Kids Vegas!!!!

Why do millions of people suffer from a terrible to mild gambling addiction? You don't have to go any further than the local Chuck E. Cheese to find out why. 

 These kids won't be smiling for long after they lose it all.               

I walked into this fortress of chance and commerce, teaming with people that have converged upon this palace for entertainment and fun. I look upon the show that has just begun on their main stage, a crowd sits watching the characters as they eat and mingle with friends and family. The sound effects of the games ringing, chirping, coin drops, laser whizzing. The lights of the games flash tantalizingly across the headboard, as people react with high fives for their wins and heads hanging low in their defeats. I almost thought I was in Vegas with all the perfunctory sounds and sights that were upon me. That is until a huge giant rat, well, I guess technically he is a mouse, walked past me, trailed by a throng of screaming kids, more excited and energized than the Ultimate Warrior coming out to the ring, as the big mouse flung free tickets into the air that the kids scurried after to pick up.

No, I was not in Vegas or any other gaming establishment. I was at Chuck E. Cheese, where their slogan states, “Where a kid can be a kid.” Yeah, more like “Where a kid can get a first taste of gambling.” Places like Chuck E. Cheese, Dave and Busters, Nickel City, and many of the other thinly veiled establishments that Corporate America has created as entertainment, but really are a gateway to a gambling problem when these kids are older. These kids will go from Kids Vegas to the Real Vegas before you know it.

Don’t believe me? Well, let us just take a look at my day at Chuck E. Cheese with my niece and my two nephews and see if I can unscramble the hidden agenda behind these business conglomerates that all are working as the underlings for Vegas, Gamblers anonymous, and most importantly the Mafia.

Walking into Chuck E. Cheese you already have the feel and look of Vegas with the flashy lights, the multitude of people from all backgrounds, the sounds of happiness when they are first in the water gun race, while their opponents kick and hit the water gun in frustration, bemoaning their fate as the loser. Almost as if they were at 20 in black jack, only to see the dealer make cards from a 4 to hit blackjack and clean you out. Yes, the kids took it that hard. The Cheese has entertainment on stage in the way of mechanical robots singing and interacting with one another, much like a Penn and Teller Show. They even have the loser’s salad buffet in the corner for all the hard up saps that lost their shit playing and now can only afford the salad that looks like a Gremlin after it was hit with water. Yeah, kids, this is your first look at Vegas, soak in the saturated pixie stick sugar that Chuck E. Cheese is pumping through the vents to keep you higher than Doc Gooden during a Mets World Series parade.

Looks innocent, but this place is the first step to a Gambling Addiction 

I am dragged over to the token machine at Kids Vegas where, like Real Vegas, I am to give the machine money for tokens. Kind of how you exchange money for chips. However, as I stand there awaiting the transaction of real money to fake money, a man carrying his child, the child is melting down worse than John McEnroe at a chair umpire, pushes a cup filled with coins in my chest and says, “Have a good one.” The man just keeps on walking by me as I look back to him hit the door and freedom, where he gave a Judd Nelson fist pump like he was in the Breakfast Club. That right there folks is a perfect example of a gambling addict getting over their head. The dad sensed his childs inability to handle the situation, the ebbs and flow of the games, and removed his child from the situation. The kid will thank his father in twenty years for showing him the light. That or he will be in a dark alley pawing off services for goods. Either way he will be hating what Chuck E. Cheese did to him.

Now, I have three kids to watch and that I did. Each of the kids ranges in age from my niece being 11, my nephew being  8, and my other nephew being 5. Before we arrived at Chuck E. Cheese the three of them had devised a plan that would allow them to get the most tickets available. They were going to hit the skee ball machine, there was a dump truck game that my niece said she would play because she was good at it, and Frog Mania that was easy and gave a huge return on tickets. They mapped out their games and had a plan. Tell me this doesn’t sound like what people do in Vegas. God help the kids.

I gave them their chips, uh, I mean tokens and they were off with the rest of the hundreds of kids to lose their tokens. Some of the kids looked like they needed a nap, having been on a game surge for the last two hours. They walked around like zombies, cups of tokens by their sides, looking around like vultures to see if they could spot a hot game to play. These kids are smart. They will look around the room and see who is smiling and what kids are pulling tickets and follow them around, as if they will get the hot touch and not go all William H. Macy on a game.

Sure, Skee Ball is fun, but what about when it takes your money like Keno or Roulette

I watched the kids play and saw three distinct gambling styles- my niece the analyzer, my nephew who plays loose, and my other nephew who is reserved to let go of any of his chips, I mean tokens. My niece sized up every game, even allowed others to play so that she could get a feel or a sense of how the game went. After she calculated the odds and strategy she would either play or move on to another game and do the same. My nephew, 8, was the gambler of the bunch, playing swift and reckless. His favorite games to take a chance on are the ones where a clump of tokens are grouped together on the edge of the machine and you insert your coin in hopes it will knock the coins off and net you tickets. He would plop coin after coin in the machine, so sure that he would win big, but the coins, as if super glued on,  would barely budge. My nephews resolve, or is it stupidity, was huge and he continued to play on, even though he was losing tokens at a rapid pace. It reminded me of playing heads up with the dealer at 3 am after you just got back from a night of boozing at the strip club. He forced the action and my nephew was knocked out early. My little nephew was much more close to the vest with his tokens. He preferred to have them in his cup and not play. The risk was more than the reward for him. He just sat back and held onto his coins as if they were his precious. Finally, the degenerate older cousin (I say that lovingly and with concern) convinced him not only to play, but also to share some of his coins with him. My nephew fell for it hook, line, and sinker and they were both off to defeat the dealer, I mean win more tickets.

 Infraction, Infraction!!! Pit Boss is coming your way, Kid! 

Further making this trip have the true Vegas feeling was the addition of what would equate to a pit boss. This pit boss, who looked like the love child of The Big Boss Man and Bam Bam Bigelow, walked the floor, overlooking each and every player and game. The only thing he was missing was an earpiece and a too snug blazer, other than that the pit boss was making mental notes on every game that was giving away to many tickets and every cheating infraction from the players ranging from- walking up the skee ball lane and placing the ball inside the hole, too many hands playing Crocodile Panic, and kids climbing up this replica shoe to put the basketball in the hoop to gain more tickets. Yep, these kids are already looking for how to get an edge on the game and the casino, I mean Chuck E. Cheese.  I swear the pit boss may have taken kids and parents alike into his back office and used methods, in accordance to Chuck E. Cheese Law that may have dissuaded them from ever coming back.  The stinky diaper in the face maneuver, using his own human sized version of the Crocodile Panic game to mallet the kids into admitting fault, or making them watch the Chuck E. Cheese stage show on film until they couldn’t stand it anymore. I have only heard these stories, but cannot confirm if they are accurate.

The tokens run out finally (Thank God) leaving us with an endless loop of tickets to cash out with, so we canstand in a line and trade in for a prize that is not worth the amount you paid for the tokens you purchase. (Damn you Chuck E.) Sounds suspiciously like taking your winnings up to the cage and swapping out chips for money, but instead you let the kids get a prize. However, the kids wanted basketballs that cost a thousand tickets apiece. The kids had only gotten fifteen hundred, and they refused to share one ball. They wanted me to give them twenty more bucks, so they could win the five dollar basketball. I refused to do so, telling them that they could get something now or wait another time when they came back to use up their tickets. And right on cue here comes Chuck E. Cheese, coming out of the door making it rain on the kids with tickets. The kids followed him all over the place, getting on their hands and knees, bowling other kids over, swiping tickets out of their hands, to get these tickets. After the kids collected these tickets they wanted to stay and play more than ever. Damn you Chuck E., a move like that was like comping someone a free room or breakfast at the casino. Both establishments will lock you in their iron claw and won't let you go till they have taken anything in your bank account. These kids had the sickness in their eyes, that look that if given a chance they could win it big, they just needed one more token to do it. I quickly ushered them out the door.

Really, am I the only one seeing this? Can a federal investigation please take place into this matter, not only to prove me right, but for the kids?  There are gateway drugs, so why can’t there be gateway gambling houses that mask as places of family fun and entertainment, but really is a beginner’s course into gambling. Chuck E. Cheese and other establishments are the subliminal message that can be felt, but not totally understood by the kids. You just wait fifteen years and see where these kids are and how the allure of Vegas has just "happened" to grabbed a hold of a nostalgic place in their hearts when they use to remember how they would “play” at Chuck E. Cheese and now they want to just “play” in Vegas.

Now, if for some reason you never hear from me again then you will know I was killed off by an outfit member of Chuck E. Cheese who is working for the Mob that knows I know about Kids Vegas. Just remember to take a gamble on my theory and not your kid’s future.