A Night in Atlantic City

Saturday, 20 May, 2006

I was having an afternoon nap when my friend called up around 5:30 p.m. asking me to get ready. The plan - A night in Atlantic City - It was a surprise for me as there was no discussion over it among us. But I got ready in 10 minutes with my bag - a pair of dress, my camera as usual, and a couple of books which invariably gets in wherever I go.

Atlantic City - I have heard about this place - I knew it has some casinos there, but I didn't know what exactly a casino is. Later I read that casino is an Italian word, casa which means a house and casino is a public room or building for gambling and other entertainment.

6:30 pm - we are in the bus, six of us including me. It was my first long trip by bus after reaching here. The tickets were pre-booked and we had to just take the seats which are vacant. I took a window seat on the left side. It was air-conditioned bus with an in-built rest room and broad glass windows providing us a good outside view. The travel charge was 28 dollars per person, of which, we will receive a $20 coupon for gambling in the casino!

The bus took several turns inside the city itself, taking along passengers on its way. All the passengers were to the same destination – The Atlantic City Casino's. Interestingly, most of these passengers were in their 60s or 70s, few of them looking like they need a support to walk.

Meanwhile our bus crossed the city limits and reached the main highway, Atlantic City Expressway, built way back in 1964. On our way from a bridge we saw a beautiful view of New York City at a far distance. The expressway was really well constructed as we would expect in a country like US. There were six lanes in parallel, and at each junction we can see many more of them twisting and spiraling above, below, over and under each other rocketing to somewhere! - It was so entangled that I heard my room mate swear that he will never venture driving a car into such a commotion. At many places, there were thick hedges of trees between the lanes, very rich in greenery that once I saw a herd of deer among them. Most importantly, the entire 100 km, two hour journey, was like a silken ride, as if we were not travelling at all.

8:30 pm, the bus stopped in front of a Casino, "The Resorts". Yes, we had reached the Atlantic City. As we stepped down, we were given a $20 coupon card entirely to be used for gambling. We entered a large hall from the lobby were I had my first view of the world of casino - with thousands of gambling machines gulping and vomiting dollars, many sophisticated gambling boards of cards, the neon lights, the red carpets, the cigars, the drinks, the affluent rich in their suits, their ladies serving the drinks – It was as if we were watching the Eastman color Hindi movie of the 80’s.

We roamed around for an hour, watching the gambling and the gamblers, many probably the masters of this trade, and many losing out in their greed! And among them were those old who have travelled with us, seriously committed with their gambling machine – this indeed is the blast furnace manufacturing the greed for human kind!

Then it was our turn, to enter the entrapment. I sat on a machine, where for each dollar we put into it, we will be allowed to spin the wheel four times (25 cents for a spin). And if the numbers on the screen align in a pre-defined format, the machine will return dollars, it could be one, five, ten or sometimes thousands and that's why all these people are here. In my third attempt, some numbers got aligned for me and that gambling machine spit coins for 2 dollars - the sound of the dropping coins so tempting that it injects directly into our greedy nerves!

I realized how the temptations control us in its own unique way. I continued my gambling, with the $20 credit I was having, but the dollars now just went into the machine. These machines were the easiest for a beginner in gambling, and with little knowledge of card games, they are the best among the gambling options. As my credit came to zero, I found that I have got back $17. Not bad for me as I saw an old lady finding it difficult to pick up the coins raining from her machine! We have the option to put money from our pocket, but from the beginning I had decided against it. This is the world were our mental strength gets tested and I was happy that I somehow came out unscathed.

It was midnight by then and we again roamed around in other casinos one with a name 'TajMahal', then went to watch the gimmicks, some like those which we see at our temple festivals. A pizza, a mug of cola for dinner for $4, and then till 2:45 am, it was again roaming around in this sleepless world. By then, our bus was ready to take us back to our den – most of my friends scratching their heads with a story of their inevitable loss to tell.

It was a totally different experience than what I expected before we started off - a world of entrapment. And as I looked again at the dead $20 casino card I saw a note below which read "Bet With Your Head, Not Over It!"

Footnote:

Atlantic City is in New Jersey state on the coasts of Atlantic Ocean. Famous for its Casinos, it is the second largest gambling spot in US, next only to Las Vegas, Neveda. It has a boardwalk (a wooden foot path along the beach) of six kilometers, the first and longest in the world. Plagued with poverty and crime, a spin-off of Great Depression, casino gambling was started here to revitalize the place in 1976. Miss America pageant was conducted here from 1951 to 2005.