Casinos
I worked in a casino for about three months while I was between other jobs. This involved six weeks of training, in the morning and afternoon before it got busy - in roulette (90% of the training), brag, and hold-em - then six weeks of working.

The training was quite fun, as there were about a dozen of us with one trainer and we got fairly friendly; also, one of us took turns dealing roulette while the others would play. So a bit of a laugh really.

However to work in a casino you have to have a license, and several of us hadn't got them by the end of the six weeks, so there were about four of us handing out sandwiches, coffees and fetching drinks, from 6pm or 8pm to 6am. I wasn't overly bothered though as I was leaving for China in the near future, and really only working there to save the airfare.

But it quickly became apparent what social inadequates the regular gamplers were - sitting steadfast and solitary in front of the fruit machines for hour after hour, or spunking away chips in a desperate search for some meaning in their life, or the old women who'd moved on from being bingo junkies to the casino crack whom we kept alive on cheap sandwiches and instant coffee as they wiped out their pensions.

Oddly enough the real hard-core regulars were primarily Chinese; they'd sit there until 6am every time, sipping scalding-hot water and being miserable or aggressively-voiced. Which inspired a workmate and I to compose a racist ditty in their honour, of which I can only remember a few choice couplets:

The slanty-eyed fucks
Are down in their luck...

Can't handle their drink
And fucking well stink...

The whole thing was just a piss-take, not even remotely serious. However my stupid fucking workmate left the fucking thing pinned up in the kitchen, and we got fired. Desrvedly for stupidity but we are not in the slightest bit racist.

I was shitting myself. I needed the job for the airfare, which of course I hadn't fully saved up. I walked down the road after the firing and met a mate of mine. We got drunk in typical fashion then went to a casino, not my one but one close by which I'd never been to - it was my first time in as a customer. I was amazed to see all the regulars there - that was where they went when they didn't go the casino I'd worked in!!

I'd figured out from endless hours playing roulette (five weeks out of the six) that the best way to play is on the dozens (1-12, 13-24, 25-36) or the columns (1, 4, 7 etc; 3, 6, 9 etc). The odds are 2-1 so stick a 5-quid chip on two of them and you've got a 66% chance of a 50% increase in your money, e.g. of going from 10 to 15. Which is pretty decent odds in my book. (Don't however play both the columns and the dozens because it goes from 66% to 4-9)

I came out the place 200 quid richer and paid for my flights the next day.
(McChinaman banned, Sat 9 May 2009, 14:02, 1 reply)

Well
24 in 37 or 64.8% chance, but I'll let you off :-)
(Vice Admiral Sir Charles Cockbrush KCB MBE DSO, who is finding it increasingly difficult to log into b3ta.com wants to duck your aunt and kick your puppy, Mon 11 May 2009, 11:19, closed)