• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

The Fort is reached

The sails are furled

Life’s voyage now is over

By faith his bright chart

He has reached that world

Where storms are felt no more

Erected as a token of respect by his messmates

It could have been penned by Jack Aubrey himself.

We then walked past the remains of the Church of St. Paul, which had been constructed in 1602 only to burn down more than 200 years later, leaving behind a haunting baroque facade, and wandered down cobblestone streets full of antiques shops to the Church of St. Dominic, where Jack popped in for a prayer, because he was now a Papist.

“You ready now?” I asked when he emerged.

“Hey, I’m a Catholic. It’s bingo that keeps the Vatican afloat.”

Lovely as Macau is, we had come to gamble, to toy with financial ruin. I had only gambled twice in my life. Once, when I was stuck in Reno due to a snowstorm that had closed the road over the Sierras, where I had intended to ski, I had stayed up the entire night and better part of a day playing blackjack. And I’d won, quite possibly because I was (if my children are reading this, proceed to next page) (I mean it, Lukas) profoundly stoned at the time. A decade later, flush with our savings for a down payment on our home, I’d stopped in Las Vegas after driving cross-country. This time I lost. And I kept losing, possibly because I was sober as a judge, until finally I had to stammer back from the table with the grim realization that sometimes you don’t win it back, and the best thing to do, the only thing to do, is to walk away. I’d decided that the neurons buzzing in my head were way too fond of gambling, so I never did it again. Until now.

More than 25 million people a year come to Macau to gamble, most on day trips from Hong Kong or the mainland. Formerly, when Stanley Ho held his monopoly, gambling took place in smoky, dingy dens of vice. It was the anti-Vegas. But today, the plethora of new casinos are betting that the gamblers in China will want what those in Las Vegas do. Near the ferry terminal on the Cotai Strip, there were a half-dozen new theme-park casinos under construction. Everyone was there, Shangri-la, Sheraton, InterContinental, Raffles, St. Regis, all building casino hotels with swanky nightclubs and swanky stores that will happily take your winnings. This despite the fact that the vast majority of Chinese gamblers are day-trippers from Hong Kong or the mainland who rarely stay longer than a day. Still, the average table in Macau earns more than three times what a table in Vegas does, and this in a country where the average monthly wage is $150. Indeed, even now Macau already earns more in gambling revenue than Las Vegas.

We walked to the Wynn Macau, a top-end resort in the Vegas style with a golden facade and dancing fountains built by the famed casino magnate Steve Wynn. Frankly, I wasn’t convinced that the Chinese were yearning for a Vegas-type experience. Not yet. Gambling is technically illegal in mainland China, so when the Chinese come to Macau they come with a mission. Gambling is the be-all and end-all of the trip, and I thought it highly unlikely, indeed deeply un-Chinese, that someone would take their winnings and blow it on overpriced jewelry and furs, rather than ply it into the family business back on the mainland. Nevertheless, there were crowds of gamblers swarming around the casino floor. There was a strange vibe among the tables, something dark and menacing. Perhaps it was the metal detectors and the mandatory bag check and the plethora of security guards that led me to expect an imminent raid by some triad displeased by their new competition for gamblers. Most Chinese play baccarat, and we stood alongside a table, quietly amazed to see a man in peasant garb pull out a fat wad of 100-yuan notes.

Jack’s game of choice was roulette, so we set off to find a table.

“Isn’t that the game with the worst odds?” I asked him.

“Yes, but when you win, you win big.”

“I think this reveals something about your character.”

“All or