The illuminated room was dizzying. Crowds of people flooded through, weaving between tables, between slots, between cocktails waitresses. The smell of smoke was heavy in the thin chilled air. Welcome to Vegas, the rock bottom town that bends the law, and feeds people’s dreams.

It was an addiction. The circles of cheap white plastic rolled till the images blurred, bony fingers still holding down the raven colored handle. Hope filling her hazy eyes, teeth chattering between nibbles on her lower lip.
“Come on, Come on,” her thin voice cracked into a whisper, as if needing to egg on the machine, to possibly coax it into halting on the right images. It stopped abruptly and without any hesitation her eyes read left to right: Bar, Bar, Bar. She harshly released an expletive from her throat, teeth gritting tightly. Gambling, was an affliction; and it was hers and hers alone. 

She’d been sitting there near six hours now. Slipping quarters into the slot with every stop of the plastic. Never seeing the faintest hinting image of the two grapes, or the orange. She knew damn well that the human aspect of blackjack and poker upped some chances, but the slots seduced and deluded with their appearance. Flashing lights and signs on the sides that read ‘win win win!’ or ‘try your luck’. She couldn’t quite grasp or understand how anyone could stay away from these things; they were a guilty pleasure, and she couldn’t stop. Her glance went downward into her Styrofoam cup, only a single quarter left. Slowly, the same false hope, beginning to glimmer in her eyes as the coin dropped into the machine. The lights reflected off her thickly rimmed glasses, flashing with optimism. Alas, bar all around. Her lip curled downward into an intensifying frown, and the stress in her facial features only deepened. Her thinning figure began to stand, knees wobbling under defeat. She couldn’t help but feel a wrenching sensation as she gathered her things and turned, walking out of the casino. She was sure she just had to build up the machine, before it’d be her lucky break. With this thought she stood still outside the casino, her bright pallor returning. An ATM was all she needed.

She started to sweat. Typing in the pin number to her family’s savings account. Just a little bit of money, just a little off the top, no one would notice. Yet her ‘little off the top’ was a sturdy hundred. She’d cash it in for quarters.

By the end of the night, still sitting at the same machine. She’d lost it all; four thousand dollars at that very machine. All accounts emptied clean, the bank slips in her yellow coat pocket. Money she couldn’t earn back with a hundred wins at any table in this casino. She’d never come to realize that she was the problem, Not this casino, or this machine. Her affliction, Her addiction, and still all she wanted, was to win; give herself the glory of flashing lights, tossing quarters in the air like all the elderly women who she’d seen prevail before.

Yet, she’d never triumph. No one ever won, per say. She’d get a spill of quarters if she didn’t get bar, but what was it worth? A hundred bucks? A hundred bucks she’d spend on that exact machine, trying to earn her keep with another win; an infinite circle of loss. Yet it entailed her, enticed anyone to come back for more. Feeding that false hope, that drives humanity to its brink, to rock bottom, and back.