"Gambling is a favorite pastime here," Nik said. "And the casino here in the Rec Hall is generally considered to be the best. It never closes, day or night. That's why it's below ground level—so you don't see the sun."
The main floor of the casino was a half-dozen steps below the entrance where Hendley and his companion stood. They looked out over a scene of feverish activity, distinguished as much by the low volume of sound as by the air of tension. The casino was divided into a series of diminishing circles. The first and widest circle was the most crowded, containing row upon row of small gambling machines—computers with illuminated screens across whose faces paraded a pattern of designs and figures. Every one of these machines was in use—the majority of the players being women, Hendley noticed. The gambler could halt the dancing pattern on the screen by pushing a button. Winning relationships of designs and figures paid off with a distinct buzzing and a cascade of round white chips into a cup at the base of the screen. Throughout this crowded circle the players fed their white chips into the machines with the automatic, somnambulent attitude of robots, never pausing, never looking up, seldom reacting to win or loss.
"We have our compulsives, too," Nik said. "Some of them never leave the casino. They fall asleep in the lounges, wake up, go back to the machines. Until they run out of chips."
It seemed incredible to Hendley that Freemen would voluntarily choose to shut themselves off from the sun and the open sky, once having gained them, but the hypnotized faces of the gamblers were convincing. Shaking his head, he looked beyond the first bank of machines toward the inner circles. At various kinds of green-topped tables hordes of Freemen gambled with cards, dice, electronic wheels, light-sticks. The circles shrank to an open aisle, wider than the others, near the center of the huge room. Here a single large table occupied the exact center. A robot sat immobile at the table. No one was playing. Hendley saw that robot dealers monitored all of the tables, their impassive metallic faces immediately recognizable by their light-reflecting quality.
Nik seemed to divine the direction of Hendley's interest. "We used to have human croupiers and dealers," he said. "But they couldn't be trusted. They'd hold out chips—fix games for their friends—things like that. Robots work much better. They can't cheat. And they can't be bribed or threatened."
Hendley was frowning. "What I don't understand," he said, "is what you gamble for. What do you get out of it? You have everything you want or need provided for you. How can all those people go on gambling, and feel like that about it"—he nodded toward the first circle of feverishly intent players—"when it's all so meaningless? What do they have to win or lose?"
Nik hesitated. "Maybe it's hard to understand, but ... do you see those white chips?"
"Yes."
"The casino issues only a limited number of them—each casino has its own chips. There are never quite enough to go around. And they're the only things you can use to gamble. Objectively they mean nothing—they have no value. But they've come to have a special value here. A compulsive gambler will do almost anything to get more chips, especially if he's a heavy loser. Without chips he can't gamble. That's why there are some things you can buy with chips that you can't get any other way."
"What could you possibly buy that isn't already free?"