Some people have told me that casinos are the only places they like to go by themselves they can have a drink and play slots and meet people easily. I liked the casino not least because I knew nobody there. When I first found the casino in Tonkawa, I was new to the area, having just taken a teaching job at the college nearby. Wednesdays it had cash drawings every hour after five in the afternoon, but it was never very crowded. It’s the size of a small warehouse, tucked away down a desolate road in the country with open plains stretching out for miles. I favored one spot in particular, a dim and smoky casino in Tonkawa that played loud rock music. I had a theory that most of them had looser machines, which paid out more frequently. Oklahoma has plenty of large casinos-with hotels, restaurants, valet parking, and players who wear suits with loosened ties-but I liked the small, gritty places. No need to plan a vacation to Las Vegas anymore, not when you can stop at, say, the 7 Clans Deli Mart/Travel Plaza on Highway 77 just outside of town, a convenience store that has more than a hundred slot and video-poker machines inside. Thank God for tribal land, Oklahomans say. I remember reading a few years ago that Oklahoma was the nation’s second-largest gambling market, with nearly four billion dollars in revenues. To the west are Tonkawa East and, right off I-35, the newer, larger Tonkawa West Casino. To the south are 7 Clans Paradise Casino and Two Rivers Casino.

To the southeast is Osage Casino, which was once a small, smoky trailer. Fifteen miles to the north, just before the Kansas state line, two massive casinos sprawl on Indian land.

Within half an hour, I can drive to at least seven of them. There are more than a hundred casinos in Oklahoma, more than there are in Germany, more than in Canada, the UK, or in all of Central America. Martin Hyers and William Mebane, Vegas, 2008, color photograph.

Casino on i 35 in oklahoma