On a blackjack Website, I read a thread about a card counter doing a “great drunk act” (that’ll be another blog entry later). The post read:
The count goes up a bit, the drunk stops play with, “Can I change my bet?” The pit says sure. The drunk then takes the two greens he had bet and replaces them with two different greens from his stack. It totally cracked me up.
Then another card counter posted the reply: “Hilarious.”
Wow, really? I guess you had to be there. Aside from my strong aversion to the over-acting schtick of riffraff card counters, the “joke” just isn’t funny. It’s akin to the dealer asking, “You don’t want to double down on that blackjack?” Ha ha. That’s hilarious. What’s really sickening is that the table often laughs, and then laughs again when someone follows up with the classic, “Should I split my face cards?” Ha ha. I have a personal rule for such situations (provided there’s no heat risk): If any yahoo at the table jokes about splitting Tens, then I start splitting Tens at every opportunity without saying anything. There is a strong correlation between thinking the chitchat is funny and being superstitious about Ten-splitting. So the table often clears out. Who’s laughing now?
If you want to see how pathetic card counters are in their attempts at humor, read the blackjack Websites on April 1. Now, card counters do not have a monopoly on bad jokes; degenerates make jokes, too. A classic Asian “joke” is the past-posting joke: after a 30:1 baccarat hand is dealt, the player puts a tall stack of chips on the betting circle for the bonus sidebet. That’s hilarious, dude.
Having written all this, I now come to my point: dealers are the most unfunny people on the planet. However, while most aspiring comedians give up, dealers see every new table as a captive audience waiting for some free humor to relieve the tedium of losing money. You would think that with thousands of dealers with millennia of combined experience, the casino industry would have come up with more than six jokes by now, but such is not the case. There are six casino jokes:
1. If you try to color down a foreign chip at the table, sometimes the pit boss has to come over and look at the chip. If the chip is from any small casino, the boss will say, “They’re still open?” and then chuckle. Over a decade ago at the Westward Ho, the boss said this joke when I tried to color down a black chip from downtown. If he were making the joke with a touch of self-deprecating irony, I would have actually laughed with him, but instead we laughed at him, of course. I wonder where that boss is now …
2. Q: Why did Michael Jackson lose at blackjack? A: He didn’t hit on anything over 12.
3. Q: “What is the difference between someone praying in church and someone praying in a casino?” A punchline does not make this joke any funnier.
4. Q: “What is the difference between a blackjack player and a puppy dog?” This joke might be improved if we replace “blackjack player” with “dealer.” Perhaps replace “puppy dog” with dealer, but then the punchline isn’t true.
5. When your hand needs one more Jack to improve into a monster hand, the dealer will say, “You’re one Jack off.” This joke can be turned into a fun social experiment. Next time you have a white male dealer, especially in Vegas, wait until you have a hand that needs another Jack. Then, say out loud, “Awww, I was one Jack short.” With probability 1, the dealer will seize the opportunity, beaming because your “Jack short” wording makes him think you’ve never heard the joke before, and you’ll think he’s hilarious for coming up with such clever improv.
6. When your hand consists of QQ, a white male Vegas dealer will say, “Siegfried and Roy.” This joke also can be turned into a game of cat-and-mouse. When the dealer says the “joke,” just ignore it as if you didn’t even hear that anything was said. I personally guarantee that he will repeat the joke as many times as is necessary for you to acknowledge the joke. After all, this is his showstopper! He’s been waiting all day for the perfect Iowa-tourist audience to be thrilled and amazed by his local comedic flair. I guarantee he will say it as if he invented it. He even hopes that you won’t get the joke at first, so that it’ll seem more clever when it dawns on you.
The phrase “dummy up and deal” isn’t taught these days in dealer school. Next time I hear any of these jokes, I just might say to the dealer, “Your choice—jokes or tokes?” Alternatively, I am willing to one-up the dealer with superior humor, if anyone will accept the challenge/invitation to email me Joke #7.
Going back to the MJ joke, he actually partnered up with Stations but the deal fell through. They were going to name it Moles…………………wait for it………………..ha just kidding!
Depending on how annoying or favorable the dealer is, the easiest way to get back is to take offense at their joke and tell the floor. They could take them off the game and you don’t have to deal with them anymore or they could be on their last warning and its “stand up comedy or unemployment line.”
When you see their name tag that lists their home state, ask enthusiastically
(as if about to make a local connection with Wilbur from Ohio) – “whereabouts
in Ohio?”. When they reply with their hometown, your retort is a half-questioning
“Sorry?” Whether they take the bait on a routine they’ve probably run a thousand
times is irrelevant. Telling bad dealer jokes to that annoying tool of a dealer is fun.
I like the concept of heaping the bad jokes onto the dealer. In particular your idea makes me think that I could really steal the dealer’s “thunder” if I claim the Siegfried & Roy joke, telling it myself as soon as anyone gets the QQ pair and then sitting smugly as if I invented this tour de force. Perhaps I’ll claim outright that I came up with it, which will trigger an argument with the dealer–not always a bad thing! 🙂
The Siegfried and Roy joke is really dated. Wouldn’t surprise me if some younger dealers would ask, “Who are they?”
True, I guess you can thank Montecore for that. Still waiting to hear some good Vegas jokes involving Justin Bieber, LiLo, Ke$ha, etc.
I definitely use the #3 joke in my classes.
One joke that should have made the cut is the guaranteed way to end up with a small fortune.
Also, in video poker, where you’re dealt a KQJT9 straight flush, there is a decision to made whether you keep all five cards (called the “chicken” move) or toss the 9 and go for the royal flush (called the “gambler” move.) If you make the gambler move, I tell you to pray for a royal. This is where the #3 joke comes in. (Short video poker strategy: be a gambler at deuces wild variations and a chicken in all other games) There are a number of gambler versus chicken hands in video poker.
In blackjack you can get a whole table talking about “chicken versus gambler” on every “tough” decision such as a 16 against a 10. This makes sense to people who think it’s always a guess and disguises the fact that you think it isn’t!
If it serves your purposes to have it light-hearted at the table, this is a good way.
You forgot describing 17 as the Mother-in-law hand. (“You want to hit it, but you can’t.)
OMG, you are 100% right. The Mother-in-Law is probably casino Joke #1!! Great catch.
A dealer told me the ‘Siegfried and Roy” joke after I got a Q of hearts and a Q of diamonds while playing at Fitzgerald’s in the late 90’s. I looked at the dealer (overweight white male), and said, “Okay, which one is Siegfried and which one is Roy?”. His face almost dropped to the table as he stood there in stunned silence. The rest of the table just burst out in laughter and his face started turning slightly red. He hardly spoke the rest of the time my wife and I was at the table.
You’re so clever.
Speaking of jokes, I’m loving the tag line in the header of this site. It’s either a subtle joke designed to fool the masses, or the web site programmer forgot to fill in part of the template.
Not an oversight. Same as the “About the Author” page of my book!
Ahhh. That would explain why I’ve never seen it 🙁
Well, the “Lorem ipsum …” is not something new. That’s what typesetters and page designers would use as standard filler when designing a page, either when the actual article wasn’t yet available, or to help the designer focus on the look of the page, and not get distracted by the content.
Yes, I knew that and it was the reason for my original comment. I meant that I have not (yet) seen a copy of your book(s) and so I couldn’t tell whether it was a tongue-in-cheek thing on your part, or an oversight on the web page. Either way I thought it was funny.
One of my (many) duties is the restaurant menu.
We were toying with ‘naming’ omelets, so I named one omelet the ‘Lorum Ipsum’ omelet on the menu.
Well, the owner decided to have the menu printed up and put out on the floor (as is), and the ‘Lorum Ipsum Omelet’ has been available for three years now…
Why did Michael Jackson lose at blackjack? A: He didn’t hit on anything over 12.
This has to be one of the best jokes I have heard of all time.
I hope you all experience positive variance.
Ah, the 7th joke has to be:
Why do they call it a shoe?
Because it will kick your @$$
I’m surprised I’ve not heard that one, and it actually got a chuckle out of me, which is a testament to how even a simple joke is 100x better if you haven’t heard it 100 times.
As a dealer, just wanted to add that not one of the jokes anyone ever tells is funny. Some of us laugh out of pity for you, the rest laugh out of discomfort. I don’t tell horrible jokes at the table and I don’t want to hear any.
What jokes do black male dealers tell?
You forgot about what the difference between a dealer and a pizza is.