In all honesty, when I think of New York I usually think of Manhattan; it probably comes from the fact that Manhattan is surely its most famous part. I was always curious to know why New York is called “The Big Apple” and as I found out, it has to do with one of my favorite pastimes – betting. John FitzGerald, the feature writer for The Morning Telegraph in the ’30s and the ‘40s, who covered the races in New York State, was the first writer to use the term; he actually had a regular column “Around the Big Apple”. He explained that he had heard it from the black stable boys who followed the horses to the small quarter-mile tracks in New Orleans and all over the East and Middle West. New York was so huge to them and so full of opportunity that they called it the “Big Apple”. At that time, when the jazz musicians would say that they have a gig in the “Big Apple”, it meant that they would play in the most prestigious venue of all – Manhattan.
Intuitively, after reading the story I decided to spend some time playing at the Manhattan Slots Casino. When I logged into my account I just hoped that my intuition was going to help me win some money. The first slot I played was “Texan Tycoon” but only because I usually have a lot of luck with it. This time not so much; the biggest win in the base game was $1.54 and that was the only time I had a 10x multiplier in a winning combination; every other time it was a 2x multiplier. After this slot let me down I didn’t know which one to choose next. Convinced that I was doing something wrong I opened the “Diamond Dozen” slot. This time my intuition was right; I lost my last $15 in just a few minutes; it would have been even faster if my laptop hadn’t frozen occasionally because of the overload. I should have seen that as a sign to stop playing, but nooo… why would I save some money for the next time? Well, next time I’ll be smarter…. hopefully.
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