With about 15 minutes left in my final session on Monday night/Tuesday morning, a skinny, raspy-voiced woman who looked about 40 approached me. I had seen her walking around talking to various guys, and it was clear she was at least a semi-regular.
I'll give her credit for being polite and asking if I was busy playing, and if she was bothering me. Being curious what her deal was, I told her that it was fine, and she wasn't bothering me. Keep in mind that I have a long-term relationship and wasn't looking to get laid or anything like that. This girl had kind of a druggie look to her, and I was curious what she was going to say to me. My only concern was that she was going to bug me for money, but at that point I was just going to tell her no and get back to playing.
For my final 15 minutes of play, it was actually an interesting conversation. She described herself as a "pillhead", and told me about various troubles she's had with her life. Like, she wasn't telling me in a "feel sorry for me and give me money" sort of way, but kind of just matter-of-factly venting about everything. She also told me that a lot of the regulars who hang out a lot at Rincon have drug problems, which isn't hard to believe. When I was done playing, she said that she wished she had found me earlier, because the Double Super Times Pay game was "interesting" and she really wanted to learn it "to maybe make some money". I was about to go into the whole thing that even the best game in the house is still -EV, and that these machines aren't really good for trying to make money you really need in the short term, but I just kept my mouth shut and said something like, "Yeah, I would have shown you more, but I'm done for the night."
I got up and went to go cash out my tickets, and then she moved over to the other side and started talking to another woman there -- a younger, fairly pretty blond girl who also seemed to be a regular there, and seemed to have an endless parade of guys (also regulars?) going up and talking to her while she played. I assume the two of them knew each other, but didn't bother to find out.
As I was walking away from the machines, she saw me and yelled, "Bye, Tom! Oh... hey, Tom.. can I have five bucks?"
She wasn't joking. And she thought my name was Tom, instead of Todd (despite telling one of her friends who walked by that my name was Todd.)
I told her that I didn't have any small bills on me, which was true.