4/6/2006
Six years ago today, the first Frugal Fridays hit this space. This is my 312th deadline – and I’m exhausted from so many 12-hour days at my computer recently trying to finish up my next big writing project. Why do my books keep getting longer and longer?
Since my brain is tired today and it’s an anniversary date, it seems like a good time to look back at the past. I decided to pull up that very first column and see how much has changed in six years. You might find it interesting to do this too, at http://lasvegasadvisor.com/frugalfridays.cfm?FrugalFridayID=1.
I’m amazed in two diametrically opposite ways: So much has changed and so much hasn’t changed.
What has changed? When I look at the names of the casinos, I realize that we still play at only one of them, the Hard Rock. The others are no longer with us, or they’ve been sold to another company and changed their name, or we now choose different casinos because of different promotions and/or machine inventory. Having sold our home in Indiana, we now live in Vegas the whole year, with only a short trip back once a year. Some may point out that there aren’t nearly as many juicy playing opportunities as there used to be. It’s true that the inventory of good VP games has been shrinking, but a savvy gambler willing to stay flexible and chase promotions aggressively can find enough to keep him busy. We still find enough to sort through and choose the best.
So much more hasn’t changed. Being organized is still the key to successful gambling. We still like sleeping in our own bed rather than a hotel’s, even if it’s free. Brad still collects casino jackets by the dozens, but wears only a few of his favorites. We’re still trying to share food comps, but our comp balances all over town keep climbing.
I’m not making any specific promises about the future, but I plan to continue what I started six years ago, to “range all over the gambling layout: funny and weird casino happenings, last-minute promos, comp secrets, hidden slot club benefits, and video poker tips.”
As long as it stays fun!
4/13/2006
Every so often I hear the story of a gambler that tickles my fancy.
There are as many angles on this business of gambling as there are individuals who come at it. But some are, shall we say, more individual than others. Mickey Crimm is one of those. This appeared in a post on one of the Internet forums I belong to and Mickey granted me generous permission to share his story with you. This is a two-parter; tune in for the exciting conclusion next week.
Hitchhiking Along the Poker Circuit
My name is Mickey Crimm. I’m 53 years old this month. I was born in North Dakota, grew up in Mississippi, Louisiana and California. I joined the Merchant Marines at 16, the Army at 18, and went to Alaska at 21, then proceeded to gallivant all around that state off and on for 18 years. My folks have lived in Juneau, Alaska since 1970.
I never had a career. I was a drifter and a job skipper. I held a job for 13 months once, back in the seventies — my civilian record. I always wanted to see what was on the other side of the hill and I didn’t care much how I got there. Drive, fly, walk, bus, hitchhike, freight train. Whatever. From the Aleutians to Las Vegas. I’ve drifted through a lot of places. Mostly thumbing the interstates or riding freight trains. I lost my driver’s license a long time ago and never cared to get it back. I took regular jobs in some of those spots but mostly worked day labor, living out of a small backpack and a sleeping bag.
I’m the King of the Hitchhikers. Well over a hundred thousand miles, mostly west of the Mississippi. Don’t like it much back east. I don’t think there’s one stretch of interstate west of the river I haven’t thumbed. My longest hitchhike was from Meridian, Mississippi, to Skagway, Alaska: 5,000 miles in seven days almost to the minute.
I was in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, in April 1992, working as a stevedore, when my real father fell dead of a heart attack in Tupelo, Mississippi. I had $1,500 to my name, but laid down $1,100 on a one-way flight to Tupelo. There hadn’t been a plane in or out of Dutch in three days (great weather in Dutch), but a little hole opened in the sky and we shot through it. When I got my dad buried, my Mississippi relatives asked me how I was gonna get back to Alaska. “”I’ll show you how. Drop me off on the highway and get lost.””
I hitchhiked to Las Vegas with $300 and change, looking to parlay it up. I needed to be standing in Seattle with $550 to fly back to Dutch. I went broke on the first day (nothing new to me). I was on the street (nothing new to me). I had no job (nothing new to me).
I met a casino hustler named Black Bart who taught me how to “buffalo hunt,” cruising the slots looking for credits on abandoned machines. I got really good at it. One time, another hustler and I were lying to each other about how good we were. I told him, “”Once I was walking down the street in front of the Golden Nugget and spied a machine flashing in the Horseshoe, so I walked across the street and picked up the credits.””
He said, “”That’s nothing. I was riding the bus down the Strip, spied a machine flashing in the Riviera, got off at the next stop, walked back to the Riviera, and picked up the credits.””
One day I walked into the Horseshoe just after the final event of the World Series of Poker had started. I watched the whole thing for the next three days. The proverbial light bulb went off in my head. If these hillbillies can do it, so can I. I left no stone uncovered in my research. The Special Collections section of the North Las Vegas Library has the best collection of poker books I’ve ever seen in a library anywhere. I had a couple of logistical problems, though. I didn’t have a bankroll and it was hotter than hell in Las Vegas. I’d have to put Las Vegas on hold.
I hitchhiked north, had a change of heart, and wound up in Seattle, looking to make the money to get back to Dutch. Coming up with $550 working day labor for minimum wage was going to”
4/21/2006
Last week, we met Mickey Crimm, one of the true gambling individuals I’ve run across in my years in the business. This is the second and final part of his series. If you missed the first part, scroll down to the link to the Frugal Fridays archives and read it first.
Once a Drifter …
So I took off hitchhiking around the world looking for another stud hi-lo game. I thumbed and thumbed and thumbed. Went back to Iowa and even Michigan. Couldn’t find one. I finally rolled into Laughlin, Nevada, in October 1996, with 99 cents and some rolling tobacco in my pocket. I stashed my gear in the desert on a hill overlooking Harrah’s. There was one thing I was qualified to do at that point: buffalo hunt.
I went into Harrah’s and was picking up some change when I noticed another buffalo hunter and struck up a conversation. “”This is great,”” he says. “”I’m from Atlanta and went broke playing blackjack. I got a couple of days before my flight back and some local showed me how to do this.” He also showed me the pigs.
“”The pigs,”” I said. “”What are the pigs?”
“”Some slot machines the locals are beating,”” he said.
“”Show them to me.””
Harrah’s had a bank of six quarter Piggy Bankin’ machines. They were bonusing slots. In between slot cruises, I stood there and watched. A tourist would put in a twenty-dollar bill and bang two coins. A computer screen up top had a piggy bank that started with ten coins in it. Every time the machine caught three blanks, two coins went into the piggy bank. On the third reel was a symbol called “Break the Bank” and the bank kept rising until that symbol landed on the line. Then the piggy bank broke and the tourist got all the coins in it. It was what I now know to be a rapid progressive.
But there was something else going on. Many tourists ran up the bank, ran out of credits, and walked off. Someone hovering around could play the machine, betting one coin, until he broke the bank. He could then cash out and go back to hovering around. I didn’t know what the savvy locals considered a good play, but they didn’t seem to be interested in any bank with less than 35 credits. I see, said the blind man. I didn’t know what it took for bankroll either. I just knew I didn’t have one.
So I took off upriver. Not good for a buffalo hunter to hang around one casino too long. I went through Gold River, then the Nugget, and into the Pioneer. While credit hunting I noticed a guy I knew from the streets of Las Vegas. He’d been playing a game called Flush Attack and was cashing out. He had three big buckets of quarters sitting on the machine. I walked up and asked what he was doing. He started bragging about all the money he had. Even pulled out a big wad of bills and waved them around. I asked him to give me a clue. He said, “”If something comes up, I’ll let you know,”” and walked off. That might have been what he said, but what he was thinking was, “”Go to hell.””
By the time I got to the Edgewater I had $21. A lady playing a pig walked off on 65. What to do? What to do? Oh well, if I go broke I just start over. Something has to give. I dropped a quarter in and broke the bank on the first spin of the first pig I ever played. That’s when I fell in love with that “”Break the Bank”” symbol. I continued to buffalo hunt for two days, but played any pig at 50 or higher. Those machines were all up and down the river. At $300 in bankroll I started playing the dollars. Somehow I got through the window. Once my bankroll was safe, I started creeping down the number. I knocked off the credit hunting. Didn’t want to lose any casinos with those machines in them.
Two days later I checked into Gold River and haven’t been without a roof over my head since. October of this year will be 10 years. Somehow or another the whole thing came together for me: the money-making opportunity on the pigs, the money-management skills (I finally realized the more money I had, the more money I could make), more available bonus mach
4/27/2006
One of Brad’s and my biggest problem in casinos is the smoky atmosphere. Brad’s heart and arteries don’t need it and my allergies don’t like it at all. In fact, this issue is one of the main reasons we’ve cut down the amount of our video poker play in the last few years. We don’t go to a casino every day and, when we do, we usually limit our play to no more than two hours.
If you’re concerned about this health problem, here are some of the things you might find helpful in planning your casino gambling:
Choose casinos that have a better ventilation system. Some casinos do a good job here and others are downright health hazards. You’d think that a newer casino or one with high ceilings would be the best choice, but this doesn’t always hold true, and a casino that has a lot of fabric décor is asking for stinky air quality.
Play early in the morning. I’m always amazed at how empty even the most popular casinos are from 4 or 5 to 10 a.m. Fewer patrons equals fewer smokers.
Avoid Friday and Saturday evenings when the casinos are most crowded and the smoke is the thickest. Also, weekdays are usually better than weekends.
Take fresh-air breaks during your play. Go for a walk outside every hour or so. In a recent column I asked for suggestions about using your players club points for health benefits. One of my readers, RecVPplayer, suggested that using the casino spa and/or fitness center could improve a person’s health and well-being. That would be a perfect break from a smoky casino floor.
Try a battery-operated personal air purifier. Various types are available, most of which hang around the neck. I’ve heard mixed reports on how effective they are, but some players say they help when you have a smoker very near you. Of course, I’ve seen players who take more direct action in this situation, pointing a small fan in the smoker’s direction!
If the issue of smoky casinos is of concern to you, you might want to check out the “”No-Smoke”” Yahoo Group, which is dedicated to the promotion of non-smoking areas in casinos. Go to
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/No-Smoke/. The goal of this group is to actively lobby for decent non-smoking areas in casinos, not to merely complain about conditions as they exist now. To this end, members are encouraged to post the name of a casino that they would like to see create a decent non-smoking area, supplying contact information with which other members can assist in lobbying for this.
And now a frugal coupon for non-smokers: “Take A Bite Out of Smoking Campaign” is a tobacco-control program sponsored by the Southern Nevada Health District. Go to http://www.gethealthyclarkcounty.org/tobacco/restaurant.html for a list of non-smoking restaurants in Clark County. They’re also offering a free buy-one-get-one-free coupon book for some of these, including fast-food places like Port of Subs and Dairy Queen, and a variety of non-casino traditional restaurants all over town.
As an Internet list member posted on the subject of casino comps: “Smoke-free playing conditions may be the best ‘comp’ a casino could offer!”