MGM – Las Vegas Advisor

Episode 5 of Colin Jones will air on its regular schedule next time, but this recent comment on the GWAE Facebook page deserves (maybe) an immediate reply:

Marketing the 6:5 variant as just straight blackjack is as preposterous as a casino marketing the house table game “Casino poker” “3card Poker” with a house edge dealt in the pit as just Poker. Beyond the question of proper “notice” of 6:5 odds in the case from this post, the concept of getting paid 3:2 on a natural 21 is so central to the game, hence the name Blackjack, that casinos should not be allowed to market the 6:5 variant as Blackjack. They should have to name it something else like the previous used Spanish 21 for another variant of the game. This would also resolve the concerns in the posted case.

At 6:30 a.m. on September 11, 2001 (“9/11”), I was just walking into my room at the Main Street Inn (now the Bridger Inn) in downtown Las Vegas after an all-nighter playing and scouting. I turned on the TV and saw the fire at the World Trade Center, which had been hit by a small plane, they said. I grew up in sight of the towers (at least on a clear day from the cemetery on top of the hill), so it was surreal seeing them collapse. Then all domestic flights were grounded, and I found myself locked down in Vegas.

Today’s youth, and some of us old-timers, have forgotten who the luckiest person on earth was that day. Lost in the shuffle of 9/11 was one U.S. Representative Gary Condit. At the time, he was dominating the headlines after the May-2001 disappearance of Chandra Levy, an intern with whom he had had an affair. The public (read “I”) believed he had a role in her disappearance, or at a minimum was not sharing all of his information with investigators. Then 9/11 happened and the Condit Scandal evaporated, just like that. When Levy’s body was found in 2002, it was barely a story.

Tag: MGM

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