Fear and Loathing in Dan Vegas

By Johnathan Hettinger

DANVILLE, Ill. — It hit me around 4:30 p.m. — a spark of inspiration that would define the night. I could call this escapade Fear and Loathing in Dan Vegas. The idea alone was enough to make the night feel heavier, more deliberate. Serious.

I remembered this passage from Hunter S. Thompson’s seminal piece about Las Vegas:

"We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls."

“Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.”

I immediately started on a humble collection of my own. I went to my “fun tin” and found my pack of light blue American Spirits, and it turned out it was unopened. I think I bought them for a party back in June and never smoked one. Jackpot. I took a 2.5 mg weed mint, and I texted Boswell “Do you have the acid?” (Upon texting him, I knew that he would not — and has never in his life possessed — the acid). He said, “Nay, but I have my weed pen.”

By the time Boswell and the others arrived, our arsenal for the night consisted of the unopened American Spirits, a weed pen, a pack of Wintergreen Zyns, and a fruited sour beer I was already sipping. It felt appropriately serious for four thirty-somethings on their way to lose $40 — or $60, if we were feeling reckless — at a small-town casino in what was once one of Central Illinois’ greatest industrial hubs.

The week before, I had a big day of drinking and spent hundreds of dollars on food and drink and other indulgences in Chicago. I was still recovering, both emotionally, financially and physically. But I wanted to see what was going on in Dan Vegas. I think we all do, somewhere, in the depths of ourselves.

“This is our culture.”

If you’re a regular follower of Champaign Showers on social media, you know the phrase. It can mean Hum performing on Conan in 1995, filming the basketball promo at the supercomputer, or the ever-growing delay of Urbana's Hotel Royer.

But I’m currently on a kick to try to figure out what our culture really is. I moved back to Central Illinois less than a year ago, and the place has always loomed heavily in my mind. I have opinions on the best bars in town, the best stretches of local rivers, where to go on a hike, the best pizzas and a few more basic things. But after moving away for six years, I am approaching everything with a fresh eye. I’ve decided that campustown is extremely underrated, you people are just grouchy. I am deeply unsure about a couple very popular spots that I will not name here out of ill-preparedness and unwillingness to get into a debate with you. I can’t get enough Manolo’s.

But I’m trying not to be overly serious about my journey of self discovery. As much as I wanted to make our trip to the Golden Nugget a magnum opus on the state of Danville and Central Illinois, I couldn’t really get up the brain space to discover anything new.

Instead, I’m more inclined to write about aging, overindulgence, moderation, being boring, and trying to figure out where my place on that spectrum is.

Otherwise, a journey to discover, “what world do we live in? And what’s my place in it?”

It is extremely nice to go to a place where a lot of people are and think about them. When I got through security at the Golden Nugget and surveyed the scene, I thought, “These are among the people that will be on the jury if I ever go to trial here.” (My other thought: there are too many Purdue fans, but I guess that’s part of what being in Danville is like.)

Dan Vegas was full of these people. In fact, the security guards were in awe of how many people there were. “I just counted 500,” one said. The group was impressed.

Dan Vegas is the same as any other small casino, though a bit more expensive than I expected. A few live tables with dealers in the middle, I think it was $20 a hand. A few other machines with blackjack and poker that were a lot less of a buy-in. The floor is dominated by slots.

I even found my favorite game from a trip to (real) Vegas earlier this year. Bao Zhu Zhao Fu. Or “BELLS!!!!” as I texted my sister. In the game, there are three stacks of bells that fill up with fireworks as you hit the button to spend money. It fills up in inconsistent ways, but when it does fill up, you win a lot of money. As it turns out, it’s a lot of people’s favorite game, and I hovered around both sections of the casino that had the game and waited for it to open up.

I dressed up for the occasion: silk shirt, light-wash jeans, white tennis shoes, and a grizzly bear velvet jacket. As it turned out, my outfit wasn’t even the best of the night (I’ll explain later).

They say “look good, play good,” but, despite my outfit, we didn’t really test the limits of what Dan Vegas has to offer.

It cannot possibly have escaped your notice that gambling is everywhere now. It’s on our televisions, favorite sports podcasts and on billboards on the side of the road. It feels like this is just another part of late stage capitalism that wants to tax the poor to fund essential services in an attempt to keep funneling wealth upward. Also (and this cannot be ignored), gambling overall is a fun and popular thing among many people.

Luckily, I have not really been bit by the gambling bug. I understand that these places are designed to make me lose money, and I don’t really feel a great desire to lose money or find that much fun in it.

I really like winning money. It’s very, very fun to win money. So I also do get it.

I like BELLS!!!! Because you can win money very easily. Over the course of the evening, I lost nearly $40, got back up to $80, back down to $40, back up to $60 and back down to $0. It’s all the thrill I need in an evening of gambling (though I did break even through about 15 hands of blackjack).

My budget was actually $50, but I only had $20 bills, and I knew if I put in my last $20, my losses would total $60 (unless my winnings were in the hundreds?!?!).

Lacking the control to stop with $10 in the machine. I decided to just go home down $40 and went outside.

One of the things I looked forward to the most was smoking one (1) singular light blue American Spirit cigarette.

I have smoked fewer than 40 cigarettes in my life, but I’ve always been jealous of people that do. It’s a good way to make friends. An excuse to talk to a stranger. Dan Vegas was the perfect place to let one rip.

The smoking area is an odd place. Accessible through the casino, it’s a weird combination of an indoor/outdoor space. Metal benches. Gold stucco walls. Space heaters. There were also a lot of people. At one point, a man who wore matching Simpsons pajamas with his partner started talking about his kidney transplant. He was cheerful, proud to share his story. Another man was outside smoking with his oxygen tank.

Boswell, a former smoker, told me that American Spirits take longer to burn than most cigarettes, and sure enough, by the time we were finishing, the area had cleared out, and we were the only ones there.

Liz and Andrew, our other colleagues in the casino adventure, came out to share the good news: Liz had won $300 on penny slots!

Liz threw a few more dollars in, but decided she liked winning money, and stopped. So shortly after our cigarette break, we all decided we were done gambling, but we had some beer left.

You can follow Johnathan on Twitter, Bluesky and Instagram. He can be reached at jhett93@gmail.com

You can follow Champaign Showers on Facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, and Instagram.