The Stranger is taking a break for the holidays, but the Internet never rests, so we’re re-running some of our favorite stories from our 25th Anniversary Issue. Enjoy!
There are 14 taverns in White Center. They’ve all got pull-tabs, but only the Locker Room lets you dump the spent tabs on the floor. A dozen men sit at the Locker Room’s horseshoe bar drinking canned beer and talking to Rick, the owner. The floor is ankle-deep in used pull-tabs, all of them losers. Winning tabs get handed to Rick, who pays them off with cash from the till. “Everyone wins a lot here,” Rick says. His face is hard to read. The more I lose, the more welcome I feel. I spend $30, losing all but three—enough to cover my two beers. It’s five o’clock, and dark outside. I go to Chubby and Tubby, cash a check for $40, then lose it all on tabs.
Pull-tabs are thumb-sized slats of cardboard with a trio of figures printed inside a serrated tab. A dollar buys you two. Pulling the tab reveals the figures; the right combo pays off anywhere from one to five hundred dollars. The tabs come in bins, five to six thousand in a bin, with four or five hundred winners among them. The winners are listed on a big sign, called a flare. Each time a winner gets pulled, the bartender crosses it off the flare. Over 6 billion tabs are sold each year in Washington, the biggest market in the country. Every tavern, bowling alley, and bingo hall I’ve ever been to has them.