Wheel of Justice

I have to say, I think this is hilarious in concept and wonderful in implementation.

A friend of mine was in New Orleans this past week. She called me on the way home to tell me about THE WHEEL. The usual Crime Stoppers fee on these criminals is $1,000… not bad. But if you snitch on the thug during the week that he’s on the wheel, you get an EXTRA grand! The program has been hugely successful. To prevent friends from claiming the extra money, criminals are turning themselves in when the spin lands on them. To rob an old lady at gun point is bad enough but to deny your bro 2,000 cash? That’s just harsh.

Mississippi has casinos about an hour from my house. Last weekend a friend of mine went and checked out a new place that’s opened. 10 years ago the casinos were exciting. People got semi-dressed up to go and all the tables were full. Now when I go I see a lot of oxygen tanks being wheeled around and bloodshot eyes. I think they do shuttles from trailer parks, shot gun shacks, and nursing homes because the number of middle class people has definitely gotten smaller while the number of poor gamers is on the rise. And that myth about old people going to bed early? Not at the boats! We left at 2 AM and half the people in there at that time were over 65.

This new place has an automated roulette wheel. At first I liked it but I soon noticed that the automated wheel lacked the character of human spinner. When you get a gregarious casino worker, it can be a lot of fun. This experience, however, was a only one step above playing on your computer at home. We left the table and roamed around, played other games, and returned for a final round of roulette before going home. The SAME people were still there in the SAME spots. At least 3 hours had passed!! I enjoyed listening to these roulette pros share ‘tips’ such as, “Well, it’s after midnight, so zeros should be hittin’ a streak any minute now,” and “You’re gonna wanna play 17 right now because 25 just hit and 17 always hits right after 25.” Neither of these tips proved true, but that didn’t shake their resolve that their miss was more a freak of nature than a stupid ‘method’ to something as random as roulette.

I did notice that I’m outlived the board. I’ve always played my age as one of the numbers I place a bet on. This go around, I couldn’t do that. The board ends at 36.

Sigh.... How high does the craps table go?

•   Comments(10)    Posted by liz on 04/05 at 07:21 PM
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