It's all about the cards

Perhaps my least favorite moment in the whole process of hitting a casino to play poker is signing in and out, when I have to hand over my players' club card to be swiped so I can get comp credit for my hours.

You see, I kind of have a lot of those cards, and I have to keep them all together. There are way too many to fit in a wallet. I often don't know when I leave the house where I'll end up playing, because I change my mind on the way, or because I have a really lousy session and pick up to go somewhere else, or I have a spectacularly lucky big start and feel that I'm just going to give it all away if I stay put. So the cards have to come with me, or I might not have the one I need when I need it. I hear that some people leave them in their car's glove compartment, and just pull out the one they need when they arrive. I'm sufficiently absent-minded that I'd always be forgetting to take it inside with me. Besides, wouldn't the Vegas summer heat melt the plastic?

I always wear a dorky fanny pack when I'm out and about, and there's plenty of space for the cards. But they have to be held together. So I have them all strung on a key ring:

The result is that when I come to that dreaded moment of handing over the card, I have to give them the whole mess. And that nearly always provokes some sort of remark. "Got enough of those?" "Do you have all of them yet?" Etc.

Even worse is sitting down at the table at the places where they swipe the card right at the table (Station properties, Treasure Island, MGM Grand, Imperial Palace, and a few others). First, the poor dealer usually has to make the swipe one-handed, because the deck of cards is in the other hand. Doing this with a single card isn't too hard, but juggling my whole collection is a challenge.

But then there are the inevitable sniggerings from the other players. Apparently having this many cards is quite amusing to them, though I've never really figured out why. Surely there are thousands upon thousands of Vegas locals who have such collections, and I can't possibly be the only one that has them all strung together for efficiency. But there's always at least one person who feels the need to ask, "Gamble much?" or say something sarcastic like, "You really don't have enough of those cards." My, my--aren't you clever to think of such witty banter on the spot.

Besides, it's really not all that many. It's 25, to be exact. I've dumped the ones for places I'm unlikely to ever play in again.

My stock reply is to say, "Some people would call that evidence of a gambling problem."

But it isn't. I spend more time in casinos than anybody I know except employees of the places, but the total amount I spend on non-poker gambling a year is under $25--and even that is nearly all on 2-for-1 coupon deals or when a friend is in town and I do a little nickel-and-dime betting alongside him or her for amusement. The casinos do not consider me a highly valued customer; I never qualify for any of the giveaways they have for their regular customers, because poker hours aren't nearly as profitable to the casinos as the same time spent plugging slot machines or trying to beat the blackjack dealer, so we poker players are at the bottom of the comp priority list.

Still, when I can pick up an extra buck or two an hour in free food credits just for handing them the stupid card as I start and end play, well, dammit, I'm going to do it. That means dragging the cards around with me, but with them thrown into a fanny pack that's no burden at all.

The only burden is the taunts from poker room employees and other players. I'm kind of a freak of nature in a lot of ways that, were people to know about them, might make targets worthy of some ribbing. Carrying 25 casino cards may be the least peculiar thing about me. But that's the first one so many people see, so that's what grabs their attention, I guess.

*sigh*