Forget these two words: Las and Vegas. The riverboat casinos docked in a dozen dumpy little towns around the Midwest are not the new Las Vegas. They have no Siegfried and Roy, no fabulous show girls, no artificial volcanoes or pirate ships, no all-night-buffet-till-you-puke, and saddest of all, no Wayne Newton.
New riverboat casinos pop up almost as often these days as new Gap stores did a few years ago. Riverboats dock in nine locations in Illinois now, and a tenth will open later this year; nationally, there are 22 riverboat casinos and 30 more scheduled to shove off by December.
James Dean wore khakis. While playing poker.
Which is why it was fortunate John had come along. John is an experienced and willing gambler, and besides, he once went to a Grateful Dead concert in Las Vegas, which is sort of like Las Vegas squared. John would have to do the gambling for both of us.
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The loss didn’t bother him. In fact, in the 15 years I’ve known John, I’ve rarely seen him so pleased with himself, so Kathie-Lee-Gifford happy, as when he was sitting at a blackjack table on the Empress Casino in Joliet losing hand after $5-minimum-bet hand. John was not only pleased but entertained by losing all that money. He’d probably get a big thrill out of selling “Quayle in ’96” bumper stickers.
I haven’t been able to enjoy a roller-coaster ride since the one at the 1967 World’s Fair in Montreal, where my little brother wet his pants and mine. Gambling gives me that same uneasy feeling of “Uh-oh, Billy, did you . . . ?” But gamblers embrace the uncertainty. “People bring an amount of money and they expect that they are going to lose it but have a good time doing so,” says David Hall, marketing director of the Hollywood Casino in Aurora. “This is an entertainment facility, and the smart way to do it is to say, ‘I’m prepared to spend this amount to enjoy myself.’ You know going in that a casino is in business and is not operating at a loss. You know you’re probably not going to be the guy who becomes a millionaire, but it’s an entertaining dream to have while you’re playing.”
Some gamblers bring their own ambience. They’re the ones who make gambling into pure show. Lots of guys come loaded with too many memories of swinging Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra Rat Pack movies. Six guys in their late 20s with haircuts out of magazines took over a blackjack table in the nonsmoking room of the Empress in Joliet minutes after we boarded. From their smooth, pampered skin, I guessed they’d be spending all their winnings at the Clinique counter. The leader of the pack–you could tell he was the one because he had the two biggest gold rings–told the dealer five or six times, “You got some fockin’ good-looking guys at your table tonight.” The dealer showed amazing command of her poker face.
