Neither could T J Cookier.

I don't know this to be a fact, just my educated guess. I've never seen or heard of a casino shutting down a dice table because the players were getting loud. Most casinos love that atmosphere. I still feel strongly that they got a little nervous. I could sense the unease in the room by the floor personnel. Remember, this is (and was) a small casino with only one dice table and relatively low limits ($200 on the front line with 2X odds-$400). But with five or six guys betting that high (and they were) the Sands was fading a big hit. Every number hit was now costing them several thousand!

Many years ago, I was in Vegas with a fake ID at 17 years old with a friend over 21 and we were playing Blackjack at some **** hole, I wanna say it was Little Caesars(for anyone that remembers that) but I think it was some other **** hole.

We each bought in for $200 and were playing $25 to $50 or so a hand and both were up $300 or $400 each in like 20 minutes. They started randomly burning cards off the shoe in between hands and then they started switching dealers every 5 minutes and burning 5 cards off the shoe. lol

We continued to win and the boss asked us to leave. I was about to go ballistic but my friend calmed me down reminding me that I was underage. So we cashed out and got the hell out of there. lol

This is going to be a long post.

I've called the gaming commission 3 times in my 13 years living in Vegas. The 1st time was on the NYNY casino. I booked an offer of like 3 nights comp room and $100 free slot play. When I went to the players club to have them load the FP on my card the guy at the booth told me I had already used the FP a few weeks before on a different offer at another one of their casinos. He argued with me for a few mins and refused to load the FP. I told him I was going to call gaming and he said go ahead. Long story short I called them and about a half hour later 2 agents show up at the machine I'm playing at and ask me to explain what's going on. I show them the offer on my phone with my confirmation number, explain the guys stance on the matter and they go off to talk to the players club guy.
They come back a few mins later with the guy in tow and now he is suddenly profusely apologizing to me as he let's me know the free play is now on my card. I guess they told him he was wrong and made him honor the offer.

2nd time I called them a bar on Blue Diamond rd had done a $50 match play in the money mailer that everyone gets in the mail and tosses away. The day I got it in the mail a friend and I took a ride out to the bar to use 1 each, it was around 11pm or so.
Bartender tells us they discontinued the promotion and he won't honor it. It was literally the same day we got them in the mail. Guy wouldn't budge, we called the gaming commission from the parking lot. I explained everything and the agent said he would get back to me.

He calls back and said he tried to get the owner on the phone but couldn't cause it was late but will get back to me the next day. Next day comes around and the bar owner/GM calls me, apologizes for the mix up and invites my friend and I in for dinner and to honor the match play. We go back that night, order drinks, order food ( open kitchen so we didn't see anyone spit in our food) and we put $50 in the machine and they matched it. We played for a little while and left.

3rd time was dec 2012 at the Suncoast casino. I was playing some machines and had a slot ticket up to around $280 or so. I move to an original Buffalo machine and start playing between 40 and 80 cents a spin. In about 15 mins the $280 is gone. I didn't hit 1 spin over $4 and not 1 bonus. In order to get the bonus you need to land 3 or more coins. The machine was acting weird and would keep hitting 2 coins between the first 3 columns but would never hit a 3rd coin. So I'm like something is definitely wrong with this machine. Slot machines in NV have to have a minimum of 70% payout but usually locals casinos are around 90%. I didn't even ask for anyone that worked there I just straight up called the NGC. A woman shows up about 45 mins later and I tell her what was going on. She gets a slot attendant and a slot tech and has the slot tech put $20 in the machine and tells him to play 40 cents a throw. Sure enough the machine keeps teasing the 2 coins but never drops the 3rd coin for a bonus and his $20 is gone in a few mins.

The gaming lady has the tech open the machine and the screen displays the lifetime total amount of coin in and coin out and all the percentages. The machine had had something like $1,200,000 played thru lifetime on it and the payback was like 68 or so percent! I knew it wasn't on the up and up!

So then the gaming agent tells me that she has never seen a machine pay under 70% and she tells them that she is quarantining the machine until she can have a forensics guy from the NGC come check the machine on Monday. She tells them that they can not move the machine, empty the machine or touch the machine. She had them power down the machine and then she takes out these rolls of brightly colored tape that says Nevada Gaming Commission on them and proceeds to wrap tape around the whole machine as I'm standing there laughing my ass off. I ask her if I'm getting my money back and she says that they will let me know the outcome by mail within 30 days.

A few weeks later I get an envelope in the mail from the NGC, it says that sure enough the machine was paying out under the state minimum 70%, that the Suncoast was fined an undisclosed substantial amount of money and that unfortunately I would not be getting my money back but thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.

I have no idea why I didn't get my money back but I was cool with the Suncoast getting fined and my friends and I have never been back there.

Sorry about the long post but figured some of you guys would enjoy reading about my experiences with the NGC.

Screw that, with proof in hand from gaming, time for a lawsuit! lol

Always room in any thread for T J.

The NGC must be the only regulatory agency in the known universe to get agents to a casino complaint in under an hour.

The policy was that settling patron disputes on the spot, before a tourist left the property/town, was good for business generally.

(On the regulatory front, at one time an GCB agent presence was actually required, simply to watch the operator change out a chip on a video poker machine.)

It seems like many years ago when visiting AC, some if not all the casinos had a gaming commission office right in the casino. Not sure if that is still the case.

I once dropped a penny under a slot machine. I tried to retrieve it for 16 hours but I couldn't quite reach it. I told the gaming floor manager about it because i desperately needed my penny back and he wouldn't help me. He told me "it's just a penny." anyway i slept that night in the parking lot because i needed some sleep and I knew I would have to try to get my penny back in the morning. I went back into the casino and spent the next 14 hours trying to retrieve my penny. I couldn't quite reach it. I could see it sticking out beneath the machine but it was on the back side of the machine wedged between a couple machines. I finally gave up after 2 days of trying. I had to call the gaming commission the next day and report my lost penny. They sent me a penny in the mail. I have a strong suspicion it wasn't MY penny though. I think they sent me a random penny. Not the penny I lost. Anyway Ive had to live with the experience ever since and I think the gaming commision did their best to make things right.

porbrecito