Hi @aceto5
these are funny and informative stories…
Thanks for sharing!!!
You’re welcome - tell your poker player friends where to find them - they will not read these stories anywhere else.
I waited until most of Tony’s people were dead, locked up for life, or in a home before I printed these stories - LOL.
Glad you enjoyed them.
I read most of your stories and wondered if you had any regrets working for a mob casino.
Having to carry a gun to work and being threatened like that seems like you would have some
regrets. Did you know when you first started it was a mob casino?
Even being an honest dealer just making a living, in a way you’re still operating under a
mobsters roof. With mobster friends and mobster rules that aren’t favorable to you.
Two men waiting by your car is ok as far as the mob is concerned.
Not the friendliest environment, even though they gave you $50 because they made a mistake
by broadcasting their intention.
You must’ve been the happiest guy in town when the Ramada bought out the mob’s interest
in the Tropicana back in 1979. The beginning of the end for the mob in Las Vegas.
They say Anthony Spilotro ran his rackets out of a gift shop in Circus Circus.
If I lived your life in that mob run casino, my nerves would’ve been shot within one week.
I marvel at your ability to function normally in that environment.
Taking everything in stride like it’s just another day in Vegas.
Maybe that should be your title of your book.
Just another day in Vegas!
Thanks for sharing your stories here on Replay.
It’s certainly a gem in the Community Forum!
I am happy that you enjoy reading my stories. Thank you.
I guess you have to put me in perspective.
I was raised in a Navy family, moving every two or three years since the day I was born. (My father graduated from Annapolis class of 45 and my father’s father retired as a Commander in the U S Navy). I myself entered a Senior Military College in 1966. That would be at just about the height of the Vietnam war. My school was designated infantry, so most of our graduates each year were soon shipped off to war. Every Saturday morning, the Military cadre on campus posted a listing of our dead, wounded, and missing in Vietnam in the school cafeteria. After a few years of wearing uniforms 7 days a week and drill each morning and afternoon during the week, we tending to emulate a rather fatalistic way of looking at life. You know, the old "Live For Today, For Tomorrow We Die’ sort of thought process. It was not bleak, we just took it as the way it was, along with a lot of heavy duty drinking on weekends. The alcohol did not seem to help my GPA, and toward the end of my fifth year of college (we called ourselves “Super Seniors”) About this time, the US was ending the draft and pulling out of Vietnam. Now mind you, I started college as patriotic as they come, but by 1971, times had changed, and a military carrier no longer seemed the way to go. I finally decided to switch my long-held beliefs and moved from Virginia to Las Vegas to become a professional poker dealer. What the hell. Good money, beautiful women, easy work, what’s not to like. My parents outfitted their basement with my condo furniture and everything else I packed into my car and drove to Vegas, knowing absolutely no one closer than 1500 miles. I enrolled in a dealing school and after one month of training, I was hired in a small casino on the strip dealing Blackjack. A month later the MGM opened, and Johnny Moss had a couple of openings he needed to fill in his poker room at the Aladdin Hotel and Resort on the strip, so I got hired by a Mob Owned Casino after two months of living in my new hometown and I loved it. In the telling of my stories, it may sound a little dangerous, but as I have said in other articles, if you did not approach the mob asking for something, as far as they were concerned, you did not exist. I was in more danger from drunken tourists wanting to blow off a little steam them I ever was from the mob. Also knowing the right people up and down the strip got me a lot of free tickets to shows and the best restaurants in town for 16 years. The money was good, the lifestyle was good, the women were beautiful, and I was never physically touched by anyone connected to the mob.
Like I said, I was in the business for 35 years before I retired with a house in Phoenix and a house in Las Vegas.
There is an old saving that says, “If you find a job that you enjoy, you will never work a day in your life”.
That could have been written with me in mind.
Stay safe, David
3 Likes
Some trivia for the World Series of Poker In Las Vegas.
When the Rio took over and started having 1000 table tournaments, the quality of the dealers left something to be desired. The players made jokes at the table about how they must be kidnapping tourists off of the strip and seating them in the dealer’s box. They were actually calling the local dealing schools and asking them to send all students over to audition, and they did not care if the student was in their first week of training. They desperately needed bodies.
Anyway, one of the floor people at the WSOP ran a dealer’s school over in Florida and trained their poker students to deal all the games at the WSOP.
Each year, that school flew 30 t0 40 dealers into Las Vegas to deal in the WSOP. They made arrangements at small local motels to rent rooms by the week and carpooled.
These dealers made a ton of money in tips during the 6 to 8 weeks while the WSOP was going.
Anyway, just killing some time while playing in the 6:45 Omaha h/l. 13,000 in chips and we are on break, and I am in the money.
Have a safe week, David Rogers (aka - aceto5)
Video showing how BJ dealers/casinos cheat - (Start at 2:43 Mark)
It’s amazing how they handled the massive influx of players when they started hosting these huge tournaments in Rio. The image of how they bring in student dealers who have no experience is pretty wild - it must have led to some interesting hands at the table!
Interesting is a very calm word. Now, I had been running poker tournaments and training dealers for a very long time.
I just took it in stride and practically ran every table I was playing on. I just played Omaha HI/Lo during the series back then. If there was a disagreement, then I asked the dealer to call the floor. The yelling at some of the other tables was quite noisy. Back then even the floor people were not in sync, and this was for serious money. It took about four years of running 1000 plus tournament tables at the RIO before they finally got their act together.
I dealt the series one year back when it was at Binion’s just to have bragging rights.
I moved to Las Vegas during the middle 70s to become a poker dealer. I moved from Virginia and only brought with me what would fit in my Trans Am which included my waterbed. During the 70s the US Govt was exploding atomic bombs underground in the desert not far from Las Vegas. At the time I was living on the 7th floor of an apartment complex near the strip. The govt would never pre-announce when they would set off one of these bombs, but always did so in the morning just before dawn. Every time a bomb was exploded it would really shake the water in my waterbed and wake me up thinking earthquake. Later that day the daily news cycle would report the experimental bomb blast. I was on day shift working for Johnny Moss at the Flamingo Casino Poker Room. I had fun going into work and telling everyone to watch the news that night for word of the experiment out in the desert. At first no one believed me, but after a half dozen times of my announcement before anyone else knew about the blast, the dealers would look forward to my coming in with the news. We tried, but never found a way to make money on this pre-knowledge in Las Vegas, a town where you can bet on just about anything. Stay safe, David
1 Like
I just received a phone call from a dealer that I used to work with who is still dealing poker in Las Vegas.
In a nutshell, I was politely told to shut the hell up. (with a smile)
He was Ok. He just wanted me to elaborate on my story about how much money poker dealers, in general, make each year.
So, this is my Mea Culpa.
Poker dealers do in fact make a living wage.
I was asked to add some extra facts.
Poker dealers in Las Vegas make less in tips then dealers on Indian Reservations do. One reason is that poker dealers in major casinos in Las Vegas make less because over half of the people they are dealing to are professional players who do this for a living. All players have winning days and losing days so you can understand why they will tip less than a tourist will if they are losing several hundred or several thousand dollars on any given day. In the very high limit games, a lot of players who win a very large pot will either stiff the dealer all day, every day, or give the dealer one or two dollars when winning a ten-thousand-dollar pot.
Also, the amount of tips poker dealers make this year is the same as they made last year, five years ago or even 10 years ago, but the cost of living has continued to rise year after year.
They still make minimum wage plus the same amount of tips per hand that they were making 10 years ago. The cost of living has gone up but the number of hands that a dealer can put out each day has remained constant.
If it were not for tourists being nice when on vacation, just about every poker dealer in Las Vegas would quit and become a Blackjack dealer.
The first 6 years that I dealt poker in Las Vegas was to the highest limit games in the world. It was not unusual for me to push a cash game pot with over one million dollars in action for just that one pot which took maybe 3 minutes from start to finish. The tips were good back then. Unfortunately, poker started to get in the news and more players came to play with a lot of money and little all-around skill. They would most often lose and loudly blame the dealer for their being a bad player. It got so pervasive that it started to rub off on the other high limit players who also started complaining and not tipping.
I reached my breaking one day when I went to work dealing almost all high limit games and at the end of the day, I took home $18 in tips. That was it. I was a duel rated dealer who was known and respected all over town. I gave notice when I left work that night and picked where I wanted to apply for a job before I went to sleep.
My first pick was the Bingo Palace Casino at Sahara and the freeway. It was a cardroom that had a high percentage of tourists playing every day. Like I said, I was well known all over the city. I had just gotten as far as letting the card room manager know that I had just quit working for Johnny Moss at the Dunes when he stopped me and offered me a job.
So there, the next time you go play in a live game, please remember that it is not the dealer’s fault if you just lost the last three hands you played before you finally won a hand. A little something from the winner in every hand that you win that has $10 dollars or more in it is really appreciated. You are there to have fun and maybe win a little. The dealer needs your small gifts in order to support his or her family.
Thank you.
Stay safe, David
I just got an email from someone I know in Vegas.
She said that she had just found all my stores on some website. She thinks it was called casino.org. I will have to check that out.
Anyway, she wrote to tell me that her mother used to work in a gift shop on the strip and her mother had told her that Tony ran just about all the gift shops on the strip when he ruled the underworld in Las Vegas. I had always thought that he only ran the gift shop at Circus Circus. Small world.
Stay safe, David.
And now we know the rest of the story after all these years.
Cool!
Sorry, I somehow missed your post and just saw it.
In answer to your question, reading tells is the difference between a good, winning poker player, and someone who transcends greatness in the game. It is like a sixth sense known only to a special few. I think you have to be born with the ability in your genetic makeup and then work to master the art. I dealt to the best players in the world and have seen it in action. One of the reasons that I moved to Vegas in the first place was to see just how much poker talent I really had. I beat the games constantly in college and after I left college, I beat the different home games that I played in while living in Virginia. After watching the best players in the world for about 5 years as a dealer, I told my boss, Johnny Moss, that I wanted to try playing for a while. Johnny just smiled at me and said, “Best of luck. If it does not work out, your job will be waiting.”
So off I went. I played games in Vegas during the week and in L, A, during the weekends. I made a good living. I bought my first Corvette and took up Scuba Diving in the Caribbean.
My problem was that I was not destined for greatness. I did not have the special genetic make-up that was needed
I leveled out at the $30-$60 games. Higher than that, the players were better than I was. Also, the people you had to be around for 10 or more hours a day were really depressing, as most of them were losing money and had an aura of defeat about them. After a time, I decided that I could go back to work in poker management and make equal money when you considered health benefits and free meals.
For details on tells there is a book out called “Mike Caro’s Poker Book of Tells” You can easily find it online in book or video. If I had to recommend one book and only one book for all poker players to read, this would be it. It will more than pay for itself each time you go play after reading.
I hope this helped.
Stay Safe, David
I do not believe that I have told this story before, so, if I have, maybe I will add details this time that I did not write down before.
This took place in the early 80s at the Sahara Casino on the strip in Las Vegas.
On graveyard, one by one as the players melt away to go rest after a long day, the blackjack tables are closed down, one after another, until only one pit still has action going. As each table is closed down, the floor person in that pit and the dealer at each closing table have a prescribed ritual they go through until finally, the dealer clears his hands, steps back from the table and goes to the main pit supervisor for reassignment. After the dealer leaves the table, the floor person reaches under the table and pulls out a lid for the table that has a locking mechanism attached and puts it in place over the rack with the chips that were just counted and signed off on by the last dealer and the floor person, the two who had just counted down the remaining chips at the table. With the rack locked up, the floor person then reaches under the table again and comes up with a fitted, folded, leather cover and puts it snugly over the table. This is to protect the table from any accidents that might happen at the table, like a spilled drink. The leather cover is fitted specially for a blackjack table with a form fitted place that goes over the locked down chip tray with real chips still in it and a smaller shaped area which goes over the “shoe”, which is the plastic devise which the dealer uses to deal cards to the players when the table is in action. When the table was closed, a floor person took all of the cards from the table to an area in the pit where a machine counts them and sorts them into each 52-card deck, 6 decks to a table. When all the tables in that pit have closed down for the night, everything is locked down and any remaining floor people are reassigned. Some few hours later, a janitor will come around to each closed pit, and one by one he will clean each table in preparation for the next day. He carries a 12-inch brush. He takes the cover off of the table and then lifts up the railing that covers the edge of the table where the players rest their arms while playing. He cleans that area and then sweeps around the chip rack. He then lifts up the shoe and cleans that area, puts the shoe back down, replaces the fitted leather cover for the table and moves on to the next table in the row to repeat the process. But one night the boring system changed due to a janitor who had only been working there for less than a year.
He had finished cleaning one table and had moved on to the next. He got as far as cleaning under the shoe when he stopped in mid brush and thought for a few seconds. He then went back to the last table he had cleaned, took off the cover and lifted the shoe up and down a few times. He then went to the table he had not finished cleaning and lifted that shoe up and down a few times. He did this several times on both tables and finally looked around and spotted the Blackjack shift manager. He walked over to him and told him what he had been doing and asked why of all the shoes in the pit, one of them was heaver then all of the others? The shift manager walked with him over to the empty pit and started lifting up shoes himself. Several of them. He then walked over to the podium in the pit and got in touch with the acting head of security. Two men from security showed up and did the same weight test and then called for a replacement shoe and disappeared with the heavy shoe.
The story I got from a friend at the Sahara was that the heavy shoe had been modified. When a button was pushed on a little gadget that looked like a garage door opener, the player in the number five seat could see each card that was next to be pulled from the shoe for the next player. He could send signals to each player at the table what the next card was going to be.
The player in the five-seat had to wear those rose-colored sunglasses, otherwise he could not see the next card to be played.
The casino had no idea how long that shoe had been on the table. It could have been weeks; it could have been years. They never found out who had made the switch.
And no, I do not know if the janitor was given a bonus.
You will notice that most casinos now have Blackjack dealing shoes that are made partly of clear glass so it can be seen if they have been modified.
1 Like
Possibly, very late into the night while all this drama unfolded, a new song debuted in 1978
on their stereo system.
It echoed throughout their casino.
I don’t know why I keep on believin’ you need me
When you proved so many times that it ain’t true
And I can’t find one good reason for stayin’
Maybe by leavin’ would be the best for you
But these rose-colored glasses
That I’m lookin’ through
Show only the beauty
'Cause they hide all the truth
And they let me hold on to the good times, good lines
The ones I used to hear when I held you
And they keep me from feelin’ so cheated, defeated
When reflections in your eyes show me a fool
These rose-colored glasses
That I’m lookin’ through
Show only the beauty
'Cause they hide all the truth
So I’ll just keep on hopin’, believin’
That maybe by countin’ the many times that I’ve tried
You’ll believe me when I say, “I love you”
And I’ll lay these rose-colored glasses aside (ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh)
These rose-colored glasses
That I’m lookin’ through
Show only the beauty
'Cause they hide all the truth
1 Like
Rose colored glasses. Makes you wonder.