So one day I was in Vegas, playing Blackjack at the Barbary Coast — a pretty good place to play back then. This was the early nineties and the Barbary Coast was located on the northeast corner of Flamingo Road and Las Vegas Boulevard South (aka "The Strip"). Since then, it's been sold and bought and sold and bought and sold and bought and finally remodeled into a much fancier place called The Cromwell. It's probably a much worse place to play Blackjack now but I can't be sure since I gave up the game several decades ago and the city several years ago. I also, on the day I'm describing, decided to never go into the Barbary Coast again.
That day, I was counting cards but, as per my modus operandi, not winning so much that anyone would notice. I'd get a few hundred ahead — enough to cover the cost of the trip and a little more — and then it was on to another casino or back to my room to work. They only stop you when you accumulate enough chips that it might not be sheer luck. I was a few bucks shy of quitting and had just put out a twenty dollar bet when an Asian guy came outta nowhere, leaned over me, called out "Money plays!" and threw ten thousand dollars down on the table.
Translation: He wanted in on the next hand and was wagering cash…a lot of it.
This is a standard move by gamblers who are either card counting as spectators or have been signaled by someone who is counting. You do it when the count is extremely good for the player…but the casinos, for obvious reasons, usually don't allow it. What's odd though was that I was counting and one of the reasons I was about to leave was that the count wasn't especially good. It was a strange time for someone to be doing this.
The dealer turned to the pit boss — the guy in a suit and tie who keeps an eye on all the gaming — and repeated "Money plays" and he checked the stack of bills on the table and announced "Ten thousand." That was over the table limit at the moment but the pit boss nodded to okay it all. I still don't know why. If he'd been playing more attention to our table, I might have thought he was counting and he knew there was no advantage at the moment. Or maybe he knew the Asian gent as a frequent loser. Or something.
The dealer dealt. I got a soft 18 — an ace and a seven — and the Asian gent, who would play his hand after I played mine, got a hard 12 — not a good hand. The size of his wager had caused a small crowd to instantly assemble at our table and they all winced audibly at the guy's bad luck.
Then again, the dealer's up card was a two. So the dealer's going to have to hit at least once. The dealer hasn't won…yet.
With the count near zero, I was playing Basic Strategy which meant doubling my bet, which they let you do on any two cards at the Barbary Coast. That's one of the rules that usually works to the player's advantage, which is why most casinos in Vegas no longer allow it. They've made the game much harder to win in the last few years, which you'd think would make for fewer players. Or at least, you'd think that if you don't know gamblers. For every me who's given up the game, there are a thousand folks who can't wait to play, no matter how bad the rules are.
I hesitated momentarily before doubling. I've seen it happen that a player in my position takes another card and it's a card that might help the next guy win and he gets mad. This makes no sense because I could just as easily be taking a card that would make him lose but gamblers are sometimes illogical about this kind of thing. So I doubled and got one more card — face down. Now it was the Asian gent's turn to play his hand.
Basic Strategy said he should hit. He did and got a ten so he busted out and lost his bet. When the dealer flipped over his own hole card, it was also a ten so he had twelve, which meant he had to take another card. He did and got a ten — so he busted and I won. My face-down card, not that it mattered at that point, was a five.
Everyone looked at the fellow who had just lost ten thousand dollars. How did he feel? What would he do now? He didn't seem all that bothered that he just lost ten thousand dollars on one play of the cards. Instead, showing no particular emotion, he pulled out another ten thousand and announced, "Money plays…again!" There was a big gasp from the spectators.
I decided to stop right there but I had to stay and see how he did. Answer: Much, much better. He got a Blackjack — an ace and ten-value card — and there was a big cheer from the onlookers. Blackjack then paid three-to-two, meaning that he won back what he'd lost on the previous hand plus 50%. A lot of casinos now pay six-to-five on Blackjacks — another rule change which works against the players but doesn't seem to have made fewer of them play the game.
He threw out a nice tip for the dealer then walked away from the table as I did. We exchanged a few words — me congratulating him, him thanking me for congratulating him — then we parted ways and I never saw him again. But what I did see was two beefy men in suits coming up and briefly detaining me, asking if that man was a friend of mine. Obviously, they thought we might be in collusion — maybe me signaling him that the count was high so he should leap into the game at that moment.
I couldn't say "The count was not good at that moment" because that would have been admitting I was counting. I did say, "I never saw that guy before in my life," which was true. They asked me a few more questions: Where was I staying? Where was I from? Did I gamble a lot in that town? There was no reason not to give them honest answers so I did. After a bit more interrogation, they decided they had no reason to hassle me so I went over, turned my chips into cash and never set foot in the Barbary Coast again…just in case the same kind of thing happened again.
In my years of playing Blackjack, that was pretty much the closest I came to getting into trouble but it was not the main reason I quit. The rule changes and my growing boredom with Vegas and Blackjack (even when I won) were of greater importance and those are the ones I've mentioned here in the past when this topic arose. But now that I think of it, maybe that day at the Barbary Coast was a factor. I won about $300 that day there. That wasn't worth having any more trouble with them.