I Win More Money in Vegas When I'm Not in Vegas, Apparently

I don't talk to my friend Amy enough, so about a week ago I tried to correct this by accosting her over IM, trying to distract her from working so we could get caught up.  At the end of our conversation, she mentioned that she and her Sean (her husband, my non-biological non-legal baby brother, for all intents and purposes) were on their way to Vegas that weekend.  She asked if I had any bets I needed placed.

"$5 on 17 black, roulette.  Somewhere Irish."

I was mostly kidding, as that is my stock answer anytime anyone asks me anything about what to bet in Vegas.

Two days later, I get a weird frantic call from Sean with all the slot machines dinging in the background, informing me that they walked straight into Fitzgerald's downtown and plunked $5 on 17 black....which promptly HIT!?  I was incredulous, and his side of the conversion included a lot of "I shit you not!"-type phrases.  In roulette, hitting the actual number is a 35 to 1 payoff.  That little $5 bet became $175.  Sean told me he would give me "my" money over Thanksgiving.  I said no, that it was "their" investment, and therefore "their" money.  This quickly turned into a patented Halee/Sean argument stubborn-a-thon, which I think ended with me hanging up on him.

Two days later, I get a weird call from my dad saying that Sean had given him a Crown Royal bag full of 175 $1 Fitzgerald's casino chips that morning at the coffee shop.  I got super annoyed, because:
 

1. That means Sean got the last word.
2. That is super-stupid to take chips out of Vegas, because if there is a security breach they will sometimes swap out the chips and not honor the old ones.
3. That meant Sean got the last word.
4. Sean was being a fucking pest to the casino, and cleared them out of 175 dollar chips, which is inconsiderate and possibly illegal.
5. My dad is going to Vegas in a week or two, and he is totally going to steal all that money from me.

When Amy got back to work, I sent her an IM threatening to kill both her and Sean.  And then I learned how much trouble Sean went to (and how gleeful it made him) to execute the logistics of rounding up that many chips.  From Amy:

• "you cannot imagine the fun sean had getting all that converted to small denominations"
• "he almost got kicked out of the casino"
• "he spent HOURS"
• "i guess one pit boss actually took pity on sean and was asking what he was doing, so sean told him the plan. the guy was like 'but why?' and sean said 'because it's funny!' so that's the guy who told him to hit all the tables instead of the cage"
• "sean kept coming over to me saying 'I finally found a way to have fun in Vegas that doesn't lose me money AND isn't illegal!'"
• "then he recruited me and my dad to go change some more chips in b/c all the dealers were starting to recognize him"
• "so my dad was REALLY nervous about doing the changing.  he kept making up all the elaborate stories about changing in the chips... he sat down like he was gonna play something, then said he was gonna make a side bet for the dealer. Then he sat there until right up till time for her to deal cards and pretended like his phone rang and EXPLAINED to everyone that his phone rang and he had to go"

So after hearing all that, I went from annoyed to annoyed AND amused.  Which is like a double word score play for Sean.