The Icon editor recently took a mini-vacation, visiting his daughter in Cincinnati. Among exploits was a visit to Jack’s Casino. This is an account of that adventure.

By Fred Steiner

Knowing nothing about cards and less about other games of chance, my daughter, Anne, and I decided to have some fun. We made a date with Jack’s Casino.

It’s pretty simple. Pick a slot machine. Drop in coins. Pull lever. Watch money pour out. So we thought.

We approached Jack’s with three game plans:
• Spend $15  - walk away with a wheelbarrow full of quarters.
• Spend $15 - break even.
• Spend $15 - lose it, but make certain we receive $15 worth of entertainment for our trouble.

We’d play the one-arm slots. We’d put aside all the coins we cough up. We’d walk out with quarters to spare.

How could we lose?

Surprise. Jack went high-tech. Those one-armed guys do not exist. Neither do the coins that formerly spewed out upon hitting a jackpot.

Instead, we found push-button machines offering “credit” each time you strike it rich. So much for the fun.

You can’t win playing high-tech slots. As your winnings add up in credits temptation makes you continue using your credits until “0 Credits” flashes on the screen.

But we vowed to have fun, so we continued our journey.

Expecting to see James Bond, Wild Bill Hickok, Freddy Benson or Lawrence Jamieson, we saw none.We didn’t even see the casts from Oceans 13, 12 or 11.

In their place were, sadly, lots of long-term minimum wage retirees spending their Social Security checks on games of chance hoping to hit the big one. That never came during our visit.

After missing James Bond and the slots with handles, we perused the joint for 20 minutes. Then, droping our poker faces in the casino’s Starbucks, we told the cashier we were new in town: "We wanted to know how to get in on the action."

Apparently, he’d heard this before.

He directed us to Jack’s bank across the hall.  A sign at the banker’s table, with words large enough to read from our spot about 15 dice tosses to the south, offered a sort of surgeon general’s warning: “If you have a gambling problem call 800-522-4700.”

Despite that warning, we met the friendliest banker in the world. He didn't mentioned the warning. Nor did he inquire about our credit background.

He simply signed us up. He even gave us a free Jack’s tee shirt and a card worth $10 credit. Off we went.

A longer version of what happens comes next. If you’d prefer the short version, skip the next paragraph.

Longer version includes:

• how to get our credit to show up on the slot machine
• how to start the game
• how to realize what Options 1, 2, 3 and 4 meant
• how to know if we were winning or losing, or if it mattered
• finding the men’s room
• pushing the “call for assistance” button
• Cashing out
• Not necessarily in the above order

The short version:

Playing a quarter machine, we loaded an Abe Lincoln and later an Alexander Hamilton. No turning back now. Midway into falling from our original 60 credits down to say, 18 or so, we switched strategy. Otherwise the last card was about to be played.

Here’s where we pulled out the free $10 card.

We vowed – if we could get out of this alive – to keep track of our credits by putting them aside in our mind and not using them. And, we vowed, never to return to Jack's.

We played as if our home mortage lay on the line.

And, maybe the odds were in our favor.

Maybe Lady Lucky smiled on us.

Maybe what follows is pure coincidence.

No doubt, pure coincidence.

We sweated our way out of our 18-credit hole. We kept getting credits, but didn’t spend them.

After biting down our fingernails, we reached 61 credits. That topped out at $15.25, including the $15 of our own cash plus the $10 free stuff given us by the nice banker.

We said, “Oh, shucks, let’s cash it in.”

That’s exactly what we did.

We grinned all the way to the cashier. She could have cared less. On our way out we snapped the attached selfie. You can see happiness in our smiles.

We went to Jack’s and spent $15 of our own money. We left Jack’s with $15.25.

Or, in the words of Julius Caesar, not to be confused with the gambling palace of a similar name:  “Veni, vidi, vici.”

We vowed never to return.