The Sahara is closing.

[MPRanger]

The Sahara hotel casino is going out of business. I had a lot of good times playing blackjack there. I didn't mean to put them out of business. I will miss the place. I really will.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-na-vegas-sahara-20110312,0,6466129.story?track=rss (http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com%2Fbusiness%2F la-na-vegas-sahara-20110312%2C0%2C6466129.story%3Ftrack%3Drss&h=bad53)

[Dave Schwartz]

Ranger,

I, too, had some great experiences there back in the '70s.

I worked there one night. Well, almost one night. LOL - I came in on swing as an extra board crap dealer. About 90 minutes into the shift I was on the stick and the dealer on 2nd base was heisting the store with a player. I called him on it and he just ignored me.

When I went on break I went to the boss and said that I did not like the crew I was on. Instead of asking me what the problem was, he sent me home. Sometimes it goes all the way up - you just don't know.

Another time I beat them for $8,000 after having been stuck almost my entire bankroll for the night - about $30,000. When I went up to the cage, the woman who counted out my money was a real arrogant, old, pinch-faced woman. I watched her count my money and knew she had over-paid me by about $6,000. I told her she had made a mistake and she got pissy with me.

I told her I was fine with walking away from the window but that it would cause her to be short in a big way. She grudgingly counted out the money and when she got to $38,000 she was left with a fist full of dollars. She remained snotty - no thank you, nothing.

I made the mistake of complaining to my floorman-buddy who told his boss (against my wishes) and they fired her - after 15 years on the job! Even though she deserved a reprimand I felt horrible.

I've actually got a few more, including a really good story about Lawrence Revere (alias Griffith Owens). If anyone is interested, I'll tell that one.


Dave

[offtrack]

I love a ggod story. Please continue...

[MPRanger]

I've actually got a few more, including a really good story about Lawrence Revere (alias Griffith Owens). If anyone is interested, I'll tell that one.


Dave


Well don't hold out on us Dave. I'm always up for a good story.

Here's a Sahara celebrity story I've got: Back when I used to smoke, I went into the gift shop to get a pack of Marlboros. Harrison Ford was standing there in a deep conversation with this absolutely gorgeous babe. They were blocking me from getting to the counter. I waited patiently and politely for about ten seconds but they weren't moving or finishing up their discussion. It was kind of rude of them. They could see I was standing there waiting on them to move. Finally I said, "Hey, are you in line here or what?"

Both of them instantly shot piercing almost offended looks at me. It was like; nobody talks to us like that. I don't know. I must have said it in the way that I meant it. I'm big fan of Harrison Ford but I wasn't gonna wait all day. Heck, I was jonesin for a cigarette!

Please tell your Lawrence Revere story.

[JustRalph]

This thread freaked me out.

I thought it was the desert that was closing.

[BlueShoe]

I've actually got a few more, including a really good story about Lawrence Revere (alias Griffith Owens). If anyone is interested, I'll tell that one.
Dave
By all means continue. As a one time serious blackjack player, his "Playing Blackjack as a Business" was a very important early text. Another old line joint bites the dust, sad. How many from the pre Hughes/Corporation days are still left? The Riv, Trop, Flamingo?

[Dave Schwartz]

First, Lawrence Revere did not actually write Playing Blackjack as a Business. It was written/ghosted by one Jim Mildon, longtime Reno resident.

okay here goes...

I met Lawrence Revere in 1975 when I came by his Rexford Place duplex. I was relatively new to the gaming industry in Nevada but not new to card counting. I had gone over to purchase a copy of his Advanced Point Count system, commonly referred to as "APC." He sold it to locals for $50 as I recall.

Once in a while when I'd came by he would be teaching a class. He had a blackjack table set up and always had a pretty, young assistant. his students were primarily out of town highrollers who would pay him large amounts of money for lessons.

Locals were treated much differently. if one of us wanted a lesson or simply some discussion, it was $25. The out-of-towners would pay whatever the traffic would bear, perhaps hundred dollars an hour or more.

One time I sat quietly waiting for him to finish with the client. The client had reached that point in the instruction process where he felt he did not need any more lessons. I watched as Specs... We all called him Specs back then.

Anyway, I watched as Specs dealt through the deck and, on several occasions performed a move known as "capping the deck." in this action a card or two are taken from the discards and added to the top of the deck. When there were only a couple of cards left in the deck Specs would ask, "what is the count of the remaining cards?"

Of course, the count was always wrong because cards had been recycled into the deck. After a few shuffles, the client would say, "I thought I was ready, but I guess I need more lessons."

one more to come...

[Dave Schwartz]

Spec Parsons had been in the gaming business for years. Old timers in the industry who knew him loved to share stories of Specs. In my years in the gaming industry I let it be known that I had an interest in Specs so the stories would just naturally gravitate towards me.

in 1977, my blackjack playing opportunities destroyed in Las Vegas, I gain employment at Harvey's Wagonwheel on the south shore of Lake Tahoe.there I met an older dealer - a woman in her 60s - who had known Specs for 40 years. That woman actually makes for interesting story as well.

She had just returned from working in Alaska for two years. Remember this was the time of the oil pipeline and money was flowing like water up there. She said that she had found a great gig running her own little blackjack game in the basement of a motel. She gave the owner a cut of for profit and she pretty much had free reign to do as she chose.

Make no mistake - one did not have a snowballs chance in hell of winning with this lady dealing, unless of course she wanted you to win. She said that she saved over $200,000 in her two-year stint there. When I asked her why she left she replied that all good things come to an end and that she left town in the middle of the night to save her scalp.

She offered up the following story:

She said that Specs was a well-known "Rounder," which is casino-speak for an "outside" cheater. That is, someone who cheats as a player. (He also had a tremendous history as a "mechanic," which is what we call and "inside" cheater. Actually a mechanic manipulates something - cards or dice usually.)

Now we get to the Sahara. It seems that this lady had been working at the Sahara in the mid-60s (among other places). Her quote was, "in those days you could always tell when Specs had played on the game because when you took the cards off the game you would find that the deck was short in fives and long in places.

This one particular day Specs have been playing against a four deck shoe for most of dayshift. Around six o'clock, when the swing shift floormen came on, the first thing they would do is change out all the decks. At this point, before the floormen had an opportunity to actually examine the decks, Specs got up and left.

When the decks were examined they found 46 aces in a four deck shoe!

[Greyfox]

I think that you've got to write a book on your gambling experiences, rather than a "how to win book." You've got to.

Greyfox

[Dave Schwartz]

LOL - I might get run out of Nevada - or worse.

Maybe we should do a little War Room promotion for PA here. If you guys think there would be interest, I could do a presentation. LOL - Seriously, I have plenty of these stories.

[BlueShoe]

When the decks were examined they found 46 aces in a four deck shoe!
Wow, starting out with a count of +30 right off the top of every shoe, what a dream setup! Have to wonder though, how he was able to get away with such things. In the 60's "The Boys" were still very much a presence, and doing naughty things could have been very hazardous to ones health and well being in that era. He could, of course, have been "connected", in which case the word would have been to leave him alone.

[MPRanger]

She said that Specs was a well-known "Rounder," which is casino-speak for an "outside" cheater. That is, someone who cheats as a player. (He also had a tremendous history as a "mechanic," which is what we call and "inside" cheater. Actually a mechanic manipulates something - cards or dice usually.)




Great stories Dave, sounds like you've had some great experiences. I'm very impressed. The term rounders was also used on the Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee gambling circuit. High stakes back room poker players were called rounders.

A Dallas Police captain labled them the Dixie Mafia and the term was first published in the Dallas Morning News by writer James Ewell in 1973 I believe. It's not the same people who now bill themselves as the Dixie Mafia.

You may be interestd to know that many of the players in the Tennessee State Line mob traveled the circuit. Remember Buford Pusser and "Walking Tall"? I could you tell you some tales that aren't in the movies.

But to tie this back into a Las Vegas story: Benny Binion got his start in Dallas running a policy wheel until District attorney Wil Wilson decided to put an end to it.

As long as everyone kept a low profile everything was cool. But Binion had an ongoing fued with a rival Herbie "The Cat" Nobels. One of them or the other was always getting shot at or their cars bombed until first Nobles wife got killed and then Nobels. Whatever and whover was involved, it was the last straw and they went after Binion. I have a picture of Sheriff Bill Decker booking Binion into the Dallas County jail. Binion did 4 years for a gambling conviction. When he got out of jail, he loaded up his family and moved to Vegas. Everbody knows the rest.

Sheriff Decker condoned the gambling by looking the other way as long as it did not spill out into a public story. And if you were gonna host a game, you just checked in with him and didn't try to sneak around. So that's when the policy wheels ended and the big games run out of the Adolphus hotel began.

Wil Wilson got such a name as crime fighter out of it he got elected State Attorney General. Then he went after the casinos in Galveston which were illegal but openly operated.

[Dave Schwartz]

A search for "Charles the Cat Noble" will (I believe) turn up the continuation of that story (which I posted awhile back) when Noble came looking for Binion in Las Vegas.

Blueshoe,

Consider the fact that most of those aces probably came into the game as "snappers" for Parsons, probably with a max bet. That's an extra 30 snappers at 3/2!

And don't forget that he is also removing fives.

[MPRanger]

A search for "Charles the Cat Noble" will (I believe) turn up the continuation of that story (which I posted awhile back) when Noble came looking for Binion in Las Vegas.


Dave, I like it when threads take off like this.

I don't know where you get the name Charles "The Cat" Nobles from. I assure you his name was Herbert Nobles. He was called Herbie "The Cat" as in cats have nine lives because he survived so many assassination attempts. He was finally killed off once and for all on Aug. 7, 1951. When he stepped from his car to open his mail box, an IED made out of dynamite blew him and his car to smithereens.

I don't know anything about him going after Binion personally. I'll try to search to see what you are talking about. Nobles ratted Binion out to the Dallas police and Texas investigators. He wore a wire when Binion sent Harold Shimley to express his condolences and assurances that he (Binion) had nothing to do with his wifes death. Shimley also conveyed Binions offer to whack the guy who Binion claimed actually did kill his wife.

[lamboguy]

i used to go in the place when tommy la sorda's brother was the race and sports book manager. the guy was a nice guy. he told me when i first walked into the place that if i won to much he would have to shut me off. i lasted 3 days but he did write a slip for lunch at the cafeteria.

they also had a poker game that was a no ante deal. i never played in it, but they had guys that sat around waiting for pocket kings or aces and made a living playing at that game even with the high takeout.

[Dave Schwartz]

Ranger, you may well be right. I actually got the story from the Green Felt Jungle - which was from Memory. I could well have gotten it wrong.

According to that book, Binion was already in Las Vegas at the time of Nobles' death.

Dave

[Dave Schwartz]

Here is a Wikipedia entry:

While in Dallas, Binion had begun a long-running feud with Herb Noble, a small-time gambler in Dallas, which continued after Binion moved to Las Vegas. Binion demanded that Noble increase his payoff to Binion from 25 to 40 percent, which Noble refused to do. Binion posted a reward on Noble's scalp that eventually reached $25,000 and control of a Dallas crap game. Many tried to kill Noble, but he escaped or survived numerous attempts on his life, although sometimes with gunshot wounds. Eventually Noble's wife was killed in a car bombing intended for him. In retaliation, Noble planned to fly his private plane to Las Vegas to bomb Binion's house, but was restrained by local law enforcement before he could execute his plan. Eventually, a car bomber succeeded in assassinating Noble.

Too bad. I actually like my version of the story better. As I think about it, I may well have heard the embellishments from a 3rd party - purported to be truth. It was a long time ago.

[MPRanger]

So anyway.......


Did you ever cross paths with Ken Uston? I believe your time frame is about the same as his in hooking up with Lawrence Revere.

[prospector]

i moved to vegas a year before the race book at binion's opened up..a friend who lived in vegas for 45 years got me a job working in the racebook..i wanted to see how real gamblers played horses..
one of the customers there was a man nicknamed "richie the fixer"..run out of the east coast for fixing college basketball games..
every so often he'd come over and place $1000 to show on some horse..keep in mind this was in the days before the casinos were hooked up to tracks...this was casino money..and he was the only one allowed to make those kinds of bets..often wondered what he did to rate that..
he's the one showed in the hot tub with 3 stars of unlv the year they blew the ncaa final..
never could say anything bad about benny..he treated all his workers and customers like royalty ..what great meals...

[MPRanger]

i used to go in the place when tommy la sorda's brother was the race and sports book manager. the guy was a nice guy. he told me when i first walked into the place that if i won to much he would have to shut me off. i lasted 3 days but he did write a slip for lunch at the cafeteria.

they also had a poker game that was a no ante deal. i never played in it, but they had guys that sat around waiting for pocket kings or aces and made a living playing at that game even with the high takeout.

They let the hookers work the floor too. I remember one girl who was a total knockout (of course) and was a very good blackjack player. I saw her several times hanging out playing til she hooked up. She obviously knew the pit crew.

[sonnyp]

http://www.a2zlasvegas.com/hotels/history/h-sahara.html


excerpt :
In 1964, Irwin, Webb and Sahara sponsored the Beatles' appearance in Las Vegas. This was a gamble in itself since the Beatles attracted people who couldn't gamble - teenagers. Irwin decided it was worth the gamble.

[lamboguy]

They let the hookers work the floor too. I remember one girl who was a total knockout (of course) and was a very good blackjack player. I saw her several times hanging out playing til she hooked up. She obviously knew the pit crew.they used to let hookers work the desert inn and the mirage hotel. i have no idea about the wynn, i have never been there. i haven't been to the desert this century, maybe i will make it out there soon, i here the place has a complete facelift, including downtown, my favorite radio station was KJUL, the JEWEL. they played all oldtime music like sinatra, louis primo, bobby darren, patsy cline, and all that stuff. i used to play in golf tournaments at the d i, they had a great course. everyone played with phony handicaps though, including myself! there were scratch golfers getting 7 strokes.

[Dave Schwartz]

Ken Uston - Yes, but only remotely.

I asked Ted Binion why I couldn't get Uston's game - dealing relatively deep and 1-2 spread, and he told me, "You know why."

Uston was a very good player. As Bucky Buchanan (one of Binion's floormen) used to say, "Behind you and Jim (my partner) Uston is the 3rd best player in the world."

[MPRanger]

Ken Uston - Yes, but only remotely.

I asked Ted Binion why I couldn't get Uston's game - dealing relatively deep and 1-2 spread, and he told me, "You know why."

Uston was a very good player. As Bucky Buchanan (one of Binion's floormen) used to say, "Behind you and Jim (my partner) Uston is the 3rd best player in the world."


So... you're the best blackjack player in the world? Better than Ken Uston? I knew I was gonna like this place.

[BlueShoe]

never could say anything bad about benny..he treated all his workers and customers like royalty
Back long ago, when Benny was running things, he did something for Blackjack players that would be unthinkable in todays world. For a few days just before Christmas, Benny would play Santa Claus. During this slowest week of the year in Las Vegas, instead of being paid 3-2 for your blackjacks, you would be paid 2-1. There were two rules in place, otherwise the players would have ended up owning the house. First, one hand only, if you played two or more hands regular rules applied. Second, to get the bonus, bets were capped at only $5, bet more and standard rules. Even so, this promotion was lots of fun. You could skip counting, bet one red check, and just play perfect basic strategy, accept the free drinks, and socialize with the other players and dealers. In theory, depending on the speed of the game, a player should win around $10 an hour, a fair wage at that time. Just one little detail to all this; you had to get your share of blackjacks. In single deck blackjack a BJ will come up once in every 20 hands in theory. If a player was running way below probability he would lose, great rules and all. As any BJ player will confirm, there are often long stretches during which you could not get a blackjack to save your soul. Still, the Horseshoe was a great place to play back then, great crap games along with everthing else.

[Dave Schwartz]

Ranger,

That was almost 35 years ago. What made me such a strong player was that it was very difficult to cheat me. (It takes one to know one.)

Blueshoe,

That 2/1 payoff was only good for the first $5, but yes, your memory was right on.

One time my BJ playing partner - the infamous Jim Smith (no joke; that is really his name) - and I were rebuilding our bankroll. We decided that the thing to do was to play at the Horseshoe every day until they barred us.

So, every day we'd come to "work." Everyone liked us - dealers, floormen, bosses. We played a reasonable 1-3 spread, starting with $10 units. We'd play 2 hands each (the Horseshoe's tables were all 5-spots.) and pretty much control the table.

We'd play every day to a target - a target that was part of our "master plan to riches." So, we beat them 42 consecutive days and they pulled the plug. At the end we were wagering like $40 units, I believe.

About a week before Thanksgiving Jim calls me and says, "We back! I've been begging Teddy to let us in and he said 'Yes' so we can play!"

We had continued to play all over town and now were betting black cheques
($100 units) but decided to only play "quarters" because we didn't want to ruin a good thing. We made it a point to play when Ted wasn't around and played different tables instead of together.

We had a great arrangement with the dealers: We explained that 20% of the bankroll belonged to the dealers, so we played $60 units (the $10 on top was always for the dealers). At the end of the day, we'd literally count out the profit and set aside 20% for the dealers. They did not get the "stake" - just the profit. We'd take the toke money, and walk around the casino looking for the dealers that we had done well with and make a big deal of handing out a few green cheques.

If we played through a shift change, we'd give some money to the current shift and come back the next day to toke the other shift. Most of the dealers trusted us to be honest.

We'd always get comped, of course, for OUR meals. In turn, we would go to the dealers' part of the restaurant and pick up all their checks. One time, a floorman who had just given us a comp comes running into the restaurant saying, "You can't put the dealers' checks on this comp!" I had to explain that we had no intention of doing that; we'd pay for it ourselves. We always did.

LOL - Once in awhile we'd find a dealer who was not with "the program." I remember a woman who just would not cooperate. This is no joke - I got another dealer to find out where and when she shopped for groceries and staked out the grocery store parking lot waiting for her to come in after swing shift was over.

There I am, walking through the grocery store, pretending to be doing a little shopping. I manage to be just behind her in line and bought like $120 worth of groceries for her. We did that sort of thing all the time.

In fact, I recall the day we got barred again. It was just before Christmas - we had completed our 37th consecutive winning day at Binion's (on top of the 42 from before). We started just after swing shift began (6pm) and immediately got into the crapper. (That's an impolite way of saying we were getting killed.) I'm thinking we were down like $5k for the day, out of an $8k playing bankroll.

Just after graveyard started to come on, around midnight, we catch this tremendous rush of cards and suddenly we are $200 ahead! It has been a long night but rarely do we quit without our goal. We play on and it is up and down, up and down. Around 9am we're stuck $3k, at 11am we're ahead $300.

This was how it went - down $3k to up $300.

About 2pm our dealer returns from a break crying. It seems that she cashed her paycheck and left it in her purse, stuffed into the podium (in the pit). On her break, she noticed that the money was gone - about $250 as I recall.

At that point we were up $10. TEN DOLLARS! We decided to play the $10 into $500 and give it all to her. We told her and every dealer we played with what we were doing. Of course, we promptly got stuck $400 (no good deed goes unpunished!)

She got off at 5pm. Around 4:00 we were ahead $490 and just could not get the extra $10. We finally decided that a bad run would kill the whole thing and quit. We waited in the Mint for her to come get her car and gave her a card with $500 in it.

She said, "What do you want me to do for this money? I won't help you." We said that we knew. We didn't expect anything in return. Nobody ever helped us. They simply didn't move against us.

The next day we went in to play and were barred. Again. So, counting both sessions, we beat Binion's on 80 consecutive playing days.

[Cardus]

This thread freaked me out.

I thought it was the desert that was closing.

I looked at the thread title and thought, "The desert is shrinking?"

[ArlJim78]

I saw the title and thought someone spelled Palins name wrong.

[delayjf]

What made me such a strong player was that it was very difficult to cheat me. (It takes one to know one.)

I could watch a card mechanic all day long.

[JustRalph]

Dave, you need to write a book

[RichieP]

Dave, you need to write a book

Definitely agree JR!

[BlueShoe]

Dave, you need to write a book
Sure, why not? Barry Meadow wrote a book about some of his blackjack experiences, so why not Dave?