Behind the Bellagio

An article from Cigar Aficionado magazine(which always has great articles on gambling and Vegas) The article is about 6 months old but still a good read about what the Bellagio does to keep their high rollers happy.....I found these part interesting.

“We’ve arranged to have players throw out the first pitch at a Dodgers game or to take a shot at an NBA game,” he says. “And right now we’re working on an artifact from Israel for a player who we think will appreciate it.”
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The same goes for the dealers, standing at their tables, in pristine rooms, walls decorated with bland but attractive art, looking buttoned down and engaged, even if they are bored as hell.

Sometimes they do absolutely nothing for an entire eight-hour shift, just standing at attention, listening to music on the room’s sound system and waiting for a particular player to come down and bet six figures per hand. “I’m in here, making the time pass by thinking about golf,” says dealer Jerry Colianni, who’s seen players bet as much as $300,000 per hand and has been tipped as much as $150,000 (although he’s also had cards slammed down in front of him and watched people toss chairs when they lose).
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Other players, of course, dispense with anything so obvious but have their own peculiarities. Colianni recalls a player who’s so in love with action that he bets $300,000 per hand, demands that the games move quickly enough for him to get in six hands per minute, and has blackjack and baccarat tables at the ready so that he can switch from one to the other without wasting a moment. “At the baccarat table, I was dealing, another guy was paying and collecting and a third person calculated the commissions,” remembers Colianni. “He gave us $84 million in action per hour, he played all day, his host was continually at his side and he wound up losing $30 million.


http://www.cigaraficionado.com/webfeatures/show/id/16041/p/1

Its always a different world for the rich. High limit rooms, comps, walls knocked down or put up with bellmen walking the paperwork through the government clerk maze.
Vegas is the only town where character is determined by how thick your wallet is.

Quote: vert1276

An article from Cigar Aficionado magazine(which always has great articles on gambling and Vegas) The article is about 6 months old but still a good read about what the Bellagio does to keep their high rollers happy.....I found these part interesting.

http://www.cigaraficionado.com/webfeatures/show/id/16041/p/1

This is an excellent read and is directly linked here.

I thought the surveillance part of the story was interesting on its own.

Quote: FleaStiff

Vegas is the only town where character is determined by how thick your wallet is.

Really? I'd argue most of the world works that way. Have enough money and you can get anything you want. In Vegas "anything" just happens to include a lot more exotic things.

Quote: AcesAndEights

Really? I'd argue most of the world works that way. Have enough money and you can get anything you want. In Vegas "anything" just happens to include a lot more exotic things.

Have to agree with this post. If the price is right you can have anything you want in this world.

Here's an article from Cigar about the Blackjack Ball
from 1999. Interesting.

Here's one from the magazine on scam artists.

Quote: EvenBob

Here's an article from Cigar about the Blackjack Ball
from 1999. Interesting.

Here's one from the magazine on scam artists.

interesting in the cheating article is said......

"Buy into a blackjack game in any California card room, such as the well-known and well-run Commerce Casino, and you will encounter a stolid looking person holding piles of cash and chips. This person does not deal but does pay out and collect. Because the casino does not lose money if people cheat, operators are less likely to install state of the art surveillance equipment and they have limited incentive to enforce rules that protect the games."


So are table games in L.A. still privately banked? It used to be that way where I live(Seattle) when card rooms first started popping up in the late 1990's...I used to bank a blackjack game at a fairly busy casino when I had the extra money...you had to put up 1,000 and of course there was always a waiting list to be "the house".... The player used to have to pay a 25 cent commission per hand.....is there a commission per hand in L.A.?

At the card room I worked at near SF, the commission was $1 per hundred for players, so 0-100 $1 101-200 etc.. and the banker would pay 3 or $5 depending on how much they were banking. CA just needs to legalize gaming the corporation banking really slows down the game and it is ridiculous to get paid by someone on a seat.

Quote: NicksGamingStuff

CA just needs to legalize gaming, the corporation banking really slows down the game and it is ridiculous to get paid by someone on a seat.

Ridiculous, but its been that way in cardrooms in WA and CA ever since the wild west days when some of those rooms were founded. The banker has to stack up a proper payout for a blackjack next to each player do demonstrate his ability and readiness to pay off, otherwise he is just someone renting a chair for seven dollars an hour like everyone else.

How do these cardrooms work?

Can the casino bar a counter or even if they can, do they bar counters since they are only get paid commision.
On the opposite side can someone banking a game refuse someone's bet because he is a counter. Or at least decide to stop banking a game when he identifies a counter.

Quote: AceTwo

How do these cardrooms work?

Can the casino bar a counter or even if they can, do they bar counters since they are only get paid commision.
On the opposite side can someone banking a game refuse someone's bet because he is a counter. Or at least decide to stop banking a game when he identifies a counter.

I don't think you would ever find a counter at a commission game....If he is paying 1%-5% commission per hand....then he cant be a advantage player.....