“I don’t believe in ‘luck.’ For all that I care, a monkey could roll the dice!” I guess I repeated this mantra so often that publisher Lyle Stuart quoted it in one of his gambling books.

One day I got a call from Lyle asking me to meet him in front of my Manhattan office. He said it was important, and that he was coming over from New Jersey to give me “something.”
Mystified, I waited outside.

Lyle drove up and rolled down the window of his Mercedes, handing me a large oblong package. Smiling mischievously, he announced, “Okay, kid-here’s something you’ve always wanted,” and drove away.

I now own a wind-up mechanical monkey that gives a little chatter, does a little dance, and tosses out a small pair of dice from a cup in his right paw.

• The Gambler Strikes Back, Part I (0)
• Casino – Casein-point Part3 (0)

My friends' understandably dubious reactions to my true story were somewhat answered by Abdul Jalib's article in the Summer 1998 issue of The Intelligent Gambler, where he wrote, "A further threat to the entire [gambling] industry is that the casinos commit crimes against skilled blackjack players . . . [M]ajor Vegas casinos have literally stolen chips from skilled players."

So they rob the players in Las Vegas too!
If you examine casino practices closely, you'll see a pattern of lawlessness emerge. Blacklisted Mafiosi, though the law forbade their entrance to casinos, have been caught gambling—with hefty credit lines yet!—for which the casinos have been heavily fined. One time the kids standing in line at the Las Vegas Hilton, waiting to see the Star Trek show there, were allowed to play the slot machines! The greedy casino was fined a hefty $350,000 for that one.

The casinos can, have, and will cheat players, and they continue to get away with it because the Casino Control Commission looks the other way.
Jalib in his informative article recounts other criminal activity by the Las Vegas casinos. And adds that, "Eventually 60 Minutes or some other show is going to give these crimes perpetuated by the casinos the publicity they deserve. . . ."

When they do, Buster, the shit will finally and deservedly hit the fan.
And if you still believe that the people running the casinos have either a modicum of decency or an ounce of compassion for the players, scholar Erika Gosker writes in the October 1999 in the Elder Law Journal:

…that some casinos send charter buses to nursing homes and senior centers right after beneficiaries receive their Social Security checks. The industry has even coined terms such as "the third-of-the-month club" to describe these sought-after patrons.

Did the casino make its point with me? You bet your ass it did. For months, every time I went to Atlantic City I avoided the Gong casino like the plague. I didn't go in for a drink or even to use their men's room. I don't think I would have gone there even if they'd had great King Crab claws.

Then, one day on the bus headed to Atlantic City, it suddenly dawned on me that I was doing it all wrong. Instead of avoiding the casino, I should use my wiles and hit back, but v-e-r-y carefully. They ripped me off for almost $2,000, so for the next twenty trips my primary goal would be to win $100 there each time. The Gong was about to taste the vengeance of my weapons of discipline and restraint—-my "Hit and Run."
With trepidation—I was scared shitless—I returned to the Gong casino for the first time in eight months. With my $2,000 in seed money at an "outside" (non-pit) $10 minimum blackjack table— no baccarat pit tables for me!—I played blackjack as close to the chest as I ever played it in my life. Slowly, I ground away, painfully winning two $5 chips at a time. Every time I lost a hand it was a tug at my heart. After an eternity of betting, I finally ground out my $100 and headed directly for the cashier's cage. $100 down,- a minimum of $1,900 more to go.

With winged feet I left the Gong casino. Even when I had won that $31,125 in Las Vegas so many years ago I don't think I experienced the same euphoria that I felt winning the crooked casino's $100.
Having broken the ice, my next visit to the casino was not so stressful. I even felt comfortable enough to return to the $25-min-imum blackjack tables. I won $275 rather quickly. I hit and I ran.
I felt so invigorated and confident that I actually made a second foray to the Gong casino before boarding the bus home, and I won another $ 125.

Four hundred dollars from the Gong for the day! At that point I had recouped a two-trip total of $500 from the Gong's cashier's cage. Another grand-and-a-half to go. . . .
When I next returned to Atlantic City, 1 was no longer intimidated by the rogue casino. Not only was I at ease there, but I even made it my first stop off the bus so that, if I had time later, I'd go back for a second helping. I had time. And I had my second helping. Total win for the day at the Gong: $625.

Regrettably, the rest of that visit to the seashore was a total waste. The $625 I won from the Gong, and most of my $6,000 seed money were swept away by a string of losing tables all across the city. No one can win all the time, or even most of the time. However, no net loss could detract from the sweet satisfaction of winning that $625 at the hated Gong!
Through the years since then I've made a lot of hit-and-run trips to the seashore. There has been no pattern to my excursions, with one marked exception: I always make an obligatory pit stop at the hated Gong casino to win something. Perhaps it was bull-headed of me to once have spent an hour-and-a-half of my precious five-hour scheduled visit to Atlantic City just to grind out a meager $35 win there, but goddammit, that $35 was sweeter than the $600 I won at the next casino on my tour.

In recent years I've had to curtail my Atlantic City trips because of an unfortunate accident. I was run over, dragged, and seriously injured by a garbage truck. (My premature obituary even was printed in a local newspaper!) Though my visits are fewer than they were, one remnant of my former agenda remains rigidly in place: the obligatory visit to the Gong casino. And I still refuse to walk out the door without some of their money in my pocket!
I've always felt awkward telling people of being cheated by a major Atlantic City casino by having my chips stolen off the table right in front of my eyes. Many of my friends have looked at me skeptically when I told the story. Why would a multimillion-dollar casino risk its license to steal a couple of thousand in chips from a player?

• Casino – Monkey Dice (0)
• Casino – Casein-point Part3 (0)
• Casino – Casein-point Part2 (0)

Undaunted, 1 called back Monday morning, and was immediately connected with a Mr. Cross (names have been changed to protect the guilty). I told the story of what had happened to me at the Gong casino on the previous Thursday, and his voice told me he was not enthusiastic about addressing my problem. He said the person who handled the Gong casino was unavailable, and to call again in two days. I called again two days later, only to be told that the man I needed to talk to was out of town, and to try again. I'll spare you details of the long and circuitous string of phone calls I made to the Commission (I later figured out that Mr. Cross was sloughing me off, hoping I would be discouraged and go away). He finally said Yes, he had at last spoken to the official in charge of monitoring the Gong casino and, surprise!, there were no cameras in operation at my table at the time of the heist.
Crushed, I hung up the phone and figured it was time to throw in the towel. There was no place else for me to go.

Years later, when I and thousand of others were taken in by a major casino's phony-baloney newspaper promotion, I again contacted the Casino Control Commission. This time I had the "smoking gun"—a complete and perfect paper trail of the scam! Did justice triumph this time? Was the casino nailed for its transgressions? More on that later.

The blatant Gong casino robbery rankled me for months—it still hurts today. After mulling it over and over I think I figured out why they pulled this cheap scam. Kirk Kerkorian can fly a casino executive all the way to Australia to tell Kerry Packer that the MGM Grand doesn't want his business, but what recourse does the casino have against a relatively penny-ante hit-and-run guy like myself? The answer is as simple as it is primitive. They mug him!

At this moment, from the corner of my eye I saw an older, heavyset man in the pit—he, too, materialized out of nowhere— elbowing the lady dealer aside. With the deft hands of an old-time "sawdust" casino pro, he deftly changed my chip colors for me. By this time, Smiley, to my left had finished his breathless canned promo, which had been delivered in one long run-on sentence. The heavyset man in the pit had vanished as fast as he had appeared.

The smiling man then rose, continuing his mile-a-minute spiel, while rapidly backing away. In a moment he had disappeared into the casino crowd. It didn't dawn on me until later that this effusive, overeager casino executive, who so gushingly offered to lavishly comp me, never offered his card, a de rigueur ritual of casino hosts.

The total time elapsed for the above little drama probably didn't exceed thirty seconds.
Now I took stock of my chips. The heavyset older man had changed more than my colors—he also changed the amount. As I played, I always kept a rough running total of what I was winning, how far I was ahead. Since my philosophy of gambling is not to be greedy, I make it a point to never, but never, try to win more than my table stakes. This time my table stakes were $2,000, and I figured I had more than double that in chips, for a sensational $2,000 or $2,500 hit, one of my biggest ever there.

Now 1 looked at my chips, and then up at the lady dealer. Rarely have I seen a more conflicted, guilty, pained expression on a person's face,- she seemed ready to collapse.
I counted the chips in front of me. There was my $2,000 seed money, but instead of my $2,000 to $2,500 in winnings I counted only $1,050. The heavyset man had repossessed half my winnings or more for the Gong casino!

Stunned, I just sat there for a minute or two, trying to reconstruct exactly what had happened, trying to comprehend this double-fisted, thirty-second ambush. Was it possible that a major casino in Atlantic City would pull such a relatively penny-ante robbery? I could understand bringing in a "mechanic," but not blatantly mugging me, and right in front of my eyes!

There was an abrupt shift change, and a different dealer took over. My lady dealer avoided my eyes as she hastily exited the table. Still in shock, I looked at my watch and realized I had a bus to catch. Dejectedly, I cashed in my chips and then taxied over to the bus terminal. Once on board, I was able to think more clearly. I rewound that unbelievable thirty-second heist over and over again in my mind. I suddenly realized that 1 didn't really have to take the 3 o'clock bus—buses to New York ran every hour. What 1 should have done was immediately go over to the Casino Control Commission official in the casino, who would have promptly reviewed the videotape of the action at the table, and then justice would have been done. Or would it? Not according to the explanation—excuse?—I got later.
Now in New York, and thinking more lucidly, I waited until 9:00 the next morning, a Friday, and called the main office of the Casino Control Commission in Atlantic City. I would have called when I got home the night before, but I figured it was too late to dial them up.

The person who answered told me none of the Commissioners were in, and asked me to call back later. When I called back at 1:00, everybody was out to lunch. At four they were all gone for the day.

• The Gambler Strikes Back, Part I (0)
• Casino – Monkey Dice (0)

I normally keep a low profile at the tables, but this was just too much for me. I reared up and bellowed, "Just to change color' you want MY identification? MISTER, THIS IS AN OUTRAGE! I'M GOING TO THE CASINO CONTROL COMMISSION ON THE FLOOR! LET ME SEE YOUR IDENTIFICATION! LET ME SEE YOUR BADGE!" (All Atlantic City casinos have a Casino Control Commission office on the casino floor.)
The son of a bitch, now intimidated, started to back away. I made a show of it as I copied his name onto a napkin. Of course I got my change of color, and of course I did nothing in regard to the nasty pit boss. Like I said, I keep a low profile. I wasn't looking for trouble.

And now for the story I promised at last chapter's end.
I never expected a major casino to go to the extreme lengths of risking their casino license just to steal money from me, and right off the blackjack table!
Maybe they knew something—perhaps a lapse in video surveillance at my table. Maybe they took me for a hick from the sticks who didn't know his way around a casino. Maybe I rankled them just enough with my almost systematic whittling away at their casino that they became so infuriated that they just didn't give a damn, and wanted to scare me away from their casino. It could have been any one of the above,- maybe it was none of the above. The only thing I am certain of is that between $1,500 and $1,800 was stolen from me by a couple of casino executives, right in front of me, as I sat at a $100 minimum table in their baccarat pit.

A few years back, I would take a day off a week—sometimes even two days off if I had a good outing earlier in the week—and bus it into Atlantic City for five hours of "hit and run." I'd take the first bus (7:00 A.M.) to the seashore, which got me there by 9:30.
By 9:45 I'd be at the tables, hopefully chipping away at the casinos one-by-one, a coupla hundred here, a coupla hundred there. (Oh sure, there were weeks when 1 lost my seed money and dragassed home early like a beaten dog.) By 2:45 I'd taxi to the old Atlantic City bus terminal, which has since been razed, in time to catch the 3:00 P.M. bus to New York, which would bring me home by 5:30 P.M.

Five hours traveling, five hours in the casinos. A perfect day at the seashore. I guess after a while the pit bosses and casino executives had me spotted as a weekday afternoon "hitman" at their blackjack tables.

That fateful Thursday afternoon I wandered into the baccarat pjt 0f—no, in fairness I won't name the casino, as it has since changed hands. This particular casino, like my old reliable Sahara in Las Vegas, was my personal "Gong"—I hit it rather regularly. Usually it would be for only a couple hundred,- sometimes half-a-grand. Sure, many times I'd lose it all at the next casino on my itinerary, but that particular casino for some reason was usually a pay-off place for me. I suppose the honchos were tearing their hair out in frustration over my frequent winning forays.

It was rather late for me that particular Thursday afternoon, a little after 2:00. My Gong casino was going to be my last stop for the day,- I had already hit it earlier that day for $175 as my first "call," right off the bus. This was my second visit to the seashore that week,- I was there Tuesday and did well, especially at my old faithful Gong casino.
Surveying the floor, I wandered into the baccarat pit. There were a couple of $50 minimum blackjack tables in operation,- one was nearly packed, while the other had two smokers playing. I don't play at tables with smokers because I don't play with losers, and smokers are losers. In the rear was an empty $100 minimum table. I opted for the back table. I started my play and, this being the Gong casino, I found myself on a streak. After a bit, I noticed that the lady dealer was peering over my shoulder and looking agitated. She then started to speed up the play. As I was winning, I played right along with the gag, quipping about her sudden burst of energy with the cards. Finally, at the end of the shoe I pushed in my piles of chips and told her, "Change of color, please."

Now I'm going to take it s-l-o-w-l-y in describing exactly what happened next. Very suddenly—from out of nowhere—a man appeared to my left,- there he was, a smiling, fast-talking thirtyish casino executive. He moved so close to me that I could feel his hot breath on my cheek. He thrust his "glad hand" in front of me, all the time talking nonstop, proffering some kind of casino comp. With his sudden "friendly" intrusion and his extended hand, instinctively and civilly I turned my face toward him and extended my own hand.

• The Gambler Strikes Back, Part I (0)
• Casino – Casein-point (0)

Sure, 1 like to win the casinos' money, but I only want to win it honestly. It's my way of life,- I'm an ethical fellow. I only wish that the Atlantic City casino employees who brazenly stole my chips right off the blackjack table shared my philosophy.
You would think, considering the incalculable value of a gambling license, that the casino executives who walk around with painted smiles, patting their lollipops on the back, wouldn't jeopardize losing their precious certification over a cheap nickel-and-dime swindle. But they swindled me.

Come to think of it, how many times in the past have you and I read of casinos being fined heavily for money laundering, entertaining known mobsters who had been forbidden casino entrance, or honeying up to minors who somehow got their young hands on a chunk of the family fortune and brainlessly blew it all at their tables? And how about the cases where the casino panics when a player has a lucky streak, and pulls a fast one by arbitrarily lowering the maximum at the table in defiance of the strict Casino Control Commission rule requiring the posting of a written notice of a change in the table limit?

The Tropicana Casino in Atlantic City tried to pull this on Anthony Campione of Mays Landing, New Jersey in 1989, as reported in The New Jersey Law Journal and The New York Times. In the middle of Campione's winning streak the nervous casino honchos panicked and, in direct violation of the rules, suddenly and arbitrarily, cut the maximum bet at the table from $1,000 to $100. Shocked and appalled, Campione put his hand over the cardshich stopped the game—and asked to speak to a manager. Instead of a casino executive, burly security guards showed up and arrested him, accusing Campione of violating Casino Commission regulations governing "conduct in a casino."

Arraigned and eventually put on trial, Campione was acquitted of the trumped-up charges. Once cleared, he promptly sued the Tropicana Hotel and Casino for false arrest and harassment. A Camden County jury awarded Mr. Campione $1,475,500, which included the jury's estimate of $300,000 he would have won had he been permitted to keep betting at the $1,000 limit.

Slot machines are, dollar-for-dollar, the sweetest moneymakers for casinos. They're also the surest. I once heard a matronly lady ask a Caesars Palace casino executive, "Do these machines pay?"
"You bet they pay, lady," was his candid reply. "They pay our rent, overhead, electric bill. . . ."

Some greedy casino operators were recently exposed by the newspapers for perpetrating this latest slot scam: When a progressive slot machine gets really top-heavy with a hefty jackpot, these exploiters of the human condition simply remove it from the casino floor! And the courts have upheld them!

Now do you still believe that the friendly casino hosts with the broad smiles and the friendly pats on the back are rooting for you to win any of the casino's money? No, I didn't think you did____

Even when they win their money, they'll put obstacles in your path to the cashier's cage. Once at the Claridge, which bills itself as "The Friendliest Casino in Atlantic City," I won a couple of thousand, but it was all in black and green ($100 and $25 chips). When I asked for them to "color me up" (change my chips to purple $500 chips) so they'd be easy to carry to the cashier's cage, the pit boss, who had been glowering at me throughout my winning streak, now strutted over to the table and demanded that I "show identification" before he'd change color.

• The Gambler Strikes Back, Part I (0)
• Casino – Casein-point Part2 (0)