Not a high roller

When I hear the Drifters sing "Under the Boardwalk," I think of the casinos because they're going under.

New Jersey gambling houses are shutting down faster than Secretariat on steroids.

The Revel, opened in 2012, never found profitability and recently had a bankruptcy auction. It was the third casino to close this year. The Atlantic Club closed in January, and Showboat closed in August. Another, Trump Plaza, was set to close this week.

The primary problem is too much competition from nearby states. You no longer need to hop on a bus to Atlantic City to gamble. We have it all around.

When Pennsylvania's first casino opened in Plains Township, near Wilkes-Barre, my friend Nancy and I ran there to check it out. It's called Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs, a former horse racing track.

Mohegan was popular and crowded. I thought of it as the Woodstock of get-rich-quick schemes. They even had shuttle buses in the parking lot, a way to rush you to the slot machines faster than Halley's comet.

From what folks tell me, the slots are engineered to take your money about 80 percent of the time. I guess they're correct. It only took a few hours for me to lose $60.

But I had fun doing it. They served free hot chocolate, and the machines were fancy and exciting. They're loaded with bells and whistles, literally.

Grapes, plums and cherries whirled around like a kaleidoscope. All of it appealed to the kid in me. Even at my age, I'm still mostly a kid, and Mohegan Sun was a playground.

Midway through the experience, an older gentleman arrived and sat at the machine next to me. Real close.

In casinos, slot machines are tightly packed together. I guess casino designers think of gamblers as sardines in order to maximize the money grab.

Whatever the case, gamblers sit almost shoulder-to-shoulder.

The guy next to me was a chain smoker. The smoke from his umpteen cigarettes followed Murphy's Law: a smoker's smoke will always waft to the person in the room who's a nonsmoker. If there's more than one nonsmoker in the room, then the smoke will gravitate toward the one with asthma. In this case, the smoke only had to waft a few inches.

There was no switching seats, because the room was packed. So instead of moving, I pretended the smoke wasn't there.

But clothing absorbs smoke, so by the time I left the place, I smelled as though I'd just covered the Great Chicago Fire.

Still, I had an enjoyable time horsing around at Pocono Downs.

And I learned a few valuable lessons.

First off, the only safe bet for me is to avoid a casino. It's obvious I don't really know how to gamble. Oh sure, I occasionally buy one of those Pennsylvania Instant Loser lottery tickets.

But in the scheme of things, I'm not familiar with gambling or the strategies to win. I don't even play bingo.

I also learned that the casino should provide free oxygen masks in addition to the free cocoa.

And I realized that $60 can go quickly, even when playing penny-pinching machines.

Turns out, I'm not a high roller. Nor a low roller. Nor a holy roller.

Guess I'm roller-challenged.

I'll bet there's a support group.

But they probably meet at the casino.