Poker Roulette Experience

I have only worked service jobs. Thanks to that experience, I tend to go above and beyond for riders when I can. This gets me praise through tips, comments or the badges on the app showing me that I was a ‘Late Night Hero’ or that I have ‘Excellent Service’. One such night, I picked up a couple of riders towards the northern rural edge of Vista. It was two gals heading to the Pechanga Resort Casino, one of the nearby Native American reserve casinos. We drove down about 3 min when my driver app announced that the current rider has cancelled the drive. Noticing that the gals in the back were in mid conversation with me and not looking at their phones when this alert popped up, I figured that this was just Uber being flawless as ever. They apologized and scrambled to open the app and re-request an Uber. I looked at what I had made by this point and decided it was no big deal so I continued to drive for free. The gals were very thankful and almost dumbfounded. They must have asked about three times if I was okay with giving them a free 25 min ride. But I assured them that I was financially okay and drove on. As we got closer, they asked if I wanted to join them and gamble. I had played ‘minor friendly’ Texas Hold ‘Em and Blackjack and video games that simulated poker and roulette tables, but I have never actually gambled before. That is until that night. We parked and walked right into the huge area where there were various slot machines and different tables to gamble all your money away. The gals wanted to play roulette. I, being a student and still paying off my car, could barely afford the minimum buy in of $20. I admit I was overwhelmed by the atmosphere and put all my money on four numbers. Not the smartest move for a minimum buy in. Watching the table in action, this is not the roulette experience I was expecting. The spinning wheel has four colors instead of the classic numbers with associated black or red. Those four colors chose which card the dealer flipped over and that card was the winning number and color. After watching this happen I lost all $20 and spent the rest of the evening watching the gals lose ~$300 each. Even though I only played one round, I actually had a good time. Once we were done I offered to drive them home just because I was thankful for the invitation, even though I didn’t technically need one. It was just nice to do something different. So I drove them home, they bought me an order of taquitos and I went home. Next time I gamble, I’ll make sure I actually have a decent amount of money to lose and I will lose it sparingly.