My most hectic hit-and-run foray into Vegas was in the early 1960s, when I arrived in the midst of a taxi strike. I have a driver's license, but damned if 1 would take a chance renting a car for a few hours in Las Vegas, even if a rental car was available. Large Army-style buses awaited arrivals, taking visitors on a casino-to-casino route, a round-robin of a trip, and then back to the airport. What could I do? What I did do was, every time the bus made a stop, I'd race into the casino, make a quick bet or two at the first open blackjack table nearest the door, and race right back to the bus. Sure, I had a couple of close calls, nearly missing the bus, but I insured my bet with the driver by tokening him with a green chip from the first casino and promising him another one when we reached the last casino on his route. I made about a thousand dollars over expenses, but I lost five pounds with all the to-do, and I have to record it as the hardest buck I ever made in Las Vegas.

+ ♦ + ♦ +
Before we talk about what and what not to do when you gamble in casinos, let's first pay tribute to my personal Patron Saint of the Green-Felt Tables, Louis G. Holloway. Mr. Holloway lived and raised a family in Las Vegas, where he gambled for his livelihood. He also wrote a splendid book entitled Full-Time Gambler. Holloway was a low-key, low-profile player, who made the rounds of the Vegas casinos for an hour or two daily, winning a few dollars here, winning a few dollars there.

When his MIT-graduate son insisted that no one can beat the casinos, Holloway replied, "Son, do you see this house? The car outside? The nice clothes we're wearing? Gambling paid for all of it, including paying for your college tuition."

• Im Not A Gambler (0)
• Im Not A Gambler Part2 (0)
• Blackjack Hit And Run Part3 (0)

I never expected to write a book on gambling. Me, I'm just a guy who's been gambling in casinos since the spring of 1960, when my friend Lyle Stuart talked me into flying to Las Vegas from New York—a daring endeavor and extraordinary then in those days of mostly propeller-driven planes. This, for a scant three days and two nights, all just to see a legendary casino show that would become known as "The Summit Meeting." It starred Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop. By night they performed together on stage at the Sands, while by day they were filming Ocean's ii. Forty years and hundreds of casinos later, I have to admit that I haven't seen a better casino show since that first one. Gambling-wise, I've done a lot better since, but it was a torturous—and rather expensive—journey. In retrospect, what it cost me in blood money—money that at one point I couldn't afford to lose—amounted to the dues I paid to reach where I am today.

What I am going to tell you in this book will save you a lot of dollars. I'll confess the costly mistakes I've made so that you can avoid them. The information I offer cost me many thousands of dollars in pitfalls and pratfalls along the way. I finally wised up, but it was an expensive journey. I learned it the hard way, but I can help you to learn it the easy way.

A gambler who lies to himself and to others is doomed forever to dwell among the ranks of losers. If you gamble and you want to enter the thinly populated world of the winners, learn that you cannot live in the bullshit dimension. Don't imitate the casinos. They tell you "their" casino is "The friendliest" in Atlantic City or Las Vegas, that "they" want you to come (with your bankroll) and "feel like part of the family."
It's all sham.

The casinos play hardball all the time. If you want to have a chance to beat them at their own games, you must understand that they are suckering you. Keep your wits about you at all times, until you're safely heading home with your winnings. With my two no-hitters against the casinos in a little over two months, I can write with a modicum of authority.
Don't get me wrong. Arrogance and smug self-assurance are the quicksand that'll gobble up a gambler's bankroll. I never approach a gambling table without the utmost caution—the same caution with which I would approach a bear trap. On May 16, 1999, I played at fourteen blackjack tables in twelve casinos in a row in one day without a loss. At the fourteenth table—my last table for the day—I exercised as much caution in playing as I did at my first table, when I was fresh off the bus from New York.

This book is not only about blackjack. I will share with you my experiences with every game in the casino, including my onetime love/hate relationships with Keno and the money-hungry slot machines. I'll even tell you about one flawed slot machine that I emptied out, and how I had the sweet thrill of watching the sour-faced attendant turn the depleted machine to the wall.

Some of what I write is anecdotal. I will relate my adventures in dozens of casinos, from Monte Carlo and Nice, to Reno and Waldorf, Maryland, as well as my stints in illegal casinos in Hot Springs, Arkansas. I'll tell you about times I was cheated—yes, cheated—in Atlantic City and in Las Vegas—and the times dishonest casino employees cheated the casinos in my favor, hoping for a handsome "toke" (tip).

• Blackjack Hit And Run Part4 (0)
• Im Not A Gambler Part2 (0)
• Blackjack Hit And Run Part3 (0)

These days it seems that anybody who has made more than two trips to a casino has written a book on how to win. I'm willing to bet there is more than one gambling book out there written by an idiot who never even saw the inside of a casino. One pundit with a hardcover book on wagering, bearing the imprint of a major publisher, writes about betting at the Sands in Las Vegas with $50 chips. Maybe this asshole ducked into the Sands to use the Men's Room, but I guarantee he didn't stay long enough to look at the chi ps on the tables. No $50 denomination chips exist or ever existed in any Vegas casino. Not ever.

Mark Twain once quipped, "It isn't what people don't know that'll hurt them, it's what they do know that just ain't so."

Another "expert," writing on how to beat the slot machines, gives the reader a hot tip: Always play the slots on the aisle, as these are the ones the casino have set to be loose so the passersby will be seduced into playing because it looks so easy to win. The only thing wrong with this "inside tip" is that it's false. All the slots in all the casinos are blindly computer-controlled with respect to the winning combinations, so one slot machine is as good or as bad as the next. And I've read in more than one gambling book written by a self-anointed "expert" that the machines at the top, or end, of the aisle are the ones that pay off best. Total applesauce. The machines in between are just as likely to pay off as the ones at either end.

Another so-called expert, this one on blackjack, advises the reader with great authority to always take insurance, and to take advantage of "surrender" when offered. In reality, both are piss-poor moves for a player. Still another self-styled expert on playing the craps table gave in his book the odds on Place and Come bets on the numbers, except he gave incorrect odds!

Always remember that just because something is in a book, that doesn't mean it's correct.
All the information in this book, in regard to things that I personally was connected with, is the Real McCoy. I give you my personal guarantee on that. On stories that I picked up from the media I usually identify my sources, and I've saved all the clippings whenever I could, so I can back up my reports as far as they go. Want proof? You can write me in care of the publisher and I'll send you documentation where available.

Not every author is so careful in checking sources. Years ago I sat down with a friend of mine who was writing a book on literary censorship, and I let him pick my brain. I pride myself on being very knowledgeable on the subject. Knowledgeable yes, but, as it turned out, not infallible. Somewhere along the way I had learned of the existence of a pornographic operetta by Gilbert & Sullivan, commissioned by Queen Victoria entitled The Sod's Opera. The original manuscript was reported to be safeguarded in a locked bookcase in the British Museum's Private Cabinet. This x-rated piece was said to have typically clever Gilbert & Sullivan characters such as Scrotum, An Old Retainer, The Bollox Brothers, "A Pair of Hangers-on at the Court. . . ." You get the picture. Without checking, my friend put it all into his book.

Twenty-five years later, I have seen it reprinted in more than a dozen books, here and abroad. The only problem is that the x-rated operetta by Gilbert & Sullivan doesn't exist! A couple of years after the book was published I met the world's foremost authority on Gilbert & Sullivan, who informed me that the story was pure hoax.
This is why you have to be wary of information that you read in a book, especially in a gambling book.

• Im Not A Gambler (0)
• Blackjack Hit And Run Part4 (0)
• Blackjack Hit And Run Part3 (0)