Cute story. My husband had a week long conference in Vegas about twelve years ago and I with our twelve year old daughter met him there for the last three days. We did the hoover dam tourist junk and during those three days walked through all the casinos, visiting the shops, restaurants, etc., no kids allowed in casinos of course. Well we were walking MGM Casino periphery, trying to get to the other side and my husband walked over to a slot machine to look at it and my daughter ran over to fetch him away. When they were walking back, I could hear my daughter ask her dad, daddy, were you going to gamble on that machine? He leaned over and said no honey that’s how they built all these big buildings. Our daughter takes that no casting lots stuff seriously.
I was in a meeting at the olde tyme Jessie Beck’s Riverside Inn in Reno. The meeting broke up for a half-hour, so I went down to the coffee shop for some iced tea or something. As I was returning to the meeting rooms, I saw a mom, dad, and son standing by one of the big bertha slot machines. The dad was dressed as a typical American tourist, mismatched shirt and shorts, an ole rain hat, red socks and sneakers. He was explaining to his son what it was while the mom waited patiently. The dad pulled out a silver dollar, put it the machine, pulled the lever, and walked away. But before they had gone far, the machine finished it’s twittering and blinking, paused, and dropped many silver dollars into the tray. But that wasn’t all. The change girl came over, called security. Security checked the machine, and the changed girl paid the man $5000 and told him he could pick up the rest of his loot at the money change. That one silver dollar paid the family a $65,000 jackpot.
Our daughter spent some of her formative years in Elko, NV. You couldn’t get her near a casino these days. My teaching may have contributed but her peer group at that time were knowledgeable about the realities of gambling and impressed on her better than I could the stupidity of gambling.