Sometimes, I just can't think of anything to write about. I think my life is fairly dull, even though I work in a casino, which a lot of people find fascinating. I have to admit, it's not always boring--every week there is something interesting or exciting happening, or something happens where all I can do is shake my head and mumble to myself WTF?Besides, most of the feedback I get from readers of this site tells me that they're most interested in two things 1) Food, which is always a popular topic, and 2) Life in a Vegas Casino, since most of my readers seem to be Vegas addicts needing a digital fix. Sometimes, being so close to the action, it's tough to see the little nuggets of activity that outsiders find fascinating. Somebody blowing through ten grand? Feh--seen it dozens of times. Somebody melting down and snapping? I see it a couple times a month. A huge winner? Yep, it happens, more often than you'd think.
So the other day, I was reading Falcon Rob's latest post about life in the casino, so I thought I'd post the same thing with my own observations from behind the
Biggest Single Win
It's tough to get a single huge win in our casino because most of the time our table limits are capped at $2000 per hand. Like Rob, I've seen people hit the hard ways on the dice table with purple chips for a $4500 payoff on several occasions, but the biggest single payout I've made was late at night on the blackjack table. I was dealing a private double-deck game to a single player who was playing two hands at $5000 per hand, and managed to give him a couple of blackjacks for a $7500 payout each time. That was pretty cool.
Biggest Single Loss
Same guy as above, losing two hands at the same time for 15 grand. Ouch. It was especially ugly since I was showing a five and he doubled down on one of his hands, getting a twenty and a nineteen with his other hand. I then pulled a five-card 21. Seriously, ouch.
Biggest Single Winning Session
I've seen a couple of guys color up for $70,000+ on the dice table after an unbelievably hot night and some crazy press action, but I wasn't involved, thank god. Dealing blackjack one night, one of our regulars, who usually *never* walks away when he wins, went on a huge rush for about five hours and turned $500 into something just north of forty grand. The problem is, he's one of those Jekyll and Hyde types who's nice when he's winning and sober, but just a complete ass when he's drunk and losing. He got so bad that he has since been 86'd from our casino, so I haven't seen him in months. But it was a helluva run, and we made some good money that night.
Biggest Single Losing Session
One time I took $22,000 off of a guy in less than ten minutes at the blackjack table. It was ugly--no matter what he did, he couldn't win a hand. Another time I was on stick at the dice table, and there was a loud obnoxious guy standing right next to me carrying a man-purse just *stuffed* with hundred-dollar bills. After every roll, he'd throw down a thousand on some stupid prop bet, and he didn't catch a single one, burning through almost 40 grand in less than twenty minutes.
Smallest Bet Made
Back when I first started at my current casino, we had a dollar dice game with quarters, so the fleas could make all kinds of stupid bets--$1.25 on the nine, $1.50 on the six, etc. And a lot of times they'd use those quarter chips (no, not the green $25 chips, but light blue 25-CENT chips!) for their hard ways. You gotta love paying off a buck-seventy-five on a hard ten... Ugh. Just thinking about that game gives me the creeps.
And about once a week, I'll get somebody at the Pai Gow tables trying to put me up for a quarter on the Fortune Bonus. When that happens, I tell them to wait until they can afford three more, as the minimum bet is one US dollar...
Hitting Rock Bottom
I see people betting with money that they obviously shouldn't be playing with almost every day. The funny thing is, if they are losing, they absolutely *refuse* to leave with a single dollar--they'd rather go home flat broke than take their case money with them. Or even if they're down to their last ten bucks, instead of walking, they'll play it until it's gone--it's amazing to watch. Of course, you want to put this person out of their misery, and I'd rather not deal to them anyways--you know you'll never get a toke out of them, so might as well just bust them and send them on their way. But it seems that a case bet NEVER loses, and the jerkoff keeps hanging around. Sometimes when it's obvious that a player won't leave until he's flat broke, but he's still treading water with ten or twenty bucks, but keeps standing up to leave, wins the hand, and sits back down, it irritates the hell out of me. Sometimes they outlast me, and I get tapped out to go on break and they're still sitting there with their last ten bucks. So a lot of times I'll say to the relief dealer, as I'm leaving the table, "This guy wants to go home broke, help him out!"
The worst though, are the Pai Gow players who start hitting up other players for money as soon as they go broke, or don't have enough to make a Fortune Bonus in addition to their regular bet. I love running them off the table--no hustling other players on my game!
Weirdest Player Dealt To
Oh, we get a lot of absolute freaks that come in. Every now and then we'll get a bum who finds his way in off of Boulder Highway with a wrinkled up twenty, thinking that they'll turn it into a million. They always play till it's gone, not satisfied into turning it into an extremely lucky hundred for a thousand-percent return. Rob mentioned the Rastafarian midget that comes in and plays craps almost every week--He's ok, just kind of a pain in the ass to deal to. There's another guy who we call "Buddy Love" who is just a complete jackass to deal to and he stays for hours upon hours, not leaving the table for an entire shift. He's a total douchebag and every dealer in the place just *hates* him. I still give Rob shiat about the time he was dealing to this jerkoff and made the ultimate rookie mistake of asking him what his "system" was. The dude started talking and didn't come up for air for about six hours, about the time Rob left for the day, ready to kill him with a hammer.
There's another guy who comes in every weekend to play blackjack who fancies himself as a professional card counter, and he's a total flea. Everybody hates him and tries to bust him because not only is he an annoying stiff, he has the worst B.O. stench, bad breath, he's a chain-smoker, and he annoys and chases off all the rest of the decent players who happen to sit down at the table. What makes it worse is that he's about six feet tall, weighs maybe a buck-thirty, and has long stringy gray hair that is never washed. Rob and I call him 'Edgar Winter', but all the rest of the dealers on my shift simply refer to him as 'Freakshow'. The funny thing is, I thought they'd back him off because of his obvious card-counting, but he just loses his ass every week, so they continue to let him play.
Most Famous Player Dealt To
That would be Robin Williams, also known as Mork from Ork. I've also dealt dice to a few well-known poker pros, but most of them aren't that good. And for the most part, they're not very good tippers, either.
Biggest Dealer Bet Made
A few times I've had players put me up for two or three hundred on a hand while dealing blackjack, and I've lost just as many as I've won. The casino limits dealer bets to $300 per hand without supervisor approval, because they know that once that money hits the toke box, they'll never have a chance of getting it back from the player. So yeah, the casino wants the dealers to make money, but not too much.
I've also had players put me up for $5 a hand on the Fortune Bonus for Pai Gow, which isn't much at first glance, but a couple of times I've hit it for a Straight Flush, which pays us $255. Not too shabby.
Just the other day I was dealing dice and a player colored up to leave and threw in a $5 red chip, telling me to put it on whatever bet I wanted for the boys. So I called a hopping hard ten. Next roll--fifty five! That's $155 and down for the crew, which earned me a few high fives while the boxman just sat there with his jaw on the table shaking his head. Heh.
Best and Worst Toke Days
Early on I had one day over $300, but it's been almost two years since then. Other than that, the highest toke day was around $260, but I couldn't tell you when the last day we had that was actually over $200. It's been a tough year. The worst toke day I've seen for eight hours was $78, but luckily that happened on a Tuesday, and I'm off on Tuesdays. My worst showing for eight hours was $86, but in the past month, we've had several days in the low nineties.
Back when I worked at the Golden Gate, we averaged about $50-$60 per day. Good lord.
Biggest Mistake Made
You mean other than learning dice and blackjack first and getting a pit job instead of a poker job when I moved to town? Damn, if I'd only known...
One time I spent 45 minutes dealing a single deck pitch game of blackjack FACE UP before the shift boss even noticed. I thought I was gonna get busted, fired, wrote up, suspended, or have to deal with some sort of negative repercussions, but she just laughed and said that I wasn't in trouble, but the floor supervisor certainly was. Heh. The funny thing is that the players who'd been sitting there, tucking and scraping their cards before I got there, were totally oblivious, thinking it must've been Dealers Choice or something...
Another time, on the Pai Gow table, I mis-set my hand as a straight flush with a King-Four on top, when I should've set it as a flush with a pair of fours on top. Everybody pushed, whereas they all would've lost had I set it right (about a $300 swing against the house). But I didn't notice until after the damage was done, and neither surveillance or the floor caught it, so I just played dumb and kept on dealing. Never heard a word about it.
Dumbest Shots Taken
Players take shots all the time, trying to cheat the casino out of a few bucks here and there. One time I was dealing dice, and this bum came shuffling in and stood right next to me. He put his money on the pass line, and on the come out roll the point was established as four. Well, four is the toughest point to make, so he immediately dropped all of his chips all over the layout in front of him, holding up the game. He scooped them all up in a pile, including his pass line bet that he no longer wanted to make, but I caught him and made him put it back. Nice try! I told him.
Just three nights ago a guy was playing Pai Gow and putting a dollar chip on the bottom and one of our old limited-edition $5 chips with the white edges on top, trying to make it look like he was betting ten bucks when he was only betting six. He probably would've gotten away with it, the way he offset the chip slightly, hiding the lower one in a shadow, but he lost the bet, and I caught him when I went to pick up the chips. Uh, dude, you owe me another five bucks. Nice try, though. I love telling people that when I bust them.
Dream Scenario
For the most part, I like dealing, but sometimes it just gets old. Especially dealing at a locals joint where you see that same people night in and night out. Most of them are pretty nice, but there are about 20 people I can name off the top of my head that if I never saw again, I'd think I was the luckiest guy on earth.
I'm not leaving my current position anytime soon, at least as much as I can anticipate, but setting aside the fantasy of winning the World Series of Poker Main Event and not having to work at all, I guess my ultimate gig would be to deal poker at the MGM Grand full time, and work two or three days a week dealing Pai Gow and some classy joint like Encore or Caesars Palace. That would be ideal. Oh, and of course when that happens, I'll be dating a cocktail waitress/showgirl and earning royalties on all of the articles I've sold, too.
Mikey
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