The Gray is $10, the Red is $25

Today was a half day at the office, and then we outed for the office holiday party.  The soiree was held at a nearby country club, and the theme was 'Casino'.  To that end, we were all given a fake $500 bill with a photo of the founder and CEO that we could use to buy into the various tables.  The blackjack table filled up right away, so I found myself at the roulette wheel.

When it comes to gambling, I'm very good at maintaining stasis.  I can gamble every hand/spin and still keep my wallet at the same level.  I might eventually lose all my money, but only after a long time and pretty much out of sheer boredom.  

I did have one of my personality traits reinforced, today: I'm risk-averse, even to the point that I'm a conservative bettor with fake money that isn't even mine.  I spent half an hour at the roulette table and stayed on or around my original $500.  I gave excess chips to my colleagues who had lost all of theirs, and when the croupier took a break, I ended up giving the remaining hundreds to a friend (although this was admittedly after I halfheartedly tried my hand at Craps, a game I don't even begin to understand).

At the end of the party, they had a raffle prize giveaway, which (to be honest) was the only reason I had really stuck around.  The lure of a free 46" plasma TV will apparently keep me somewhere after I'm ready to leave for at least an hour longer.  In case you're throwing a party and want me to stick around, hint that you'll give me expensive consumer electronics at the end of the night.  The beautiful part is that you won't even have to give me anything.  Of course, in the far more likely event that you want me to get out, simply tell me you're out of chocolate.

So I didn't win the TV.  Nor did I win the Keurig, the gum ball machine, the Apple TV or one of the bags of money.  But I did think to bolt for the door as soon as the last ticket was read and I was definitively not a winner, so I could beat the rush at the coat check and avoid the inevitable bottleneck at the parking lot.

Oh, and it turned out the gambling did actually have one real payoff - the person who had won the most fake money was given a real iPad.  Or maybe it was one of those fake iPads with just the picture on it.

D.