Maximum bet at gaming terminals

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Ah, how sly some people are.

At a recent Woodstock City Council meeting, when the folks from the Triple 7 video-gaming group were making their pitch to the Council, a woman with Triple 7 told the Council that the maximum bet is $2.00.

I took that to mean that you could bet $2.00 at a time. If you realized you were being a sucker and wasting your money, you could stop betting.

The Page 1 article in the Northwest Herald shows the owner of the Hub Lounge in Harvard at the first gaming machine permitted in McHenry County. The article starts with "Tom Orr inserted a $5 bill..."

Wait a minute! Didn't she say the maximum bet is $2.00?

Tom played a $2 bet, then a second; he lost both. Then he put in $10 more. Then it says he "cashed out with $40". Does that mean he walked away with $40 more than he started with? Or that he walked away with $40? After putting how much in the machine?

Check out the photo of the front of the machine in Harvard. "The BIGGER your BET, the more WINS you'll GET."

Should it read, "The bigger your bet, the bigger fool you are"?

So what the woman told the City Council was true. I guess. What she didn't tell them was that players can deposit $5.00 or $10.00 (or more?) of the family's bread and milk money and then waste it away in $2.00 bets.

And no one on the City Council asked.

And Woodstock has already approved these money-suckers for our little town. Err, city.