Riley's Game

Riley always wins at the casinos. The machines are good for him, but they bore him now. Now he plays a different game, a game with different and more exciting stakes than any bet. Risking everything, Riley plays his game one more time before a surprise points him in an entirely new direction.

"Automatically, Riley divided the people into anonymous groups:
First, there were spry seniors making tiny bets with their Social Security and pension money. These were the smart ones; they enjoyed the games, but came to play only after they had paid their bills. They were the ones playing in groups of two or three. They laughed a lot, ordered the free soft drinks, played and usually earned enough reward-points to eat on the casino's dime.
Then there were the grim-faced fifty- and the sixty-somethings. They were usually alone. If there was a couple, only one played while the other suffered silently. Addicted, ruled by their need for action they ignored everything around them. Determined, flirting with disaster, they would play through the early hours of the morning all the way to closing if they could spending every last dollar in their pocket, in their account, in their future. They would leave despairing, desparate, dissatisfied. The arguments would start in the car and last beyond bed time.
Though it was rather early for them to appear, Riley saw some youngsters, kids in their early twenties who had come to the casino on a lark. This was their experiment with fast living. They would drink, and play, and whoop it up until the wee hours of the morning. In the sober dawn, most of them would wake, hungover, wondering why they wasted so much money. Most would never return. Some would come back, not often, and only on a social basis. A few of these would find themselves coming again and again. And they would come alone, eating up the prime years of their careers, falling further and further behind until life became a shuttle between work and casino, with the latter consuming more and more of their lives.
It was this group, that sought this fine evening.
Riley prowled on."

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