I work nights at a gas station. The kind with bulletproof glass and a rotating display of expired hot dogs. It’s not a bad job, but it’s the kind of job where you learn things about human behavior you can never unlearn. Like how people’s eyes look when they’re counting change for a pack of cigarettes at 3 a.m. Like how silence sounds when the highway is empty and the fluorescent lights are humming.
That Thursday was slow. Painfully slow. The kind of slow where you’ve already wiped every surface twice and organized the energy drink shelf by color just to feel something.
I was alone. My shift partner called in sick, and the manager said he’d “try to find coverage,” which is manager-speak for “you’re working a double, good luck.” I had six more hours to go. The coffee was stale. My phone battery was at forty percent. And I had already watched every video on my feed until the algorithm started showing me things I had no interest in.
I opened a browser out of desperation. Just to look at something that wasn’t the security camera feed or the rack of beef jerky.
I ended up on a casino site. I don’t remember how. Probably clicked something stupid. But once I was there, I didn’t leave. It was bright. Loud in a visual way. The opposite of my world of gray concrete and flickering signage.
I wasn’t going to play. I told myself that immediately. I was just looking. Killing time. Watching the demo games spin without real money attached. It was like watching someone else’s vacation photos. Distant. Safe.
But the thing about working nights is your brain stops making good decisions around hour ten. Your guard drops. The part of you that says “that’s a bad idea” goes on break and doesn’t come back.
I had my wallet in my back pocket. I pulled out a twenty. Just one. I figured if I lost it, that was the cost of entertainment. Cheaper than a movie ticket, technically. And I wasn’t going anywhere for the next six hours anyway.
I went through the steps to set myself up. It took maybe two minutes. I made sure I had everything sorted so I could jump back in easily. Vavada account login was saved in my browser after that first time, which made things faster. No fuss. No waiting. Just a couple of clicks and I was in.
I started small. Penny slots. The kind where you can bet twenty cents a spin and pretend you’re being responsible. I’d win a little. Lose a little. The balance hovered around the same number for forty-five minutes. It was mindless. Perfect for my current state of caffeine depletion and boredom.
Then a customer walked in. A guy who smelled like diesel fuel and wanted three separate lottery tickets, each with specific numbers he recited from a crumpled piece of paper. It took five minutes. By the time he left, I’d forgotten about the game.
I came back to the screen. My balance was exactly where I left it. Nineteen dollars and change. I’d lost eighty cents in forty-five minutes. That felt like a victory.
I switched to a different game. Something with a bonus round. I’d played the demo version earlier and liked the way the graphics exploded when you hit something good. I put the bet at one dollar. Spun. Nothing. Spun again. A small win. Brought me back to even.
On the third spin, the screen glitched. Not really glitched, but changed. The reels slowed down in a way that felt different. Like the machine was showing me something before it happened.
Three symbols lined up. Bonus round.
I didn’t know what that meant. I’d never actually triggered one before. The screen shifted to a new layout. A wheel. Five segments. Each with a multiplier. The wheel started spinning. Fast at first, then slower. Clicking past each segment like a game show.
It landed on the smallest one. Twenty dollars. I exhaled. That was fine. That was twenty dollars I didn’t have ten seconds ago.
Then the screen shifted again. Second wheel. Bigger multipliers this time. I stared at it. The wheel spun. My thumb was hovering over nothing. I wasn’t controlling anything. Just watching.
It landed on fifty.
My balance updated. I was over ninety dollars now. From a twenty-dollar deposit. I sat back in the swivel chair behind the counter. The gas station was empty. The highway outside was dark. And I was up seventy bucks.
I should have stopped. Any rational person would have stopped. But I was eleven hours into a shift with no end in sight. Rational had left the building.
I kept playing. Not recklessly. Just… curious. I wanted to see if the run continued. I dropped the bet to fifty cents and spun. Lost. Spun again. Lost. Spun a third time. The reels stopped. Three more symbols. Another bonus round.
This time the wheel moved differently. Slower. Deliberate. It clicked past the twenties. Past the fifties. It was slowing down on a hundred. Then it ticked one more notch.
Two hundred.
I blinked at the screen. My balance was now over three hundred dollars. From twenty. From a shift I wasn’t even supposed to work because my coworker had a “stomach thing” that was probably just a hangover.
I closed the game. I didn’t even think about it. My thumb moved before my brain caught up. I went to the cashier page. I had to do the Vavada account login again because the session had expired while I was staring at the screen in disbelief. Typed it in. Clicked withdraw.
