NIGHTLIFE: A casino caper

This intrepid reporter recently spent all day at the three Niagara Falls casinos — the Seneca Niagara Casino in New York and the Casino Niagara and Fallsview Casino in Ontario — with the vague idea of immersing myself in the world for as long as possible.

It’s not like I had never been in a casino before, but I thought some new experiences could be gleamed from hopping around the gambling havens like a tourist. I also hoped to win lots of money. In lieu of that, I didn’t want to lose any more than $75.

Seneca Niagara Casino

The lights on the Seneca Niagara casino floor are just as bright in the morning as they are at night. The plinks and beeps are just as loud, but they seem even louder at 9 a.m.

Who goes to casinos at 9 a.m., especially on a Monday morning? That was my first thought on entering the Seneca Niagara. I envisioned an army of addicts, degenerates and drunks, still stumbling away from the bar at an unreasonable hour, some of them hitting on machines, others hitting on waitresses.

The obvious answer, however, is senior citizens. They are the people who go to casinos at 9 a.m. There are seniors with lots of money and time, and seemingly few ideas on what to do with either of them outside of the casino.

Seniors made up the bulk of that morning crowd, but there were a few younger folks as well. There were a few lost or indecisive souls (myself included) wandering the floor, but most everybody else knew exactly where they wanted to be — firmly seated in front of their slot machines of choice.

I watched as one lady, her players card attached from a high-limit slot machine to her body like an IV drip, lost $55 in about two minutes. I had no intentions of suffering a similar fate.

I’ve never understood the appeal of slot machines, but I had every intention of trying to find it on that day. I’ve never been one for card games either, but with those, at least you don’t feel like you’re just giving your money to a computer.

I started my gambling day at a slot machine that had served my fiancee and I well enough in the past. It’s a specific sit-down, 25-cent version of Enchanted Unicorn. Yes, Enchanted Unicorn. Laugh it up, but the constantly ignored machine was a winner in my book.

Sure enough, I inserted $10 and made $3.75 after one spin. I cashed out right away. You don’t want to push a unicorn too far.

I moved to another nearby machine, Texas Tea. I was up $7.45 after three spins on that machine. Two spins on Lucky Larry’s Lobstermania had me up $11 within a few minutes. I was coming to understand the appeal of these things pretty quick.

That was my system. Keep moving — keep moving and be happy with meager payouts. It’s worked for my mother numerous times.

Of course, it doesn’t make sense to have any kind of a “system” when playing the slots. There is no working system. But that’s not what we tell ourselves when the cash is rolling in.