You know them. The gray people, hunched over the video lottery terminals. They smoke, usually, and stare straight into the eyes of the beast. Time after time they feed the machines another bill, and push the button, and watch the pictures spin, and push the button, and watch the pictures spin.

I was always repulsed by these spectres, only half-aiive, compulsively gambling away their money, not speaking to anyone, not happy, like they'd become feeding organisms, attached to the great, hungry machines of the state.  Aw, sure I had pity for them, but that pity was tinted with self-righteous disgust. Not tinted, to be honest, but in full blown technicolor. 

Until that day, last year, when my boyfriend idly put 7 bucks in a machine. I had no interest in putting money in those machines, and soon tired of watching the digital playing cards flashing up and turning over. I was leaning on the wall watching people play pool, when he got, in his low-key way, all happy. That seven bucks was now $227. 

It seemed like an unbelievable fortune. 

So,in the next few weeks, he started playing more, and, so, after a time I started playing, too. At first I'd only play one of the card games, Jacks or Better, because I thought the game he had won on, Flush Fever, was too hard. Then he started playing the spinny games (called "Line Games" - animated variations of the old style slot machines, but with fancy bonus rounds and cutesy themes). I thought those were too hard. No skill involved. But he did pretty well. I started playing Flush Fever and got pretty good at it. Eventually, I tried the spinnies, too.

Anyway, it's nearly a year later, and we've been playing almost every day. I don't like the word addiction, but it's definitely a compulsion, or an obsession, and it's messed up. We've spent more money than I care to admit. It's replace most of our other leisure time activities, which is a shame because we used to be pretty creative and productive. We rarely do anything social that doesn't involve a bar with machines. I think that at least 50% of the time each of us would prefer to go play the machines to hanging out with each other, even.

Sometimes, we've screwed up our finances so badly that we feel sick, desperate, dizzy with the shame. Friends that have found out shun us, so we keep it a closely guarded secret and never do it around anyone we know. We rotate locations, so the bartenders don't get too used to seeing us.

I'm noticing more and more younger people playing these days. Used to be just the old gray people, now it's people our age, too, or younger. You can spot the ones who are developing a problem. Their friends sit at a table nearby, laughing and talking, when the budding gambler gets up and casually comes to the machine. "I'll just put in a couple of bucks," she might say, giggling. And then that money's gone and she's asking her boyfriend for another five. And then a ten, or a twenty. And then a trip over to the bar's ATM to get out more. Her friends rib her for awhile. "Quit wasting your money! What are you, an addict?" Maybe her boyfriend comes over and shakes his head, tsk-tsking. But they forget about her after awhile, and she is one of us. Eyes fixated on the screen, making noises, quiet ones, of disgust or pleasure. She can't stop after losing a bit. If she wins, she might bet it all back down.

There are some secrets to video lottery. They tell us that whether you win or lose is totally random, but it is not random. In future posts I'll share with you my hard-earned knowledge. Good places to play, good times to play, the secret tricks that Salem plays on us. Meanwhile, if you've never played, don't start. And if you've started but haven't yet become a half-living feeder organism, back away. Put that 20 back on your pocket, leave your ATM card at home. Go to bars without machines. Stop yourself. And if you're like me, and go every day, whenever you can, during lunch break, right after work, before bed, on the way to work in the morning, if you dread 2:30 am rollinh around because it means no machines until 7 am, then god bless your soul. May you escape. And may god bless me, too.