Flush with Funds

My cell phone rang on Monday morning, and it wasn’t a robot selling me something or asking me to donate to some cause. It was my friend and riding buddy Paul, aka ‘G-Man’. “Rich can you come to lunch? It’s on me!” he said in a voice that sounded really upbeat and excited.

Actually G-Man is one of the most upbeat people I know. He always has a smile on his face and a friendly and outgoing attitude. He may get a little agitated discussing that World Series when the Astros used codes and cameras and signaling devices to cheat the Dodgers out of the title, but otherwise he has a very sunny disposition.

Ever wonder why there are so many commercials on TV and radio for the tribal casinos in California? It is because of customers like G-Man. G-Man likes to gamble. He doesn’t overdo it. He pays all his bills and doesn’t mortgage his house, but he does spend some of his discretionary income in casinos or on lottery tickets. He has some specific lottery numbers that he plays, eschewing the random ‘quick pick’. So he has to play every week, because if he missed a week and his numbers hit he would need therapy.

So I kind of knew why G-Man invited a few friends to lunch on his dime, but he saved the details for table talk. Here is what he told us happened. If I have a few of the specifics wrong bear with me, he was pretty excited while telling his tale and it was hard for this non-gambler to follow.

There is a casino game called 3 Card Poker, and there is a progressive jackpot for hitting the A,K,Q of Spades. At the Jackson Rancheria, the payoff had grown to $22,000, which G-Man says is much higher than usual. One afternoon he decided to take a drive through the low snow and see if it had been hit and if not spend a few dollars chasing it.

Alas, some other player had gotten lucky so the progressive was down to something like $1,200. Nothing to get excited about. So G-Man decided to sit down at a table offering something called ‘4 Card Poker’. I had never heard of this, but here is how it works. You make a bet, then the dealer gives you 5 cards and takes 6 cards for him/herself. You make the best poker hand you can with your best 4 cards, the dealer does the same, and the higher hand wins. Obviously the dealer has a huge edge, but how do you think the Rancheria pays for all those commercials?

No one would play this game except for the two enticing side bets with large payouts. One is a bonus for a ‘bad beat’ which means you had a very good hand topped by the dealer’s better one. The other is a bonus for hitting exceptional hands, of which a royal flush it the best, and a straight flush is a close runner up.

So G-Man sits down at the table, makes the three bets, and look what fate dealt him on his very first hand:

G-Man, in a very excited voice, “I sat down and the dealer dealt my cards and before I looked I shuffled them like I always do. Then I looked at 4 of them, like I always do. Holy smokes, I’ve got the 2,3,4 and 5 of Diamonds! A four card straight flush! The Ace or 6 of Diamonds would make a straight flush and a big payout. So I kind of peek and I see that I have a red Ace. Now I’m really excited…could it be? I expose the card a little more and it’s a Diamond! Whoopee!!!”

Whoopee indeed. The payout was $7,000. G-Man said it was his single biggest win ever. When you hit something this big the IRS and Franchise Tax Board get involved, so the casino gave him a W2-G or 1099-G and withheld something like 20%, but it was still enough to get excited about. And take your friends to lunch with.

My loyal readers will recall two of my favorite blogs titled ‘The Butterfly Effect’ about how some small event started a chain that changed lives. For example: the only reason Stoker and I ever met is because Jimmy Carter and Tip O’Neil were arguing about funding an aircraft carrier back in 1978. That argument led to forty years of married bliss for the two of us. And no argument would have meant no Rich and Stoker…a very sobering thought.

A $7,000 jackpot (before taxes) isn’t exactly life changing, but it is still pretty exciting, and G-Man started musing on some ‘what ifs’ of his own. “Suppose the 3 card bonus was still high and I hadn’t played 4 card? What if I had stayed home instead of deciding spur of the moment to head up the hill and brave the snowdirfts? What if I had gone to the bathroom when I arrived? Or parked in a different spot? I would have missed it! It hit on my very first hand!”

Well he didn’t miss it, and it couldn’t have happened to a better fellow. Thanks for lunch G-Man!