Our man in Ferry Reach is, this week, our man in Black Hawk, Colorado. He is on a special mission to investigate gambling as Bermuda considers introducing the concept on a formal basis. He has agreed to write the serious stuff first and only then to reveal the effects that the air at 9,000 feet have had upon his judgement.

This is my opinion: Bermuda should decline to allow any gambling venture that is open to the general public. It might think about permitting one or two of the premier hotels to offer upmarket, James Bond meets Angelina Jolie, private club, wood panels, dinner jackets-only kind of casino action. Only Bermudian staff in public-facing positions. This might (if it succeeds, of which there is no guarantee) enhance our reputation as a slick, top-notch destination. If I understand how celebrity works, though, we have may have to relax the regulations on importing Chihuahuas.

Here's my point. Have you ever heard of the island of Mustique in the West Indies? If you have, you'll associate it with Princess Margaret and/or Mick Jagger, depending on your age. You almost certainly won't have been there (way too expensive and exclusive), but you'll hold Mustique in the highest possible regard nonetheless. That's the path I think Bermuda tourism should follow. First class, all the way.

A top-end casino in Bermuda, professionally run, might minimise the ill effects gaming traditionally has on communities. I don't know if the Mob moves in, or quite what happens, but the whole casino thing is just so not-Bermuda as to merit no further discussion.

Here in Black Hawk, a small corner of a big State in which gambling has been legalised, there's no other game in town. Everything, such as restaurants, entertainment, gift shops, hair salons and so on, is in the casinos. The rest of the town is for sale, historic storefronts in empty rows.

Many, many US states now offer gambling facilities. but I believe that general-purpose casinos with serried ranks of slot machines and the odd $5 blackjack table would prove to be the low road to hell for Bermuda. Without becoming overly Biblical about this, gambling is considered by some to be a sin, by others to be a sickness and by very few indeed to be anything other than a precursor of blight. Surely the only people who feel that Bermuda's reputation needs gambling would be those who might make money off it? No accusation there, merely a fact, it would seem to me.

America has perpetrated a mean trick on many of its elderly. The Greatest Generation now lives 20 years longer than its parents did, but is not much wanted in the mainstream of life. They're slow, they get in the way, they don't tweet; I mean, really, what's the point? Lots of 'em spend their time in casinos across the country, most playing the slots, some holding their own at low-stakes poker or blackjack. There are benefits for these golden oldies: they are part of a social scene, in from the cold, dining inexpensively. The cost of their entertainment is extracted, often 25 cents at a time, from the undead playing the slot machines. Press, whirr, click, lose; press, whirr, click, lose.

A short, completely unprofessional personal diary follows that may offend sensible folk.

I fly in from Bermuda to Denver, Colorado, through airports stuffed full of travellers, recession be damned. OK, it is Easter Sunday. All the men are baseball players, if their hats are anything to go by. The road trip begins in Fort Collins, Colorado. As we set off, to the west lie the majestic Rocky mountains. To my immediate east, driving his truck, sits the Neal Cassady to my Jack Kerouac, the Dr. Gonzo to my fat Samoan attorney, the Laurel to my Hardy - a man temporarily in the grip of personal stress that renders him borderline psychotic, but only now and then. For much of the time, he has clarity and little desire to hurt anyone.

As we roll through Northern Colorado, skirting Denver, the permanent and the impermanent sit side-by-side. What's old is new; what's new is mortgaged. We head into the mountains, where the snow lies yet upon the ground. We pass Buffalo Bill's grave, but cannot stop to sightsee. There is gambling to be done. We pass through Central City, a small casinos-only wasteland that is central only to a pervasive sense of despair, desperation and dandruff. We debouch into Black Hawk, an olde Western town set in a once-gorgeous ravine that has been artificially widened by greed.

We check in with enormous difficulty at the Isle of Capri, a smallish faux-Caribbean casino and hotel. Outside our windows is one side of the ravine and above it a mountain, or perhaps a large foothill. The side of the ravine is reinforced with concrete, to lessen the chance of it collapsing on the gamblers. My associate starts singing: "On the big rock concrete mountain ...". There probably aren't 1,000 visitors in Central City and Black Hawk combined, and maybe as many locals shuffle around in their extreme old age, some playing one-cent slot machines. Yes; one cent. The casinos will take your money, however little you have to lose.

We dine with friends, Shorty (aka "the Bom-Diggety") and his wife Danielle. I have a brilliant idea. In the Sunday Times in Britain, an unctuous twerp called Michael Winner writes restaurant reviews. He always features a photo of himself and his guests, and sometimes the chef. Well, I'm an unctuous twerp if ever there was one, and if he can do it, so can I. If you want your picture in the paper, I'm saying, I can make it happen, but I'll need 100 large in small bills and no rabbit ears behind my head. I waived the fee for Shorty, on account of he's nine foot six. He tells me that in the last dozen years, he has used cash only four or five times. He conducts his affairs with plastic.

The poker here is only Hold 'Em, which I detest, so we opt for $5 blackjack, a game at which I am expert at losing relatively slowly. As Day One ends, both of us walk away from the blackjack table ahead. Black Hawk down, from an accounting perspective. My pal hasn't killed anyone yet.

Day Two, though more fun, is a financial catastrophe and I am applying for $1.2 trillion in stimulus money to make good the losses.

By the way: if, just to spite me, they introduce casino gambling in Bermuda, you'll know where to find me, all day, every day. ...