zimm Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hilarious thread. The only thing that will make
> it better is pics! Post em up. The Washington
> Post article on the MGM this morning was great.
> The reporter posted what it was like at 2-4am. A
> bunch of poor ass folks blowing their welfare
> checks. Pretty sad actually. No matter your skin
> color, that's just plain old trash. The bit about
> the 21 year old trying to get his mom off the slot
> machine so he could go home was pitiful.
>
> Here's the link to the article while it's still
> alive on the internet:
>
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/its-4-am-at-m
> gm-do-you-know-where-your-money-is/2016/12/12/1741
> 9f56-c081-11e6-897f-918837dae0ae_story.html?utm_te
> rm=.e2e9d839ce23
>
> Here's the text:
>
> The Washington Post
> By Petula Dvorak Columnist December 12
>
> In casino world, 4 a.m. is still The Night.
>
> That’s how gamblers greet you when you walk into
> the tinsel wonderworld of the region’s newest
> casino and you hold the elevator door open for
> them at this hour.
>
> “G’night,” they say, bleary-eyed and
> disoriented by my “Good morning.”
>
> Monday morning. A workday for most.
>
> I don’t want to talk about last week’s media
> preview tour, or the glitzy VIP parties, the fancy
> restaurants, the high-end shopping, the
> opening-day giddiness or the insane crowds at the
> new, $1.4 billion MGM National Harbor on the
> Maryland shore of the Potomac River.
>
> First glimpse inside the new MGM National Harbor
> Casino Play Video1:55
> The Washington Post was given an exclusive tour of
> the new MGM National Harbor before its grand
> opening on Dec. 8. (Ashleigh Joplin/The Washington
> Post)
> [MGM National Harbor opens with fanfare and
> traffic]
>
> I want us to visit this place at the untidiest
> hour — way past the 2 a.m. of the pedestrian
> party crowd and before the early-bird brunchers.
>
> Because 4 a.m. is the hour of truth.
>
> This is when you see the true measure of a 24/7
> casino’s impact on a community. It’s when
> people hermetically sealed inside the blinky
> lights and windowless casino world of no clocks
> and time charted in lost bets emerge, out of
> money.
>
> “The only winning I did was at the bar, when I
> put my money down and actually got something,”
> said a man in a dapper fedora who bid me “Good
> night” when he finally decided to head home,
> broke, at 5 a.m.
>
> And it’s when the morning work crews roll in,
> grateful to be among about 4,000 people with new
> jobs.
>
> “It’s a really fun job,” said the cocktail
> waitress who was serving coffee and hot chocolate
> to keep the slot machine zombies going at 4 a.m.,
> when Starbucks wasn’t open yet.
>
> On opening weekend, the MGM had to close doors and
> turn people away. Their tweets begged people to
> come next weekend instead.
>
> By 4 a.m. on Monday? Still buzzing, only parking
> was easier.
>
> “That’s why I came now. Plus I couldn’t
> sleep, couldn’t stay away,” said a 53-year-old
> man trying to figure out the Willy Wonka slot
> machine in the early-morning hours of his day
> off.
>
> He wasn’t alone.
>
> The gaming floor was hopping three hours before
> sunrise. There was at least one player in every
> slot machine row, every third blackjack table was
> full, and even some poker tables were packed.
>
>
> There were a few hipsters with fasci haircuts and
> ZZ Top beards at the “Walking Dead” slot
> machines, drinking beers. A guy in a trucker hat,
> leather jacket and fur-lined bedroom slippers was
> at the progressive blackjack table, chasing that
> $61,000. And the whole place was dotted with
> pensioners who had been up all night.
>
> Talking to them was like talking to tweens playing
> video games. There was little eye contact. Flat
> emotion. No names, please.
>
> “We just got here today. At 8 o’clock? Maybe
> 8:30?” said a woman playing a penny machine at
> 600 credits a hit.
>
> “That was yesterday, Mom,” her son corrected.
>
> She’s a retired truck driver and lives nearby,
> behind St. Elizabeths Hospital. She’s 55 and
> loves to gamble.
>
> Her one big win — the one that usually hooks
> them in — was on her mind. “I won $700
> once,” she told me. “It’s going to happen
> again. I can feel it.”
>
> Her son, who just turned 21, wasn’t feeling it.
>
> “I came in here with $150. Lost all of it,” he
> said, draped over the chair next to Mom, wilting,
> waiting to go home.
>
> Down the aisle was a retired federal worker who
> was on her second wind at 4:30 a.m.
>
> “I had to check what time it was before I
> started to drink,” she giggled and pointed to
> her drained vodka and juice.
>
> She’s 66 and stays on a tight budget in her
> retirement years. But this, the opening of this
> casino, was something she prepared for. She had a
> room at the hotel and napped throughout the day so
> she could play throughout the night, even though
> it’s hard to tell one from the other in casino
> world.
>
> “It’s beautiful,” she said, referring to the
> glimmering ceilings and sparkling decor. “They
> did such a nice job. I’m never going to Live
> again.”
>
> Live is Maryland Live Casino, which is in Arundel
> Mills, almost an hour north of the new MGM.
>
> All the folks I talked to were former Live
> customers who said the MGM will be their new spot
> now.
>
> Their neighborhood casino.
>
> For years, going to the casino in America meant a
> trip to Las Vegas or Atlantic City. Today, 39
> states are all in.
>
> This new MGM is Maryland’s sixth. And experts
> warn that six casinos won’t mean six times the
> profits.
>
>
> “States expand gambling in the hope that
> they’ll mimic the successes of early adopting
> states,” said a recent report by the Rockefeller
> Institute of Government, a policy research center
> in New York. The “more gambling expands, the
> more likely it is that economic and revenue gains
> will be eroded due to competition.”
>
> [MGM opens amid casino glut]
>
> Local Headlines newsletter
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> What is expanding? Gambling addiction. That 4 a.m.
> crowd.
>
> Two years ago, only about 200 people were on the
> Maryland addict watch list.
>
> That is Maryland’s Voluntary Exclusion Program,
> where problem gamblers can have themselves placed
> on a list that will get them kicked out or cited
> if they start playing again.
>
> Today, that list is more than 1,200 strong. And
> that’s before this latest behemoth with free
> parking and caffeine-slinging cocktail servers
> opened.
>
> The list will grow. Just watch the 4 a.m. crowd,
> especially when you tell them, “Good morning.”
Casino sucked $50 million out of the local economy in a month.