Hot to slot

Melissa Schorr

Monday, March 2, 1998 | 8 a.m.

It is the first thing you notice when you move here and the second thing you lose sight of.

It is what the tourists marvel at on the way in and what they take away to tell the folks about back home.

Yes, Virginia, the streets of Las Vegas really are paved with slot machines -- and it seems like almost everyone but the mayor is determined it stay that way.

On a recent weekday at the local Albertson's, most of the half dozen slot players were quick to join the choir against Mayor Jan Jones' recent proposal to ban Quik-E-Mart gaming.

The idea? "Absurd." The mayor? "All wet." The likelihood? "Remote."

Even those who sniff that they never touch the stuff -- well, hardly ever -- have been speaking up against the proposed ban.

If it's not a matter of practice, it certainly is a matter of principal: It seems it would be downright un-American to take away Nevadans' God-given right to gamble where they please, when they please.

In fact, nearly three-quarters of Las Vegas locals who gamble will only gamble in neighborhood areas, shunning both the Strip and downtown casinos, according to Dr. Rob Hunter, a psychologist specializing in gaming addiction.

While for much of that group, that means Sam's Town or Palace Station, there is a small sub-group that admits to favoring the local Circle K store or Smith's supermarket.

According to two surveys done by UNLV sociology professor Fred Preston, 5.2 percent of locals who gamble say they prefer to do so in supermarkets, and 1 percent say they prefer to do so in convenience stores.

But the number of people threatened by this proposed extinction far outweighs the actual number of practitioners. It seems there is a deeply ingrained sense of civic pride surrounding the notion of gaming's ubiquity -- in the pizza parlors, in the airport, in the Laundromat.

"It's part of Vegas and it's been that way since the beginning," snaps Myrna, a transplanted Bostonian with a New England-honed sense of tradition, as she feeds the slots at Albertson's. "I think she's (Mayor Jones) positively ridiculous."

But this emotion runs deeper than simply preserving our history. Public reaction on the airwaves and in newspapers shows that Las Vegans are equally concerned with the impact on tourism, convenience and, naturally, the bottom line.

Deep sixing neighborhood gaming, locals fret, would vanquish our mystique and squash our bragging rights. The city's standing as America's slotheart might be diminished, making us no more special than any other town that red-lines its gaming onto the riverboat or the reservation.

Imagine: another piece of Vegas history, destroyed.

Horrified locals having to drag themselves down to the Strip for their daily meet and greet with the 5-card bandit.

Sobbing store owners, losing revenues, forced to jack up prices.

A city without an icon, adrift.

But some dare to voice the opinion that the mayor may have a point -- while simultaneously plugging quarters into the machine.

"I think they should get rid of these," declares one housewife, as her 100 credits plunges towards zero.

But don't her words contradict her actions?

"Exactly," she says. "They shouldn't have them here because of the temptation" -- a temptation she couldn't resist.

"There's a place for them, and I don't think it's the convenience store," agrees Diane Headley, a housewife who admits she was "drawn" to the nickel slots after buying some gas at a Rebel convenience store.

"We play most every time we stop for gas," adds her husband, James.

"It bothers me when I see people leaving their kids in their (grocery) carts while they play," frowns Goodsprings resident Martin Barger, who almost came to blows with the father of a toddler last week at the Vons down the street for expressing that viewpoint.

"I don't see any benefits to it," he adds firmly, right after he pockets the $10 in quarters this particular diaper run has just scored him. "But realistically, they'll never be able to get rid of them."

To the outsider, this town wail is met with a touch of disbelief.

It seems strange enough that people actually prefer to prolong their ins and outs of a Stop and Shop -- by definition a place one stops, not sets up quarters.

"It's odd," says tourist Dana Stansbury, who is visiting from Colorado. "Where I'm from, you don't see grocery shopping and gambling."

Even locals such as Carol Kvesic, a sales clerk at the Stratosphere, who has tried gambling in the groceries, says she found the atmosphere unpleasant. "When you have casinos, why bother gambling in those?" she says. "It's silly."

But few go so far as to label gambling at the gas station slightly irrational, downright obsessive or merely pathetic.

On the contrary, these grocery gamblers are often seen as the bastions of our booming economy. Upholders of a longstanding tradition. Expressing their rights as citizens. Practically hometown heroes, if you will.

So who are they?

From the optimistic who play in Lucky's to the unwittingly ironic who choose Terrible Herbst, the cast of players is varied.

There is chain-smoking, cane-toting retiree, who needs an outlet to get out of the house, but is wary of the immense casinos' hustle and bustle.

There sits the compulsive, who talks without making eye contact while he rhythmically punches the buttons and reflexively feeds in $20 bills with his oil-stained fingers.

There stand the uncommitted, who linger in front of the machine without sitting down, able to make a quick getaway if they have to.

Here comes the housewife in her color-coordinated jumpsuit, indulging an urge between errands.

And on their way out, really they are, are the change-phobic, who only stopped by to get rid of their "change" -- which seems to come more often than not in the form of a $20 bill.

Those who prefer the stores seem puzzled more than anything else when asked if they think their gambling venue seems unusual.

"My ex-wife might rag me a bit for gambling here," Barger admits. "But no one else. My mother plays there all the time."

"There's not much stigma to gambling in Las Vegas," Preston shrugs. "There's more in a grocery store than a casino, but this is one of the most gambling- supportive communities that ever existed. It's just not stigmatized behavior."

And what the outsider may not realize is the many, many perks to off-off-Strip betting.

For one thing, service is swell: There may be no free liquor, but they do get comped coffee. Parking may be do-it-yourself, but there's no need to tip the valet. And they practically get the change gal at their own beck and call.

The ambience is grand: There's no Megabucks mobs. No bunched-up lines at backed-up buffets. And aside from the constant buzz of light rock, punctuated with the occasional cry of "price check," it's actually much more peaceful than the constant clang of a casino.

And, naturally, the winnings are greater and the loses are smaller. For one thing, even if they wanted to, there's great incentive not to stay too long -- after all, that frozen chicken in the cart is slowly defrosting its way toward salmonella.

On the plus side, they tell of $1,000 wins that upgraded their purchase of steak into a delux T-Bone, how five of their seven lifetime royal flushes were hit in convenience stores and so therefore they must hit more often.

It all seems so convincing -- who really needs the long drive to a casino, the aisles of excess? -- until the Wonderland logic begins to seep through the cracks.

"I like it here because it's less smoky," explains one woman, as she takes a puff on her cigarette.

"I feel safer here than in the casino," says another, then breathlessly launches into a story of a recent robbery that took place right behind her while she was sitting playing slots at a local Sav-on.

And despite their declared lack of shame in gambling at the grocery store, most would prefer not to reveal who they are.

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