The Adventures of MDawg II

Oh when I read the title I thought it was going to be about A.Wolf and me.

Quote: unJon

The 25% of the tie bet assertion happened.

Correct. I have never asserted an average tie win percentage other than about 25%.

Subsets of my tie bets, such as larger bets (up to $5000. on the tie) I have had greater success at. Also during a session or so, pit bosses have remarked that I was winning nearly all of my tie bets.

But my assertion is 25% or so.

Quote: MDawg

Quote: unJon

The 25% of the tie bet assertion happened.

Correct. I have never asserted an average tie win percentage other than about 25%.

Subsets of my tie bets, such as larger bets (up to $5000. on the tie) I have had greater success at. Also during a session or so, pit bosses have remarked that I was winning nearly all of my tie bets.

But my assertion is 25% or so.
link to original post

Since tie happens slightly less than 10% of the time, a win % of 25% (or so!) is so astounding as to frankly be not credible. I of course don’t know how many tie bets you have made in your career, but from your number of trip reports andmentions of tie bets it must be in the thousands. Winning 250 out of 1000 tie bets is so unlikely that it assuredly has never happened, barring cheating of some sort.

How many tie bets do you think you’ve made?

Can a ‘math guy’ give us the likelihood of winning 250 (or more!) of 1000 tie bets?

That depends on how many ties are left in the shoe.

Quote: MDawg

The most relevant factor is - how many ties in that shoe? Pushing 20 or just 2?

Shooting fish in a barrel crammed with fish is easier than in a sparsely populated lake.

But the shoes I played had above average ties. And as always I rarely bet the tie.
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MDawg has been almost too busy to take no prisoners lately. Almost.

Wynn got fined too.

Wynn agrees to settle anti-money laundering violation, pay $5.5 million fine to Nevada regulators

Things have really gotten tight in the AML department.

Too hot in Vegas, going back to Staadt for a while.

The JCK show was something though popped in for a few days just to visit that and pick up some diamantes at wholesale.

Made it out of town just in time.

Two dead in shooting near Bellagio fountains on Las Vegas Strip

A friend of mine fed me some video from a stadium Baccarat game because knows that I beat the game, but watching the games as they proceeded it seemed that even tracking all the cards isn't enough to assure a win. I did guide to a win, after had been in the hole before contacting me, but it was slight.

My wife was around during the overseas call, not that the time zone difference was the issue but it was late where we are, but finally she got tired of hearing the play by play analysis, so I had to cut it short and wish luck.

One thing my friend does, which is very hard to overcome in terms of net gain, is bet the tie every single hand. I kept trying to say that you can't do that, but wouldn't listen.

Quote: MDawg

Quote: MDawg

He was playing six decks "only" apparently. 😁


Nico Zoographic
Nicolas “Nicky the Greek” Zoographic is a famous baccarat player who lived during the early twentieth century. He was a member of a group of gamblers who toured European casinos. They made a fortune playing high-stakes games of baccarat, and Zoographic was renowned for his memorization skills and mathematical abilities. His memory allowed him to memorize every card in a baccarat game and alerted his team when the odds were in their favor.

During the early 20th century, Zoographic was a member of the Greek Syndicate, which controlled all baccarat tables. He had an amazing memory, and he was able to remember the order of three dozen cards when played with six decks. Zoographic also had an amazing ability to gauge fluctuations in odds in favor of the bank, and he was able to make the best bets according to that information.
link to original post

If you believe that knowing everything about what cards have been played and what are left makes a difference then it is possible to use one's brain or a computer to derive an edge.

This is not to say that this is the only Baccarat advantage play. There are more mundane but even more effective ones unrelated to perfect memorization.
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But somehow Nico did win using just that same ability I have, but I think the advantage I hold of occasionally knowing what the first card out of the deck will be is what turns the tide.

Have you looked at the aras plus v2 thread?

Let's just say that I don't know what he is doing.

Big blackjack player playing $25K a hand supposedly denied a smoothie by pit boss at Resorts World Vegas

I watched the video it is unclear to me what is going on (or not going on).

However, it is possible that the guy is currently overcomped. Comps are based on either of these:

Perpetual Comp Machine

10% of actual loss , or up to 40% of theo loss, whichever is greater.

So the guy supposedly lost a million beforehand, that's worth a hundred grand of comps assuming his theo didn't warrant more than that. He might have already burned through that and maybe at this moment he shows as overcomped. Heavy action and extended stays like I have enjoyed in Vegas cannot be sustained by losses, in my case I would have had to lose on the order of millions of dollars per year (one year recently burned through something like a half mill in comps, which would have required a straight loss of $5M that year to justify from the casino's perspective). Monster comps like I have received over the years are sustainable only by theo loss, which in my case is representative of winning, but could for someone else be representative of breaking even or a small loss. This is why the guy who loses twenty grand at a sitting is barely able to stay at the resort in a suite for more than a few nights comped, while the guy who sits at the table playing for hours and neither wins nor loses might have built up enough comps to stay a week.

Getting back to being overcomped - I recall once years ago (before my decade or so hiatus from gaming) I was told that I had negative comps when I asked for something from a pit boss, but the pit boss just overrode it and extended the comp anyway (this was back when pit bosses could issue comps directly for say, restaurants). Maybe in this case, this RW pit boss couldn't override the negative comp balance the guy was showing at that moment.

Or this video could be representative of something as simple as that at RW, pit bosses don't have discretion to comp anything that is not served directly by the cocktail servers. Or it could be a glitch - When RW first opened, I clocked them for six figures that same night, and ended up having to pay for my own late night meal at their food court, because their system wasn't working yet and hadn't applied any comps to my account.

When I am at RW playing, but not staying, and I want something like a meal at the Crockford's butler service area, or at a restaurant, I don't ask a pit boss I ask a host to load the comp onto my player card.

Things definitely have changed from the way it was a couple decades ago. For example the cigarette / cigar girl: At Cosmo I have asked for cigars for friends, and the girl can't simply hand them over, the pit boss has to look up your account and apply the value of the comp to it on his computer before giving her the okay.

And I will say that overall, RW Vegas has gotten tighter with comps over the past year compared to when they opened.

Quote: MDawg

Too hot in Vegas, going back to Staadt for a while.
link to original post

Back now! was starting to get a little rainy there anyway, after a heat wave.

Already in Tahoe for the next month, celebrity golf coming up.

Not windy, which is nice. Weather about perfect.

The new Harvey's (Caesars' Republic Tahoe) is actually quite nice.

The theme of Caesars' Republic is the wolf - not as in the Wolf Vanderpump restaurant, but as in the wolf cubs Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome.



New carpet,



but it doesn't stop there.

New poker room,



New High Limit,




new pretty much everything on the Casino floor



Revamped lobby



This is the prior table games area, which has been slight revamped.



Mountain Bar is the same.



Same old Sports Book however.



The balcony suite we staycationed in for a week is the same, not upgraded yet, but same beautiful view of the lake still too.



We'll be up here in Tahoe another couple of weeks at least, may go back and stay for a bit in another balcony suite, or try the 16th floor Harrah's butler suites, have not stayed in any of those Harrah's suites in a couple decades or so. Harrah's Tahoe is very much the same on the ground floors, but at least they did revamp their top suites recently.

So if I play say 200 hands of Spanish 21 at $5/hand with a 0.5% theo loss of $5, I should get $2 in points (40% of the theo loss), but if I lost $200 of my buy-in, they may adjust it after I leave and add $18 of points (10% of the actual loss)?

200 X $5 = $1,000
$1,000 X 0.5% = $5
$5 X 40% = $2
OR,
$200 (loss) X 10% = $20

Dinner: $23.50 in points excluding tax and tip.

My card balance keeps changing after the fact, and this could explain why. I only got $1.10 in points instead of $2 or $20, and I don't know if they entered in my 2nd $100 buy in. I only got 4 cents in points when I lost a $25 match play on the pass line, so maybe they are only paying 10% of the theo loss in points at this place.

I'll leave this casino with a point balance one day and come back weeks or months later and point balance is a few hundred off from where I left it and maybe even at an even dollar amount like they rounded it up or down to the nearest dollar after they did some more calculations while I was gone. I would hope they add $22.50 to it minus the $1.14 I've already gotten. But I did win a 500 point food coupon at the kiosk, so that's why I ate there or it expires. I wound up leaving a $5 cash tip to the waitress since I can't use points to tip the waitress. If I used a credit card instead of points, they'd add 3% onto the bill for the CC fee, but then I could add a tip not in cash.

Quote: ChumpChange

So if I play say 200 hands of Spanish 21 at $5/hand with a 0.5% theo loss of $5, I should get $2 in points (40% of the theo loss), but if I lost $200 of my buy-in, they may adjust it after I leave and add $18 of points (10% of the actual loss)?

That is similar to what we usually did but 10% of loss and higher was usually for the bigger gamblers.

Quote: MDawg

The new Harvey's (Caesars' Republic Tahoe) is actually quite nice.

The theme of Caesars' Republic is the wolf - not as in the Wolf Vanderpump restaurant, but as in the wolf cubs Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome.
...

Fontainebleau has a restaurant with the wolf+R&R theme too. Menu looks nice, never been in it.

The decor in this place looks remarkably like Foxwoods in CT. No relation of course, but they could have a contractor in common.

How is the baccarat? Do they have sidebets?

Up here I still play a reserved table, and since I do not bet those exotics other than very occasionally the tie (in Vegas there are periods where I have bet the Banker 6 bet, but at least one of the Majors has discouraged that by cutting away a full deck and half at Baccarat making it harder to count down or track the 6 bet), I might play a standard table


or one with all those side bets.



Sorry that the pic is out of focus but I believe the sides bets are all the ones you will find at Station Casinos Vegas.

They have both kinds up here in high limit (Midi Bacc), at either Harrah's or Caesars Republic, but even the Midi Bacc table with side bets is a commission table.

I believe the mini bacc table at Harrah's (maybe there is also one at Caesars' Republic, but I don't know) has all those side bets too.

Jon Pardi gets into the casino spirit!



Time was, all the same big celebrities who would play in Vegas would play at Harrah's Tahoe showroom, and even before that and before my time, I believe they might have even played Reno.





I think by the time I was coming a lot to Tahoe, in the very late 1990s and very early 2000s, things were fading, but I think Harrah's Tahoe still drew some big names.

These days the outdoor Caesars Republic venue is place to perform in Tahoe. I don't know if Jon Pardi is considered A List, but he put on a good show and we were in the suites so there was food, hosted open bar, and not too many people in the suite itself relatively uncrowded.

Quote: MDawg

...
Sorry that the pic is out of focus but I believe the sides bets are all the ones you will find at Station Casinos Vegas.

They have both kinds up here in high limit (Midi Bacc), at either Harrah's or Caesars Republic, but even the Midi Bacc table with side bets is a commission table.

I believe the mini bacc table at Harrah's (maybe there is also one at Caesars' Republic, but I don't know) has all those side bets too.
link to original post

Thank you very much! That's 5 Treasures. Station has Frog. Both are good, but 5 Treasures brings the fun!

Frog is a little tougher; makes me feel, you know, jumpy.

Doing well up here. But not playing very hard.

$10K chips seem to be a Tahoe phenomenon, at least I don't see them at the majors at which I play in Vegas.





The yellow $1000s with Bill Harrah's face on it have been around a long time, along with most of the other chips.

Caesars Republic has all new chips and some wild unexpected colors for the denominations of 1000 and higher.

T.I. trying to upscale itself?

Accor to manage TI-Treasure Island Resort, its first Vegas property

According to Accor, the property will retain signature amenities like complimentary valet and self-parking services.

The Las Vegas Strip resort features 10 dining venues, eight bars and lounges and 90,000 square feet of casino space and is also home to the long-running Cirque du Soleil show Mystere. The hotel, which recently completed a multimillion-dollar renovation, connects directly to Fashion Show Las Vegas mall.

I have played and put up guests there not long ago, and I haven't noticed a whole lot new. Mostly status quo of at best mid-level luxury.

Not in Tahoe, but nearby.

Two people killed, several others wounded in shooting at Reno casino

Feds arrest ex-NBA star Arenas for alleged ‘high-stakes illegal poker’ at Encino mansion

Federal authorities in Los Angeles charged six people Wednesday, including three-time NBA All-Star Gilbert Arenas and an alleged ‘Israeli crime figure,’ with running an illegal gambling operation.

Former NBA All-Star Gilbert Arenas was arrested Wednesday and charged alongside five others with conspiracy for allegedly running illegal “high-stakes” poker games in Encino that included hiring women to provide “companionship” for gamblers, court records show.

Arenas, 43, rented out an Encino mansion that he owned between September 2021 and July 2022 “for the purposes of hosting high-stakes illegal poker games,” according to a news release issued by the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles. Players were charged a “rake,” or tax, to play, in addition to whatever they bet into various pots, prosecutors alleged in court records.

Interesting that they didn't even get around to indicting anyone until three years after the shebang ended.

Racing’s Formula One shifts to renewable energy, shrinking its carbon footprint

The race car organization has seen its carbon emissions drop 26% since 2018, as it pursues a “net zero by 2030” commitment.
Formula One has faced criticism from activists who say the sport is harmful to the environment.

Motor racing, a sport known for flashy, petrol-guzzling race cars speeding across twisting asphalt tracks, hasn’t been a pastime known for sustainability. Formula One is trying to change that.

Often referred to as “the pinnacle of motorsport,” the race car organization, which hosts an annual championship featuring the best drivers in the world, has seen its carbon emissions drop 26% since 2018. At the end of the 2024 season, the sport’s carbon footprint fell to 168,720 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent from 228,793.

Formula One said in a recent statement that it’s halfway toward achieving its minimum 50% reduction target, as set out in its “net zero by 2030” commitment.

Why don't they just race Teslas or other electric cars?

Quote: ChumpChange

Why don't they just race Teslas or other electric cars?
link to original post

Would a race crew be able to tweak the power like they do in Nascar

Cars be going too fast too quietly, might hit something. Need those deer whistle thingys, and other noise-makers for pedestrians or vehicles.

Quote: ChumpChange

Cars be going too fast too quietly, might hit something. Need those deer whistle thingys, and other noise-makers for pedestrians or vehicles.
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I've hit a half dozen birds, and a small javelina since I got my Prologue. Animals aren't used to electric motors and don't recognize the danger like they do with gas-powered cars.

The engines on electric cars and hybrids while running on electric only could be almost silent, but automakers have installed whirring noisemakers into them.

Quote: ChumpChange

Why don't they just race Teslas or other electric cars?
link to original post

Don't forget they use fuel to move between racetracks, too. I don't think they can just drive from Australia to China to Japan to Bahrain to Saudi Arabia to Miami in the course of 6 weeks.

Each car is only allowed to use around a tenth of a ton of fuel per race. To cover that 168,700 tons, that would take thousands of these million dollar cars, running every week, for a year. ("I think the fuel is being burned and emissions exhausted other places than just the racetrack.")

Las Vegas is down on its luck as tourism drops. Why it’s kind of California’s fault

Sin City is facing a summer swoon, and Californians — by far the largest tourist contingent, data show — are partially to blame.

Visits to Las Vegas were down 11.3% in June 2025 versus a year earlier, according to data from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

Traffic on Interstate 15 at the California-Nevada border was down 4.3% over the same period, suggesting fewer visitors from the Golden State heading for Vegas casinos.

The number of air travelers into Las Vegas overall declined 6.3% over the previous June. In 2024, Californians made up more than a fifth of air travelers into Vegas, with nearly half of those coming from the Los Angeles metro area.

A demographic report from the visitors authority estimated that Southern California provided 30% of all visitors to Las Vegas in 2024.

Add it all up, and Californians could be responsible for a significant portion of the decline in Vegas tourism.

I'm partly responsible too, in that we're from California, and we've been in Tahoe not Vegas, for about a month now!

Fairly certain hot blonde is from California. If she was going more, people might follow her there lol

Every day is Halloween. Why theme parks are going big on year-round horror experiences

Universal Horror Unleashed, a Halloween-style haunt opening this month in Las Vegas, is betting big that audiences are craving year-round frights.

Excuse moi for butting in… again. Which MDawg we talkin here? The father or the son, MDawg or MDawg II? I saw 2 threads here, one about the adventures of the senior and its sequence authored by the junior, MDawg II.

I had the strong impression that the senior, MDawg, had retired from gambling. I saw picks with his piles of $100,000 chips. Since his LV gambling adventure started, he must have won well over 50 million. So this must be Son IMHO

Just curious, no offence.
Peace to all!

"Sure, why not."

Point being - MDawg is everywhere. (And nowhere.) At once.

Quote: toolyp

Excuse moi for butting in… again. Which MDawg we talkin here? The father or the son, MDawg or MDawg II? I saw 2 threads here, one about the adventures of the senior and its sequence authored by the junior, MDawg II.

I had the strong impression that the senior, MDawg, had retired from gambling. I saw picks with his piles of $100,000 chips. Since his LV gambling adventure started, he must have won well over 50 million. So this must be Son IMHO

Just curious, no offence.
Peace to all!
link to original post

396597 views to date (8/5/25). I wanna help you reach the million, Junior. Add some to that pile of $100,000 chips of yours!

Chip ennui has gotten to where I don't take pics of chips all the time anymore. Not even $100K ones.



And up here in Tahoe, I'm more curious about the prevalence of $10K chips, which don't even exist at the Majors on the Vegas Strip.

Quote: toolyp

Excuse moi for butting in… again. Which MDawg we talkin here? The father or the son, MDawg or MDawg II? I saw 2 threads here, one about the adventures of the senior and its sequence authored by the junior, MDawg II.

I had the strong impression that the senior, MDawg, had retired from gambling. I saw picks with his piles of $100,000 chips. Since his LV gambling adventure started, he must have won well over 50 million. So this must be Son IMHO

Just curious, no offence.
Peace to all!
link to original post

This is the second MDawg thread, replacing the original. The first was closed for administrative reasons.

So far as I know, there is only one MDawg.

I assumed he was just being facetious.

Quote: MDawg

And up here in Tahoe, I'm more curious about the prevalence of $10K chips, which don't even exist at the Majors on the Vegas Strip.


link to original post

Your Tahoe experience and mine, are not the same.

Quote: AutomaticMonkey

Quote: MDawg

And up here in Tahoe, I'm more curious about the prevalence of $10K chips, which don't even exist at the Majors on the Vegas Strip.


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Your Tahoe experience and mine, are not the same.

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Bravo! You just flushed out (or down) the dog poop. The environmentalists will curse you tho…

Quote: MDawg

Feds arrest ex-NBA star Arenas for alleged ‘high-stakes illegal poker’ at Encino mansion

Federal authorities in Los Angeles charged six people Wednesday, including three-time NBA All-Star Gilbert Arenas and an alleged ‘Israeli crime figure,’ with running an illegal gambling operation.

Former NBA All-Star Gilbert Arenas was arrested Wednesday and charged alongside five others with conspiracy for allegedly running illegal “high-stakes” poker games in Encino that included hiring women to provide “companionship” for gamblers, court records show.

Arenas, 43, rented out an Encino mansion that he owned between September 2021 and July 2022 “for the purposes of hosting high-stakes illegal poker games,” according to a news release issued by the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles. Players were charged a “rake,” or tax, to play, in addition to whatever they bet into various pots, prosecutors alleged in court records.

Interesting that they didn't even get around to indicting anyone until three years after the shebang ended.
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The sleaziest thing isn't the illegal gambling, or the girls, but that Arenas collected a percentage of the tips the servers'tips. I mean, these are hard working girls, so leave their money alone!

No hard feelings Dawg. I joked on another forum too when I watched your series. We all enjoy our fantasies. In your case, you deserve the title “serial fantasizer”. Peace!

Quote: GenoDRPh

Quote: MDawg

Feds arrest ex-NBA star Arenas for alleged ‘high-stakes illegal poker’ at Encino mansion

Federal authorities in Los Angeles charged six people Wednesday, including three-time NBA All-Star Gilbert Arenas and an alleged ‘Israeli crime figure,’ with running an illegal gambling operation.

Former NBA All-Star Gilbert Arenas was arrested Wednesday and charged alongside five others with conspiracy for allegedly running illegal “high-stakes” poker games in Encino that included hiring women to provide “companionship” for gamblers, court records show.

Arenas, 43, rented out an Encino mansion that he owned between September 2021 and July 2022 “for the purposes of hosting high-stakes illegal poker games,” according to a news release issued by the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles. Players were charged a “rake,” or tax, to play, in addition to whatever they bet into various pots, prosecutors alleged in court records.

Interesting that they didn't even get around to indicting anyone until three years after the shebang ended.
link to original post

The sleaziest thing isn't the illegal gambling, or the girls, but that Arenas collected a percentage of the tips the servers'tips.
link to original post

And murder?

Inside the high-stakes clandestine poker world that led to a Hollywood Hills murder

Emil Lahaziel knew how to bluff.

On Instagram, he posed behind the wheel of a Rolls-Royce convertible. "Flying high," he wrote in the caption of a photograph taken on a private jet.

Never mind the seven-figure debt Lahaziel owed in his native Israel, according to a financial disclosure in a divorce case, or the admission to his wife that people were looking to kill him "as a result of some of the activities he did out of the country."

So it made sense that Lahaziel spent the last night of his life playing poker.

In the early hours of June 7, 2023, he went to a hillside mansion rented by a social media influencer. A valet parked cars as guests arrived on Fareholm Drive, which twists above Hollywood. Inside the three-story house, a chef prepared meals as men placed "high stakes" bets at the poker table, a detective testified.

Emil Lahaziel knew how to bluff.

On Instagram, he posed behind the wheel of a Rolls-Royce convertible. "Flying high," he wrote in the caption of a photograph taken on a private jet.

Never mind the seven-figure debt Lahaziel owed in his native Israel, according to a financial disclosure in a divorce case, or the admission to his wife that people were looking to kill him "as a result of some of the activities he did out of the country."

So it made sense that Lahaziel spent the last night of his life playing poker.

In the early hours of June 7, 2023, he went to a hillside mansion rented by a social media influencer. A valet parked cars as guests arrived on Fareholm Drive, which twists above Hollywood. Inside the three-story house, a chef prepared meals as men placed "high stakes" bets at the poker table, a detective testified.

At 2 a.m., Lahaziel, 39, walked out to meet someone he thought was a friend. The masked and hooded man shot Lahaziel in the face, leaving the Israeli national to die on the stairs of the sleek white house.
.
.
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It is perfectly legal in California to organize a poker game so long as the host doesn't take a cut of the winnings. But authorities allege sophisticated criminals turned poker games into an illegal enterprise, not only collecting a "rake" from the pot but also extending high-interest loans and extorting players who couldn't cover their losses.

Quote: MDawg

Quote: GenoDRPh

Quote: MDawg

Feds arrest ex-NBA star Arenas for alleged ‘high-stakes illegal poker’ at Encino mansion

Federal authorities in Los Angeles charged six people Wednesday, including three-time NBA All-Star Gilbert Arenas and an alleged ‘Israeli crime figure,’ with running an illegal gambling operation.

Former NBA All-Star Gilbert Arenas was arrested Wednesday and charged alongside five others with conspiracy for allegedly running illegal “high-stakes” poker games in Encino that included hiring women to provide “companionship” for gamblers, court records show.

Arenas, 43, rented out an Encino mansion that he owned between September 2021 and July 2022 “for the purposes of hosting high-stakes illegal poker games,” according to a news release issued by the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles. Players were charged a “rake,” or tax, to play, in addition to whatever they bet into various pots, prosecutors alleged in court records.

Interesting that they didn't even get around to indicting anyone until three years after the shebang ended.
link to original post

The sleaziest thing isn't the illegal gambling, or the girls, but that Arenas collected a percentage of the tips the servers'tips.
link to original post

And murder?

Inside the high-stakes clandestine poker world that led to a Hollywood Hills murder

Emil Lahaziel knew how to bluff.

On Instagram, he posed behind the wheel of a Rolls-Royce convertible. "Flying high," he wrote in the caption of a photograph taken on a private jet.

Never mind the seven-figure debt Lahaziel owed in his native Israel, according to a financial disclosure in a divorce case, or the admission to his wife that people were looking to kill him "as a result of some of the activities he did out of the country."

So it made sense that Lahaziel spent the last night of his life playing poker.

In the early hours of June 7, 2023, he went to a hillside mansion rented by a social media influencer. A valet parked cars as guests arrived on Fareholm Drive, which twists above Hollywood. Inside the three-story house, a chef prepared meals as men placed "high stakes" bets at the poker table, a detective testified.

Emil Lahaziel knew how to bluff.

On Instagram, he posed behind the wheel of a Rolls-Royce convertible. "Flying high," he wrote in the caption of a photograph taken on a private jet.

Never mind the seven-figure debt Lahaziel owed in his native Israel, according to a financial disclosure in a divorce case, or the admission to his wife that people were looking to kill him "as a result of some of the activities he did out of the country."

So it made sense that Lahaziel spent the last night of his life playing poker.

In the early hours of June 7, 2023, he went to a hillside mansion rented by a social media influencer. A valet parked cars as guests arrived on Fareholm Drive, which twists above Hollywood. Inside the three-story house, a chef prepared meals as men placed "high stakes" bets at the poker table, a detective testified.

At 2 a.m., Lahaziel, 39, walked out to meet someone he thought was a friend. The masked and hooded man shot Lahaziel in the face, leaving the Israeli national to die on the stairs of the sleek white house.
.
.
.
It is perfectly legal in California to organize a poker game so long as the host doesn't take a cut of the winnings. But authorities allege sophisticated criminals turned poker games into an illegal enterprise, not only collecting a "rake" from the pot but also extending high-interest loans and extorting players who couldn't cover their losses.
link to original post

Sleaziness all around. Now you know why I go into a casino, play my games-craps, slots and VP-collect my winnings and leave to go to dinner with my companions and then go home. If I ever get to *that* level like those in the story, check me in to the nearest mental hospital.

Quote: GenoDRPh

Sleaziness all around. Now you know why I go into a casino, play my games-craps, slots and VP-collect my winnings and leave to go to dinner with my companions and then go home. If I ever get to *that* level like those in the story, check me in to the nearest mental hospital.
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Note none of that happened in a legitimate casino. I'd guess more people get murdered in churches than casinos. In my experience when a skilled player gets in trouble it's when he left the casino floor. Got drunk, went someplace with a girl, went to buy drugs, went someplace with a girl, went someplace with a girl, was careless in the parking garage or traveling between stores.

That's why usually on a road trip I prefer to stay in a roach motel miles away from any casino. Nobody at the casinos knows where I'm going when I leave. Nobody at the motel knows where I've been or about my bankroll.