Quote:
Originally Posted by Ray Zee
i dont think slick was a poker room boss or i would have known him. but maybe he was. fill me in. pit bosses knew absolutely nothing about poker and even less about what they did.
slick may have been different.
alot went on that you had to know about or you werent playing for too long.
Slick told me he was a pit boss for 13 years at the Stardust and 17 years at the Landmark. He had just retired and moved to Albuquerque when I met him. Thirty years would would go back to the mid-sixties and he would have been in his mid thirties.
Slick referred to himself as an "old crossroader." As Slick tells it him and Spilotro grew up together and were partners in crime on many a deal. Eventually, Slick had to get out of Dodge and landed in Las Vegas where his mob connections got him a job.
There were several other guys in the police photo that he showed me. He told me that he was the only one in the picture that wasn't dead or doing life in prison.
I figured since he knew Spilotro so well and even that guy Rubenstein, I think that's his name, maybe not, that ran the Stardust that Slick must have known something about how the poker games were taken off.
Whether Slick was right or not I don't know. But I did take his advice. I wound up in Nevada....but I didn't go looking for those big bet guys. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Another thing I questioned Slick about was, since he was a pit boss, was card-counters and how he handled them. "No problem, kid. My general instructions to my dealers was to shuffle up if anyone so much as tripled there bet. "
"Did you ever have to rough anybody up, Slick?"
"No, kid. But if I wanted to I would wait for the idiot to make his big bet, then I'd walk up, grab the muck, take a look see, then give the idiot the staredown. They always got the message."
BTW, Ray, how's the weather in Whitefish today. It's a very nice day here in Billings. Sunny skies, 78 degrees. Good luck.
Mickey