Published: July 24, 2008 09:51 am      

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.

I should have taken it as an omen when my next selected machine — Back To The Future — froze up and crashed as soon as I inserted my voucher. Of course, I got my money back as an attendant had restored everything within minutes, but that machine wasn’t meant for me, I decided.

From then on, hopping from machine to machine netted loss after loss. Even Lucky Larry’s Lobstermania, which had been kind to me before, subtracted $7 in a blink.

While playing, I went for mostly nickel and quarter machines, and I played many lines at once. I don’t play the penny slots, which are extremely popular.

I believe people love the penny slots for two main reasons. The first is that they don’t feel like they’re losing much money at these machines, which would make sense if most of these players weren’t playing 30 cents at a time and sitting at the same machine for an hour.

The second reason involves that hour-long sit. Penny slots can take a long time to play. These machines make people feel like they’re doing something. Like they’re putting in some worthwhile time. Like they’re really trying.

Who wants to spend only 20 minutes at a casino? Very few people, and certainly not the penny slots players. But let me tell you, those penny slots are monetary death by pinprick.

With penny slots or any slots, I couldn’t tell what kind of a jackpot was good enough for most players. They would win money and continue to sit at the same machine, ensuring their winnings would evaporate.

I watched as one woman won $90 on one spin with her last remaining credits on the machine. Rather than cashing out her good fortune, she stayed seated. She was back down to about $40 by the time I walked away. What jackpot would have been good enough to make her stand up? $150? $500? $10,000?

As for myself, I ended up losing $13.50 before moving on to the next venue.



Casino Niagara

I was feeling a bit burned out on slot machines by the time I reached Casino Niagara. But I was in luck.

In addition to a vast array of slots and table games, Casino Niagara features a sportsbook and off-track betting in an area that is somewhat hidden away from the rest of the casino. I would have loved to bet on a few games, but night baseball was the only sport on the docket that day, so I confined myself to the ponies.

After a meal of some middling food at the casino’s Market Buffet, I returned to the simulcast screens, Daily Racing Form in hand. I would probably describe myself as an intermediate horseplayer, so I hope that the horses of Calder Race Course and Delaware Park could help win back my losses and then some.

I lost my first race when my exacta box (pick the first two horses correctly, in any order) missed by a few lengths. That’s when a well-dressed man took a seat next to me and started chatting up a nearby couple.

The man claimed he was from Hot Springs, Ark. He lost his first exacta, as well.

“We’d be better off rolling a die,” he said to anyone who would listen.

But that didn’t stop him from continuing to bet. And continuing to discuss his bets, loudly. He saw some reasoning in a $2 bet on a long shot.

“It’d pay $70,” he said, with a touch of an accent that could have come from Hot Springs. “Everyone else could fall down.”

Nobody fell down, and he tossed his ticket away. In a four-horse race, he bet one of the horses to win and two of the other horses in an exacta. The only horse he didn’t pick came out on top.

But it wasn’t like his intensive research was failing him.

“How long is this race?” he asked me.

“At Philadelphia?” I said.

“No, Fort Erie.”

The race was going to start in a few seconds. He already placed his bets on it.

“Six furlongs,” I said.

“Thanks,” he said.

Like every other race, he didn’t win. And with that, he was off to some poultry science convention.

It was time for me to fly the coop, as well. Though I had studied the speed figures, looked over the race lengths and tabulated previous times, I didn’t hold any winning tickets, either. That’s horse racing.

Another $14 by the wayside and one more casino left on the agenda.



Niagara Fallsview Casino

By the time I arrived at Fallsview, I wasn’t even really in the casino mood anymore. The late afternoon was creeping up and my pockets were lighter. But I had to fulfill my commitment.

Fallsview was the third very nice casino in a row that I visited. There are no complaints about the atmosphere of any of these three casinos, other than to say perhaps they’re a little too similar. But similar, pleasant and clean is better than similar and trashy.

I wandered around upon entering Fallsview, feeling tempted by the roulette wheel. But as usual, I couldn’t commit to the game, because I don’t completely understand roulette. I get the placing of chips, I suppose, but people are putting them all over the place, and the dealer has all these motions and movements ... it’s not the kind of game that welcomes a novice — specially when gentlemen step up to the table and call for $300 worth of chips at a time.

At least one woman felt she had some understanding of the wheel. She wrote down each number that came in before placing her next bet. I don’t know that much about roulette, but I do know “the wheel has no memory.”

I threw $15 back into the slots. It didn’t take long for almost all of it to disappear. But as my credits dwindled away, I got one more hit, with a bonus. I was back up to $22.75.

The winning machine? Enchanted Unicorn, of course. Losing less than $20 total during the course of the day, I cashed out.

I left the casinos on a winning note. Only time will tell if that makes it easier to return.



IF YOU GO

* Seneca Niagara Casino, 310 Fourth St., Niagara Falls — 299-1100

* Casino Niagara, 5705 Falls Ave., Niagara Falls, Ontario — 888-946-3255

* Fallsview Casino, 6380 Fallsview Blvd., Niagara Falls, Ontario — 888-325-5788