During my younger single days, a couple of my girlfriends and I were looking for something to do on a particular upcoming weekend. One of them suggested a horse race would be fun. None of us had ever had that specific experience, so the decision was made for a road trip. We would drive from Houston, Texas, then south to Louisiana where we would spend the next evening at the races, and return home Sunday. We understood that there would be ten races, and we each could bet as little as two dollars per race. I planned to take an extra twenty dollars, bet on all the races, and even if I lost them all, I would have at least one hundred dollars worth of fun.
We arrived a little early and somehow ended up in the enclosed skybox VIP temperature controlled section, surrounded by large glass windows. We made our way to some great seats and began investigating all the horses’ information from the first race sheet. I picked horse # 1 and placed my two-dollar bet on it. My horse won, and my excitement was so high you would have thought I had won hundreds. As I stood in line to retrieve my two dollars and fifty cents, an attractive ticket agent behind the twenty-dollar ticket counter got my attention, and he whispered to me to bet on horse # 1 in the next race. After pocketing my winnings, I went back to the agent’s counter and told him I had just won all of fifty cents on horse #1. But he assured me it was a safe bet, so I purchased a twenty-dollar ticket on horse #1 to win.
The race was on, and all of the horses ran their very best, but horse #1 barely won by a nose as luck would have it. Oh my, I won my second race! By this time, all three of us are hollering, jumping up and down, encouraging our horses to win. I told my two friends about the ticket agent revealing which horse would win in the next race, but they insisted on picking out their horses.
That time I won a couple of hundred dollars. After collecting those winnings, I didn’t waste any time trotting back to the twenty-dollar ticket counter, and the agent told me to bet on horse #7. This time I purchased two tickets and put one in his shirt pocket. When horse #7 came in the first place, the three of us gals went crazy, and now we had the attention of everyone in the VIP Box. They had no clue about who we were, where we came from, or how much money we were winning, but they all started celebrating with us. The three of us had stirred things up among the elite. I did not think it would be prudent to let any of them in on my little secret.
This process went on all evening. I bought two tickets each time, one for me and one for the agent. I was such a novice at gambling and did not think about investing more money when I purchased my tickets, or I could have cleaned up! My friends were denser than I was. They never bet on any of my winning horses even after my telling them, which horse, would win. Neither of them won the first race all night. To make a long ten-race story short, The agent and I won all ten races that night.
I came out the big winner, and we had already agreed between the three of us that the winner would pick up the tab for dinner and lodging. There was only one problem winning that way; I was hooked! I could not wait for my next trip to the racetrack. Thankfully, however, I never went to a racetrack again because that opened my eyes to how people get hooked on gambling, or anything else they dabble in that is not good for them. The ole devil dangles the bait, and we take the first bite. Then it’s all downhill from there.
I Corinthians 10:13 (KJV)
