HAPPY HOLIDAYS
Sometimes Santa does reward our wishes … maybe
By Frank Scoblete
According to Pew research 90 percent of Americans celebrate Christmas as their winter holiday (although only about 55 percent think of it as a religious holiday).
A big aspect of the public holiday, as opposed the religious one, is the centering of Santa Claus as the primary figure in giving out gifts to the children. Kids are taught to believe in this mystic creature that can catapult across rooftops in his airborne reindeer-driven sleigh and then shove his bulk down even the tiniest chimney while carrying loads of fine gifts for you, me and everyone. But what if you don’t have a chimney? Don’t worry; he can just come into your house or apartment through the walls. That mystic- man is magical!
Mystic and magical beliefs are a part of childhood but these beliefs soon give way to reason for most people. Still, there are plenty of adults who believe in ghosts, angels, demons, poltergeists, omens of all kinds and ESP of various types, despite such people being more or less logical human beings.
Often casino players exhibit a true belief in omens. On this holiday season, I’d like to take a quick look at two players who swear magical mystical elements lead them to big wins on the machines; one person even thinks that machines think and communicate through a type of telepathy.
And to make this even more fun, it was actually the Christmas season, where Santa Claus often rewards our wishes. For these two it was certainly Happy Holidays!
CONNIE
I usually just go into the casino, pick a machine and play it for a while. If I am winning or even if I am even, I stay, but after a little while if I don’t win on that machine; I go and look for another machine. I don’t want to lose all my money on one machine.
I don’t really have any criteria for what machines to pick. I just plop down and see what I will see.
Sometimes I win and sometimes I lose. That’s slot playing, right? All slot players know that. Except one night I walked around looking at machines. Nothing appealed to me. But I kept coming back to this same one machine all the time. I’d walk around and then find myself in front of this particular machine. So I figured “what the heck” I’d put some money into that machine. It was if the machine wanted me to play it, sounds insane I know.
The second spin saw me hit the big jackpot. I was stunned. I had to be paid by check! I don’t know, playing that machine came from a powerful feeling about it. That’s never happened to me since then. I wish it would. I’d like to buy a new car!
DONALD
Don’t think me crazy but do you know that machines, in fact anything with moving parts, have certain intelligence; not human intelligence but still intelligence of a real kind and that some of these intelligences can reach out to communicate with people through telepathy? That happened to me once and I will never forget it.
I was playing at a locals’ casino in Las Vegas when I heard the call. I was taking the day off from workman, I work too hard- and I figured I’d play a little. That call came in loud and clear. I heard it right in my mind. A machine was reaching out to me.
I searched and found the machine doing the call. It wasn’t anything special; just a kind of traditional reel-spinner. I sat down, ordered a beer, and started to play.
I put in one-hundred dollars and pretty soon I was winning a little here and there; I was ahead but not by very much. It was coming in a little at a time. But I could feel the machine telling me to keep playing.
Then the machine exploded. I don’t mean ‘bang’ like a real explosion but now I started hitting like the mini-jackpots all the time. My win was increasing constantly. I’d lose a couple of spins, yeah, of course, but right away another hit! Bang! Just like that.
I stayed at that machine for a few hours and I won a ton but then I heard the machine tell me ‘that’s enough’ and I knew I had to stop playing and take my win home with me. I did that.
I came back a few days later but the machine didn’t talk to me. I played it but I had no luck. Since then no machine has talked to me. I wait for it, I listen inside my head, but it doesn’t happen, at least not yet. But I will never forget that day. It was Merry Christmas for me.
I am guessing- yes, I am going to be a spoilsport now- that slot players and other casino gamblers have heard the call and then lost. It wasn’t happy holidays for them but we tend to remember the incredible moments, kind of like Santa coming down our tiny chimney until we realize that the magic is just inside our imaginations.
All the best in and out of the casinos!
Visit Frank’s web site at www.frankscoblete.com. Frank’s latest books are Confessions of a WaywardCatholic!: I Am a Dice Controller and I Am a Card Counter. All of Frank’s books are available fromAmazon.com, Kindle, Barnes and Noble, e-books and at bookstores.
