“Just play it”, she urged.
“But, but the odds are staggering. You can’t seriously expect to pick seven correct numbers out of 80. You might just get one or two, but never enough to make a profit”, he droned.
“Just play it”, she urged.
So he did, and promptly lost. Vindicated by losing, he turned to her in the triumphant dark, “There, see? Now you try it”, he gloated.
She did, and promptly won five numbers out of the required eight. “I’m going to play some more”, she cried, with a toss of her head.
“Suit yourself”, he replied and wandered off into the smoke filled gloom of the bar.
It had been like this in umpteen bars in Alberta. They’d go to a bar and drink, play some pool, then she’d want to try the one armed bandits. He had tried to dissuade her but the gods of mathematics were not on his side, not for many nights now. She had won over seventy five dollars on Wednesday and that had sealed his dissent for a week.
Then it was back, on Friday, when she lost over twenty dollars.
What a vacation.