• EatATaco@lemm.ee
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    27 days ago

    I remember one day walking into a 7/11, in maybe 2002, and there were 2 guys in suits, totally dishevelled, collars undone, looking like they’ve been awake for 3 days, depression coating their faces, and they had a stack of scratch tickets that they were silently just scratching off.

    The story I have in my head is that their business fell apart and this was some past ditch desperate attempt to save it with the little money they had left. I have no idea what actually happened but here we are 20+ years later and I still think about them occasionally.

    • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee
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      27 days ago

      The one thing that going to a real casino taught me is that, despite what Hollywood would have us believe, casinos are not full of impeccably dressed classy people, but very old retirees that look like they only have a few years left to live, and disheveled men who look less well dressed than me in my PJs at home, who are gambling away large sums of money in a fit of anxiety and addiction.

      Really depressing crap.

      • OpenStars@discuss.online
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        27 days ago

        And yet Donald Trump still managed to lose money somehow, which should have really told us something about his supposed “business accumen”.

        • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee
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          27 days ago

          Oh yes. The bankruptcy of Trump’s casino was a thing to behold. I wish I could find the video of the people who worked with him back in the day as they all remarked as to just how absolutely ignorant he was about all aspects of both gambling and managing a casino.

          • OpenStars@discuss.online
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            27 days ago

            But with the power of daddy’s money, he “earned” his position as CEO/owner nonetheless!

            Which is already so cringe it hurts, but then to turn around and use that to prove how “well” Trump - not daddy, but himself - could run the entire nation…

            img

            As a nation, we deserve our fate I suppose.:-( We should do better. We need better. We won’t survive unless we aim to be better.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
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        27 days ago

        I associate my time in Las Vegas mostly with elderly people with oxygen tanks, chain smoking while they put coin after coin in the slot machine. Just sad.

        • jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works
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          27 days ago

          Vegas is a good place to go if your idea of a good time is eating and hanging around the pool. Other than that, it’s a glittering shithole in the desert built on the losses of prior visitors.

          • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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            27 days ago

            And they took the pull handles away because they can siphon money out of retirement accounts much faster if the victim player only needs to press a button.

            • ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one
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              27 days ago

              That’s sad. Pulling the lever was such fantastic part of the experience. Now we can’t call them “One Arm Bandits.”

              We use to live in a society.

    • Blackout@fedia.io
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      27 days ago

      The guy who started FedEx literally put his company’s payroll on a roulette table just to make enough to stay in business.