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Coffee, tea or gambling chips
Singapore Airlines has long been known for its elegant, poised stewardesses, whose teeth and manners are polished by company-paid dentists and the airline's own training school. Last week S.A. became known for something a little less gracious: high-altitude gambling. An S.A. 747 jumbo jet took off from Singapore, bound for San Francisco, with one row of tourist-class seats filled not with paying passengers but with six slot machines.
For 50¢, passengers could buy aluminum chips to use in the one-armed bandits. The machines were set by S.A. to pay out 90% of the take in winnings, which...
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