Gaming Guru

Readers Write

Dear Frank:

Recently, I had the opportunity to play craps at the Imperial Palace in Biloxi. With 75-cent minimums and 20X odds on Pass/Don't Pass, the IP, with its great staff, is a terrific place for a budget gambler to get bang for the buck. On this particular trip, I did make an unscientific observation though: The lower the table minimums are, the ruder the players get.

On one particular night, a rather large gentleman bought in for $20. He played mostly $0.75-$2.00 bets on the don't side. He often yelled at the dealers, one of whom was a struggling newcomer, when his bets were not handled immediately. He drank excessively, six to eight beers, during this particular session. When he demanded a beer from the waitresses, he would call them "Toots." At least he was big enough to tip them a quarter chip, not the green kind, but the orange type (25 cents). Being a wrong-side better, he openly cheered when the shooter sevened out. He often had to be asked to remove his hands from other players' trays. He dipped, which thus required spitting. And to top it all off, he also had gastro-intestinal problems. Everybody on his end of the table was absolutely miserable.

With the amount of alcohol consumed and the number of serious players driven off by this bum, the casino lost more than the $20 dollars for which he bought in. At what point does a casino ask someone like this to leave? If card counters are considered to be dangerous to a casino's bottom line, surely this kind of player is just as harmful. I wonder if things would have gone better if we had all offered to pay him money to go away. Who knows? One thing is for sure, this guy went to the wrong side of manners.

Barnacle Tom

Dear Tom:

This guy sounds worse than a ploppy. Ploppies have many of the same characteristics, but they are generally too stupid to know they are actively offensive. This guy seems purposely nasty in both his temperament and his toilet habits, and he can certainly ruin a fun experience at the craps table -- he can even ruin a bad (economic) experience at the craps tables!

If the casino doesn't get rid of a guy like this, players have one of three choices:

1. They can leave the table or
2. They can complain to management or
3. They can stay at the table and not bet! Just keep passing the dice to the nasty don't player. If he rolls, don't bet. Sooner or later, he'll wipe himself out with a hot roll and when he does -- cheer! If he doesn't roll, just keep passing the dice around the table. I'm not exactly sure what management would do if an entire table boycotted a player -- but it would be a very interesting experiment!

All the best in and out of the casinos!
Frank Scoblete

PS: The Imperial Palace game sounds wonderful!

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