Jonah, I found the next two paragraphs of Mr. Watanabe’s story even more interesting:

Today, Mr. Watanabe and Harrah’s are fighting over another issue: whether the casino company bears some of the responsibility for his losses.
In a civil suit filed in Clark County District Court last month, Mr. Watanabe, 52 years old, says casino staff routinely plied him with liquor and pain medication as part of a systematic plan to keep him gambling.

Laugh if you like, but Mr. Watanabe’s story is just a comically exaggerated version of a tale that is currently playing itself out in Congress. Millions of Americans bet during the boom that housing prices would keep going up. They took out loans they couldn’t afford on the assumption that in a few years, when prices had risen, they could use their new equity to refinance into something more affordable.

The housing bubble burst, and we turned into a nation of Watanabes, claiming that the Fed plied us with easy money and predatory lenders tricked us into taking out no-money-down, pick-a-payment mortgages. Mr. Watanabe just needs to reframe his case a little bit. His casino hosts, with their potent cocktails, engaged in predatory blending. Where’s his bailout?

These stories always end with a little less freedom for the rest of us. I doubt that Mr. Watanabe’s accusations will spur policymakers to put an end to free drinks at the blackjack table, but “fair-housing” advocates have already convinced Congress to create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency with the plenary authority to define “unfair” or “abusive” lending practices. The new agency will probably end up banning many completely fair financial products because the Watanabe’s of the world might abuse them.