"Well, what did you expect?"

I'll ask that after the usual statement made by most gamblers: "I can't believe I lost. Well, I guess I expected to win."

Great last words, muttered by many on their way out of the casinos.

"Those machines are really tight, the tables are killing me, and they never hit my numbers when I play Roulette or Keno."

Phrases like that are clichés in Las Vegas. Somehow they believe beyond doubt that they should win. Unlike a good baseball game, when your team loses but puts on a great game you shouldn't feel bad but somehow you just do (don't even ask me about baseball).

But NEVER do you walk into a Wal Mart and say, "They never sell me anything below wholesale, they never give me anything free. I can't believe they're making money off me. It ain't fair." The idea that a legitimate business should make a profit off of you never occurs to you because you're usually getting a product in return for your money. You're receiving a practical service in return for your money. But you can walk into a doctor's office, sit in a tiny room with no clothes on only to tell your doctor that your tummy hurts and he looks at your eyes and ears and throat and tells you to go home and try a can of chicken soup. You hand over your 75 bucks and say, "Thanks, doc." And that's all you get for your money. You can walk into the massage parlor and get a good back rub and an hour later you're hurting again, you pay your $60 ($300-$500 in Las Vegas for a good rubbing) and that's that. But somehow walking into a casino, a legitimate business in Las Vegas and now in just about every county in the country, and you "expect" to win and can't understand why you lost, or worse, you mutter the line over and over, "That's my life's story." The truth is people, THIS IS A FUCKING BUSINESS; WE'RE HERE TO MAKE MONEY, THANK YOU.

In Las Vegas the gaming business is to us the same business that Disneyland carries on, the same business that Magic Mountain carries on, it's the same reason Niagara Falls sells tickets to see water fall, the same reason the state of Arizona sells tickets to see the Grand Canyon, a goddamn hole in the ground. It costs $20 to drive through Yosemite, the same sights you can see in Colorado for free, and all you have to show for it are a few photographs. In Disneyland or Orlando or Magic Mountain, once you've waited two hours to get on the ride, one minute and thirty seconds later the rides over and you have nothing but nausea to show for the $50 ticket. Go to the San Diego Zoo and you get the fragrant smell of elephant shit and you get to see animals you're either wearing on your feet or had on your dinner plate well-done a week earlier for your $30. Or try Sea World, another place you'd have more fun with a knife and fork and a portable barbeque (unless you prefer Sushi, in which case just bring some rice and wasabi) and a $100 bill for two. But come to Las Vegas and you can have it all for FREE.

My buddy from Chicago that comes out every couple of months starts out with a deal from the casino to come out for three days and only charges him for the first day; the next two are free. When he gets here the first dinner is comped, then when he continues to gamble the rest of the food and beverages are all comped and he doesn't even have to lose, they'll comp him weather he's losing or wining. They'll probably comp him for a show for him and his wife so by the time he's walked in the front door of the casino; he's receiving $300-$500 in freebies. Just the room comp can make up $250 for two days in a nice casino, the food for a couple days is another $200 easily, and then throw in two $75-$100 show tickets. All his drinks are free and since he's a quality Scotch drinker he'll down $60-$100 a night worth of drinks if you figure his drinks run around $6 a shot and he drinks doubles. And all this is surrounded by 24 hours of the Las Vegas Strip at his feet, the most incredible street, the most awesome city in the world, something nobody can get in San Diego or Orlando or Anaheim. The last time he was out for three or four days he got over $500 worth of comps, and went home with a thousand or two more than he came out with.

How's that for a business deal? That's like walking into WalMart, telling them you want a free pair of pants, and rather than them laughing at you and throwing you out the back door, they give you a dozen pair of pants, a set of tires, a free 27" television and then give you $500 in cash and a limo ride home and say thank you when you exit the limo and then invite you back in two months for more free stuff. It doesn't make sense except that they would know that the next time you came back to WalMart you might just drive up, spend a thousand bucks and end up taking the city bus home with a bag of hard candy to show for your shopping trip. But then WalMart would be in the gambling business and some would make tons of money and have loyal shoppers, and others would be broke in a month.

But somehow the casinos stay in business. Few, if any, casinos go out of business for lack of play. The last casinos to take a dive were blown up altogether just because nobody wants to look at a loser. The Sands, the Dunes, the Landmark were all great old casinos, but none of them made money. The Aladdin will either lose the name or lose the front door, the Sahara and the Riviera will either improve their business or be turned into condos in a couple years. We don't stand for casinos that don't know how to do business, that don't know how to take care of their customers and most important of all, WIN. Yep, that's right; in order to stay in business they MUST WIN. We don't stand for losers in Las Vegas. They don't make money from selling cigarettes or red dice in the casino stores. They don't show a profit in a $650 million dollar casino by selling their used cards or t-shirts with their name in their gift stores.

Yet somehow when you walk into the Venetian, a 1.6 billion dollar casino, you can't believe you bought in for $50 on the blackjack table and lost it all in five hands. It's somehow not fair that they should be able to employ 3,000 workers, pay them all, pay their benefits, pay their 401Ks, feed every one of their workers every day, then sell their rooms for $80 on a weekday and you're bitching about the price of the room, the price of food, and the $7 drinks. What the hell did you expect?.... I know, you EXPECTED TO WIN. Well, it's time to learn another cliché, known well by every person from Cleveland to the north side of Chicago…"MAYBE WE'LL WIN NEXT YEAR."

-Ken Pearlman