"I get the hot-line calls from the wife who is having BGE cut off because the husband is in the backroom playing the cherry machine," he said.
Though it is hard to know how many Baltimore bars depend on the games for revenue, it is clear that some people do play for sizable chunks of money.
In the East Baltimore bar, one man shoved $10 into a machine on a recent evening. He played for about 15 minutes (including a cigarette break), placing bets in nickel increments. He lost.
Across town, two women sat in another bar. In 20 minutes, one fed two $20 bills into the machine and didn't seem to be letting up even as the bar was closing.
One Baltimore man, who asked that his name not be used because he was discussing his illegal gambling habit, says that at times he has lost $500 to $1,000 in a night, though the bad economy has reduced his gambling. His biggest win was $2,700, when he hit two bonuses in a row.
He said that the odds of winning on the bar machines are very low. "The bars are set up for you not to win," he said.
