Gambling’s losers

Gambling’s losers


It’s been more than 40 years. Jim McConchie still thinks about the white station wagon.


Before McConchie became a lawyer and a successful businessman, he needed a summer job, because for most of the 1960s he was a student. He went to Colby College, earned an MBA at Dartmouth, then went to Boston College Law School.

In the middle of all those college years, he landed a job selling and cashing tickets at the harness race track in Foxborough.

He made 20 bucks a night and had a front row seat to the human condition.

A lot of the guys he worked with were characters, World War II veterans who told him stories he didn’t learn in history class.

Most of the gamblers were chasing a dream, a winner. Some were working a scam. They would alter the ticket after a race.

If you cashed a bad ticket, it came out of your pay. One of the guys McConchie worked with cashed a bad ticket for $1,200. He lost his entire summer’s wages.

“We all threw in 25 bucks and bailed him out,’’ McConchie said.

McConchie knew the Stoopers, the guys who picked up discarded tickets. They were the ultimate optimists. Every once in a while, they would find a winner.

That’s all anybody wanted, a winner.

Every night, at 6:45, when McConchie entered the track, he would walk by a white station wagon in the parking lot. The windows were partially rolled down. A series of chains, bicycle locks, ringed the white station wagon, secured with padlocks. Inside, there were three kids.

“If I had to guess,’’ McConchie said, “I’d say they were about 3, 5, and 6. Toddlers.’’

The kids were always dressed in their pajamas, Dr. Denton’s. They had stuffed animals. And they had blankets.

The back seat was down and the blankets were laid out.

They were there, every night, without fail.

McConchie never saw the person who parked the white station wagon and padlocked the kids inside.

“It never occurred to me to do anything,’’ said McConchie, who lives in Concord. “Nobody ever did anything, said anything. There had to be hundreds of people walking by that station wagon every night. “Those were different times, and I was a different person. But I promise you that today, on any given night, similar things go on, especially at the casinos.

“Some people need to gamble, whether it’s with their wages, the rent, or the kids’ well-being. I have nothing against gambling, but I’ve been thinking about that white station wagon a lot lately.’’

He’s been thinking about the white station wagon a lot because he read about the new law they are hammering out on Beacon Hill, the law that would license three casinos in Massachusetts.

The bill being reconciled behind closed doors by the House and Senate includes a provision requiring casino operators to check their parking lots every two hours, in case somebody decides to leave their kids or pets locked up in the car.

More than 40 years after Jim McConchie walked by the white station wagon with the little kids padlocked inside, Massachusetts is about to mandate casino parking lot checks.

“I can’t tell if it’s progress or if we’re going backwards,’’ McConchie said.

“Like I said, I have nothing against gambling,’’ he said. “I don’t think you can ever outlaw gambling.

“But I don’t know how I feel about creating something that means there are going to be little kids left in locked cars,’’ he said.

“I’ve seen what it looks like. And, trust me, it’s something you never forget.’’