Knowing that today is the last day of my "stay-cation" I decided to make an evening of it. The Rhode Island casinos have always been a tad....different. Living on the floor at Foxwoods or Mohegan Sun one of the first things a gambler learns is that there is no "Time" on a casino floor. No clocks anywhere in sight, that's because most Casinos are open 24-7 and they don't want you to leave, they want your money, all of it, and the rule of thumb is, the longer you stay the more they make. Rhode Island on the other hand had a different rule, they opened the doors at 10am and closed them at 1am, (2am during the summer). If you were playing a machine, winning or losing at around 12:40am (Spring, Fall, Winter schedule) your machine cashed you out and shut down. The other thing Rhode Island was lacking was table games, it was slots or nothing, OK they had KENO too.
So last night at 10pm I headed east on I-95 North towards Rhode Island. I called Tree to see if she wanted to go, she asked what time we would be back and I told her 2 maybe 3am. (It is an hour ride). She laughed at me and declined. So I continued along all by my oneses. I arrived around 11pm and walked in the door with $300.00. I headed right to High Stakes slots, $200.00 disappeared real quick. The next $100.00 was used in slot machines, it left fast also. I headed for the cashier to take another $300.00 off my debit card (above daily allowance). I then played the floor. At that time of night the floor is very empty and you can pretty much pick and choose what you want to play. Rhode Island (Twin Rivers) has added table games to the mix now, I stay away from them because the money usually disappears real quick at the tables. So after a bit of playing I had accomplished two things, I had run out of cigarettes and I had $1000.00 in my hand, (That's $400.00 up in case you are bad with math). Not knowing the time I played until the machines turned off, only they didn't. I had no watch so I assumed that 1am must have come and gone and figured 2am should be getting close. The lack of smokes was playing on me and for some reason, it turns out, the casino closes all stores at midnight. This meant I couldn't buy any overpriced casino smokes. I say over priced because when cigarettes where $3.50 a pack out in the world the casino was getting $5.00. My last purchase of casino smokes was in 1999 and that cost me $10.00 per pack (no big deal nowadays, it's about normal).
Having no smokes I decided to get a coffee and head out the door towards home and a convenience store. I walked out the door and found that the casino no longer closes at one or two. The sky was lit and there was a pretty red line on the horizon. The clock in the car informed me it was 4:40am., an hour ride home....
So that is what I learned today, RI casinos are 24-7 just like everyone else. I came out the door with $202.00 in my pocket, that would be $398.00 down from when I went in, ($798.00 down if you really want to rub it in and count where I was at sometime before the sun came up.)
Normally the time thing would not bother me, I would just drive home and crash, the problem is, if I hit the sack I will probably not wake up till supper, and I have to drop a check off at Pendleton Nursing home at 9am, have the cat at the vets at 9:30am and drive to Franklin for lunch with Nat and get my helmet back.
Looks like it may be a long day.
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