I’m not a gambler these days. In the olden days, when I had a business trip to Las Vegas I’d take a set amount of money. If I lost that, I’d walk away; if I doubled my money, I’d walk away.

These days I don’t gamble at all and I’m even finding ways to go on a business trip to Vegas and avoid nearly every gaming machine.

The slot machines in the airport are unavoidable but between trying to track down my luggage and ground transportation upon arrival and clearing security and getting to the gate upon departure, the machines are seen only in passing.

For the past two Vegas-based Food Marketing Institute expos, I’ve stayed in a slot machine-free business hotel about a 15-minute walk from the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. That hotel is on the other side of the Interstate, meaning my walk is on concrete sidewalks surrounded by vacant lots and I end up going into the convention center entrance of Mandalay Bay, far from the casino machines.

My nightly exercise walk heads away from the Strip along a road not noted for glitz and glamour but that does contain a business that apparently repairs damaged gaming equipment.

It ends up that the FMI Expo is moving to Dallas for its next show in 2012 so no gaming there. But it ends up that the AHR expo is going to Vegas in 2011 and The NEWS is thinking about putting me up in one of those massive casino hotels where one can’t avoid going from Point A to Point B without passing several dozen blackjack tables and several hundred slot machines.

I will carry no coin with me.