Addiction

I have never been much of a gambler. I don't like Vegas. I'm not very good at playing cards. Yet, on the night of November 6th I discovered another reason why I should not gamble... i'm an addict.

The night began innocently enough; I was going to study for my upcoming exams and go to bed early, but when my friends decided to visit the Grand West Casino for a few hours it was easy to not want to study. Just about anything can make me not want to study at this point. Everyone got all dressed up (apparently I looked like I was going to a Bar mitzvah, not sure what that was supposed to mean) and got in the car for a short drive into the Cape Flats where a little piece of Vegas was gleaming in the middle of a township. There were palm trees, bright lights, roman columns, and fountains.

The Grand West Casino

Apparently no one dresses up to go gambling here though as we stood out amidst people in jeans, sweatshirts, and tennis shoes. The girls actually got mistaken for prostitutes! A girl came up and told them that her brother wanted to know how much they were. Whoops!

Ben was pure Minnesota on the ice.

Ben was experienced at blackjack and so we followed him to the blackjack tables where we played as low stakes as possible (50 rand minimum which is about 7 dollars). We all were learning the ropes and bailing each other out when we got into debt but nobody lost more than 100 rand. I was doing really well with Ben's help and was actually up 500 rand when Devin told me to walk away and I realized I had a gambling problem.

I couldn't pull myself away from the table and subsequently lost about 300 rand. With 200 rand left, my friends managed to get me to leave the table and go ice skating. Ice skating was fun but couldn't get my mind off of the money that I could have had if I had left when I was ahead. It was scary how badly I wanted to go back and try to win more money but we thankfully left before I no doubt would have gone on to loose the rest of my money.

Ice skating to take away the pain