Nearly drowned under waves of game-show bells and buzzers, flashing lights and neon palm trees, Neil Young's lonesome falsetto was singing about something that makes us all "helllllp-less, helpless, helpless, helpless.''
Maybe Neil lost his shirt in a casino.
In the relentless TV ads for Grand Victoria Resort and Casino, beautiful people strut down long staircases like models in a catalog, flashing jewelry and dazzling smiles while a Dixieland clarinet warbles and cruise captains wave.
Now meet reality: At the $100 table, where a picture of Ben Franklin buys you one hand of blackjack, a guy who looks like he'd rather be bowling is sweating large caliber bullets. He takes a hit on 15. Draws a deuce. The dealer flips queen and eight. There goes another half day of laying bricks.
I couldn't stand to watch someone having that much fun, so I shouldered my way back into the sluggish stream of riverboat gamblers in blue jeans, Nikes and sweatshirts. I didn't see any of those beautiful people. No Dixieland bands. No navy-blue captains with gold braid on their caps. Just blue-collar wage slaves, hypnotized by the clicks and whirrs and bright colors that are made by hungry slot machines digesting cash.
At the craps table, I watched a guy with hair styled by Jiffy Lube skin C-notes off a roll as thick as a Big Mac. He flipped five on the table like penny-ante discards and I wondered: Where does all that money come from?
The last time I had that kind of jack in my pocket was ... never.
About 20 minutes later, after I had rapidly "parlayed" $20 into two white chips representing $1 each, he did it again: another five hundreds for a stack of chips as tall as a popsicle.
I never figured out the eleventy-seven bets on one roll of the dice. I never figured out what happened to my money. And I don't know how someone can walk up, put $4,000 on one roll of the dice, lose it, and walk away without having a stroke or a SWAT-team standoff.
But I figured out why it's called "craps." And that lesson only cost $20.
At the blackjack table I learned absolutely nothing for the same tuition.
So I tried the slots, which are like an automatic teller from the Dark Side: money only goes in, seldom comes out. You don't even have to shake hands with the one-armed bandit. Just push two buttons: bet and lose.
As I watched another $20 evaporate in a blur of spinning fruits, I had a remarkable philosophical insight: Next to using an electric blow-dryer in the shower, putting money into a slot machine must be the most shockingly imbecilic thing a rational human can do.
If I had hit a $5 jackpot, I would have instantly changed my mind and decided I was a genius - at least until that vanished too. But I'm glad I lost. Otherwise, I might wind up like one of the "regulars" I saw: He was shirt-on-a-hangar skinny, in new farmer's overalls, his face furrowed like an Indiana corn field, a cigarette dangling from tight lips. His left hand fed the coin slot from a Big Gulp cup of dollar coins as his right arm moved mechanically to pull the lever in a grim two-step of man and machine.
These are the beautiful people who line up like factory rats on an assembly line, stamping out their dreams one dollar at a time.
The classy Grand Victoria in Rising Sun and its sister ship in Lawrenceburg, Argosy Casino, each draws about 250,000 "gamers" a month. That's 6 million a year.
The Indiana Gaming Commission's report for just the month of April:
The two casinos reported total bets of about $240 million. Slots draw six to 10 times as much betting as table games.
The minimum payout on slots is 80 percent, but competition has pushed some to 96 percent, a Gaming Commission spokeswoman said. Odds at table games are guided by state rules.
After payouts, the casinos had about $20.8 million. Taxes took about $5.6 million, leaving about $15.2 million.
At that rate, annual betting would be $2.8 billion; $67 million in taxes; and nearly $100 million for each casino.
Bets average $480 per customer.
I find such numbers harder to understand than a $10 admission to climb aboard and empty your wallet. But apparently, my contribution to the pot was $420 "light.''
No problem. Guys like Blackjack Bowler and the Jiffy Lube S&L were eager to cover the difference, tossing legal tender like litter, standing in line at the cash machine, writing checks, watching dealers push their hard-earned income through a hole in the table with a clever plastic tool that makes it look glamorous to lose the house payment.
So far, gamblers have bet enough cash to build four new football stadiums - and open more casinos here if Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky say "hit me.''
Pass. "Just 20 minutes from downtown Cincinnati" is close enough.
Behind all the bells and buzzers, a lot of losers bet the farm and walk away empty inside. Beyond the red neon, desperation and despair wait in the gloom.
I don't know where all the money comes from. Losers don't know where it goes. They just feel like Neil: helpless.
Peter Bronson is editorial page editor of The Enquirer. Call 768-8301, or write to 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.
BRONSON ARCHIVE
