A “ social casino” that skirts online gambling laws by using play money, the desktop-based gaming site is best described as “Neopets” for QAnon conspiracy theorists and retirees that type in all caps, who’d otherwise be chain-smoking in front of a slot machine in Atlantic City. I joined Casino World earlier this year after I was unceremoniously laid off over text, mostly as a way to keep myself from drinking my feelings away. And now, all I had to my name was an overdue rent payment, a $75 street-sweeping ticket, and a monthly VIP membership for Casino. But rather than buy food or pay rent, I’d spent that $5,000 on a bunch of gems with no real-world value. I’d started playing poker when the calendar said June and I knew I had enough saved up to survive for the next couple months while I looked for another job. So when an anthropomorphic firework said it was the Fourth of July, I panicked. I think it was a Sunday night, maybe early Monday morning, but meth makes timelines fuzzy and booze makes everything else a blur.

On the third day of my gambling binge, a grandma dressed as a pharaoh said there would be purple unicorn charms at a graveyard.

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