Rrrrrrrr

While on vacation recently in Venice, and never having played poker abroad, I got excited one evening in finding an enormous yacht parked on the water with a neon blue sign across its hull that read ‘Casino Royale.’ It was certainly a luxurious vessel, swank and lit up brightly, and though I hadn’t heard of gambling in the area, it seemed like a boon. It’s always a good time to gamble. I tucked the image in my mind and continued on to see the town throughout the day.

Later that evening, though, a few glasses of wine deep, I was suddenly struck with the returning image of the ‘Casino Royale,’ and urgently became fixed on the idea that we had to seek it out. Our logic a bit skewed by the vino, we ran along the waters through the city looking for the boat where I prayed but doubted there’d be online poker, though at least blackjack and other games.

We spent about 45 minutes running through the crowded tourist streets trying to get back to from where we’d come, more and more excited to get to gamble overseas. Only upon coming upon the boat, we found no gangplank, and circumnavigating it until we released it was simply one of many private yachts and not an online poker casino at all: a mirage with a teasing name. Oh, us stupid tourists.