Dan Lubin has died.

Word is starting to spread that our own Dan Lubin died yesterday, evidently in his sleep. I hear when his wife got home from work she found him already gone on the bed. There is also a post on his Facebook page about it.

I need time to collect my thoughts on this. RIP Dan.

RIP. He will be missed

Terrible news. As much as people may have disagreed with some of his opinions, I worked with him on a few custom paytables for games and talked table games with him many times. He was a good guy.

RIP my friend.

Must have needed EZ Pai Gow in heaven. Please let the forum know if any help is needed with anything.

I am stunned...Dan was a good friend of mine as well as many others here. My heart goes out to his wife. Terrible loss, Dan was a good man and will be missed. Rest in Peace Dan and know that you were loved.

This is terrible news. I'm very upset to hear this.

This is a sad loss and my heart goes out to his family. He will be missed.

Oh, no. I'm terribly sorry to see this. My heartfelt condolences to his wife.

Oh, that's terrible. Dan was a great guy. He'll be missed.

Dan and I spoke five days ago. He was recently admitted to the hospital after suffering from angina and a heart attack. We had become good friends when discussing table games almost three years ago. We had stayed in touch and he was a true gentleman who gave without expecting anything in return. I'm honored and blessed to have met Dan and could talk with him anytime either of us picked up the phone. Based on what I knew of Dan, he is worthy of a memorial to honor his name. I was planning to see Dan in three weeks. My loss. I will miss him. It's very difficult to write. God Bless.

Sad to hear. May he rest in peace.

Rest in Peace Dan

Sad to hear this.

Very sad news. RIP Dan.

RIP Dan. :(

Dan will be missed here. Rest in peace.

Quote: Wizard

Word is starting to spread that our own Dan Lubin died yesterday, evidently in his sleep.

I'm saddened at the loss of our Gentlemanly Dealer.
RIP

I may have disagreed with basically everything he had to say but it is still a great loss. I will miss the heated discussions he was always involved in. RIP Dan!!!!

sad news. RIP

I will relay my experience with Dan to the forum. We met a few years back to socialize and gamble at the Rio. Of course we were going to play Pai Gow. He tipped on virtually every hand, and more if he happened to win on the bonus bet. He tipped so much he had essentially no chance to win unless he hit a giant jackpot. I think it was his way of giving back to those that needed it more than him. I truly believe that Dan lived by the Golden Rule.
RIP.

Holy crap!

I have too much to say....

Now that I had a few minutes to compose my thoughts, it still starts with holy crap!

I'm coming to town next week. We had tentative plans to have dinner one night. Among other things, we were going to discuss a new game idea I have - he's just about the only person I could trust to keep it under his hat.

Wow.

I first "met" Dan here. In April 2010, there was a discussion about the EZ Pai Gow that he invented. I asked how a regular guy does that, because I had a game idea that I didn't know what to do with.

He gave a lot of help with describing my idea and getting the provisional patent application done.

This was years before Dan wrote his book, but he already had plans to do so, so this was actually something of a help to him - reminding him of some of the stuff that needs to go into the book.

I finally met him in person in September 2010. I was in town for a wedding professional's conference. It was to by my last DJ business trip to Vegas, but my first gaming business trip. He offered to pick me up at the airport, and drive me around town, including introducing me to a couple gaming companies where I pitched my first idea, and to the office of Rich Newman.

Dan also drove me to the Hash House a Go Go on West Sahara where I met Mike and a couple other WoV members for what was at the time called a Wizard Coffee Meetup.

I've been to town at least a dozen times since then, usually with my own rental car, but we've always managed to meet up.

My favorite was when I had dinner with Dan and his wife at his home a coupe years ago. At the time he was living on one of the upper floors of the Panorama Towers. That's the two tall apartment buildings west of I-15 overlooking the strip. We spent the evening sitting on his balcony, drinking wine, watching the sun setting behind us, reflected off the mirror-like finish of the Aria. I've got to find that photo....

Dan will indeed be missed.

Wow, unbelievable. RIP, Dan.

So sorry to hear. Condolences to his family and friends.

RIP :+(

I assume Dan Lubin posted here as paigowdan, correct?

Quote: MrV

I assume Dan Lubin posted here as paigowdan, correct?

I am assuming so
I am not familiar with the name Dan Lubin
but
I have met Paigowdan and his wife
They were at the Mission fail mcnugget challenge
Seemed like a real nice guy
RIP

Quote: terapined

I am assuming so
I am not familiar with the name Dan Lubin
but
I have met Paigowdan and his wife
They were at the Mission fail mcnugget challenge
Seemed like a real nice guy
RIP

Yes. Dan Lubin's handle was Paigowdan. I appreciated his generous advice, and industry insider insights. He will be missed.

Quote: Ayecarumba

Yes. Dan Lubin's handle was Paigowdan. I appreciated his generous advice, and industry insider insights. He will be missed.

Playing pai gow poker at Derby lane st petersburg in remembrance of Paigowdan

Only knew him here on the forum. Seemed like a nice, knowledgeable guy (helps that my favorite game is Pai Gow Poker). RIP

He was a very kind MAN! and a great expert
I got a lot of help from him!
RIP Dan.

Yes, Dan Lubin was paidowdan here. He attended some of the WoV events and appears as the dealer in most of my gambling videos. I had a little extra time on the first shoot so did this impromptu interview of him:



Here on the forum he may have come off as a bit argumentative and had some extreme opinions on matters of advantage play. Probably his most well-known and controversial opinion is that card counting in blackjack is "cheating."

In real life, Dan was about the most optimistic, agreeable and happy people you could ever meet. Rarely was a smile not on his face, even in difficult times. In recent years he returned to dealing, despite health problems. He tried hard to make a comeback after the success of his own EZ Pai Gow Poker but as far as I know, nothing got off the ground. He and I recently developed a new game, which I selfishly hope will earn him some posthumous success.



Dan was a good friend of mine. He and his wife attended my 50th birthday party. I'm sure he will be missed by many.

Rest in peace. My Prayers for his family.

Wow. What a gut punch.

RIP Dan. I'll raise a glass to you when I arrive in Vegas tomorrow.

Dan was a very nice guy. Had good arguments
with him and his casino POV towards AP's.
Wasn't he in his 50's? I stopped counting the
number of men I know who have died in their
50's, it's too long a list. 10 years ago a family
friend who had nothing wrong with him, didn't
drink or smoke, was in his yard and bent down
to tie his shoe and dropped dead on the spot.
He was 51. There's something about the 50's
for men..

Poor Dan, he had so many plans.

He was around 55 I think. The record should show he was a smoker. I'd estimate about a pack a day. He could have stood to lose a few pounds too. Yes, healthy people suddenly drop dead sometimes but I would lay long odds his poor health was a major factor in Dan's passing. I think there is a lesson to be learned here.

Quote: Wizard

He was around 55 I think. The record should show he was a smoker. .

Well then, that explains a lot. 95% of the
50's guys I know who died were all
smokers. With every drag you take, many
men can subtract a few minutes from
their lives. I wonder if it's worth it to
them. It's not worth it to us because
now I don't have Dan to argue with
anymore. So sad.

Quote: Wizard

I'd estimate about a pack a day. He could have stood to lose a few pounds too.

As many of you know I sleep with the rear end of a vaccum cleaner blowing into my nose and mouth. Its even worse fun than it sounds but without it I stop breathing. (Yes, power failures can be dangerous for me). I've never smoked, not once, but I did hang out in an IRA bar in Los Angeles. I could stand to lose a few pounds too... a few hundred of them. Life long central obesity. Terrible stuff. There are various rules of thumb such as a neck size of 17 or higher as being at risk of sleep apnea and weight is often the primary medical focus but in reality sleep apnea is a disease of the kidney, very often overlooked. Indeed my cardiologist suffered from sleep apnea for much of his life and didn't even know that non apnea related kidney transplants are often on/off switches for sleep apnea.

So I would surely urge smoking cessation and weight loss to everyone.

Dan was a special guy, I can't say enough good stuff about him. I can't tell you how many times he would go to bat for me, tried to get me to pull my chin up. It was always a blast to hang out with him when I'd come down to Vegas. EZ Pai Gow was the first very large project I ever had, and between that and the countless doors he helped to open for me, I would be nowhere near I am if it wasn't for him. Behind only Eliot Jacobson and the Wizard himself in terms of how much I owe them.

The stories of his tipping largesse were 100% true. Every time I was in town, I'd get to see it first hand as we naturally had to have our obligatory bender. We'd often go to the locals places, and sure enough, he was probably tipping 7-8 units an hour. Easily. He got me in good with the Fiesta Henderson crowd. He was a gambler in every sense of the word. He'd often talk about chasing the 'juice', as all gamblers do, and what it means when you have gambling as a hobby. He even gave me my "old school gambler nickname", Charlie Ray. It's a sobriquet I'll proudly remember.

His distaste for advantage players was, of course, quite legendary. He didn't think too kindly to people who banked at regular pai gow, so that's TWO ways in which I pissed him off, I'm sure :P but he was such a stand-up guy all-around that it was a small price to pay. As a result, I'm still undecided how best to remember him: by putting in a marathon session of EZ Pai Gow, or counting the snot out of the local trash shoe game and then banking on the regular pai gow game until the Pan-Pacific Pai Gow Alliance runs me off the table. "Why not do both?" as the meme goes.

He was a good man, a decent man, and a generous man.

Long live his fame and long live his glory, and long may his story be told.

Quote: Wizard

... Probably his most well-known and controversial opinion is that card counting in blackjack is "cheating."

In real life, Dan was about the most optimistic, agreeable and happy people you could ever meet. Rarely was a smile not on his face, even in difficult times...

Yeah, Dan was very firm in his beliefs on the controversial topic of casino ethics.

Although I never got a chance to ask, I gotta believe that his time as a dealer made him particularly sensitive to the subject. He talked often about "shot takers" - the kind of people that would deliberately do things that might induce a dealer to make an error, or those people who claim they had a bet at craps, when they knew that they didn't. See enough of those people, from the other side of the table, and you're gonna get a bit sensitive.

On one of my first G2E trips, some of us went gambling one night. I remember that a dealer at a blackjack table paid me on a hand that should have lost (or maybe a push). Dan wasn't with us, but Miplet and I froze momentarily, then looked at each other, and simultaneously said, "Don't tell Dan." Then we cracked up.

I eventually told Dan that story. He also laughed it off.

My point is, Mike's right. Dan took a lot of abuse for his unpopular opinions about APs and casino ethics. But in person he was a great guy to hang around with.

The last time I saw him was last November. We were going to meet for dinner at Green Valley Ranch. I got there a couple hours early and was playing poker while waiting. I was wearing my Poker For Roulette shirt, so eventually someone asked what that was. It turns out that two players were table games dealers and wannabe game inventors. So when Dan arrived, instead of getting up to go to dinner, I introduced him. He talked to those guys for over half an hour about game design as well as his book.

When he was finally done, I had just got dealt in, under the gun. So I said, "Lemme play this last hand." With 7-2 off suit, I made a raise. three callers. I completely missed the flop, but made a reasonable continuation bet. After careful consideration, all three folded. I turned my hand up, saying, "Never trust a guy who is playing one more hand before dinner..."

As we walk away, he says to me, "You bluffed them."
I said, "It's OK to lie in poker."
He said, "Yeah, but you didn't have anything!"
I said, "Au contraire. I had the winning bet."


I miss you already, Dan...

I just heard the sad news, and wanted to share how much I enjoyed Dan's personality over the last few years I got to know him. There's just not enough people in this world that are as good-natured, straight-forward, funny and intelligent as Dan. We spent hours talking over the phone, philosophizing about casino games and joking about gambling, gamblers, and the business. i always remember his New York accent and humor. It was like talking to the Gary Marshall of table games. He was hilarious, and really understood personalities and human nature. I'll miss those conversations; it's always hard to believe that someone so animated and memorable could be gone. Rest in Peace Dan. (If he was here, he'd probably tell me some funny story about sitting shiva somewhere ...)

R.I.P. is all I have. Terrific guy and very smart, this is a loss for anyone who knew him. Condolences particularly to his lovely wife.

Does anyone know of any arrangements or address to send condolences?
(I'm too chicken to call Dan's cell phone and that's all I got...)

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Does anyone know of any arrangements or address to send condolences?
(I'm too chicken to call Dan's cell phone and that's all I got...)

I don't. I was also too chicken to call his cell but did text it with my condolences. Dan's wife Prapaisri has a Facebook page but she seems to not be active with it.

Several people have PM'd me asking the same question you did. As soon as I hear something I'll make an announcement.

Didn't know Dan personally, and from the gist of this thread, that sounds like MY loss. Condolences to the family.

I never met Dan in person, but I reached out to him after reading his book and he was very willing to share his expertise with me. I will always appreciate his kind and encouraging words he gave me and I will always remember that he took the time to help me when he didn't have to. RIP Dan...truly a class act.

In late September of 2011 I packed up and moved to Vegas with only what would fit in my car. I rented a cheap apartment near the Palace Station for the first year or so of my time in Vegas. The night I arrived into town I met up with Dan at the Fiesta Henderson. He was just getting off work (around 2am). I had bought a room at Sunset Station for the night. Dan treated me to dinner at the Sunset Station. Through my time working in the Casino’s, Dan was a major influence on my development and was always a great person to speak to. Even after I left the casino industry in 2013, I still visited with Dan. It has been awhile since I have seen him. I do have memories of going to 24 Hour fitness with him and a few times we went on a few jogs together. Dan was into getting in shape and was trying to make things better. Although I can’t remember the exact last time I saw Dan, I will never forget his warm welcoming personality and how wonderful of a person he was to be around.

What a tragic loss and premature ending to such a well respected member of the gaming community.

I knew Dan well and although he bounced around like a mad professor at times his main focus was on helping fellow inventors realise their dreams and to allow a fair game of chance to be offered to players. His energy and unbounded enthusiasm, in this industry, propelled him to be a highly regarded contributor in the field of inventing casino games.

Using Dan's analogy, he was dealt a pair of Jacks and a straight only for fate to turn over 2 kings and a flush.

R.I.P. Dan - a very sad day for those who knew him.

☹

I met with Dan in person many times before I knew who he was. The first time I met him he was dealing craps at Fiesta Henderson. I liked playing there because I had a host that would call me in, and I would get more attention with $1,000 in action there than anywhere.

Dan, along with every other craps dealer that has dealt to me, has explained, and I quote, "you are not an easy player to deal to." I always took that as a complement. Dan liked to challenge folks' thinking, and he definitely was more of a philanthropist on the player's side of the table targeting other dealers, not much of a "play to win money in the long run" type of player. He was there for the entertainment. And yes, he loved to smoke. Fiesta Ranch and Fiesta Henderson both were among the casinos that embraced smoking as a way of life. My dad was also a smoker and that's just who he was. Dan was very nice and very polite about it, but we never spoke about his smoking. It was almost a contrast to every other aspect about him that he was a smoker. He was smart and he cared genuinely about other people. It seems he was hooked-in to the casino-gaming lifestyle, but that's also what made him good at what he did. He created experienced for players and he loved playing his game and loved dealing his game and loved telling stories about how he created the rules that enabled the game to be easier to deal which made it more fun to play for the casual player and more profitable for the casino. He struck a chord, and I always felt that he shared a lot of greatness with others for both being a player and a successful table games creator.

Dan was also extremely proud to have been hired by Galaxy Gaming. I visited with Dan at Galaxy as did many from this forum. Both for their open house and for a few of their social events. I also had been brought in to speak with Galaxy Gaming folks and Dan truly made tons of efforts to get exposure to Stephen and my early efforts at NanoTech gaming. He truly cared about folks in a way that transcended what you would learn to expect from people in Las Vegas.

The culture of the play at Fiesta Henderson was very familiar to Dan and he was easily a huge positive face that Fiesta Henderson was proud to have had working for them.

I know we will all miss Dan, especially those who met him in person. We need more people who care about other people more than they care about their bottom line. Dan was truly just one of those sorts of persons who was just in love with life and just happy to have enjoyed so much success as he had enjoyed.

The last time that I saw Dan, he was present for the filming of Michael's craps videos. Dan was absolutely critical to helping get all of the rules of the game of craps straight to ensure the highest quality result for Michael. Just a happy guy who genuinely cares about folks. He still is that same guy, and I know he's still smiling and enjoying his new status on the other side.

If you want to do Dan a big favor, tip like a lunatic in his name the next time you play.