I am Charlie Brown to The Rat’s Lucy van Pelt. When The Rat guest-blogged that the re-opening of casinos could bring a uniquely juicy opportunity for APs, I was skeptical. I told Anthony Curtis, “So surveillance has a little more work, but that doesn’t turn a sweatshop into a candy store.” I made a verbose blog post saying the same thing, dismissing masked avengers as a fantasy, based on my decades battling casinos as a real-world AP on the front lines (I’m not expecting APs to be called “heroes” anytime soon). Despite the bombast, there was a tiny piece of me—maybe 1%—that thought: “Maybe I’m wrong this time [winking-with-tongue-out emoji here, ok?]. Could past experience be irrelevant in this bizarre, coronavirus world?”

Nah. (And yes, I adjectivized “coronavirus”—that just happened.) To be fair, the casino conditions are changing, and will affect APs in different ways. From my point of view, scouting has now confirmed that overall conditions are garbage compared to the pre-lockdown world, and I feel like a gullible fool for hoping I could kick the football (https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevin-wax/charlie-brown-lucy-and-the-football-50-years-of-funny/). While my previous blog post was speculative, I can now reiterate using actual observations, consolidated from scouts in diverse locales in the US.