Ferris Bueller's Day Off

14 June 2016

By Frank Scoblete

OK, enough with my being a conservative, highly intelligent advocate of sound gambling principles and proper casino decorum. Enough, I say!

So many of my readers have written me letters saying, “Frank, enough with being a conservative, highly intelligent advocate of sound gambling principles and proper casino decorum.” They then add, “Why don’t you go nuts once in a while? Why not let it all hang out? Go ape, Frank, go ape, my man! Your ideas lead to gambling constipation. Barge your way through the casino as if there is no tomorrow. Don’t be a wimp.”

Nuts, hey? Nuts? Let it all hang out? Sure, sure, whatever the heck “it” is, I am now going to let my “it” hang out for all of you to see.

OK, yeah, this column is for those of you who don’t care about sound gambling principles or conservative methods of play or being well mannered. This is for those players who don’t care about losing money and love the idea of “going ape” which is a synonym for going “nuts.” I will give you my all-out going nuts, all hanging “it” out, going ape, non-constipated strategies based on the principle that if you play this way I hope you find a good trash bin in which to live when you are finished.

I am going to go one step further or farther (whichever form of that word is correct) and make you not only hang “it” out but I will give you insights in how to be the biggest PITA in the casino. (PITA stands for pain in the ahhhoooha.)

Go to the bank and take out all the money you have saved over a lifetime of hard, often arduous work. Ignore your family thinking you’re nuts.

This money could be for your retirement, your heart operation, your kids’ college tuitions, or charity to the poor and feeble, which is what you might be when you are done going ape. Make sure you get as many hundred-dollar bills because then you can look as if you are a big shot when you let your “it” hang out all over the place.

Go up to the craps table and throw money on the table just after the shooter throws the dice. Try to hit the dice with your hundred-dollar bill. When you get chips, wait for the shooter to throw the dice again and then throw all your chips in the air over the layout and yell, “Give me the Iron Cross!”

Then run (fast!) to the slot aisles, your favorite place in the casinos.

Even if few people are there go up to someone who is playing a machine and say, “Excuse me, lady, this is my favorite machine. Please go away.”

If the person gives you a weird look or tells you to jump in the lake or go to the hot place, take out a hundred-dollar bill, wave it in her face and say, “I’ll give you a hundred to move your immense derriere out of here on the count of three.”

If the person moves, sit down and then say to her, “I’ll pay you after I win the Megabucks.”

If she brings her husband, the towering, steroidal professional wrestler, over to beat you to a pulp, give her two hundred dollars and wave them off dismissively. Life is sacred after all; your life especially.

Now put money into the machine. No wait. Don’t play yet. Go to several machines, as many machines as you can play at one time before you think you can’t run fast enough to press the spin/play button on all of them before some idiot comes over and tries to horn in on your action. Once you have your money in multiple machines, now run and hit spin/play on all of them.

Keep doing this until you only have $100 left of all the money you have saved in your life.

Sadly, it is possible that luck favored you and you hit for a fortune. As a “let it all hang out” PITA player, you don’t want to go home a winner. In that case, take the money and divide it among all the players in the casino by throwing it up in the air when you see little crowds of them standing near each other. “Here’s for you, chap, even though you look as if you are a loser and your wife too.” You will gain many a thank you and some people might even call over the waitress to give you a drink. Be sure you make them pay the tip.

Now, you must go to a host and demand that he give you the biggest suite in the hotel because – after all – you lost every penny you ever earned. If he says no tell him you want to speak to his supervisor. If the supervisor says no, keep going up the ladder until you speak to the owner of the hotel or the CEO of the company. Oh, and you also want butler service in your suite; don’t forget that.

There, is that nuts enough? Is “it” all hanging out now? Are the apes swinging through the trees? Did you enjoy being a PITA?

Next column, I promise I will return to sanity.



Dinner at Eight


Sometime in the mid-1990s my wife the Beautiful AP and I were in the Golden Nugget in downtown Las Vegas. We were walking from the buffet, full and satisfied after a delicious breakfast, when a somewhat wild-eyed, somewhat disheveled woman stopped us.

“What’s today’s date?” she asked.

“April 2,” said the Beautiful AP.

She shook her head. “What happened to April 1st?”

“That was yesterday,” I said.

“Are you OK?” asked the Beautiful AP.

“I must have played the machines right through April 1st; the whole day. I’ve got to go to bed.” Then she wandered off into the bustling crowd.

“The whole day,” I said.

“That’s scary,” said AP. “She lost a whole day playing slots.”

Now I wondered this: When she got home would she say, “It was a memorable trip” or would she say she didn’t remember much of it? I’m thinking she’ll relate a story that she had a great time on her vacation to Las Vegas, something she’ll never forget.

In reality, did she really have a good time? I’m thinking the answer is a resounding “no.” After all, memorable occasions are not occasions you can’t remember them.

This lady’s problem, a wearying two days of zombie-like slot play, is more or less what many slot players’ experience. They play and play (they gobble their meals at the speed of light) and then play and then play some more. Every moment blends into every other moment and when all is said and done, the whole experience becomes a gray wash.

Okay, if that’s your particular thing, then fine, have fun if you consider slot oblivion pleasing. I don’t. If you are going to travel to Las Vegas or Atlantic City or anywhere else dominated by the casinos then making those trips only to wander in a fog doesn’t seem worth it to me. Just take a nice long nap and spare yourself the plane fare or the gas money.

My gambling mentor, the late great Captain from Atlantic City, had a theory of casino gambling that I have adhered to for a quarter of a century. Create your gambling day to reflect (to an extent) your regular day. Get up around the same time; have breakfast around the same time; play in sessions that are split up throughout the day and evening.

The Captain believed in taking time away from the games to walk, swim, shop, people watch, and go to shows. He thought all your meals should be occasions for discussions with your friends or, if eating alone, times to be contemplative.

He would always say that no human being can live by the casinos’ 24/7 rhythm because human beings are creatures of habit and one of those habits is rest.

If you are the type of player who says upon returning home, “I need a vacation from my casino vacation” then you should heed the Captain’s advice. Your casino day should be a regular day, with the games being a part of that regular day.

So I am going to share the Beautiful AP and my basic day in a casino. Now, I am not someone who goes to the casinos for a single day and then drives back home. My trips last between five days and up to a month. If I tried to play to the casinos’ rhythm I would be in a rest home, not writing articles and books.

5am: Wake up and moan about getting up so early.

5:30am: Take a walk and complain about getting up and out so early.

6:30am: Shower and go to breakfast (debate whether to have bacon) or to play a first session.

8:30am: Go to breakfast (and debate whether to have ham) or play a first session.

10:30am: Take a break; maybe sit outside with my wife and/or my friend(s) and discuss the world, the flesh and the devil and how that woman could have forgotten a whole day.

11:30am: Play a second session.

12:30pm: Lunchtime! Debate whether to have a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich or go to the buffet and eat as if the world were coming to an end tomorrow.

1:30pm: Go for a swim and lounge around the pool.

3pm: Shower, then take a nap.

5pm: Head down for another session or a people watch hour.

6pm: Dinner at a fine restaurant. A couple of glasses of wine or a couple of cocktails. Life is great! Dinner to me, to AP and to my friends is the treat of the day.

8pm: Go to a show, or play a session, then head back to the room.

10pm or so: Bedtime. Snuggle with the Beautiful AP or if she isn’t on this trip, wish I were snuggling with the Beautiful AP.

Yes, this schedule can be shifted, modified and changed. But you get the idea. The day is structured. I am awake during most of it. I can remember that yesterday was April 1st or November 3rd or whenever.

Frank Scoblete’s latest books are "I Am a Dice Controller: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Craps," "Confessions of a Wayward Catholic" and "I Am a Card Counter: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Blackjack." Available from Amazon.com, Kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores.