I’m not sure there’s an official historian for the casino industry. I know that Dr. David Schwartz of UNLV has chronicled much of the early days in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. Ken Adams of CDC Gaming is another reliable source on the good old days. As is Buddy Frank. And several gambling authors in the stable of Huntington Press, including my esteemed editor, Deke Castleman. But an official gambling-industry historian? I don’t think so. And no, I’m not looking for that role.
But the gambling industry has been the source of many unique and memorable moments for me in my 50+ year career. In my vault are probably more than 100 personal stories (well, maybe 80 or so of them I’m at liberty to share!). And yes, there’s a book somewhere in these memories, but I’ve been dragging my feet in pulling it out of me.
However, I would like to share with you now my 10 Most Memorable Experiences in the Casino Industry, and while I’m not a real historian, I hope you’ll at least find them interesting. There is nothing like this crazy casino industry and I hope you enjoy some of my memories of the good old days.
1. One flew over the crap table – In the early 1980s, I was dealing craps on the Las Vegas Strip when it was still run by the Las Vegas mob. I have several memories of dealing to celebrities, but this recollection was the most memorable.
We were standing around on a dead crap game, hoping to go home early. Up to the game walked a guy with a $20 bill asking, “How do you play this game?” (A dealer’s worst nightmare: He likely wouldn’t earn us any tips and he’d definitely keep us from an early out). But I quickly recognized the guy as Cheswick from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (unfortunately, Jack Nicholson didn’t hang out at the Stardust). I prodded my fellow crap dealers at the table to show the celebrity a great time. And we did, getting him to laugh and joke and even halfway begin to understand the game. And no, we didn’t make any tips from him and we ended up working the whole shift. But 30 minutes before we went home, Cheswick, the actor Sydney Lassick, came back to our table to personally thank us and give each of us an autographed picture of him with Jack Nicholson in the scene from Cuckoo (sitting in a semi-circle in the scene’s group therapy session). Not all celebrities I encountered were A-listers, but it didn’t take one to have a lasting memory.
2. Anthony Cools – In the early 2000s, I was working for a client in southern Indiana. A show there featured Anthony Cools, The X-rated Hypnotist. Intrigued, I attended the evening show and was astounded to see a crowd of 2,000 people to see someone I’d never heard of. I reported back to a client on the Las Vegas Strip that they should investigate this entertainment phenomenon and several months later Cools was headlining a midnight show on the Strip. The memorable part? I went to see the show with my company’s team members and Cools brought ME onstage, hypnotized me (among others), and had me do several embarrassing things, including having me run out into the casino, believing my butt was on fire.
3. Newbies playing poker with sharks – Back in the early 1990s, my title was Director of the Harrah’s Institute of Casino Entertainment and my job was to create a week-long program at a Las Vegas casino to give non-gaming Harrah’s corporate hotel and finance executives a background in what casinos were all about and to prepare them for casino careers, as casinos began to spread all over the United States. It was a down-and-dirty program designed to deliver the straight scoop and it included presentations from a card counter, a professional cheat, a recovering compulsive gambler, and inside looks at surveillance rooms, count rooms, and marketing strategies. It also consisted of a series of assignments to complete as casino customers. The most notable task was to buy in and play poker on the Strip. Some of the executives had never even been to a casino before and now were being thrown to some grizzled, cigar-smoking, poker sharks and being asked to join the game without having a clue about what they were supposed to do. I remember feeling very guilty about this assignment as I watched it unfold. But when it was all over, many told me it was one of their best experiences of the week, because it highlighted the uncertainty and intimidation that some casino customers might feel when they try to partake in a casino’s gambling offerings. Go figure.
4. Crazy Louie – My wife Becky and I hit Las Vegas in 1977, with one year of dealing experience in a few Nevada cow towns. We’d never seen a table game bet over $100. Becky was the first of us to score a dealing job in Vegas, downtown at the Horseshoe, known for characters and big betting limits. Her FIRST day on the job, she was assigned to a high-limit area. An hour into her shift, a player walked up to her table wearing an old trench coat and carrying several paper bags. “Crazy Louie” proceeded to bet $10,000 a hand every hand, in cash (in the days that was allowed). One hand, Becky dealt the cards and Crazy Louis abruptly left the game with the cards and cash lying there. The pit boss’s direction to Becky with $50,000 in bets (and cards) lying on the blackjack table? “Don’t worry, he’ll be back.” Fifteen minutes later, he was.
5. New Year’s Eve in Laughlin – Our first casino jobs, fresh out of college and traipsing around the country before settling out west, were in Laughlin, Nevada. It was a time (embarrassing to the casino industry, no doubt, but hey, part of its history) when drugs were rampant, bosses slept with co-workers, employees could drink and gamble on their breaks, and it was common to take up to a two-week advance on a paycheck (the precursor of payday loans?). On New Year’s Eve, dealers were allowed to drink champagne with guests during the countdown hours and beyond and a specific memory involved a particularly inebriated dealer who brought a chair to sit in while she dealt, because she was no longer able to stand. They should have changed the table sign to “Dealer Sits on Soft 17”!
Memorable moments 6-10 will appear in next month’s column.