This is my second cruise, and I could hardly wait until we got into international waters. See those women? They all sat down at them one-armed bandits with their popcorn containers filled to the brim with tokens. Not sure how they can willingly lose their money so easily. The black jack tables always fill up quick, too. If you stick with the smaller tables, it can be a slower way to lose, but winning depends on who else is there which you never have any control over. The odds only seem to sink the longer you’re sittin’ there.

Then there’s roulette. Not a bad game, but the players always seem so damn full of themselves. The men all pretend to be James Bond. They bring their gun molls with ‘em, hanging on their arms, smilin’ even when he’s got a pair of twos. She’s just window dressing, all part of the bluff.

That’s why the only game that makes sense to me, dog, is craps. I mean, even if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can just play Pass and you got close to an even bet. You lose, you double down. Lose again, you double down again until you win. It’s not too exciting, and you might be backing a $5 bet with $500, but that’s one way to go.

I played craps on my first cruise. I didn’t win much, but I didn’t lose much either. Well, not too much anyway. But now I got a system. You see, before I booked this cruise, I talked to my friend Sal who’s a croupier at Mohegan Sun.

So I start out with about $500 and put $50 on the Come line, betting with the shooter, and I wait for a number. That’s the point you want to hit before a 7 or 11. It doesn’t matter what the number is. As long as the shooter don’t crap out with a 2, 3 or 12, I put $25 apiece on the 10 and the 4. Every time either number comes up, I get paid about $37, and I keep getting paid until the shooter rolls a 7 or 11. I might even bet another $25 on the inside 5, 6, 8, or 9. If he makes his point before rolling a 7 or 11, I get paid on the Come line, and then I re-up that bet.

So there he goes. The man likes to jabber, and he sure knows how to play. As for me, I’m just a spectator, looking over his shoulder. He tells me his name is Felix, like the cat. The shooter rolls a 9. Felix adds $25 to it. The dice keep flying. The shooter hits the 4 and the 10 three times before he hits the 9. Just like that Felix is up $200. The dice go around the table. One guy with a beak like a crow craps out on the come-out roll, but by the time the dice come around to Felix, he’s up net-net more than $800. That’s his Guardian Angel at work, he says.

He lights a Chesterfield and blows smoke over his shoulder and into my face with a smile. “Watch this,” he says.  He rolls a 6, and again places $25 bets on the 4 and the 10, about 2-1 odds each. He rolls again and again without crapping out. The table is electric. He rubs a pair of sixes, boxcars, and blows on them before tossing them against the wall. People are cheering with every roll. He keeps rolling numbers and everyone’s banking chips. But my friend’s stack is now the highest. He holds the dice over his shoulder so I can blow on them. And boom, it’s another 10 spot. They’re calling him The Magician.

Finally, he rolls a six and the dealer sets him up again the same way for the next shooter. The next point is an 8, another good number. “My Guardian Angel’s still working,” he says. He fingers his chips and arranges them into stacks. He’s easily up about two grand, so he doubles all his bets.

Felix has been eyeing the players on the first go ‘round. Now he’s got names for them all. Next to him is the muskrat, who twitches his nose on every roll. The barrel-chested ex-military man with the tattoos is the bear. The tall guy drinking Manhattan’s is the giraffe. His arms seem to extend halfway across the table, and the dealer gives him a look and taps his stick if he leans in too far. The studious looking guy with the horn-rimmed glasses at the end is the racoon. The crow is the guy with the beak in the black shirt. Then there’s the suave Scandinavian with the blond hair. Felix calls him the lion. The Asian woman in the black sequin dress next to him is the panther. They’re together, but she’s playing too and sipping red wine. The only one Felix doesn’t like is the old bald guy with the schnoz who threw craps last time — Manny the mongoose. Felix bets against him this time around and wins.

Crap is a lot more fun when everyone’s got a label. The funny thing is, they all seem to live into it. Felix the cat isn’t the only one who’s smoking, and the cloud over the table doesn’t seem to be bothering his Guardian Angel any. Midway around the table, just before the mongoose rolls, Felix asks me to find a waitress and get him a refill on his Johnnie Walker black. I decide to get one for myself. I generally drink 7&7s, so when I taste it, I wince. Can’t believe he drinks this stuff. Premium scotch, he says.

Felix’s stack continues to grow, and the dealer trades in his short stacks for $1000 chips. He gifts the dealer a $100 chip.

“Man, you are one lucky cat,” I say. “You really are a magician.”

Felix looks at me dead in the eye so sober it scares me. “Luck’s got nothing to do with it, dog. I told you, it’s my Guardian Angel, and you still don’t believe me.”

The cat is showing more than $25,000 on the table now. It’s 1 a.m. and he’s never been down more than $200. The casinos doesn’t close until 2 a.m. The mongoose has left. But everyone else in the menagerie is still whooping it up. While I never thought a Guardian Angel would be in favor of smoking, drinking and gambling, I’m sure he’s having a good time too.

I’ve never played craps before, but I find myself walking over to the cashier’s window. When I return to the table, I wait for my turn and then put a $100 chip on the Pass line. My first roll is a 7. I now have $200. I shake the dice good before I roll again, and hit an 11, another winner. Now I’ve got $400. The next time I roll a 6.

Everyone is cheering. “Let’s go, dog. Woof, Woof,” says the giraffe. “Take a bite outta those dice,” says the racoon. The panther’s eyes glow green and the bear howls like a wolf.

I put $100 each on the 4 and the 10 just like Felix does, and I start raking it in. I roll 14 times before I roll a 6. Wow! I’m up a cool grand just like that.

There’s a cheshire grin on Felix’s face. Smoke rings billow above his head and slowly shift into dollar signs. “It looks like I made a believer outta you, dog.”

“Ruff-ruff-ruff,” I say, laughing like a chihuahua. As the dealer passes me the dice, everyone at the table is barking, even the giraffe.

Oh, hey, stranger. I didn’t realize you were standing over my shoulder. You should know my Guardian Angel just stirred my 7&7 and is giving me a wink. He wants me to ask: “Would you give these dice a blow?”

Note: Charles Bins is the author of Quirky Stories & Poems, Backwards, Forward & Upside Down.