My wife and I went to Las Vegas about fifteen years ago. We didn't go to gamble, we went to spend some time with relatives who lived there at the time (the husband of one of them was a guitarist, playing in a small combo in one of the lounges, backing an unknown but really good female pop singer—spent a lot of time listening to them). We visited several of the big, well-known casinos (good food and drink was surprisingly inexpensive), watched amused and bemused as other people played the slots, roulette, poker, and such, but had no intention of gambling. But one evening, one of my wife's relatives took us to one of the smaller casinos and persuaded us to take a shot at the tables.

I did pretty well. I set aside a small amount that I could afford to lose without any major pain. If I lost it, I could just chalk it off as "entertainment." I stuck to a game I knew well, and that, at one time, I had played a lot, strictly penny-ante, with friends. Blackjack. I had also read a book written by Mike Goodman, a Vegas pit-boss, on how to have fun in Vegas and pick up a little money if you play wisely. In one chapter, he outlined the principles of playing blackjack;   how to read the cards, when to take a hit, when to pass, and especially how to pace your bets so that most of the time you were playing with house money, not your own. It isn't a "system;" it's just knowing how to play the game well, and then playing cautiously and intelligently. In playing with friends, I made use of Goodman's principles, practiced them well, and found myself consistently coming out well ahead at the end of a game.

At the casino, I played for a little over two hours. In that time, I quintupled the amount I started with. I won a bit, lost a bit, won some more, lost some, then won again. The general trend was upward. I used nowhere near the amount I had set aside to play with. Within the first ten minutes or so, I had won back my original bets and was playing with house money. Just the way Goodman said to do it. I left the casino with a pleasantly fat wallet

Oh, yes. Free drinks when you played, and a complimentary midnight breakfast.

Goodman said that blackjack was especially good because the house advantage in blackjack is minimal compared to other games. Most people really don't know how to play the game well (the casinos generally regard it as "an old ladies' game"), and since they want their patrons to win every now and then to keep their hopes up, they make that one fairly easy. A good player, especially one who knows how to bet, can win consistently. He said he knows a few "professional gamblers" who make a decent living dropping into one casino or another a few times a week and playing blackjack for a couple hours. They're quiet and unobtrusive, and they don't try to "break the bank." The casinos don't mind them because other patrons see someone doing well, and it keeps them playing in hopes that they will too.

These days I wouldn't have to go to Vegas. Since laws were changed recently, there are several casinos around my area run by native Americans. I would feel a lot more secure playing blackjack a couple evenings a week than I would investing in the stock market.

But then, you see, I'm not a gambler.

Don Firth