Archive for the ‘Casino Games’ Category
June 7th, 2009
But … As 1 have said so many times, I don't believe in luck. People make their own luck. My philosophy is, and has always been, that I wouldn't care if a zebra dealt the cards, or if a monkey rolled the dice. I tell you this as a preamble to two memorable episodes I witnessed during two blackjack sessions at Atlantic City casinos.
The first was at the Showboat, where I was sitting a couple of spots away from a loud-mouthed kid, whom I immediately pegged as a novice. Yet the way the cards were coming his way, he didn't have to know much. From the very first deal he was off-and-running.
He just couldn't lose. He turned up blackjack-after-blackjack, and when he missed a blackjack he got 20s and 21s. He wasn't betting big, the dumb kid wouldn't budge over the one-green-chip minimum, even though he won hand-after-hand-after-hand.
Even playing it so close to the vest, he still had a fairly decent pile of chips in front of him by the end of the shoe. He showed a very cavalier, take-it-for-granted attitude about what had happened as he leisurely picked up his chips and wandered over to a craps table. I never saw the kid again, but I'm pretty sure no matter how many more blackjack tables he gambles at for the rest of his life, this singular episode will stand out as his One Shoe of Fame. I only hope the kid appreciated it. I did.
The second episode happened in the $25-minimum blackjack pit at the Atlantic City Sands. Taking the two contiguous seats at "first base"—I play two hands—I found myself next to a flashily dressed Italian lady who must have applied Chanel No. 5 with a garden hose. To nail down my spot prior to the dealing of the shoe, I put a green chip on each of the two open spaces. I could see Miss Naples was visibly annoyed—she obviously wanted my other spot— but with a typical Latin shrug of the shoulders she settled down with her single spot. In retrospect I would have been overjoyed to have given her that second spot. Financially, I would have been far better off. On the other hand, Miss Naples, limited to her solitary spot, began her spectacular run, something she or I will never forget. Never, but never, have I seen so many blackjacks in the run of a shoe. After her fourth blackjack in a row even she became a little uneasy with the unreality of it all.
If I myself hadn't happened to cut the cards on that particular shoe I would have sworn that the fix was in. It was truly one shoe for the books! And the lady was a High Roller. The table had a $2,500 limit, and she often bet the limit. It was mind-boggling to see her rake in all those purple and yellow chips as the piles of chips before her just grew higher and higher.
When the shoe was finished, the pit bosses came around to survey the damage. The figure bandied about was $62,000—all from that one shoe. During the entire run of the shoe I recall her only losing maybe four or five hands, a stunning streak. (No, it never happened to me. I never even came close.) Was I jealous? You're damn right I was. Why, oh why, couldn't it have happened to me? Some day my turn will come. . . .
Can it happen to you? Sure, it can. I only recount these two episodes to show you that it can happen to someone.
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Tags: atlantic city casinos, blackjack tables, casino, craps table
June 7th, 2009
Early on, the lottery gang realized that lottery players are nothing but a flock of sheep, easy marks to be fleeced again and again. Bad enough that a pitifully small amount of lottery profits are allocated for prizes, but when some schmuck holding a winning ticket doesn't redeem it—the ticket expires a year from purchase—the state claims that it "recycles" the unclaimed prize "into the prize pool," which is total bullshit.
A $ 1 3.3-million-dollar winning Lotto ticket was purchased on June 3, 1996 and expired on the following June 3, 1997. Did the Lottery boys in Albany start off the next week's Lotto jackpot with the unclaimed $1 3.3 million, or with any of the $46.6 million in unclaimed prize money from Take Five, Pick 10, Quick-Draw, and all the multifarious scratch-off games? You bet your sweet ass they didn't!
Would you believe that, as the New York Daily News reported, a mind-boggling $59,900,000 in Lottery prize winnings went unclaimed in the year i997 alone?
Lottery players in general are proven losers, but especially those who blunder into buying a winning ticket and then don't even bother to check the numbers to see if they won!
It has been said that some people really don't want to win. When I see that almost $60 million was incredibly ceded back to the Lottery cabal by these born losers, I tend to agree.
The Spaniard who had a winning Lottery ticket for a January 1998 drawing can be forgiven for not cashing it. The unfortunate fellow died prior to the drawing and was buried along with the winning ticket in his pocket. The Associated Press news story didn't say whether or not his grieving relatives later dug up the corpse to retrieve the ticket.
Like your local Chinese laundry man says: no tickee, no washee. Same goes for New York State. The Associated Press reported on August 8, 1998 that Governor Pataki vetoed a bill that would have merely given a Long Island cab driver a hearing on his claim that believed them, the Daily News believed them, and probably even the lottery officials believed them, regretfully the officials gave their version of "No tickee, No washee": If you don't present the ticket you don't collect, period.
To repeat, if you're silly enough to waste your money on a lottery ticket, at least have enough brain matter to hang on to it and check it for a winner.
As dumb as lottery players are, in my estimation horse players are even dumber. Years ago I came to the realization that horses are smarter than people. After all, I've never heard of a horse that bet on a man. Have you?
The racetracks take an unconscionable percentage of dough out of the betting pool, but compared to OTB, they're benevolent. Off-Track Betting slices the pie even thinner.
And, like the lottery fools who don't bother to cash their winning tickets, some pony players piss away their winnings also by not cashing in. Since 1990, a staggering $70 million in horse bets has gone unclaimed. On September 13, 1998, the New York Post noted that $8 million had gone unclaimed in 1998 alone. The money just galloped out of the bettors' pockets and into the New York State treasury.
The stupidity of OTB players is exemplified by the player who bets there, then doesn't wait around to watch the race. When he opens his newspaper the next day and doesn't see his horse in the money, he throws away his ticket. What he forgets is the possibility that his nag was scratched, and didn't run at all. In that case, he is entitled to a full refund.
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Tags: born losers, casino