The Militsya do not catch me taking any more photos, and I head back towards the hotel, noticing that there is a
casino attached to it. This is fortunate for me, as I have lots of cash, currently poor decision making skills, and a fondness for gambling that has at times in my life straddled the line of addiction and degeneracy.
The beautiful blonde who greeted me when I entered was a harbinger of good things. And she was able to speak fluent English. In order to gain access, you had to register with their passport and were issued with a players card, much like at most US casinos. Coats had to be checks, and you had to both go through a metal detector and be patted down by a Belarusian heavy. He did not look like someone to be trifled with.
When you get into the actual casino itself, it's essentally a long room lined with gaming tables, a bar at the far end, and an exchange booth. At the booth, you would change your cash into chips at the rate of 8500BYR/1, roughly a 1/1 rate with the dollar. 200 chips should suffice, the tables had relatively low limits of only 5/bet.
I spent the next hour refamiliraizing myself with Russian numbers, as the only form of communication between me and the dealers was the audible calling out of the number of my or the dealer's hand. I had a few more scotches (JW Black, I slummed it) and, while not really raising my betting levels, managed to put together a pretty good run, cashing out about 700 chips. Almost 6 million rubles.
MAKE IT RAIN.
And then I passed out. 8:00 departure for the airport, and I wanted to grab breakfast beforehand.