High Rollers

I visited Olin with my best friend’s family. My real family. It was a great, fun experience. But after that was when the real fun began. We headed down to Connecticut to the Foxwoods casino for my best friend’s sister (Kate)’s 21st birthday. When we got to the casino, almost everyone had been experiencing the first benefit of being 21: legal drinking age (or for my best friend, a chance to drink while everyone else was off drinking). We got into the casino and split up, the people who could actually legally gamble went to gamble (curse that restriction) while my best friend and I walked around, exploring the massive casino/hotel. We wandered around the whole thing, getting hopelessly lost sometimes, but mostly just seeing the sights. There were a lot of cool statues, carvings, and other Native American artifacts and there were also some pretty cool fountain nature scenes. You know, the kind with rocks and trees and waterfalls, all put there to look pretty. There was an especially cool glass statue of a Native American shooting a bow and arrow up into the sky, or at least up into this very tall section of ceiling with an ornate window at the top that let light shine down onto him.
We went up an escalator. I wasn’t feeling lazy, so I started to walk up it. My friend, who was pretty drunk, got upset and said, “Hey! Where are you going? Get back here.” And moved to try and stand next to me. But as he moved, I’d move. Then he’d stop and I’d stop, always about three steps ahead. “Cut it out, Quit doing that,” his list of remarks went on and on. But he never managed to figure out that he could just walk up when I stopped. It was hilarious. We ate at a good Chinese restaurant (they had an abundance of good restaurants and stores in the casino), and then went to the arcade. The kids’ arcade. Where the parents drop their kids off so they can go gamble. Well we beat every level of Hunter Hero and played the game where you drop a coin down a slot, try and land it in the jackpot bin, and if it fails the coin falls into a moving platform with other coins on it, hopefully pushing coins off the edge, which also gets tickets. We ran three machines out of tickets and hit the jackpot on 4 different ones. We got enough tickets (3,000ish. For perspective, each jackpot was worth about 200-300 tickets) for a strobe light, an xbox 360 game, and a bunch of random trinkets.
When the night was over, the gambling group returned. They had lost about $100, but decided to bet their remaining $150 on a roulette spin, either black or red. The birthday girl picked black, and they won.

What if you and I had a card counting team at foxwoods?

What if your family lost all their money gambling?

idea jaroslav

What if everyone in this story was Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, and you guys got super rich?

What if your friend fell and got caught in the escalator?

What if you decided to illegally gamble or drink?

What if one of the people in the drinking group got hurt, in a fight, kicked out, etc.?

What if the other group (a little drunk) forgot about you and left without you?

What if you lost the roulette spin and didn't have enough money left to get a cab / pay for gass on the way home, and you got stuck out in the middle of nowhere?

What if everyone in this story was Dustin Hoffman? And the only way to turn people back was to give them stale acting jobs?

What if drinking and gambling were only legal for people under 21, cause they have the least to lose?

What if you woke up and found out that the tickets were the new US currency? What would you do with the money?

what if you and your friend got into a fight? something needs to be spoiled, here, but losing seems too obvious. losing something other than money, perhaps, a friendship, a family member, what if someone has a heart attack? it's just too much fun and everyone's winning and i need more to think about or some way that the gambling is in parallel or reflective of theme. a terrific setting for a story and description well done.

What if you saw Orlando Bloom in the elevator, and he offered to take you to Middle Earth?

What if "Orlando Bloom" were actually a commonly used color?

what if there had been an earthquake and the whole building collapsed?

What if your family used the winnings to buy a nice "Orlando Bloom" colored dress for the birthday girl?

What if A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.