Blackjack Forum, published by Arnold Snyder, contains useful articles on video poker contributed by Dan Paymar plus occasional but extremely detailed examinations of video blackjack. Although this is primarily a newsletter for serious card counters in blackjack, there is enough information here to make it a good purchase for the video-poker and video-blackjack player. It was this publication's articles on video blackjack that put me on to the scent for my expose of Atlantic City machines. The writing in this publication is uniformly excellent. For subscription information write to: RGE, 414, Santa Clara Ave., Oakland, CA 94610

Chance and Circumstance, published by Paone Press, contains my ruminations on this gambling life. I first broke my findings on video-poker machines in this quarterly newsletter. It was here I delineated my theory of beating the casinos' slot machines by using the casinos' own computers to discover the exact locations of "loose" and "tight" slots. The thrust of this publication is gaming in general and my observations in particular. Occasionally, I'll have guest writers and the Captain is a regular contributor. Subscription is $50 for one year. Write Paone Press, Box 610, Lynbrook, NY 11563.

• The Gambler Strikes Back Part4 (0)
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Manhattan—I prudently bypassed the two outlying casinos in the distant Marina, concentrating on the Boardwalk's ten casinos. I won at Park Place three times on the trip, compensating me for the two out-of-the-way casinos I bypassed. With less than an hour to make my bus, I won an extra twenty-five bucks at Caesars, and finally ducked into Park Place to win two green chips, which I put into my pocket and will use on my next trip to the seashore.

What was my final score card tally? I was in 14 casino forays and won 14 times.
So I did it again. But don't think I'm cocky and smugly self-assured over my sweep. Just the opposite. Each and every trip to a casino is a dramatic risk. Odds favor the casino, so if I'm not on guard constantly I know I'll go down the toilet. And as my old score cards reflected, there were days when I was wiped out, more days than I care to remember. My golden words of advice again: Hit and run. Nibble away. Never go for a big score in any one casino!

Frustrated, I noticed a couple of seats open at a $10-minimum table, so I thought what-the-hell, I only want to win a few bucks for a clean sweep score card, so I sat down and played a green chip on each of two spaces. To my delight, my first spot had a blackjack, and my second spot had a neat 19. With two great hands it didn't immediately dawn on me that the dealer had dealt his two cards face-up, showing a 19. He paid my blackjack, but only with even money. I told him I would, of course, stand on my 19, and then I bitterly learned the bitter truth about this particular table: It was a "Double-Exposure" blackjack table, with the words arcing —not very clearly—over the players' spots in the table middle. Except for those words, the layout was identical to all the other blackjack tables. Damn hard to notice, unless you're looking for it.

I learned that by "Double-Exposure" rules my 19 was loser against the dealer's 19! The only way I could win was to top the dealer's total, which meant / had to hit my 19/ Sheer madness, but what could I do? I closed my eyes and hit, drawing a King of spades for a total of 29, the highest amount I ever drew in a blackjack hand.
The blackjack I had only paid even money, to compensate for the dealer's open hand. Happily my blackjack win canceled my Kamikazi hit on my 19, and everything evened out. I grabbed my two chips and ran to the cashier's cage, and then out the door.
My advice: Look before you play, and stay far away from "Double-Exposure" blackjack.

• The Gambler Strikes Back Part4 (0)
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Now at last the book is completed and ready to turn in to the publisher. But before handing over my manuscript, I determined to return to Atlantic City still one more time, just to see if I could do it again.
On the first Wednesday in June I took the first (7:45 A.M.) bus, arriving at 10:30. In Park Place (the nearest casino to the new bus terminal) at 1 1:00, I made a pit stop at the casino cocktail lounge for a bracer, then headed directly over to the blackjack tables.

How did I do over-all? My score card, reproduced here, tells the story. I did have one close call at Resorts. After feasting on my obligatory King Crab claws,- I left with less than my $200 goal, but managed to climb out of the $1,750 hole that I was in at one point.
Had I lost my seed money it would have been a very expensive seafood lunch. And at the Sands it was touch-and-go for more than an hour. Then I finally eked out a win and ran like a thief. As time was running out—I always plan on the 8:00 P.M. bus back to
My Return To The Casinos Casino

Shoot for Actual Running Total
Park Place 200 +225 +225
Sands 200 +200 +425
Resorts 200 +150 +575
Taj Mahal 200 +575 +1,150
Showboat 200 +650 +1,800
Trump Plaza 200 +350 +2,150
Caesars 200 +450 +2,600
Park Place 200 +375 +2,975
Claridge 200 +275 +3,250
Hilton 200 +625 +3,875
Tropicana 200 +600 4,475
Trump Plaza 200 +100 +4,575
Caesars 200 +25 +4,600
Park Place 100 +50 +4,650

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• The Gambler Strikes Back Part5 (0)
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The Gambler Strikes Back, Parts II and III
1 had an enforced seven-month hiatus while I was recuperating from the traffic accident—then I returned to Atlantic City to see what changes had transpired during my absence.

There were changes all right. The casinos had added more neon and glitter, new and exotic slot machines, some imported from Australia and Europe and, to my chagrin, two of my best shots at the blackjack tables were done away with. Frankly, I wondered why it took both casinos that long to wise up.

Traditionally, I would make my first stop at Trump Plaza each and every trip, winning a hundred or two for my wife Stella, who waited patiently for me on a boardwalk bench. At times her "Mad Money" bank at home amounted to more than $3,000! My only ground rules for her spending were that it had to go for something expensive or something impractical, or both—on something she wouldn't ever spend her own money on. Definitely not for either toilet paper or a paint job for the kitchen. Once, unable to decide among ten chic Eric Javits hats she liked, she went wild with her Mad Money and bought 'em all! w
Returning to my favorite blackjack pit at the Plaza, I was bitterly disappointed to see that the gaggle of $25-to-$5,000 tables had been downsized to Atlantic City's traditional $25-to-$ 1,000 ones. With the spread of $25 to the $5,000 limit I was able to live dangerously and nibble away at the table, green-chip-by-green-chip. Sure, through the years 1 had a few close calls as my bets escalated perilously close to the five-grand limit, but I always stuck it out and many times left the table with at least a hundred or two hundred dollars of The Donald's money. And, yes, there were times he creamed me.

My other blackjack disappointment was at the Sands, where I'd always make a pit stop at their $25-to-$2,500 section. Maybe not as mathematically favorable as the Plaza, but I'd often have a hit-and-run success there, too. They too had eliminated the spread. Now it was $25 to $1,000. Resorts, on the other hand, juiced up their limits on the $25 tables to $3,000. New owners had taken over.

On the flip side of the Atlantic City odds, I was amused to see blackjack tables at Harrah's and Trump's Castle with limits of $50-to-$1000.
This spread is pure and simple thievery on the casino's part. The player has no chance.
Even though my two cornucopia pits had been done away with during my eight-month hiatus, I still rode the bus back to Manhattan with $2,300 of casino money. I just had to quit winners that Wednesday. If I didn't, I'd have no right to write this book.

It has now been more than three years since my spectacular back-to-back clean sweep of the Atlantic City casinos. On both trips I won in each and every casino and lost in none, prompting my publisher to commission me to write this book telling how I did it.

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• The Gambler Strikes Back Part5 (0)
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This was not the only daring bet in Binion's history. Binion's was known for going-for-broke wagers. At Binion's you could make your first big bet your gambling limit. One time a seedy-looking character in a bulky old overcoat was shooting craps at a $5 table when Binion walked by. "What's my limit?" croaked the geezer.

"The sky's the limit for you, Pop," was Binion's jocular reply. Immediately the guy started emptying out all the pockets of his voluminous clothing until there was a mountain of bills in front of him!

A legendary episode was played out over a decade ago when Jack Binion got a phone call from a man who wanted to know how high a wager he would accept. "One million if it's your first bet," Jack told him. A few days later a middle-aged cowboy arrived with two shopping bags filled with money. It was poured onto the green felt table and counted. It came to $760,000.
"Give me one chip," he said.

He placed the chip on the "don't pass" line.
A shooter threw dice in something like this sequence: 6-4-12-9, and finally a 7 and out.
The casino counted out $1,520,000, and Jack Binion gave the player two attache cases filled with money.

As the unidentified man left the casino accompanied by two armed security guards, someone asked him, "Why did you do it?"

"Well," he drawled, "I felt inflation was shrinking my savings, so I decided to gamble on double or nothing."

Alas, that wasn't the end of the story. Within the year he returned and lost most of it back. Later there was a report that the man committed suicide.

Finally The High Roller reported that a Richard Jareck, of Heidelberg won more than $50,000 at roulette at the San Remo C an o r a seven-month period. The City Counci tied to ban him as a professional gambler," but the German took some of his winnings and hired two Italian lawyers, who success fully forced the Council to rescind the ban. His point was that, if both he and the Casino are honest, the odds are against him anyway. Back to the roulette table he went, and out he came-a winner again.

When I think of roulette, I think of three varieties of the game— one European, and two American.

Of the three, the European version presents the best chance for the player. There is only one zero on the layout, and on certain bets, if the little white ball happens to land in the zero slot, the player has an option to save part of his bet en prison.
There is a world of difference between the two American versions. One version also has the single zero, but unlike its European cousin, in this game if the zero comes up, and you didn't bet on zero, you lose. Period. The second version has a layout with both a zero AND a double-zero, and is a flat-out rip-off. I urge you to avoid wasting your money there.
It amazes me that, when casinos have both zero and double-zero roulette tables, as is the case with the Monte Carlo in Las Vegas, both tables are busy. That's why casino owners never overestimate the intelligence of their players.

Of all the games in the casino, none has inspired more "systems" devised to guarantee victory than roulette. The most famous— or infamous—is the Martingale, where the player doubles his bet after each loss, relying on the certainty of eventually having a winning spin. The fatal flaw in this "system" is the built-in table betting limit, which prevents unlimited doubling-up. Even without a table betting limit, the Martingale system remains faulty. There is no guarantee, even if you wager on Red 99 times in a row, that on the hundredth spin Red will show up.

The little white ball, like the dice on the craps table, has no memory. I learned this axiom the very hard way in London, when I brashly aimed to win a few pounds to buy a bauble for a lady friend, and threw my chips on Red. Spin-after-spin, Black came up, until I reached the table limit and had to stop. I retreated from the table like a beaten dog. I felt I had lost enough money on this Martingale sham to buy an interest in the British crown jewels. Needless to mention, I never tried that "foolproof" system again.
I won't go into all the nuances and nitty-gritties of the game of roulette. If you're still hell-bent to play it, there are plenty of gambling how-to books available. The only person 1 know of who had a rational game plan for a go at roulette, and was determined to put it into operation if he could, was a dealer from a London casino who had saved up the equivalent of $200,000.

He wrote to all the casinos in Las Vegas, challenging them to take his one $200,000 bet on just one spin of the roulette wheel, wagering on a color. Many of the casinos declined, a few offered to take him on, but only in a series of bets. Only Binion's accepted his challenge.

The Britisher came across the Atlantic with his wagering money, and prepared for the One Big Spin. Red was his choice of color. English gentleman that he was, he came to the casino decked out in a tuxedo.

The double-zero slot was closed off, and the Englishman gave the wheel a few practice spins. Finally, he nodded, and told Binion, "this is going to be it." A dealer gave the wheel a good healthy "push," and around and around went the little white ball, popping at last into a neat little red niche. The Britisher collected his winnings and returned to Jolly Old England, $200,000 richer (minus what taxes the Infernal Revenue Service was able to siphon off).