Before the corporate takeovers, hotels in Vegas were owned 'n' operated by an array of colorful, seat-of-the-pants kinda guys. One of the last died on Friday. His name was Bob Stupak and while I never met him, I played at his casino (won, too) and followed his exploits in the press. Here's the official obit for him and here's a remembrance from a reporter who often wrote about him.
Stupak is the guy who, it is said, once acted on a sudden whim and signed the team of Marty Allen and Steve Rossi to a lifetime contract to play his hotel, Vegas World. It was an impulse that occurred over dinner with them and he put it in writing…on a napkin. This probably would have been an unwise move even back during the month or so when Allen & Rossi were the hottest comedy team in show biz…but Stupak made the offer and it was accepted in 1990 when the two had split up and neither was working much. As it turned out, the "lifetime contract" was good for about four years. Then for a while, Rossi played the showroom without Allen. Given that crowds weren't flocking to see Rossi with Allen, you could imagine how much business he did as a solo.
That was at Vegas World, a charming dump of a hotel which was later cleaned up and refurbished into the Stratosphere. When it was Vegas World, it had the most garish, mind-numbing interior decor you ever saw in your life — a lot of bad science-fiction imagery (robots, starships) covered with sequins. The dealers all wore ties that said, "Kiss me…I'm Polish," even if they were Asian. I once chatted with a black lady while she was dealing me some pretty good Blackjack hands and she said the hardest part of her job was dealing with remarks about the tie…and drunks who wanted to act upon its suggestion.
Stupak is credited with inventing "Double Exposure 21," a variation on Blackjack where all the cards, including the dealer's, are dealt face-up. Gullible gamblers think that's great; that they can't lose if they can see the dealer's hole card. But of course, the rules and payoffs have been adjusted so that the odds are even worse than plain vanilla Blackjack. That he created it tells you a lot about him and that people play it tells you a lot about gamblers.
That's about all I have to say about the man. Just couldn't let his passing go unmentioned. Vegas wasn't as classy and fancy back when it was run by people like Bob Stupak. But it was a lot more fun…and a lot cheaper.