Guest Editorial

Robbed by eNed [Kelly]

By Steve Rogan

Was up the club the other night. Good feed, nice drink, bit of eye candy, then you’re there; the pokies! Don’t play ’em myself! I once won sixteen bucks – and that was after going halves - and that was it! But I’m watching all these people sitting there feeding eNed their hard-earned and cursing him for taking it!

Then I notice someone taking their membership card out of  eNed’s forehead and that changes everything I see thereafter.

When you sign up for membership – which is suspiciously inexpensive – all manner of details are furnished by you to the club. That goes inside Big Ned, upstairs, down the hall, last door on the left; sign reads: Don’t bother mate! Nothing but mops and brooms in here!

Big Ned’s a funny bugger! Smart as Deep Thought, cunning as a fox, sly as a dog, and as dangerous as a human, and he’s up there moving all this stuff around, stuff everywhere you know, it’s, , ,  it’s stuff! Stuff that, much in the way of the concept of fishing, determines how often you come to the club and how much you play.

If Harry goes to the club and puts quite a bit in and he does this with a bit of regularity then Big Ned’s gunna want him to keep doing it. Not every baited hook puts fish on the table though – ooh ‘ek! DM! That sounded all biblical it did. The bit about the fish I mean. – but if Harry does this then chances are he’s a member of other clubs; Big Ned’s dealing with a “Researching Gambler”

Now, back in the day when eNed was just ya average-kick-about-run-of-the-mill one-armed bandit, things were easier. OABs’ didn’t like paper money; didn’t trust it. It was flimsy and if it came out of washing machines the way it did then how would it come out of them?

“No! Paper money be damned!” they said. “Give us tin, copper, and nickel!”

It was every OAB for itself back then. Sure, they had to hand it over sooner or later but the point is they were a proud folk for they knew that they had taken it all by themselves; real mechanically moving parts and none of this fake and unnatural silicon-LCD-blisteringly-coloured machinery. Flimsy, just like paper money. And a win meant the real sound of real coin thundering down the real chute to produce the real sound of it hitting the real tray. Not a poorly reproduced sample eventuating in the production of a ticket which eNed will gladly take back down his gob!

But OAB got beaten up by eNed and eNed’s got no arms! Oodathunkit?

OABs’ were pretty much one-liners; three at the most, but eNed, he doesn’t care what order it flows in, where the fuck it’s located on his big-bright-happy-sounding-face; the more you bet, the more ways eNed can come up with to make you, with breast-bouncing glee, win…………………………………enough to keep you coming back!

Let’s say when Harry plays he’s slidin’ in bricks and betting max, two things could happen; only two. He’ll take some good dollars or he’ll do his arse: no little wins. Now, there’s not just one way of doing your arse, I say there’s two.

First one’s the idiot on the stool feeding eNed like a spoiled little kid, a fat one, yeah right , a spoiled little fatso gettin’ his face stuffed by mama. This boofhead is, like, making one sacrifice after another to the god, eNed in the hope that the god, eNed will be merciful enough to furnish him with the very stuff he’s been shoving down eNed’s throat for the past three hours!

Most of these ones will argue that eNed should reward them for showing him such generosity.

Second one’s the one who’s already got substantial winnings in his pocket, but he’s all geed up and thinkin’ with his gamblin’ dick and yep, sure enough, he puts it all back through. This displeases Big Ned as he really does want you to want to come back and keep eNed company while he fattens for Christmas.

Big Ned says that you can only want to come back if you went away a few bucks up the time before. Kinda makes sense. Big Ned wants you to be happy, not rich, but he wants you to smile warmly when you think of eNed.

You are encouraged to swipe your card as you enter the club. They don’t encourage you to swipe out when you leave. Any OH&S Committee worth its salt should argue that that person would therefore be deemed “still on the premises”.

Possibly not so though. Your “log on” might just simply time-out and log you as exited after a certain period of inactivity. Big Ned doesn’t care if you leave, fuck no! He’s just worried you’re not comin’ back!

Big Ned doesn’t want you to know that you have this power over him: it would displease him.

Ok, so Harry swipes his card as he enters the club and, inside the swipe machine, the big electronic signal tells the little electronic signal to go very, very quickly and tell Big Ned that Harry’s here.

“Mmm,” says Big Ned as he pulls up Harry’s file. He uses that big, throaty, umm, like the-force-Luke type voice. “Had a few good wins of late, eh Harry? Coming in a little more this week though. That’s where your big ones were. Mmm, ok.”

So, on an occasion like this, Big Ned would tell the little electronic signal to go just as quickly – if not more so because it’s coming from Big Ned – and tell the big electronic signal to tell Harry’s card that he aint winnin’ zip tonight. Few spurts at the start, but after that, nada, zilch, zippo! Big Ned wants to start seein’ some of Harry’s Moolah!

But it’s not all doom and gloom, oh no! Big Ned doesn’t want you buggerin’ off to another club. “Fuck that,” he says!

Flagged-note in Harry’s file reads: if he comes in next Choozdee, send him out with a coupla grand.

Big Ned is a “gambler farmer” but he’s like John West, see! Big Ned only wants the best; he rejects the rest. Sets them to an eternity of finally giving up and walking away from the eNed that someone else has already claimed, even before their arse leaves the chair, and cracks a big one while they’re still reaching for their piddly cup of coins.

Big Ned likes the ones who can walk out with a warm eNed-generated smile and a little bundle of Neddy-love in the skyrocket.

Sweet as!