I like to gamble with my life… in video games, of course. I am a teen, after all. I can’t just walk into a casino with a big-boy loan. So, teens resort to “gacha” video games or games with so-called “loot boxes,” which offer prizes that incentivize gamers to keep playing. 

This is a form of digital gambling, and not all that regulated. 

Overall, there’s not much gambling in Mount Currie. Mainly, we have 50-50 draws, other raffles, and bingo; “light” forms of gambling, you could say. 

For all the small corruptible children reading, this is how the three aforementioned “light” forms of gambling work in Mount Currie: 

50/50s: Sell tickets and draw a winner, who gets half the (totally legal) earnings from the tickets sold;

Raffles: Enter for a chance to win a metal pipe; 

Bingo: The caller says a letter and number, and if you have the correct pair, you get to stamp that square (better pray to Allah that you have the winning combo). If you make a line across the sheet, yell “BINGO” and you win. If you win a big bingo game, the prizes can be in the thousands of dollars.

That’s right, you mini-humans, it is very simple stuff.

Now on the topic of money: Whatever happened to the Scotiabank in Pemberton? With the closure of the only bank in Pemberton, aspiring local bank robbers have lost their training grounds. 

Despite being a fully functional teen with a bank account, I still use cash (mainly because I always forget my pin number). Now I have to walk all the way to Whistler, two-kids-in-a trench-coat-style, just to try to get that big-boy loan.

I don’t really know what else to talk about, so I’m going to make another bank-robbery joke. Maybe add a little word fluff. 

Listen up! This is a robbery! We don’t want to harm anyone. We’re after the bank’s money, not yours. Your money is insured; you won’t lose a dime. Think of your loved ones, and don’t try to be a hero. Now shut up and stay down and this will be over in no time.

If we had more funding, I can think of a number of ways to spend it. We could use more funding for law enforcement in Mount Currie. I’ve heard several people talk about about getting a bylaw officer here to take care of our dog situation.

Moving on to a less controversial topic, we could also use more funding for our school, which would allow for more staff and more options with our elective classes—though that sounds more like a luxury than a need. Perhaps, instead, the funding could be used to form a small but well-regulated militia. I don’t really know what the militia would be for, other than it would be neat. Plus, the government might get a little suspicious if we do form one.

All in all, more money is good. You can give the Mount Currie Band money through Patreon (probably), or I also accept monetary contributions. *All donations to me go to the Caffeine Cult.*

This article was written by Kevin Peters, and was first published in the Pique newsmagazine issue 30.24 on June 16, 2023.