The Wizard of the Venetian

Quote: pacomartin

Yet somehow the table games drop in Vegas soared to $609.0 million this year from $476.6 million in 1st quarter of 2011, and table games win went to 24.0% which is nearly double the 13.3% from last year.

One would think they reinstated the comps. But they raised their comps in Vegas only slightly from $18.4 million last year to $23.2 million this year (the comps were $51.8 million in 2010).

How is it that casino revenue increased while comp spending decreased? Is it because Venetian/Palazzo continued to wine & dine the whales (high rollers)? My understanding is that they only cut back on comps to the low-rollers and middle-rollers. This strategy would be suicide for a place like Excalibur, but for Venetian/Palazzo it was probably a savvy move.

Quote: reno

How is it that casino revenue increased while comp spending decreased? Is it because Venetian/Palazzo continued to wine & dine the whales (high rollers)? My understanding is that they only cut back on comps to the low-rollers and middle-rollers. This strategy would be suicide for a place like Excalibur, but for Venetian/Palazzo it was probably a savvy move.

First Quarter Table Games (Las Vegas only) millions of dollars
Year - Comp - Drop - Win%
2010 $51.8 $547.0 23.4%
2011 $18.4 $476.6 13.3%
2012 $23.2 $609.0 24.0%

Comps spending went up slightly from last year, but is still down significantly from before they changed their policy. They are clearly targeting only the high end customer.

While some people call changes in win percent "luck", I think it is much more a function of dedicated players who stay at the tables longer and re-bet their winnings multiple times.

I did use the word miracle. The Venetian/Palazzo Las Vegas has still managed to cut their comp budget in half compared to the year 2010, while at the same time increasing their Drop and maintaining win percent (i.e. play time).

I have a theory, however. The Sands Corporation name recognition is so high in Macau, that the Chinese gambler is playing in the Venetian/Palazzo while in Vegas for Chinese New Years even without the casino needing to return to the comp budget of 2010. That theory will be tested when the second quarter report is issued.

Quote: hhhccc

I thought it was not difficult to make six figures,

Define 'not difficult'.

I'm not sure what to make about the idea that when the Venetian doesn't have enough math work to keep him busy, they're gonna have him sub for cocktail waitresses who call in sick.

To be on the receiving end of Tips For Weird Knowledge.... though I have an idea the statistics will be in Oriental casinos where threats are greater.

I just missed the final table at one of the V's DSE events a week ago or so. Staff were all great. Not sure if poker is under Wizard's purview but if so, keep it up!

Is the Wizard still working for The Venetian?

Quote: reno

Is the Wizard still working for The Venetian?

Don't open old wounds.

Quote: reno

Is the Wizard still working for The Venetian?

No, this was an old thread, check the dates.

Quote: reno

Is the Wizard still working for The Venetian?

Hired on April 30th and let go on Sept 10th. He blogged about it on Sept 14th.

Quote: 1BB

Hired on April 30th and let go on Sept 10th. He blogged about it on Sept 14th.

Thanks, 1BB. Just read the blog entry. Dying to know the details, but obviously there are legal obstacles preventing the Wizard from disclosing his side of the story.

Too bad, cause I was looking forward to The Venetian being completely tobacco free had the Wizard become CEO in 20 years.

Quote: Wizard

Sometimes I use the white pieces and sometimes the black ones.

An odd throw out there, from a guy who doesn't believe in the black and white. Anything goes can't grant you that luxury. No one to really hear you.

Quote: Lexinger

An odd throw out there, from a guy who doesn't believe in the black and white. Anything goes can't grant you that luxury. No one to really hear you.

reference to

https://wizardofvegas.com/forum/questions-and-answers/casual-corner/9480-the-wizard-of-the-venetian/

What was odd about it? The guy is saying he needed to pay his bills.

You are totally darkside Mr. Lexinger, I presume?

Quote: odiousgambit

What was odd about it? The guy is saying he needed to pay his bills.

Now that you mention it, this does merit some critical thinking.

Quote: odiousgambit

You are totally darkside Mr. Lexinger, I presume?

Common term in the gambling industry. Honestly, I haven't come across any deliberate definitions of it. Maybe, it's one of those internet board rules which is so tacit that it can be neither expressed nor explained.

I do, however, know what odious means. My posts are hardly that.

Quote: Wizard

In the interests of full disclosure, I would like to say that I have closed my private consulting business to focus on just one client, the Sands, which is the parent company of the Venetian.

Unless the Sands or a previous employer directly instructed him to do this (for them), this has nothing to do with any actual full disclosure. The visitors to this site don't employ him, nor are we employed by him. He doesn't hold any office here. He doesn't thus even have to sum things up for us. The latter may involve conflict of interest, but not such as to warrant what is commonly denoted "full disclosure". But what of his palpable absence of input in contrary threads; or when he doesn't happen to win some invitation-only or fun tournament, or begin a new assignment?

Looks to me, the Sands exercised a standard hiring option to reverse said decision within three months. He wanted the position because it was permanently for more money for "the skills that I have". Reasons which couldn't, presumeably, have changed on his part. So, I suspect that the Sands hired the studious, closeted version of Wizard of Odds, but got the Wizard of Vegas into which he haplessly morphed instead.

A few doctors and lawyers spend a dozen years, more than usual, at higher institutions of learning, only to come off horribly in the private practice setting. (Such doctors can hang around hospitals to be mandatorily assigned the newly admitted patients; but such lawyers have a worse go of it, say drive a cab to pay back student loans.) The reason that the better institutions pursue a couple rounds of careful personal interviews with perspective students. Some fields of accreditation prerequisite for a couple of years of general study, or even an entry-level degree. To check the mettle under the hood for something called professional incompetence. It fits his pattern of entry-level re-employment.

Don't most employers, especially casinos, legally bind their people to a NON-disclosure contract? Much less endorse a piece of writing so voluntarily unscripted, complete with self-photography branding?

Quote: Wizard

The income to me should be about the same, but I anticipate that it will be more interesting and less stressful to concentrate on one client, than juggling dozens. I would prefer that I didn't have to consult at all, but I have three kids in expensive private schools, and lost at least half a million dollars, including my bankroll, in the Vegas real estate meltdown.

Beyond beginning to feel slightly sorry for the kids, is he equating real estate with gambling (bankroll)? Or, more likely, associating the two realms with the potential for recklessness? Which often eventually befalls even the gambling enthusiasts. The new perception that everything has to do with gambling as one long session interrupted by a life devoted to an active denial.

Quote: Wizard

Unlike some in the world of advantage play, I have no moral compunction about playing both sides.

Advantage play isn't, or at least shouldn't be, strictly speaking, about moral compunction. I think that the Wizard blurs the two to introduce a solution to something which does not exist. Conveniently, or for whichever deeper motive, to in some way "reverse engineer" his station in life after the fact.

What he really has no moral compunction about is flip flopping on others to try to conspicuously advance his own image. The real AP's make the big bucks in secret, and leave the gossiping to others.

Quote: Wizard

I see it as a game. I use the white pieces and sometimes the black ones.

Real advantage players don't dwell on that sort of juvenile philosophizing either. In the broader sense, life isn't so simplistic. No one satisfactorily gets to somewhere of value by symbolically playing around with such pieces. People who can walk the talk know better than to buy into their own image, and learn how to question themselves.

Quote: Wizard

To be honest, for the skills that I have, the money is a lot better with the black ones.

Essentially, he programs slot machines? And sells advertising for his internet sites. What then is he talking about? I couldn't care less about "some small out of the way country's dead dictator", so what of a bunch of casinos, which can no more withdraw from their shady practices than the majority of the fools who patronize them.

Quote: Wizard

What does this mean to my readers? Not much. However, I do wish to disclose who puts rice on my table, to avoid any conflicts of interest.

Not only does he "innocently" admit to what we already know of his many conflicts of interest, he thereby claims zero moral compunction about it.

I'd at least wait until truly wealthy before trying to commiserate with the rice eaters.

Back off on the Wiz, Lexinger.

You got an agenda?

Quote: MrV

Back off on the Wiz, Lexinger.

You got an agenda?

Nah, let him dredge up a year old thread and hack at it. The act will stand for itself, and need no comment.

Yikes. You know, despite the Wizard being in an industry with a bit of morality and integrity issues, he has always been a fair dude with a great deal of integrity and morality. Yeah, he makes his money though his web sites through this exclusive advertising with Bodog, and he does quite a bit a consulting for new game patents, etc.

The money lost in the Las Vegas meltdown refers to the home he owns and another one he rents, both of which he probably bought on the boom side in Vegas and whose values are probably 1/2 to 1/3 or what they were when he bought.

The last thing that the Wizard is a bull-shitter. Honestly, if there was *one* person on the internet that I would trust with something close to my vest, it'd probably be him.

I'm just not sure if there was any point Lexinger was trying to make. I just see him taking each sentence separately and commenting on things randomly.

He was telling the people on the forums about something happening in his life. I didn't really care one way or another as I don't know him personally. However I like the fact that he was open, a quality that is very rare on the internet.

Hate him or love him. but I don't see any point in ripping apart that particular post. I'm sure he has many 100s of others, go rip those apart and try and infer many things that were never intended. :)

I've known the Wizard personally for 13 years, and believe me, the world would be a much better place if more people had as much integrity as he. People on the Internet, man, you don't know the half of it. You'd be lucky if you were in a situation where you were at the mercy of someone's honesty and integrity and that person was Michael Shackleford.

Quote: MichaelBluejay

I've known the Wizard personally for 13 years, and believe me, the world would be a much better place if more people had as much integrity as he. People on the Internet, man, you don't know the half of it. You'd be lucky if you were in a situation where you were at the mercy of someone's honesty and integrity and that person was Michael Shackleford.

Even though I have never met him in person, I have always had this impression.

Quote: MrV

You got an agenda?

Hey, first come, first served.

Yes, of course. Don't walk in to street fight half cocked. (Nothing wrong with walking out half cocked, leaves you with another bullet.)

People brawl like this mostly to relieve bottled-up tensions, it's faster than to properly identify and treat those chronic issues. The orgastic solution for the masses. Some go the pot route, chronic slang, if you catch my drift.

Quote: reno

Dying to know the details, but obviously there are legal obstacles preventing the Wizard from disclosing his side of the story.

Now there are legal obstacles? As a matter of character, I would not tolerate flimsy excuses on my behalf, certainly not of such a residently repeated nature.

Look, going out of your way to make a "full disclosure" to thereby in truth highlight a bunch of other demented things, and then not coming easily back on to the same thread after the gut-feel turn of events... not exactly the standard "two steps ahead of the game", contextually speaking, or in any stretch of the imagination.

Declaring a conflict of interest can't in itself excuse it. That invokes the expression, above suspicion. Nice guy, who cares.

Such are the pitfalls of revealing private information.

Life is hard, and revealing personal mistakes and information leaves you exposed to critical comments such as the ones that Lex makes.

My hat is off to the Wizard for opening up and sharing.

Maybe if Lex had shared all the mistakes he made, the Wizard would rip into Lex? If not, therein lies the difference in character.

I just returned from a week in Costa Rica, which explains my absence the last week. Please nobody ask about that here; I'll write about it shortly.

So, Lex, why don't you just get to your point.

If your point is I'm not a good advantage player, fine. I don't play much because I can make better money consulting and on my sites.

If your point is I have not been fully open and honest about anything, then I take issue with that. I fully disclosed both the hiring and termination. In fact, I forfeited $4,200 in severance pay because I would have had to sign a termination agreement with a gag clause in it. It was more important to me to write about what happened honesty and openly than the $4,200.

What do I get in return? S**t kicked in my face.

Rather that just kicking a little piece at a time, give me all of it once. Just say what you have to say and then get the hell off the site.

Quote: Wizard

So, Lex, why don't you just get to your point.

I don't think he is able to. Clear concise writing seems to have been forsaken for obtuse attacks and rambling half-accusations. I wonder how well he plays VP?

Quote: thecesspit

I wonder how well he plays VP?

Let's go to Laughlin and find out.

oh well, in the meantime some people said some nice things about the Wizard.

I second those, although in my case my interactions have been limited to the internet, and limited period, but said Wizard has always been super!

PS: my money had been on a Wizard trip to that casino in Canada with his game going

Quote: Wizard

So, Lex, why don't you just get to your point.

why don't you just block him? Just because you own the site, it's not a reason to put up with every annoyance that comes along. and you have the other mods/admins to deal with such users.

Quote: MichaelBluejay

I've known the Wizard personally for 13 years, and believe me, the world would be a much better place if more people had as much integrity as he. People on the Internet, man, you don't know the half of it. You'd be lucky if you were in a situation where you were at the mercy of someone's honesty and integrity and that person was Michael Shackleford.

+1

Quote: MichaelBluejay

I've known the Wizard personally for 13 years, and believe me, the world would be a much better place if more people had as much integrity as he. People on the Internet, man, you don't know the half of it. You'd be lucky if you were in a situation where you were at the mercy of someone's honesty and integrity and that person was Michael Shackleford.

Outstanding endorsement.

Lexinger sounds a lot like Jerry Logan.

Quote: rainman

Lexinger sounds a lot like Jerry Logan.

I don't think so, Jerry's ramblings seem a little more lucid, Lex is more... scattered. It's almost as if his text has had many fun and exciting adventures through various web translators before being posted.

At any rate I think after the Wiz tells you to say what's on your mind then leave, your days are numbered.

Quote: Wizard

I just returned from a week in Costa Rica

I can't feel too sorry for the Wiz if he has to suffer by going to Costa Rica during the middle of winter.

Quote: Wizard

In fact, I forfeited $4,200 in severance pay because I would have had to sign a termination agreement with a gag clause in it.

On a lighter note, if you were offered $10,000 , would you have taken it? $42,000? $100,000?

Quote: AceCrAAckers

I can't feel too sorry for the Wiz if he has to suffer by going to Costa Rica during the middle of winter.

Mosquitoes and other bugs in the middle of winter. Doesn't that make you sorry? The whole point of winter is to keep bugs away.

Quote: Nareed

Mosquitoes and other bugs in the middle of winter. Doesn't that make you sorry? The whole point of winter is to keep bugs away.

And all this time I thought it was just to bitch about how cold it is, which is a 3-4 month respite from bitching about how hot it is.

Quote: Nareed

Mosquitoes and other bugs in the middle of winter. Doesn't that make you sorry? The whole point of winter is to keep bugs away.

People who live in Mesoamerica do not have winter, even though they may use the word "invierno" to describe any old season. What that region has are two seasons--wet and dry.

I would like to thank those who did say nice things, especially Michael Bluejay. Sorry to focus on the negative.

I think I need to go back to Costa Rica to get over my character being impugned.

Quote: Wizard

I think I need to go back to Costa Rica to get over my character being impugned.

I have a friend who's son married a girl
from Costa Rica. She's beautiful, but boy
does she have a temper. She gets mad at
everything and throws things. She periodically
runs back to PR to stay with her mother. She's
beautiful and exotic and temperamental. No
thanks..

Quote: rainman

Lexinger sounds a lot like Jerry Logan.

Nope. I think I've gotten pretty good at this game, so I'm finally going to post to make my hunch official.

Disdain for Wiz, critical about Wiz’s actions, bizarre cadence to his writing, and a strange philosophical/scientific mish mash in his posts. I say it’s Garnabby.

In any case, I think most of us see Wiz as MB sees him. In fact, I think a lot of us would say that MB, as well as boymimbo, took the words out of our mouth.

Insulting the Wizard used to be verboten and grounds for an immediate nuclear option.

A man has a right not to be impugned on the board he runs. I say let 'er rip!

Quote: teddys

Insulting the Wizard used to be verboten and grounds for an immediate nuclear option.

A man has a right not to be impugned on the board he runs. I say let 'er rip!

It depends on how it is done. MustangSally really lit into me a while back and I never banned her. Basically, criticism is allowed, and insults aren't. Lexinger's posts I would say fall under criticism and thus are allowed.

Wiz, you need another vacation to recuperate from your vacation.

Quote: EvenBob

She's beautiful and exotic and temperamental.

Sounds like a Ferrari.

REACTING TO ANYTHING THAT A JERK LIKE LEXINGER POSTS, IS LIKE TRYING TO TEACH A PIG TO SING.

IT WASTES YOUR TIME AND ANNOYS THE PIG.

Quote: Buzzard

REACTING TO ANYTHING THAT A JERK LIKE LEXINGER POSTS, IS LIKE TRYING TO TEACH A PIG TO SING.

IT WASTES YOUR TIME AND ANNOYS THE PIG.

Is it a pig we wish to annoy and force away? Yes.

See no wrong in his departure....let's annoy the pig by exposing his basic "poser" routine:

Edit: read some of his posts....he sounds like an FM radio talk show from the 1970's...Woody Allen don't have xxxx on him:

Example #1:

Quote: LexInger....

And, a fine company "human shuffling machine", I'm sure.

Example #2:

Quote: Lexinger

Yeah, okay, you got me. Casinos get arrested [??], and worse stuff doesn't happen in the real world. Happy now? And, I should start posting up pretty "playing cards" like mostly everyone else because evidently that's about as close as you get to the real action. Lol.

Example #3:

Quote: Lexinger

A good reason to not set the clock back in the fall, or then to have to undo it that in the spring. Let the suckers do it. Get up at the same time each day. Feel the seasons.

I like that: "Feel the seasons...." Real intelligent gambling analysis and discussion here for us! This guy is just pulling everyone's member sounding like a 70's FM radio talk show on acid...Commits the extreme act of showing open contempt and ridicule of a great and very fair gaming mathematician and gaming industry popularizer, for absolutely no reason at all, and no history with us, or of any real contribution.

He could just as well say:

Get in touch with your inner Rubicon....

Taste the Blue light, not the Bud light, you see....as I am so sophisticated....I am Lexinger, beyond Lex Luther....

Please hand me that piano because you people are so smart - clearly....

The modes of alienation descend upon you morons ever so gently so, like a warm summer's breeze, or a Massingil commercial.....

This is what his prose sounds like...fancy of no substance....he hasn't said anything at all but offend with trippy prose, to buy himself time.

He jumped on this board as another newcomer prick-puller; this is clear.

There is no other scenario. I assure you, he is neither a real AP or any sort of real gambler who knows anything about gambling. Find an intelligent post from him that discusses real gambling, THEN let him stay. Nuke option for him, please....newcomer pr]ck-puller #37 pops his head up...that's all.

Nuke option = a can Of RAID or Black Flag should do it for this roach. Mike, Mr. Bluejay, or Pierce, pull the cord.