Gambling Humor – The Perfect Gift

Contrary to common belief, Brad and I are not avid collectors of all things gambling. It’s true that we have a garage full of gambling-related merchandise, but that’s just free stuff we’ve received from casinos over the decades. And sure, we have an antique Golden Nugget “Golden Doll” slot machine in our condo, but to us, it’s just a beautiful objet d’art that we admire. And I’ll admit that I still get a kick out of seeing the expression on the face of visitors when they observe the money embedded in the clear-acrylic toilet seat in our guest bathroom.

But other than those few examples, you’d hardly know we’ve ever stepped foot inside a casino by looking at our belongings — except, lately, for the gambling-cartoon calendar on our coffee table.

My publisher, Huntington Press, brought out this 2015 calendar last month and I couldn’t wait to pick it up. I wanted to see how the feverish imaginations of the two cartoonists responsible for the product translated the gambling experience into humorous cartoons.

I wasn’t disappointed!

This weekly calendar has more than 60 cartoons — clever and funny, sophisticated, and with a deeply inside perspective — based on the often humorous and surreal quirks of casino games, sports betting, online and home poker, lotteries, even office pools.

Without giving too much away, here are a few of our favorites.

The wife is standing behind her husband, hovering over big stacks of multi-colored chips, at a table game. She says, “You know at a glance you’ve got $12,675 in chips in front of you, but you’re not sure if you have five bucks in your wallet?”

A sign above three slot machines reads, “We Have the Most Liberal Slots on the Strip!!!” The slot machines are Same-Sex Marriage Mania, Health Care for Everyone, and Land of Legalized Drugs.

Another slots cartoon I love is where the wife is telling her husband, “It’s a penny slot. Give me a hundred.”

This one’s a little gory, but I think it’s hilarious: A dealer is standing over a corpse under a sheet on the casino floor. The dealer has a bloody knife in his hand, and he’s justifying his actions to a cop. “He kept on touching his cards with both hands.” And, of course, in the background it’s business as usual in the casino!

Then there’s the couple at an electronic self-check-in kiosk at the airport. The wife is pressing a button, while the husband says, “You’re checking in for our flight. You don’t have to play max coins.”

And my all-time favorite: A lion, a tin man, and a scarecrow are drinking, smoking, and playing poker. The scarecrow says, “I thought she’d never leave.”

It’s a 12-month full-weekly planner with a wire binding that allows the calendar to sit flat on your desk (or coffee table). There’s plenty of room to record notes in the date boxes, and it has a 2015 year-at-a-glance calendar, mini-calendars of both the current and following month on each page, and full-page January and February 2016 calendars.

All in all, I highly recommend it as the perfect holiday gift for the gamblers in your life, which might include yourself. And it’s a great deal, at $17.96, for a year’s worth of giggles and daily reminders of your appointments, as well as your gambling pleasures. You can order it at ShopLVA.com; search for “calendar.”