David Loughrey recently did something he'd never done, despite a severe reluctance to exit his comfort zone. He represented the city's socially awkward and fearful citizens on a trip to the Dunedin Casino, and he learnt a sort of lesson.
He was self-possessed.
He had a way with the ladies.
He knew how to play games in casinos.
If he went to the casino, he would have walked straight up to the Caribbean Stud Poker table and immediately mastered the game.
But that's James Bond.
Not for him the crippling tension that tethers most in Dunedin to simple, repeated behaviours, and forces its residents to seek easily controllable situations and small but familiar social groups: the comfort zones of the average Joe.
Nobody feels the discomfort of the new like Dunedin, a city with a deep-seated reverence for its past, and a mistrust of the present.
But now and then, even those burdened by such psychological weaknesses need to venture resentfully into the cold dawn of the unfamiliar, somewhere they have never been before: like a casino.
The Dunedin Casino is up a wide staircase that spirals gently to the first floor.
It features plenty of gold paint.
Fortunately for the fearful and reticent, straight-backed ranks of machines quickly beckon to an area where human contact is neither required nor encouraged.
A full 180 poker machines hum and sparkle in streets and alleys of anonymity, and the player does not require instruction; instead the machines' little round slots settle happily for a $2 coin, and while there are a number of different buttons, if you hit the big red one, things happen; lots of things.
Wheels turn and icons slam into place mid-screen, and it doesn't matter if you have no idea what combination is required, the machine rattles and sings, provides you with the occasional win, and even plays animated videos.
There are Phantom-themed pokies and, better still, Dolly Parton-themed pokies that play music you can't quite place, but which sounds awfully like a Dolly classic.
A dark warmth envelops the player unexpectedly, and the outside world, with its minor embarrassments and petty concerns, evaporates in the addictive allure of loss and reward.
Early on a Tuesday evening it is a abuzz with punters.
In the bar, American sports play on ESPN.
It feels normal to drink a whisky on the rocks.
A table of middle-aged people talk about Walter Matthau, who played Oscar Madison opposite Jack Lemmon's Felix Ungar in the film version of The Odd Couple.
It isn't clear why they brought him up, and it doesn't really matter.
What does matter is Walter Matthau created rumours that his middle name was Foghorn, and that his last name was originally Matuschanskayasky.
Those things are funny.
Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple liked to gamble; he played poker with his buddies Speed, Roy, Vinnie and Murray the cop.
And by coincidence, Walter Matthau was a compulsive gambler, who once estimated his lifetime losses at $5 million.
Maybe that's the link.
Walter Matthau would have quickly picked up Caribbean Stud Poker.
You are $8 up after the pokies, and all bets are on.
The rules of Caribbean Stud Poker are described on the casino's website as ''simple'', but for a surly, slightly embarrassed and uncomfortable newcomer, they seem tremendously complex.
Cards come out of a machine, the dealer turns one of hers over, and you have to make some sort of betting decision that requires putting chips in certain places for dimly understood reasons.
Shamed by your own stupidity, you have to repeatedly ask the dealer what to do.
Hands come and hands go, until finally, the jackpot: a pair of fives.
For some reason more inexplicable than anything that has happened so far, betting $10 on that hand means a win, and you leave the table - still $8 up.
That leaves Roulette, a game with few obvious mysteries.
Put the chip on 16, the wheel rolls 23.
Put the chip on 21, the wheel rolls 32.
Put the chip on 4, the wheel rolls 14.
You put $5 on red or black, trying to double your money with a 50:50 call, and that works.
The funds are then invested in Blackjack.
The first two cards turn up a six and a nine, then an eight to blow past 21.
And that's that.
The experience had a positive outcome, in the form of a life lesson.
Smoking is bad for your health.
