Chapter 9: The Casino by the Lake

Of all of gambling’s card games, Dexter liked blackjack the most. He could sit at the table and play for hours. He had a system that seemed to work well and he usually came out a few dollars ahead.

It was a simple game and he played according to the printed odds. In fact, he often verified with the dealer how he should play a hand whenever he had some doubts. He talked to the pit bosses about business and the nature of the game. Most of the time, there wasn’t that much suspense.

This particular afternoon, he was seated at the twenty-five dollar table with a stack of ten chips totaling two hundred and fifty dollars in play. He got a pair of eights with the dealer showing a six. He split the eights. The first card on the eight was an eight. He split it. The card on the eight was a three. He doubled down and the dealer laid a ten on it. The card on the next eight was a two. He doubled down and the dealer laid a King on it. He got another eight on the last eight. He split them. The next card was a three. He doubled down and got a ten. The card on the last eight was an ace. He now had two thousand dollars on the table.

With shaking hands, he watched the dealer turn over his bottom card. It was a ten. With the six that had been showing the dealer was going to have to take a card. The dealer laid down a jack and went bust. Dexter won the biggest payout of his life – two thousand dollars.

He left a thousand on the table for his next bet. He was dealt a blackjack with an immediate fifteen hundred dollar payout. He pulled a thousand off the table and added five hundred to his stack of chips. He now had a stack of sixty green chips. A crowd started gathering behind him.

The next hand he had twenty against the dealers nineteen. He pulled fifteen hundred off the table while adding ten more chips to his stack. It was beginning to wobble. The dealer counted chips and replaced it with three five hundred dollar chips, two hundred dollar chips, and two twenty-five dollar chips.

The next hand was a nineteen against the dealer’s bust. The crowd was starting to get a lot more vocal. They cheered when the dealer went bust. There were comments about how much had been bet when the dealer made the payout.

Dexter took fifteen hundred and added two hundred and fifty dollars to his bet. He was now betting two thousand dollars. He was dealt a pair of sevens. The crowd muttered looking at the cards on the table.

Looking at the pit boss, he asked, “Should I split it?”

“The dealer has a five showing,” the pit boss said. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “The book says that you split on a pair of sevens against a dealer’s five.”

Dexter split the sevens. He now had four thousand dollars on the table. The dealer laid a ten on the first seven. Dexter waved him off. The dealer laid a king on the second seven. It could have been better, but it could have been a lot worse.

The dealer turned over a six. With the five, the dealer now had eleven. The entire crowd groaned on seeing the hole card. A few people even walked away convinced that Dexter had lost.

“No ten,” Dexter mumbled.

The dealer drew a four. The people behind Dexter got excited. It had looked so bad for him. They went wild when the dealer dropped a ten on top of it.

Dexter had a four thousand dollar payoff. He added another five hundred to the bet and took the rest of the winnings off the table. He was now betting twenty-five hundred.

The next hand was a pair of tens which beat the dealers seventeen. The crowd had grown in size although Dexter was barely aware of it by now. He was focused on the cards in front of him.

Dexter took five hundred of those winnings and added it to the stack. He was now betting three thousand dollars. His heart nearly stopped when he hit a blackjack. The crowd cheered. He took four thousand and added five hundred to the stack. It was now a stack containing forty-five hundred dollars in chips.

Although he wasn’t paying attention to the stacks of chips that were his ‘bank’, the crowd was talking about the pile of money he had made in this run. There were piles of green and black chips. He hadn’t yet bothered to stack them so it was much more difficult to see how much money was there.

The winning streak came to an abrupt end when the dealer got a blackjack. The crowd sighed in disappointment. Dexter wanted to cry when that stack of lovely chips disappeared. His mood brightened considerably when he looked at his bank. There were a lot of chips there.

He picked up one of the hundred dollar chips and tossed to the dealer. “Here’s a tip.”

“Thanks,” the dealer said.

Dexter put out two twenty-five dollar chips to start his run again. Seeing the small bet, the crowd rapidly disappeared. There wasn’t going to be any excitement for a while.

Dexter spent a few minutes organizing the pile of chips in front of him. He was shocked by the number of hundred and five hundred dollar chips. He looked at them wondering how he was going to spend them. An idea came to mind and he smiled.

He lost the next five hands and then ‘colored in’ his chips. The dealer gave him two five thousand dollar chips, three thousand dollar chips, and a couple smaller denomination chips. The dealer’s tray which had been looking pretty empty was now loaded with chips. Dexter stuffed his winnings into his pocket and headed towards the cashier’s cage.

The woman looked up at him and said, “What can I do for you?”

“I need to cash these chips,” Dexter answered as he handed over the small stack of chips.

She counted them out and said, “You’ll need to fill out some tax forms, because of the amount. We have to take out twenty-eight percent for federal taxes.”

“I take all the risks and the government siphons off the profit,” Dexter said.

After Dexter finished filling out the forms, the cashier asked, “How do you want it?”

“I’d like four thousand in hundreds and a check for the rest,” Dexter said.

“Wouldn’t you prefer a debit card over a check?” the cashier asked.

“Sure, that’s fine,” Dexter said.

A few minutes later, Dexter walked away from the cashier’s booth with four thousand dollars cash, and a shiny new debit card in his wallet. He headed over to the lobby.

Feeling nervous and embarrassed, Dexter headed over to the bell captain wanting to get some information. A twenty dollar bill was held tightly in a sweaty hand. He didn’t feel very comfortable about what he was going to be doing next.

“I need some help,” Dexter said nervously. He was pretty sure his face had turned beet red.

“What can I do for you?”

Dexter looked around to see if anyone could overhear him, in a low pitched voice that wouldn’t carry far, he asked, “Where’s a legal brothel?”

“There’s nothing in Carson City. You’ll have to get on highway 50 East to a town called Mound House. It’s just across the county line. You’ll see signs for the Moonlight Bunny Ranch in Mound House. You can’t miss it.”

“Thank you,” Dexter said. He handed the twenty over to the bell captain.

“Thank you,” the man said.

Eight hours later, Dexter returned to the hotel three thousand dollars poorer, but a lot more relaxed. He had satisfied his curiosity about Asian, Hispanic, and red headed women. It might be strange to say, but they all had the same parts and they all basically did the same thing. It was an expensive lesson, at a thousand dollars each, but he didn’t care.

Much to his amazement, he didn’t feel any guilt about the trip to the brothel, as regards to his marriage. As far as he was concerned, his marriage had ended with her texted message. Maybe going more than two years without sex affected his thinking on the matter, but he didn’t care.

Exhausted by a long day at the gaming tables and an even longer night at the brothel, he went to his room and went to sleep. He slept for a solid twelve hours.

Upon waking, he went down for breakfast in one of the restaurants of the casino. He ordered the breakfast despite the fact that it was four in the afternoon. This was a far cry from waking at six and rushing through his morning regime to get to work.