• @[email protected]
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    783 months ago

    I remember one day walking into a 7/11, in maybe 2002, and there were 2 guys in suits, totally dishevelled, collars undone, looking like they’ve been awake for 3 days, depression coating their faces, and they had a stack of scratch tickets that they were silently just scratching off.

    The story I have in my head is that their business fell apart and this was some past ditch desperate attempt to save it with the little money they had left. I have no idea what actually happened but here we are 20+ years later and I still think about them occasionally.

    • @[email protected]
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      823 months ago

      The one thing that going to a real casino taught me is that, despite what Hollywood would have us believe, casinos are not full of impeccably dressed classy people, but very old retirees that look like they only have a few years left to live, and disheveled men who look less well dressed than me in my PJs at home, who are gambling away large sums of money in a fit of anxiety and addiction.

      Really depressing crap.

      • @[email protected]
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        413 months ago

        And yet Donald Trump still managed to lose money somehow, which should have really told us something about his supposed “business accumen”.

        • @[email protected]
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          113 months ago

          Oh yes. The bankruptcy of Trump’s casino was a thing to behold. I wish I could find the video of the people who worked with him back in the day as they all remarked as to just how absolutely ignorant he was about all aspects of both gambling and managing a casino.

          • @[email protected]
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            23 months ago

            But with the power of daddy’s money, he “earned” his position as CEO/owner nonetheless!

            Which is already so cringe it hurts, but then to turn around and use that to prove how “well” Trump - not daddy, but himself - could run the entire nation…

            img

            As a nation, we deserve our fate I suppose.:-( We should do better. We need better. We won’t survive unless we aim to be better.

        • @HappycamperNZ
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          03 months ago

          Maybe he had some morals about it…

      • Flying SquidOP
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        273 months ago

        I associate my time in Las Vegas mostly with elderly people with oxygen tanks, chain smoking while they put coin after coin in the slot machine. Just sad.

        • @[email protected]
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          143 months ago

          Vegas is a good place to go if your idea of a good time is eating and hanging around the pool. Other than that, it’s a glittering shithole in the desert built on the losses of prior visitors.

            • @[email protected]
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              53 months ago

              Hoover Dam and Valley of Fire State Park are both cool stops that aren’t too far away. I’ve never been to the Pinball Museum so I’ll have to check that one out next time.

              • @nomous
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                33 months ago

                The Grand Canyon is only like 2 hours away as well. Don’t listen to the other commenter Las Vegas (and surrounding area) is a blast.

                But I do actually think hanging around a pool, eating sounds like a good time.

        • @[email protected]
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          123 months ago

          Now you just hook your debit card to the machine and you don’t even have to put a coin in!

          • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet
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            103 months ago

            And they took the pull handles away because they can siphon money out of retirement accounts much faster if the victim player only needs to press a button.

            • @[email protected]
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              3 months ago

              That’s sad. Pulling the lever was such fantastic part of the experience. Now we can’t call them “One Arm Bandits.”

              We use to live in a society.

      • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet
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        103 months ago

        Oh for real. Walking through a casino is like being immersed in despair and obsession. I find no enjoyment in it at all.

      • @NABDad
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        103 months ago

        And smoke. Don’t forget about the smoke

    • @Hugin
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      263 months ago

      That makes me think of the chinese guys that took cash from the bank they worked at to buy lottery tickets. The idea was to use the winnings to pay back the money and keep the rest.

      They got lucky and it worked the first time. Then they decided to try again and lost.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_Bank_of_China_robbery

      • @pyre
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        133 months ago

        gambling is a helluva drug

    • Blackout
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      143 months ago

      The guy who started FedEx literally put his company’s payroll on a roulette table just to make enough to stay in business.