I appreciate everyone’s E-mail and Instant Messages, and not just the complimentary ones either. Although I can’t always reply to every message promptly, I want you to know that your input is respected and valued. I often find that your well-thought-out inquiries deserve and require a fuller response that would also benefit many other readers. Therefore, you may just recognize some of your e-mail queries as the subject matter for one of my full-length articles, or replied to here, for the benefit of many.
| Q: | MP, I heard about the “Bikini Blackjack Pit” near the pool area of the Rio Hotel-Casino, but was wondering if any casinos have female craps dealers in bikinis? |
| A: | Yes, the Tuscany Hotel-Casino (see my Cheap Craps Guide Part V article for a profile on this place) has recently added a craps table to its own Bikini Pit. |
You’ll only find the bikini-clad dealer-babes from 6 pm. to 2 am. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights (and on Mondays during the NFL season). It has improved player traffic somewhat, especially with guys who intentionally “short-spot” their Place-bet action so the dealerette has to r–e—a—c–h across the table to pick up the chips (cheques).
I’ll refrain from offering my personal views about this latest fad, or how long I think it will last; however, if they start paying Place-bets at even money as they do in the Bikini Pit for a “natural” in blackjack (instead of the normal 3:2, or the new lower-yield 6:5), you can bet that you’ll hear my opinion loud and clear.
| Q: | Why don’t you do public appearances, hold seminars sell books and promote a line of videos? Do you have something against making money? I would never buy a book written by someone I’ve never met. |
| A: | Why don’t you do public appearances, and hold seminars sell books and promote a line of videos? Do you have something against making money? I would never buy a book written by someone I’ve never met. |
All of my discretionary income is derived strictly from playing craps.
Doing this for a living is something that I enjoy, but I also want to safeguard the money that I make. I take pleasure in the whole Precision-Shooter Lifestyle and want to preserve my ability to CONTINUE enjoying it.
To my mind, it’s better to stay under the casino-radar, and not send up carnival skyrockets or unfurl semaphore flags to announce my arrival at the tables; and there’s certainly no need to instruct the boxman to order a “chip fill” of high-denomination cheques because I plan to “clean him out”.
I earn my money at the tables…from the casinos. Frankly, the fewer people who know who I am; the longer I’ll be able to continue doing what I do. In other words, I don’t need my face on a box of Wheaties breakfast cereal to validate who I am or what I do.
| Q: | MP, what is the average length of your craps sessions? How do you decide when to leave, and how long of a break do you take between each session? |
| A: | It all depends on my shooting and my mindset. The table, the casino, and the number of other players also contribute to that decision. |
If my shooting on a particular table is dialed in, I will sometimes stay until it starts to turn “bad”. If my head is in the game the profit is flowing, and I am getting the dice cycled back to me quickly because of the few players at the table, then I’ll continue to play. In that case, my session can range anywhere from 40 minutes to several hours.
If the table is crowded, I’ll usually only shoot once or twice before seeking less-populated layouts. If all of the tables are crowded, I’ll bide my time until I get a great hand or until I start to feel any frustration about the dice taking so long to get back to me.
My actual playing time depends on all of those factors and the casino’s loss tolerance (profit allowance for me, or the whole table if it has filled up and everyone has won a lot during my roll). Again, the idea is to prevent the casino from associating MY face with the disappearance of THEIR money.
Right now, it takes me about 12 to 15 actual hands (of my Precision-Shooting) to make my “daily nut” (the minimum amount of profit that I want for the day). If my shooting is grooved in at an empty table, I can usually hit my daily win-goal in about 30 to 40 minutes of solo shooting (when I’m getting about 4 rolls per minute). In that case, I might even win my daily-nut in just one hand (although it does not happen very often). If my shooting is only fair to middling, and the tables are crowded, obviously it takes quite a bit longer (about three hours) to reach my daily win-goal.
Once I reach my win-goal, I will use incrementally larger (higher) profit plateaus and then continue to play by ratcheting up my locked-in winnings by setting ever-stricter (tighter) loss-limits. In total, I put in a grand total of four to six hours of craps play per day.
That four to six-hour time span is divided by breakfast and/or lunch and may be played on different tables, in different casinos, and often even in different gaming jurisdictions (Las Vegas, Primm, Jean, Mesquite, and Laughlin or Detroit, Windsor, Niagara Falls, Rama, Turning Stone, and a dozen or so outlying Michigan casinos).
On average right now, I play about 25 hours per week over a four or five-day week.
| Q: | Do you think that some of today’s popular gambling writers are “two-timing” by working WITH the casinos to take away from players any of the positive advantages that they are teaching them to have during their player-seminars? |
| A: | Do you think that some of today’s popular gambling writers are “two-timing” by working WITH the casinos to take away from players any of the positive advantages that they are teaching them to have during their player seminars? |
| Q: | As you know, I have some mobility problems, but I would still like to get around Las Vegas without getting exhausted from all the walking. Is there any place to rent motorized scooters or wheelchairs in Vegas? |
| A: | Yes, there are several places, but the one that consistently gets the best reviews for customer service and problem-free equipment is Mesa Medical (702-263-8511). They will drop off a scooter at your hotel so it is waiting for you upon your arrival, and then when you leave, they pick it up after your departure. |
| Q: | I understand that there is a video that a couple of guys are working on that will show “proof” that dicesetting works. Do you think that it would affect the way that casinos view what we do? |
| A: | In the face of video proof, it might take a little while before every casino takes protective counter-measures, but I can assure you that once they are convinced, it won’t take long. |
Let me put it this way:
You and I would NEVER have heard of Rodney King if someone hadn’t put out hard video evidence of his beating by the LAPD. We may have suspected of or heard rumors that those types of things were being done, but it took video proof to galvanize a community response. Without it, it would have been just another perp making yet one more unsubstantiated claim of police brutality. Unfortunately, that would have also meant missing out on the three-day street party that came to be known as the LA riots. The video proof made all the difference then, just as it will with Precision-Shooting now.
| Q: | Hi MP, you mentioned that the dice-sets and tosses that you use are in your articles. I don’t want to read through all of them, so can you narrow it down for me so I can find them. You also mentioned that you use both the pendulum and from-the-table launches. Why the two? |
| A: | The various tossing styles that I use are covered in my Shooting Bible series, especially Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, and Part VI. |
As to the different sets, well I don’t play around with them too much unless I get into a real performance slump. Generally, I use the S-6 or All-7 set for the Come-Out, and then the V-3, X-6 or V-2 for the Point-cycle. I sometimes make slight facial adjustments to those sets during a roll, but generally, I don’t get overly fancy with them.
The reason for using both the from-the-table launch and the pendulum-swing release is to compensate for different table/felt/underlay characteristics and various throwing-distance lengths.
| Q: | Mad Pro, I enjoyed your Match-Play Coupon Circuit series of articles so much that my wife and I got a good portion of our last Las Vegas trip paid for by using a combination of match-plays, free food coupons and free-room deals. We even tried the off-menu Porterhouse Steak Special at Ellis Island Casino that you mentioned, and couldn’t believe that we got a $5 match-play even after only paying a $1.98 for both dinners, using the 2-for-1 voucher that you also wrote about in that series. Are you planning any more articles that cover other “angles” that Precision-Shooters can use to gain even more advantage over the casino? |
| A: | Let me first say that when you order the Steak Special at Ellis Island, you’ll get at least one $5 match-play. If you ask nicely, you’ll just as likely end up with two or more. If you are a recognized regular, you might end up with even more simply because the tourists who frequent this place often don’t know about the match-play coupon and some employees of EI don’t bother to let them know about it either. Therefore, when they reconcile the chits at the end of the day, there is always a positive balance between the number of steak-special covers that they’ve sold and the number of match-plays that they’ve given away. Regular visitors to that restaurant who “take care” of the employees who take care of them are often rewarded in kind with multiple m-p’s. It’s a symbiotic server/client relationship that is alive and doing quite well in Las Vegas. Unfortunately, the price is now $4.99 for that same special, but with the Two-For-One Coupon, it’s still a good value. To answer your second question regarding more advantage-play “angles”; yes, there are definitely many more that we’ll be discussing in future articles. |
| Q: | In Las Vegas; Bellagio, Mirage and MGM Grand each have dedicated non-smoking tables, and several more casinos are joining suit. At other places, no matter where you play, my best advice is to seek out a table where one end is empty or where none of the players are smokers; then politely ask the Table-Game Supervisor or Pit Boss if he can put a “No Smoking” sign up at your end of the table. This is what a friend of mine (and several like-minded dealers) refer to as “Swimming in the Non-Peeing End of the Pool”. I hope your health improves as well as your shooting. |
| A: | In Las Vegas; Bellagio, Mirage and MGM Grand each have dedicated non-smoking tables, and several more casinos are joining suit. At other places, no matter where you play, my best advice is to seek out a table where one end is empty or where none of the players are smokers; then politely ask the Table-Game Supervisor or Pit Boss if he can put a “No Smoking” sign up at your end of the table. This is what a friend of mine (and a number of like-minded dealers) refer to as “Swimming in the Non-Peeing End of the Pool”. I hope your health improves as well as your shooting. |
Thanks again for all of the excellent questions.
Until next time,
Good Luck & Good Skill at the Tables…and in Life.
The Mad Professor
