My First Visit to a Casino

If you are an evangelical, and if your husband’s holiday work party is at a local casino, and if it’s your first time ever in a casino, and your evening is anything like mine, it will look something like this.

When you arrive at the venue, you’ll walk through the door and be overwhelmed at the scale — the flashing lights, the music, the crowds, all of it. It’s as if all the worst distractions of your smartphone have come to life. Your first impression is that this isn’t your scene.

You’ll find one nice security guard, and for the rest of the night, you’ll bother him with all your questions. He’ll answer them gladly and let you jump ahead through the line later that night because he recognizes you and your hand stamp. He is probably ten years younger than you. In fact, most of the staff at the casino are ten years younger than you. You take it to be another sign that you’re now old.

You’ll be overwhelmed by the massive TV wall featuring every sports game happening at that one moment. You’ll find tucked into one small corner of this screen the Duke basketball game, and occasionally check in throughout the evening to see them get upset by an unranked team. You briefly consider putting some money down at the sports betting booth.

You strike up a conversation with a couple in the buffet line, and over the next 45 minutes or so, you’ll chit chat with them about parenting, career, and religion. You’ll explain what an Anglican is, and they appreciate the joke about a denomination being started by Henry VIII’s divorce having a built-in sense of humility. You’ll listen to them talk about their experience growing up in a small rural charismatic evangelical church, and find a lot in common with their experience. When it comes to speaking in tongues, you’ll all agree that none of you know exactly what to think, but something seems to be happening, and it’s very mysterious. You’ll politely share your appreciation for finding a strand of Christianity that encourages a spirituality of the mind, that doesn’t ask its adherents to turn off their brains to attend church (or judge them for being in a casino). You’ll quietly pray for the couple, and wonder if that’s the divine appointment God had in mind for you for the evening.

At the company’s prize basket raffle, you’ll think to yourself that you never win anything at raffle contests, and then you’ll win a large rolling cooler filled with camping gear. You briefly consider tonight might be a lucky night.

Your husband will be honored for five years of employment at the company. There is an announcement that, in the next room, there will be a presentation from the Casino staff to show their appreciation for selecting them as the party hosts.

You’ll grab another drink from the bar — a Manhattan, because why not. The bartender reminds you about the presentation. You ask her what the presentation is about. She smiles impishly and says “you’ll see.”

As you approach the entrance to the next room, pounding club music starts to play, and lights begin to flash. Some coworkers are entering the room, but many are leaving. Through the smoke machine haze, you catch a glimpse of women in “bar chaps” and bikini bottoms twerking to the music. Realizing that the special presentation is a floor show of under-clothed night club dancers, you turn and leave. This is definitely not your scene.

One company employee you know, an ardent feminist, vocally disapproves of the show. You joke that, given all the issues that feminists and conservatives disagree on, rejecting the economic exploitation of women by catering to the male gaze is one thing you should both share in common. She laughs.

Meanwhile, your husband is riding the mechanical bull. You are proud of him for doing something really outgoing like this, which is not usually his nature. You’ve known him for 13 years, been married to him for 11 years, and you’ve seen him grow in confidence and competence year after year. You are proud to be married to him. He goads dozens of others to ride the bull throughout the night.

Your husband tells you about a man in the cowboy bar who dances with the girls while wearing bar chaps. You guess that this man is probably gay. In fact, you think this man being gay is the best bet one could make in the entire casino. You laugh inwardly at your less than PG joke.

You head to the gambling floor and try to spend the $20 in promotional credit gifted to you at the work party. You are overwhelmed and confused by the slot machines on the floor. You eventually find one you think you understand. You play the machine. You begin to win a few dollars. A woman on a nearby slot machine interrupts you. She tells you you’re playing it wrong, and if you were betting the bonus bets, you would be up over a hundred dollars. You respond meekly that you only put in promo credit and weren’t playing for a big payday. Confused, she tells you she’d kill for the hits you were making. You convert $20 in casino credits to $18.76 in cash.

You run into a friend couple out on a date night. You are happy to see them happy, because you know some of the challenges they’re facing in their day to day life. You look around the casino and wonder how many of these people — the slot players, the sports betters, the dealers, the half-naked dancers, the blackjack players — are getting a break from the struggles of their own life back home. You marvel at how the casino is designed to distract and obfuscate from these matters.

As you make your way to leave, you’re now tasked with rolling the raffle prize cooler and its contents out of the casino. On the way out of the event space, the possibly gay floor dancer has now switched over to bouncer duty. He sees you pulling the cooler, laughs, and asks where the heck it came from. You express incredulity that you have won something. He asks if you’re actually going to go camping with the contents of the cooler. You open the cooler to show it is primarily smores making ingredients and snacks. He declares his love for smores. You offer him the contents of the cooler. Eventually, he accepts a four-foot-long cast iron mountain pie campfire roaster. You tell him it’ll make bouncing people out of the club easy — he can just whack people upside the head. He laughs.

You’ll be left with no easy answers regarding faith, casinos, community development, ethics, and tax dollars. You’ll see clearly how the whole business is designed to take advantage of human psychology, and be heartbroken at the rows of slots playing regulars whose only hope is hitting a jackpot. You’ll wonder if the gaggle of sports bettors in line at the bookie’s box have anything more in their lives than football, booze, and same-game parlays. You’ll wish the floor dancers had other ways to make their living. You’ll also see how many people are employed at the casino, each with a decent wage and benefits. You’ll remind yourself that gambling will happen with or without a casino, and at least here, it is buoyed against exploitation and taxed for the community’s benefit.

Most of all, you’ll remember that sin lies in the human heart. You’ll wonder if the casino could continue to turn a profit if everyone in the community had a hope in something more secure than slots or sports. You’ll also wonder if people who have found a deep and lifelong hope through forgiven sins and eternal promises can actually enjoy the casino for what it is. If the gospel is a sure bet, after all, then wins and losses and chips and cards lose their existential grasp on those who believe it.

You’ll meet with your husband to leave — a tad early, but not rudely so — rolling the cooler behind you. On the way out the door, a woman asks if your husband was the impersonator from the previous night who was dressed as Guy Fieri handing out free samples from his branded restaurant on the first floor. He laughs, but his forced smile mirrors your own. The cool night air feels like the relief of escape. The casino is just not your scene.