Show business and gambling have always gone hand in hand. The recent poker scandal involving Ben Affleck, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, and Tobey Maguire gained a lot of attention for high stakes, illegal poker. This is like the Frair's Club cheating scandal in Los Angeles in the 1940s. It also gained world-wide press because of the stars involved: George Burns, Chico Marx, Phil Silvers, and Mafia biggie Johnny Roselli. The Mob was in on the movie industry, and show business figures were used to dealing with them, and socializing with them.

From the 1930s on, the Mob show clubs in places like Atlantic City featured top entertainers, and had every game you'd see in a Las Vegas casino in the back. Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, as well as Frank Sinatra got their starts in these clubs and had long ties to the mob. When Martin and Lewis were booked at the Flamingo, Lewis' gambling addiction quickly left him heavily in debt. The Mob set him up on a budget and a pay back plan and he paid them back. Frank Sinatra had played their clubs, paled around with them, and they promoted his career, as they did Martin and Lewis' career. The scene in the Godfather, where a horse's head is put in a producer's head to secure a movie part was about Sinatra. Johnny Roselli, Mafia biggie, went to the movie producer and Sinatra got a career-mending, academy award-winning part in From Here to Eternity.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Mob controlled the Las Vegas strip hotels and show rooms, and paid talent higher than anyone. Sinatra helped them by making the star studded movie, Ocean's Eleven, and by having the Rat Pack: Sinatra, Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop play the Sands. These events really elevated the drop at the joint.

Fats Domino was a rock and roll founder, legend, and gambling addict. He estimated he lost $2 million. He liked to watch those gallowing dominoes jump across the green. Like Jerry Lewis, Fats got heavily indebted to the casinos, and paid them back as a performer, like so many others.

When the mob was controlling the strip during the 1950s, and 1960s, Las Vegas became the highest paying place for big name stars. Whales and producers flocked to shows like the Rat Pack which filled hotels, and casino floors.

Col. Tom Parker, Elvis Presley's manager, was the worst gambling addict of all. He had been a carnival worker, owner, hustler. He had dancing chickens, chickens on a hot plate. With little experience and a checkered past of which little is known, Parker became the manager of Eddie Arnold, a country star, and then Elvis. The Colonel dominated Elvis, got the same income as Elvis, and kept them in Las Vegas many, many years because he owed the Hilton a reputed $30 million when Elvis died. With all that income, Col. Parker left only a $1 million estate. He would stand at a dice table hour after hour betting as high as they'd let him. He sometime spent 12 hours a day gambling.

Casinos used a system of getting show business people or key employees in debt as a golden handcuffs, way to keep them management strategy, and it worked.

Yes - Nice explanation Johnny

Not your best but pretty interesting. I wish you would have elaborated more on colonol tom parker though.

So how would you say this reflects in modern day poker/Vegas? Or is it too early to know?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonel_Tom_Parker

In my time the word gambler meant professional, with a code, doing something illegal, and frowned on by society. I believe we should evaluate gamblers, not poker players. I've seen T.J.Cloutier glassy-eyed and mesmerized by craps, a child-like game at best. He is a great poker player. He is a not a great gambler. Stu Ungar had more leaks than the levees in New Orleans. He sure could not be respected as a gambler. Treetop Straus took the worst of it on sports betting and was often broke. Greak poker player. Poor gambler. It is all about the best of it. Math. You either take the best of it or the worst of it.

I do not bet on anything in a cssino except me playing no-limit Texas Hold 'em. No craps, slots, blackjack, Omaha 8. Limit poker, sports. I might wager $20 bucks on a horse, calculating it is like spending $2.60 to watch the race.

I wouldn't put a quarter in a slot machine ever. Someone might see me.


I wouldn't flip you for fifty cents. I've got no gamble in me without the best of it. Poor Ol' Ignorant Ed summed up money management. You count your money in hte morning when you leave the house. You count it again that evening when you come home. Evaluate the modern poker players by how they handle casino life. Sucker blood runs though the veins of most of them.

Are you implying that Omaha 8 and limit poker are games of luck, like craps, slots, and blackjack? The more you post, the more apparent it is that you are clueless. What kind of players say that poker is a game of luck??? The ones who lose. Plain and simple. You are a disgrace and should not be writing things to the public where you imply that our game is a game of chance.

You mad??? You come off as a jealous hater, stuck in the 60's and 70's. How are modern degenerates any different from old degenerates like Ungar and Straus? I wouldn't say that "most" modern players are suckers with pit/machine problems. To generalize all modern players in this manner is ******ed. Smarten up you jealous old boy. Just because you were never capable of making it, doesn't mean you have to **** on the rest of us. Unfortunately for you, the game has passed you by.

Johnny, I would like to issue a challenge to you, to play me heads up in any poker game of your choosing, in any format that you'd like (perhaps Omaha 8, the game of "chance" lololol).

Since you obviously still live under a rock in Texas and can't play online for real money, we can do it in play chips on pokerstars. If you accept, we can set it up at your earliest convenience. If you decline, it will prove that you are a coward who can only ramble in random threads on topics surrounding the world of poker, and not actually play the game itself.

I am dead serious, and expect a timely response from you.

He's obviously implying that he doesn't think he has an edge in those games, not that they're impossible to beat. I think you are the one who is mad.

In before barking iron.

I didn't say any form of poker is luck. That's Big Meech's lie. I don't play for play money, and I don't want to play poker with or ever talk to you Big Meesch. You are a creep, pure and simple.

I think Meech is just after an invite to the Johnny Hughes Invitational Lemon Party.

Great post ! Interesting read. Thanks

I don't don't know where you keep seeing an "s" in Meech, are you really so dumb? And why are you so scared to play me? LOLOLOL Johnny Hughes the coward. Those who can't do, write. You are like Phil Gordon, only way older, way poorer, and way less famous and successful.

I never claimed that you said that poker was luck, but you certainly implied it when you referred to omaha 8 and limit. You are either too stupid to realize it, or too stubborn to admit it.

Again, Thanks Johnny. Great read.

BTW, big meesch, he is intentionally misspelling your name as a form of disrespect. Some people might do the same by not capitalizing a proper noun.

Rightttt. The same way he is intentionally misspelling these words

......

He didn't imply it, you wrongly inferred it.

interesting post thx johnny.

Messch, You are so delusional it's embarrassing.

The stickeys and the mods don't mean much when it comes to Big Meesch. He gets to use my picture as an avatar, never contribute anything to the original topic, or even refer to it. I'd thought we might discuss some other historical things, or I'd learn from some of those interested in the history, rather than more of Fat Mooch's make the thread about me me me.

Ah yes, the mods are to blame. Perhaps you'd care to tell me how many times you've reported any posts that you believe violate 2p2 or NVG rules?

I just stepped in now to take a read. Future posts that are clearly insulting or trolling will be deleted and/or infracted.

Incidentally, constantly posting that you dislike the OP or the thread is trolling. If you don't like these threads, please do everyone the courtesy of just leaving them the hell alone.

Are we allowed to express our distaste of you SGT? or is there a seperate thread where I can openly berate you?

Johnny Hughes, you do ramble on a lot and kind of remind me of Grandpa Simpson, but I do read your threads for entertainment. Haters gonna hate

Thanks. I have never reported anyone, not my nature, but thanks anyway. I do give opinions, views that others that disagree should speak up about, but Big Meesch is obsessed. I consider insulting using my picture as his avatar or being so obessed to do that weird.

Always like your posts Johnny. Definitely entertaining..

Ty for the story. Nice lite read.

Always great hearing your stories, Johnny. You are a true "O.G."

And don't worry about Big Mitch, he's just a hater.