I meet so many characters at the craps tables. Some of them have become life-long friends, while others that I see on a regular basis on any given day, wouldn’t qualify to baby-sit a rock. Some of them are among the wisest, but not smartest people that I know, while quite a number of others couldn’t even organize a trip to the bathroom.
I was going to write about my encounters with Gary and his two over-fed, mid-thirties, unmarried twin daughters who frequent a large number of the same casinos that I do in various jurisdictions. He too makes a living off of craps, but he’s none too happy about life in general, and it shows in the moody, confrontational hostility that issues from his lips every time he opens his cake-hole.
Instead I want to tell you about Eugene, a good-natured 83 year-old Precision-Shooter who I see every couple of months. It’s easy to find Eugene in the craps pit. He’s the one sitting in a chair asleep at the table, whose leathery face is marinating in his own saliva pool of drool that has formed in the chip-rail. Yes they let him sleep at the table between his shooting opportunities. If his snoring gets too loud, the stick-man wraps the stick on the table near Eugene’s head and barks out the last call. That usually works, although a gentle prodding with the blunt end of the bamboo stick is sometimes required.
Why in the world would a casino let a player continually fall asleep on the table? Eugene is a huge bettor who tips outrageously, and the dealers LOVE him.
He only bets during his own rolls. Typically he’ll bet $3,000 on the Pass Line, and back it up with maximum odds, and he’ll Place all the remaining numbers for $3,000 each. Concurrently, he makes corresponding bets for the dealers for exactly 10% of each of his bets. So on the Place numbers, the dealers will have $300 in action on each, along with their own Pass Line bets.
One dealer said, “The sleeping, drooling and snoring doesn’t bother me at all. If Eugene wants to take a crap right there on the table, I’ll volunteer to clean it up. There are very few players who even come close to ever matching his tokes, and the best part of it is that when he is shooting, Eugene usually has a good 3 to 8 minute roll. At that rate, we can drop thousands into the toke box. Let him sleep so he can rest up for his next roll!”
You would think that Eugene would prefer to play at a high-limit or private table. Rather, he prefers to play at a regular $5 table with everyone else. The Pit Critters gladly waive the table maximums if they are too low for his action.
So if you see a frail-looking white-haired gentleman asleep at a craps table, cut him some slack and leave him alone, because if it’s Eugene, the dealers are there for HIM!
Good Luck & Good Skill at the Tables…and in Life.
By: The Mad Professor
