Upon hearing the news that Frank Sinatra’s casino in Vegas has closed, I sighed, shook my head, raised my eyes to the ceiling and thought to myself ‘haven’t things have changed’. And I am right. In Ol’ Blue Eyes day you could sip a martini, puff on a cigarette and happily pat every lady’s bottom that happened to pass by. Some lucky people can of course still do this, but annoyingly it has to be in the confines of their own homes and there are still barriers as, in my case, the wife is always at work, she doesn’t let me smoke in the house and I don’t know how to make a martini. I can, however attempt to pat the cat’s bottom as she snakes by, but I feel this would be crossing some unwritten pet owner’s code.
On the plus side there are a multitude of online casinos that make sitting at home in your dressing gown all day, getting up for the occasional piss and sometimes even cooking ‘special’ beans on toast now become glamorous. You can even pop out the back door for a crafty fag and feel like Dean Martin in the original Ocean’s Eleven. I sometimes like to put my cat in our fish tank near the front door as it adds a certain Vegas charm.
So, onto the games… I’ve never understood Craps; in fact I don’t think anyone has. I personally like to play it because it has the word COME across the centre of the table in big letters. But that’s just me. Off I popped to the 888 casino and cashed in $100 of chips. Now, my strategy is to bet $5, click on all the parts of the table that allow me a click and then roll the dice. This I believe is the professional way to play. So, 30 minutes later I was skint and needed a piss. Time to leave my chair, sigh.
Back from urinal relief I decided to try the Roulette tables. I believe the excellent, underrated star of the Calvin Ayre show, Tim Richards has told you all about a wonderful doubling up system he has used to drunken effect. I couldn’t quite remember the system and so I cashed in another $100 of chips and stuck half of them on red and the other half on the middle column. The ball span and span and eventually hopped into the gaping mouth of 33 black. I’m a loser baby, why don’t you kill me.
Perhaps a quick game of cards I said to no-one in particular. Maybe just $50 for this one. I put $25 down and pressed ‘Deal’. I hit a 7 and a 5, the dealer turned over a 9. Should I stay, or should I… ‘Hit’ I clicked. Up popped a queen. Hmmm. A quick click on ‘Rebet’ and another on ‘Deal’ revealed a 3 and a 10 and a 9 for the dealer. ‘Hit’ I screamed, as well as clicked. A jack had me reaching for the close button.
Time to try Bodog Casino out…. it has the added attraction of being designed by Calvin’s wife, Pam, and she knows how to put poetry into a gamble. A wonderful 45 minutes later I had won half my cash back. Red 5 had been good to me again. Time to take this old fluffy dressing gown off and change into something more alluring that befits a suave gambling man such as myself.
I reached for my new M&S cardigan, slipped my arms through the correct arm holes and admired myself in the mirror. The cat gave me a knowing wink. I popped down to the fridge and pulled out a can of Carlsberg. Ol’ Blue Eyes is back.
