در کازینو

At a Casino

Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast number 249: At a Casino.

This is English as a Second Language Podcast episode number 249. I’m your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.

Remember to visit our website at eslpod.com. You can get the transcript of the dialogue of this episode, as well as our complete Learning Guide.

This episode is called “At a Casino.” A casino, “casino,” is a place where you go to gamble. Las Vegas, Nevada, is the most famous place in the United States for casinos. Let’s go!

[start of story]

Hanna: Where have you been? I’ve been trying to find you. I just won $80 from this slot machine. It’s not the jackpot, but now I’ve broken even.

Tad: That’s really great. Maybe some of your luck will rub off on me. I’m just about to see what the high rollers are doing. Do you want to come with me to check out the blackjack tables or roulette?

Hanna: I’m not that good at those high-stakes games, where people bet hundreds of dollars on a single play! I’d like to get the comps they get, but I don’t have that kind of money to gamble with.

Tad: Yeah, I wish I had somebody rich to bankroll me, too.

Hanna: I’ll just come and watch you play. You know, I wish I knew how to count cards. Then, I might try my hand at poker.

Tad: Don’t even think about counting cards. If you get caught, you’d get kicked out of this casino in a minute. Hey, there’s a poker tournament going on over there. I want to go watch that later. But first, I want to get my hands on some chips or some dice. I’m feeling lucky.

Hanna: Let’s go.

[end of story]

This is a dialogue between Hanna and Tad. Hanna begins by asking Tad “Where have you been?” Hanna has been trying to find Tad to tell him that she “just won $80 from” a “slot machine.” A slot, “slot,” machine is a gambling machine where you put in a quarter or a dollar in coins and you either push a button or pull what we would call a lever, “lever,” and that causes the numbers the pictures - inside the machine to go around, and there are usually three of these images and if all three images are the same, then you win a prize. So, it’s a type of gambling machine - a slot machine. Some people just call them the slots. Those are the machines that you can play sometimes for as little as a nickel - five cents - but usually they’re a quarter - 25 cents - or a dollar.

Hanna says that she didn’t win the jackpot, but she’s “broken even.” The jackpot, “jackpot,” (one word) is a large amount of money in a casino when you are gambling. Usually the verb we use is hit the jackpot. “I hit the jackpot,” that can mean I’ve won a lot of money or it can mean I’ve been very successful at something. You might hear somebody say, “When I met my wife, I hit the jackpot, ‘not that she’s rich - though that would be nice, too - but she is so wonderful she’s like winning a prize.

Hanna says that she’s “broken even.” To break even is an expression that means to win, in this case, the same amount of money back that you bet - that you gave. So, if you put 20 dollars into a slot machine, and then you win 20 dollars back, you’ve broken even. Businesses also break even when they get more or the same amount of money in as they are spending to produce their product. After you break even - what’s sometimes called the break even point then you start to make a profit.

Tad says, “That’s really great. Maybe some of your luck will rub off on me.” When we say something will rub off on someone, we mean it will move from one person to the other. Usually it’s something that you use for a positive quality “Maybe some of your luck will rub off on me,” meaning maybe I’ll be lucky now.

Tad says he’s “just about to see what the high rollers are doing.” The high, “high,” rollers, “rollers,” are people who spend a lot of money at a casino - people who gamble a lot of money, who bet 100 dollars on a pair of cards - that would be a high roller.

“Do you want to come with me to check out the blackjack tables or roulette,” Tad asks. Blackjack, “blackjack,” (one word) is a game. It is a card game where you try to get 21 points. A blackjack table is a place in the casino where they play blackjack. Usually there’s one person, who works for the casino, who we call the dealer, “dealer.” The dealer deals the cards - he gives people the cards - and you play against the dealer; if you beat the dealer, then you get money. Usually there are five, maybe six people sitting at this table.

Roulette, “roulette,” is a game where a small ball is dropped or put into a moving round plate, and there are numbers on this plate - it’s almost like a bowl - and the ball drops into the bowl and it bounces around, and then it stops at a number.

We would say it lands, “lands,” on a number, and whichever number the ball landed on, that person, if they bet money on that number, would win money.

Hanna says that she’s “not good at those high-stakes games, where people bet hundreds of dollars on a single play.” High-stakes, “high stakes,” (either two words or with a hyphen in between) is something that is very risky, where you can win or lose a lot of money. To bet, “bet,” means to make a guess about how something will end so that the correct person wins money and the wrong guess means you lose money. More generally, however, a bet, when we talk about a casino, to bet means to put money into a machine or to risk money in hopes that you will win more money back.

Hanna says, “I’d like to get the comps” the high rollers get, “but I don’t have that kind of money to gamble with.” Comps, “comps,” is short for complimentary, which is another word that means free. In a casino, comps are things that the casino gives the high rollers - people who spend a lot of money - they give them certain things so that they will continue to gamble at their casino. To gamble, “gamble,” means to bet or to risk money on a game, or perhaps, on a race of horses you could gamble - lots of things you can gamble on.

The expression, “I don’t have that kind of money,” means I don’t have that much money. When someone says, “I don’t have that kind of cash” - “I don’t have that kind of money,” they mean they don’t have that much - they don’t have enough.

Tad says, “Yeah, I wish I had somebody rich to bankroll me.” To bankroll, “bankroll,” (one word) means to give money to someone, in this case, to give money to someone so they can gamble. You can bankroll a business, for example - that’s also a gamble! But here, Tad means someone to give him money so he can play at the casino.

Hanna says, “I’ll just come and watch you play. You know, I wish I knew how to count cards. Then, I might try my hand at poker.” To count cards is to remember which cards have been played in a game so that you can make a better bet. In most casinos in the United States, counting cards is not allowed - they don’t like people who count cards.

Hanna says she wants to try her “hand at poker.” The expression to try your hand, “hand,” at something means to do something for the first time, often when we are talking about a game. “I’m going to try my hand at roulette” - I’ve never played roulette before, but I’m going to try it.

Interestingly, the word hand is also the word we use for the cards that you get in a game of poker, which is a card game. You talk about your hand; those are the cards that you are given by the dealer in blackjack or in poker.

Poker is a game that usually involves each person getting five cards. The person with what we would call the best hand - the person who has the highest cards or the best kind of cards - would win. The game of poker has its own vocabulary that we don’t have time to go into today, maybe in another podcast.

Tad says, “Don’t even think about counting cards.” When we use that expression, don’t even think about it, you’re warning somebody not to do something.

Tad says that “If you get caught,” meaning if the casino realizes that you are trying to count cards, you’ll “get kicked out of this casino in a minute.” To be kicked out of somewhere means to be told to leave. You could be kicked out of your house if your wife doesn’t like what you have been doing, so be careful!

Tad says Hanna could be “kicked out in a minute.” In a minute means immediately or right away - very soon.

Tad says that “there’s a poker tournament going on over” on another side of the casino. A tournament, “tournament,” is a formal competition - a game - usually many different games to see who is the best player.

Tad says that he doesn’t want to go there right now; he wants to get his “hands on” - meaning he wants to get some - “chips or some dice.” Chips, “chips,” has a couple of different meanings. In this episode, chips are small, usually round pieces of plastic that represent money. So, you don’t put actual money on the table when you are betting, say, in blackjack or poker, you use these colored chips - these little pieces of plastic. At the end of the night, you take your chips and you cash them in. To cash in your chips means to get real money back, the amount of money equal to the kind of and number of chips you have. For additional definitions of this word chips, take a look at the Learning Guide for today.

Dice, “dice,” is the plural of the word die, “die,” as a noun, and those are little cubes - little pieces of plastic or wood that have six sides on them, each side has a number, usually a little dot. There’s one, two, three, four, five, six - so each side has either one, two, three, four, five or six dots, and dice are used in playing certain kinds of gambling games.

Now let’s take a listen to the dialogue at a normal speed.

[start of story]

Hanna: Where have you been? I’ve been trying to find you. I just won $80 from this slot machine. It’s not the jackpot, but now I’ve broken even.

Tad: That’s really great. Maybe some of your luck will rub off on me. I’m just about to see what the high rollers are doing. Do you want to come with me to check out the blackjack tables or roulette?

Hanna: I’m not that good at those high-stakes games, where people bet hundreds of dollars on a single play! I’d like to get the comps they get, but I don’t have that kind of money to gamble with.

Tad: Yeah, I wish I had somebody rich to bankroll me, too.

Hanna: I’ll just come and watch you play. You know, I wish I knew how to count cards. Then, I might try my hand at poker.

Tad: Don’t even think about counting cards. If you get caught, you’d get kicked out of this casino in a minute. Hey, there’s a poker tournament going on over there. I want to go watch that later. But first, I want to get my hands on some chips or some dice. I’m feeling lucky.

Hanna: Let’s go.

[end of story]

The script for today’s podcast was written by Dr. Lucy Tse.

If you have a question or comment, be sure to email us. Our email address is eslpod@eslpod.com.

From Los Angeles, California, I’m Jeff McQuillan. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next time on ESL Podcast.

English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr. Lucy Tse, hosted by Dr. Jeff McQuillan. This podcast is copyright 2007.