Betting on luck
LOS ANGELES-- On any given Sunday morning, a bunch of people congregate at the copious parking lot of a big retail store chain at the corner of Main and Carson Streets in the city of Carson. But don’t mistake them for early morning shoppers . Instead, they’re a blend of ordinary workers and pensioners, who simply couldn’t think of anything else to do to battle it out with boredom. On such a given day, they made it a habit to wait for a private bus that will take them to casinos in Las Vegas Strip, Pala and Pechanga--two border casino resorts in California, to try their luck on gaming. This is the usual scene here each Sunday morning. While the rest of the flock attend a mass at a nearby Catholic Church to atone for their sins on such a special day, they’re enjoying the luxury of exchanging pleasantries and whatever jokes they could afford to belt out in their own native languages—Tagalog, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, and, of course, English. From a distant, I could hea