First off and for the record, I have never played any kind of gambling machine. I have never been to a casino and have no desire to visit one. I have never gambled for money. I am, insofar as gambling is concerned, a teetotaler. Does this lend more credibility to my opinion, then, or rather my lack of an opinion, concerning the illegal gambling video games that Alabama politicians are so worked up about? Such machines are illegal in my home state; I don’t know if they are in other states, and don’t care. I don’t CARE that they are illegal in Alabama, either, as, again, I don’t play them. But when I hear about some gas station or Laundromat getting raided by the cops, which I do, not infrequently, on the local news, I can’t help wondering what all the fuss is about. If people are stupid enough to waste their money on those things, well, it’s THEIR money to waste, isn’t it? Do these machines somehow lead to other forms of crime? I doubt it.
Anyway, I mention all this because there is a service station near my home with an illegal gambling machine based on Dracula. A toothy cartoon Count grins at the player as the game greedily sucks out not the person’s lifeblood but his spare change. I was going to snap a picture of the machine the last time I was in there, but the same dumpy redneck guy was intently playing it, as he is every time I go in the store, and I don’t think he’d quite understand me asking him to step out of the picture. He’d probably figure me for one of the State’s overzealous G-men and break and run—which would be pretty funny, come to think of it. I may have to try it next time.