Now - as some have said...
Casinos don't like you to win... fortunately for them luck is on their side, as we usually only enter such establishments in the early hours of the morning as they still serve alcohol - and the games can be fun.

Now to swing back a few years, I'd been kept waiting for a chap at New Street station for some couple of hours - I'd had a night out the night before and the 3 or beers had started to just top me up. I wasn't drunk but not sober - the meeting completed, I ventured to the boards to find I couldn't get a train for another 3 hours... ARSE.

So I went for a few more beers, it was pushing late when I started speaking to the South African/Finnish sounding posh lad - he was a charmer - I was swooning. So when the couple of lads went back to their hotel to get changed for going out that night, he suggested we go to the casino...

Alarm bells should have ringing, and I had another important meeting 400 miles away in Plymouth the next day, I really should have been going home.

So to the casino we trot - he tells me he's been kicked out of casinos in the past - for winning big, I am thinking this guy is crazy but oh so fun - Alarm bells number two should have started ringing when he said he'd play with my money - chip in a bit himself (he made a token payment of about fifty quid) to my £350... To the roulette! -
Oh no, a total game of chance my brain of logic said run, my mind of greed said play play play... I'd literally never played on it before - didnt understand the odds, didnt understand when to place your coiney things... did understand anything, I was being potentially robbed but I was loving it.

So we play.

A few spins and a few wins - wow - we'd made a few quid, we were up - I said lets cash out and let me go, but he was insistent. More tiles please vicar... so the bets started getting bigger... and we were actually winning, we'd easily doubled our money - I was being the annoying kid tugging on his arm - lets go, lets go, we had £200 chips in our pile...

This is when it got crazy - he was a strong and confident character, but I am bolshy, so when I noticed he pocketed a £100 chip I said my piece - he claimed it was a mistake, he put my mind at ease with his large blue eyes and sweeping blond tresses. And so the bet comes on... £1700 or so in one hit - my god, that's a small decent car on the table there - there's no way I am leaving that to waste - so I enforced the leg it cash out rule, we split the money in half (I don't know how he managed to convince me of that).

Back to the pub to meet his mates... A huge grin on my face, a belly full of beer and a small group of attractive young ladies that were swooning at our stuffed wallets, which we were showing off (great idea to do in Birmingham city center - I fully suggest it should be tried).

Beer, beer, club, champagne, girls, dancing oh and insatiable greed. We went to the other Casino - I gave him my winnings, I said I'd go to the bar - did I ever see him again, did I my arse... I'd kept a bit back for a taxi, so I could get home - and I did manage to get to Plymouth for my meeting...

Will I ever let the attention of foreign sounding casino hustling young men sway my judgment again - probably.
(feedingtimeatthezoo day 1 of his bikini diet started, Sun 10 May 2009, 13:47, Reply)