Funny how they never mention the casino comps
Every Reno casino I've ever been to offers "comps" to people who gamble as much as she did in the movie. But the movie never mentions her getting any comps for her gambling. I find gambling addiction morbidly fascinating and have read a few books on the subject, and not a single time have I read an account of the gamblers collecting the comps like the free nights at the room, discounts, free meals, or other goodies so typical of those who gamble away so much. I guess they are so focused on winning that they don't care about those things.
Very accurate point about the "beginners luck" factor though. The accounts I've read all start out with the gamblers starting out on a win streak. I got a small taste of this myself when I won $400 on my first weekend out (which was enough to pay the entire cost of the trip), and then lost that much on my very next visit. On that second visit I wanted to keep going to try to win it back, but thankfully the urge was not quite so compulsory as for addictive gamblers, and my wife was there to support me and bring me to my senses before I spent any more. Though I've made subsequent casino visits, I've never felt the same urge since and pretty much all my other trips have been losing ones, and even "winning" trips have never brought in more than $100 or so for me, not near enough to cover vacation costs.
Another of my favorite books, "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman", emphasizes this point as well...Richard Feynman, upon his first (and last) experience gambling some of his own money, immediately loses $5 over five successive bets, a rather sizeable sum at the time, and then indicates how truly lucky he was that his first bets were losing ones.