when I go to get coffee,... I read it a long time ago

Now here is a small observation local Barnes and Noble... they have these great copies of the greatest books in hard back, small and cheap... since they started sellign the philosophy ones their two bigest sellers are selections from Karl Marx and THe Rights of Man... I thought to myself, HMMMMM if you know what I mean. They are cheap enough I can afford to get a copy of the Rights of Man and a US Consititution and give it to people

;-)

[Ripley]

6. Yes, I feel that way just about anywhere I go.

I watch people and their behavior.

But watching so many people on canes, in wheelchairs, slowly limping, and even people on oxygen!!! in a smoking casino, no less!! is almost beyond comprehension!

I don't want to tell them they should not sit in a smoke-filled boozey atmosphere throwing their money into a machine where the chances of them becoming rich is next to non-existant to LEAVE.

But, oh the humanity of it all!

[Cleita]

7. I find casinos depressing, but they do provide jobs

in places that wouldn't have any. Also, if grandma and grandpa gamble away their SS, leave them be. They'll be dead from the second-hand smoke soon enough anyway. I just hope the casinos are regulated as much as they should be and taxed through the teeth locally and the money funneled into social programs.

[Ripley]

8. Yes, they do provide jobs, although I noticed few blacks.

Whenever I go there I see more Spanish speaking maids and more white bartenders/table dealers/bosspits than I do blacks. Yet southern Mississippi probably has a lot more blacks unemployed than any other group.

Like I said, if they want to gamble their SS, let em go. I won't stop them. I was just observing something that is very very sad.

It is very awful to watch an old woman pick up dropped coins in the parking garage in order to gamble. It is really sad to watch a person on oxygen in a wheelchair with his wife holding his outstretched hand to the spin button on a slot machine, where the smoke is as thick as a fog.

I highly doubt the casino money is funneled into social programs.