Gambling in a Bangkok shantytown
Rolling the dice… WITH YOUR HEALTH!
by Mike
Tonight, when I got home from the market I couldn’t decide what to do: get a massage, get something to eat, meditate, write in my journal or go for a walk in the slum I noticed by the side of the tracks. After much deliberation I realized the only reason I wouldn’t go to the slum was that I was afraid, and being afraid is no excuse for not doing something you want to do.
The tracks are a cool feature of a neighborhood, actually. They’re like a pedestrian thoroughfare along which the community congregates. People had little improvised mobile platforms that fit on the rails – one old lady pushed herself along with a pole, like it was a gondola. Later, a man pushed his cucumbers and basil down the tracks on his mobile platform, selling to people in the shacks. I was surprised to see little food stalls and convenience store-type places set up here and there. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me: if I ever made a movie about Thailand, there would be food vendors in people’s offices, on airplanes, in the back of cars, everywhere, and always two guys would sit on plastic stools eating alone over their bowls of noodles.
I came upon a group of men gambling on the side of the tracks. The ones standing next to the tracks occasionally checked over their shoulders for a train, but none were due until 9pm, I guess. I watched them gamble for a while before doing anything. I was cautious because didn’t want to get cheated, though the money was a minor concern. Mostly I didn’t want to be a fool. I tried the smiling thing on the walk tonight, but approaching a group of men drinking whiskey and gambling I decided to cool it on the universal friendliness. I decided that unconditional smiles were out of place until I read the situation better, and what I eventually read was that inclusion here would come from interacting. I hung back a bit to learn the game, then slowly joined it as I got a feel. With this group it was best to be bold, unapologetic, to speak English and mix the little Thai I knew because the quiet guys were being ignored. Politeness wouldn’t get me any closer to being trusted by the men, and that wouldn’t get me any closer to learning about the shanty town.
There was a friendly guy from Myanmar whose English was the best in the group. He was in Bangkok to work as a bus boy. When he first walked up he stood right behind a guy who, between drags, held his cigarette behind his back. I pointed it out to the Burmese guy, like, “He’s going to set your shirt on fire,” and he took a step back.
There were a couple Chinese-Thai guys and the rest were Thai men getting drunk on awful Thai whiskey, of which I took a shot. The bottle sat on the table corner and the most annoying guy (who was medium-well done) would hand a shot to one of the others. It wasn’t a party, just a way to loosen up. He handed a drink to an older, nice-looking man who was very quiet. The guy held the drink and stared at it and I wondered if he was religious, not a drinker. But after a moment he conservatively took the shot and returned the glass. Something about it made me happy. One guy, sitting on the table, got so drunk that he semi-passed out, his head coming to rest on the dealer’s shoulder for probably half an hour. He later climbed down off the table and curled up next to a concrete pillar. A kid, who was about 13, was the first to point out the sleeping situation of the drunk guy, and he beamed a proud, toothy smile when when it sparked raucous laughter in the group. The kid had a mole over his eyelid. When he first approached, I smiled big at him.
The game is similar to roulette, but played with three dice (sides 1-6, where 1 was represented by a bulls-eye). The dice are rolled and the middle die is either high (456) or low – those accounted for two squares on the board. The rest of the squares are number combos – you bet a straight number that paid 1:1 or bet some pair that would pay 5:1 if both numbers hit. The last squares are runs of 123 and 456, which nobody hit while I was playing.
The rolling of the dice was actually fascinating. The dealer, a small, wiry guy sitting on the table, started by pulling the previous roll out of the rolling dish, a piece of Chinese porcelain shaped like an ashtray, but bigger. Before putting the dice back in he scrubbed the plate with sandpaper, probably to get rid of the previous roll’s residue. The plate was worn down. He then placed the dice in the dish and studied the numbers, as if they might indicate what the next roll would bring. All the dice were turned to 4s, with the bulls-eyes facing the board, and they were arranged in the same little triangle every time. He covered the dish with a wicker bowl that fit inside the rim, then he concentrated for the most important part: the dish was lifted off the table and given just enough of a shake – one up-down – that the dice bounced without hitting the wicker bowl covering. The drunk guy, whose head later ended up on the dealer’s shoulder and then the ground, leaned in and listen hard, as if hearing how the dice bounced would give away the result. He was broke before anyone else.
People bet mostly 20 Baht notes (60 cents) and some 100 Baht notes, putting the cash on a square under a stone to keep it from blowing away. Occasionally someone would pick up my bet and hold it, not putting it back down. The guy would confirm what I’d bet on, then the dice would be revealed and I always got whatever money I’d won – they said they did this to simplify the board. Sometimes one guy would pick up another guy’s bet, hold it a bit and maybe add a 20, then put it down on a different square. It was like a little side game – “trust me, I’ve got a feeling about this one.” Nobody seemed surprised or offended by this and it happened to me a few times, once a winner.
After the bets were placed one guy slowly tipped the wicker bowl back, very slowly, and everyone leaned in to get the first glimpse of the result. Then the bowl was pulled off, people yipped a bit, and the dealer collected and dispersed money exactly as they do in roulette, then started the routine over again.
I only won a few times – I bet 100 Baht twice, one up one down, before I decided to play with 20s. My goal was to stand at the table as long as possible. I ended up losing around $10 tonight, but of course it was worth it. I thought about how I had planned to spend the money earlier and appreciated how much better this experience was than a self-pampering massage. I was learning something new, 10% nervous but fully engaged with a part of the world I didn’t know had existed. But I do still love massages, don’t get me wrong.
They were mostly very nice to me when interacting, though one guy said, immediately when I walked up, “Som tam? Shu mai?” mimicking what he thought I was going to ask of them (som tam means, “papaya salad,” a dish made on the streets here). Occasionally I sensed people were joking about or laughing at me, but I would have laughed at me too.
Eventually I asked the dealer if I could take a picture of everyone peering under the basket – he was so superstitious about the dice that I assumed he was superstitious about a camera, too, but it was no big deal. It was too dark to get a good shot, though. By that point I felt totally fine about pulling my camera out since I’d spent enough time interacting at the table.
When I left, I just kinda waved and walked down the tracks. The place is beautiful, really, you can see all the way down the silver rails, as far as they’re unobstructed, and it’ll make for an easy picture tomorrow. This stretch of tracks is probably 200 yards long.
Both a guy and a girl – separately – crossed the tracks in towels after a shower. Smoke from cooking fires drifted across in several places, and dogs and chickens ran around. There were people passing by in both directions, people sitting out on chairs or in their homes with doors open to the tracks. I saw two pool tables, babies in hammocks, kids and old people. I realized these people are the ones selling food on the streets, cleaning hotels or holding the door for me in commercial Bangkok. They’re people I’d already seen around town, and I was now seeing them in their homes.
They may also be the girls that horny, disgusting white men use as prostitutes, and I wouldn’t blame the men I gambled with for hating the white men just for that.
The tracks seem like an interesting place to live. The conditions are awful, they have little privacy and a train occasionally tears through their front yard. But they also have a community dynamic that reminded me of the multi-family camping trips we used to take when we were kids – it was a dynamic that I always enjoyed. I gotta think nobody would wish to switch places with them, but I also think pity is misplaced.
Tags: bangkok slums, daily life, dice, gambling, money, shacks, shanty town, slums, train tracks
Gambling is another universal activity. We are not so different from one another after all.
Games are a great way to connect with men – it seems like that’s all they end up doing when they get old. Everyone understands the feeling of seeing a new game and wanting to learn, so people can empathize with your situation and are in a position to teach.