Word: slot
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...which makes Wickham just the right man for the job at hand: a slot- machine tournament at Trump's Castle casino in Atlantic City. Perhaps no one among the 360 participants is better equipped for the slot battle than Wickham, who owns a Jackson, N.J., sewer business whose motto somehow says it all: "If You Ain't on Our S--- List, You're No Friend of Ours." Clearly, here's a man who knows a royal flush when he sees one. But his real game, the one he has sharpened through 20 tournaments during the past four years...
Wickham leans over and pecks his wife of 42 years, Gladys, on the cheek. "Wish me luck, honey," he calls, as a uniformed security guard lines the players up double file and marches them into the chandeliered casino, where 30 gleaming Super Seven slot machines are cordoned off behind red velvet ropes. Sauntering nonchalantly up to his machine, Wickham assumes a calm, assured stance as he awaits the starting buzzer of Round...
...nervously shift their feet, twitch their fingers, rub gold crucifixes, amulets and talismans. Grace Craighead of Philadelphia quivers with stage fright. "I'm soooo nervous," she says. "This is my first tournament." Adrenaline is boiling, shoulders are hunched, fingers poised to punch the two keys that will spin the slot-machine wheels to winning numbers and bars, or losing spaces...
...Five, four, three, two, one. Let's go!" shouts slot-host Eileen Kasunich as the buzzer sounds. "C'mon, Ken. Bring out those sevens. Exercise those fingers." Slotters square off with their machines, tensing their facial muscles as they urgently press buttons and pull handles. "Everyone acts like he is about to be run over by a truck," observes writer Barbara Griffing of New York City. "You sense that the whole world is going to cave in if they don't get those points...
...totaled after every round, and the player with the highest score at the end of the tournament wins the top prize of $40,077. Not a bad return on an entry fee of $577 -- a real bargain compared with the $2,000 some other casinos charge for their slot competitions. "We don't expect to make money off the tournaments themselves," says Castle president Roger P. Wagner, "but they bring in the folks for other casino play...