Win Big And Play God In The Casinos Part2
A Rouvan opening night at the Dunes was always a perfect excuse for Stella and me to fly to Vegas. This time, however, we didn't make a show reservation. Arriving at the Dunes in plenty of time for the dinner show, we found to our dismay that the showroom was jammed, with a line waiting outside. Haughtily, knowing the power of the $25 green chip, we bucked the line and told the maitre d' we wanted our favorite table, the cozy small one just to the left of the stage. The man looked defeated and forlorn— he'd have to refuse the green chip this time—because two middle-aged ladies already were sitting there.
If it had been my nine-to-five workaday money, or if I had suffered a bad run in the casino on the way in, I would never have dared do what I did. Drawing myself up to my full height of five-foot-eight, and well-juiced with a couple of stiff vodka-and-tonics on the flight in, I thrust a black $100 chip onto the maitre d's palm and dramatically pointed, "We-want-that-table!"
Suddenly the heavens opened and a chorus of angels blared their Golden Trumpets as Arnold Bruce Levy of Brooklyn, New York, played God at the Dunes. The maitre d' had a hurried conversation with the two women, and then escorted them to a table toward the rear of the showroom. Curiously, they were smiling as they left their table. We later found out that the maitre d' used his casino clout and was able to comp the ladies at their table way in the back.
It was, as usual, a spectacular Rouvan opening night, but later I realized what a rude and unsportsmanlike thing I did, which was, for anyone who knows me, totally uncharacteristic.
I ashamedly relate the above episode only to caution you not to ever commit as despicable an act as that. Do what I say, not what I did. Trust me, you'll never regret not doing it.
Sometimes the ham-handed approach doesn't work, anyway. A popular disc jockey in New York once announced over the radio a contest where one lucky listener would win a trip to Las Vegas and be a guest for the Frank Sinatra opening at the Sands. As I listened to his spiel, I decided then-and-there that my girl-friend-of-the-moment would also be a winner, courtesy of me. Arriving in Vegas, I discovered to my horror that the show was sold out. One black chip wouldn't get me anywhere, and definitely not to my "usual" ringside table. Fired up and desperate, I went over to the tables and won $400, which I took to the maitre d'. There were real tears in his eyes as he reluctantly pushed my hand away, explaining that Frank had reserved most of the room for 'The Boys."
Winning a bundle allows you to think like a winner. Three times in my life I missed the last express bus from Atlantic City to Manhattan, and each time I splurged and became The Last of the Big-Time Spenders, taking an Atlantic City taxicab all the way back to New York City, each time at the cost of two black chips. Once I actually did pay the cabby in Trump Plaza black chips.
I already had cashed in $10,000 in chips at the casino, the most you can convert to greenbacks in a twenty-four-hour period in a casino without the nuisance of filling out Internal Revenue Service forms. The remaining chips in my pocket I had planned to use on my next Atlantic City visit, so two of them became convenient cab fare for that night.
Sure, all through this book I've emphasized over and over again that, if you want to beat the dealer and come home with casino money, you shouldn't play big shot and show off for your girl friend. Once I went with my girl friend, a tabloid publisher friend and his wife, along with a mail-order letter-shop owner who had never been west of Hoboken, ALL on a flying weekend to Las Vegas. I postured, I pirouetted, I did wild things at the tables that I would never have done had I been alone.
I gave them a razzle-dazzle round-robin tour of both the Strip and the downtown casinos. I must admit that I felt like James Bond as I made daring bets, some of which, amazingly, paid off. It was just dumb luck that a $57 Keno bet won $605. My recollection is that I only played Keno there to show them all how the game was played. All in all, it was a fast-paced dazzling weekend which I'm sure my little flock will remember always. For me, it was an expensive guided tour, for I was a $3,800 loser. I never made that mistake again and I never will, but what the hell? I guess I got $3,800 worth of fun out of playing "Mr. Vegas" for a weekend.
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Win Big And Play God In The Casinos
One advantage of winning money from a casino is that it's not nine-to-five workaday money. You roll a pair of dice for a couple of hours and suddenly you're hundreds or even thousands of dollars ahead.
My uptight former accountant, who never ever gambled, suggested: "It's time you took a business trip for the calendar year," so I figured what the hell, and took him along with me to Vegas on the way to Los Angeles. A man who never bought a $1 lottery ticket suddenly found himself at a craps table in the middle of a streak.
Melvin didn't know diddly about dice—he was just at the right place at the right time. When he came home with nearly $2,400, his instruction to his equally uptight wife was explicit: 'The money isn't to be used for anything practical. We don't buy a couch with it and we don't use it to repaper the kitchen." They finally blew most of it on a weekend cruise to Bermuda—their first ever.
My first adventure in spending "mad money" was at my old Las Vegas horn of plenty—the Sahara. I had made my usual hit for the day at the Sahara and was on the way to my suite. Along the hallway from the casino to the elevators was displayed exotic and eyecatching oil paintings for sale. I was near the elevators when my roving eye was attracted to a large, dramatic oil painting of Don Quixote on his horse, ready to tilt at the windmill.
It was gorgeous and priced at $500. Now I like art, but I wasn't about to spend $500 of my money even for the Mona Lisa. Sure, I liked Don Quixote, but my art appreciation up to that point had been limited to just looking at paintings on museum and other people's walls.
Impulsively I wheeled around and headed back to the casino. What the hell, I said to myself, let me see if I can win some more of their money to buy the painting. . . .
About a week later the large, well-padded UPS carton arrived at my Manhattan apartment, and for the next few years Don Quixote hung proudly over my couch. My wife is now into theatrical posters, so Don Quixote is currently relegated to a storage space in the spare room. If my workaday money had been in question, you better believe that Don Quixote would still be hanging on the hallway of the Sahara—unless someone else was similarly smitten with it.
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If you really want to, you can even play God with casino winnings. I did it once, and let me tell you right off the bat that I am thoroughly ashamed of what I did. It was an arrogant, discourteous, and almost tyrannical act of mine, and I only relate it here as an example of what not to do when you're flying high with casino mad money.
Through our punctuated visits to Las Vegas, Stella and I became friendly with an extraordinary singer named Rouvan, who starred for years as the main attraction of the ongoing "Casino de Paris" shows at the Dunes. He recorded for RCA, and had a voice as good as Mario Lanza's. Rouvan "only" made $25,000 a week during the years when Sinatra made $125,000 and Elvis made $100,000, but as he starred for about twenty-six to thirty weeks-a-year at the Dunes, Rouvan's $25,000 a week totaled to more than the combined Las Vegas earnings of Sinatra and Elvis—who each only starred there for a few weeks a year.
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