I have mixed feeling about casinos. Growing up near Atlantic City, casinos were always present. I was very excited when I turned 21 so I could finally gamble. I discovered that I love to play blackjack. In fact on my 21st birthday, I won at blackjack and immediately though I had found my calling. A visit a few weeks later a subsequent visit taught me the lesson that the odds are always in the house’s favor. Nevertheless, i do enjoy blackjack. At the same time, I find the very the idea of gambling is sad. And the amount of money that is thrown away is sad.

Atlantic City is a prime example of this double-edged sword. The city needs the casinos as an employer, but the casino take their profits and don’t invest much into a poor city that needs it. This leads to hard questions: Do they have a moral obligation to? Shouldn’t the casinos and their patrons be entitled to spend (or waste) their own money as they see fit? Is it immoral to gamble? What is wrong with a little entertainment? I am not casting judgement. As someone who occasionally pays a visit to the casinos I do not want to judge.  But I do think it is important to ask these questions.

I took this picture of the top of the now closed Revel casino building from another high rise on the beach. The building was built mirror the oceans’s waves and I liked the way it jetted into the sky. And he ball adds just the right amount of tackiness you need for Atlantic City. I used a telephoto lens for this shot, in which I walked around town trying to take pictures from the usual shots I took.

Camera: Canon 600D
Lens: EF-S 55-250 at 250mm
Aperture: f/6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 500
Postprocessing: Flickr online editor