The Jekyll and Hyde of Gambling

I don’t know why the man did what he did, but I do know the evil that gaming can elicit. I am not talking about when you go to Vegas or the Indian Casino occasionally, the scratcher you may buy on payday, your friendly game of poker I am talking about hardcore gambling addiction and the personality change that goes with it.

It’s one of the most devastating toughest addictions, but unlike other addictions you can lose everything in one night. You can lose perspective even before that. It’s not a build up; there aren’t necessarily warning signs. It can go from a night of fun, into a week of trying to get even, to losing your house.

I’ve seen financial planners, real estate agents, nurses, business people and more go from playing for fun occasionally to destitution. I saw a father selling food stamps (back when they were paper) to get a bet in. I once saw an anesthesiologist play his first hand ever, to being on the table for weeks and missing work.

I’ve lived a thousand lives in my life, and one of those was a third party propositional player at California card houses (aka casinos) where the bank is the player, the dealer only makes change.

For three-plus years I was the cute girl on seat one (aka the banker) I had a TPPPS license from the California Gambling Control Commission, Department of Justice and FBI background checks and city permits. People knew I was paid to take their money. If there wasn’t enough action on the table, they would pay me $5 to bet $100.

My job was one unique to California, as many are, and legit. I passed a test, learned various games and played and won hundreds of thousands of dollars in a private game and in high-stakes games, lost tens of thousands. I won millions of dollars over my time there and watched people ransack their lives. I was paid $16 an hour while enabling them.

I keep reading “There were no signs,” “he was a high roller and a millionaire.”

Some of the kindest gentlest seeming people would turn nearly demonic in a losing streak. Money can bring out the shittiest element in a personality; you add gambling to that equation it’s amazing how weak and petty someone can become so quickly.

Working in the casino made me sick; the threats of violence and the hostile work environment eventually wound up being too much for me.

I had one gentleman tell me he was going to follow my co-workers and me home and slit our throats.

There was one grandmotherly woman who, in the midst of a losing streak, leaned over and said to me “Pretty young girls like you can get raped in the parking lot.”

“Are you threatening me Mrs. B?” I asked

“No”, she replied “just stating something that is known to happen, if a young girl like you isn’t careful.”

Another time I was playing Pan 9, with a woman who hated me and enjoyed giving me a tongue lashings any chance she had tell me the story of how she spilled hot pudding on her boyfriend’s back because he fell asleep on the sofa and that she loved him and to think of what she would be willing to do to me. Another time she said she had a gun in her purse, and she was going to shoot me. That threat, I reported.

I’ve seen retirees get mad and throw things at the dealer, or the banker. I’ve seen fistfights or threats of them amongst players. I was cursed at and threatened by many, so much so I couldn’t even keep track.

While I worked in these establishments, there were suicides, murders (shootings and stabbings), beatings (a few of my co-workers were beaten up), muggings (winners jumped in the parking lot).

So when I think of high-stakes gambling, I flash back to my experience. It doesn’t seem unlikely at all that a man of 64 would snap. I’ve played on those high-end tables, and I’ve seen when the wrench in the cogs get flung. I’ve seen people lose it, I’ve seen reasonable good seeming people turn wretched.

So, when people say “I can’t believe it, ” for me it’s not that hard to believe (I think that the violence goes underreported of course this event is of a larger horrendous magnitude). The fact is I have seen people transform from functional to devastatingly damaged. The Jekyll Hyde transition is one easy to succumb to when the stakes are high.

I don’t know why he did what he did, but to me it’s completely fathomable.