Gambling in old-time Phoenix


I've never been a gambling man. I have no objection to it, and if you like it that's fine - in fact, I'm kinda jealous of you. I learned a long time ago that man should never gamble more than he can stand to lose, and I've always lived close to the edge. For people who can afford to take the loss, and it's all part of what they enjoy, that's fine. Whenever I've had money "to burn" I would buy a hamburger at the Chuckbox, or something like that.

But Phoenix has always had gambling. Not legalized, of course, like in Las Vegas, unless you think of placed like Turf Paradise, where it's not called gambling, it's called, I think "parimutuel betting" (I just Googled it for the spelling, and even after reading the definition, I have no idea what it is). And there was legal betting on greyhounds, and even for a while on old-fashioned horses-with-carts-behind them.

And unless you were born yesterday, you know that in the days of Al Capone, you could find some gambling action in town if you knew where to look, and what to say. I'm inclined to think that a lot of money went back and forth, and if you didn't pay it back, you probably got to sleep with the fishes, that sort of thing.

Speaking for myself, I always would throw in a dollar or two to the football pools at places where I worked, if someone asked me to. I considered it an investment in goodwill with my co-workers, and never paid any attention to whether a particular team won or lost. Every once in a while people would talk to me about point spreads, and my eyes would glaze over like they did back in math class. People who gamble a lot tend to be good at math, quickly figuring percentages, and odds, and other stuff that I rarely think about, and can't imagine doing for fun.

I wouldn't be surprised if some people reading this had more than once in their life played poker with friends, with real money. I can't imagine anyone being old enough to play craps, and saying "Baby needs new shoes!" but I guess it's possible. All you need for craps is some dice and, well, that's about it. Cash, of course!

As a Fine Arts Major at ASU, I was obligated to take one class of math, and the dum-dum math class that I took was called "Probabilities". It was simple arithmetic, adding, subtracting, dividing, and made more interesting as it was all done by using cards, or flipping coins, you know, gambling stuff. It was an early lesson for me that the odds are always with the house, and as I mentioned before, a man should never gamble more than he can stand to lose.

Thank you for gambling with me!

So sing your song and sip your champagne,
Dance a dance with Diamond Lil.
You don't have to pay the piper,
Just have him put it on the bill.

 A man should never gamble,
A man should never gamble,
A man should never gamble,
More than he can stand to lose.
More than he can stand to lose.
More than he can lose.
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