By the sound of it, it's a pure coincidence, but you actually picked precisely the right place to pose this question since, in a former life, the current writer was actually Senior Producer on both seasons of Discovery Channel's Casino Diaries, which is the series you're referring to. (As an aside, there may have been a subsequent third series, but if so, it didn't get good reviews and was produced by a totally different team.)
As you comment, it's been a long time -- the first season of 13 shows aired in 2000 -- so I'm digging into the recesses of my mind here, but I'll do the best update I can with the available resources, including my less-than-perfect memory.
For those who didn't catch "Casino Diaries" and are therefore unacquainted with this character, he was affectionately known to the crew as "Toothless Larry," for obvious reasons. Originally from Brooklyn, NY, he'd formerly run a cab company (we have something like "Taxi" in our mind's eye...), but even then somehow managed to drive to Atlantic City every day to gamble. When it came time to quit the business, Larry announced to his wife that they were moving to Las Vegas, to which she responded that he was welcome to move there, but she had no such plans.
When we discovered Larry, he was working as a ticket writer at the Las Vegas Club, a job from which he was fired during the course of our filming. He later landed a job at the Plaza race and sports book, but that didn't work out too well, either. At the time, he was living at a very dubious motel downtown (one of his neighbors got taken out in a body bag while we were filming) and would walk across the street in the morning in his bedroom slippers to the El Cortez, his home from home, for his coffee.
To sum up his personality, Larry was primarily of a belligerent disposition and never minced his words. On occasion we'd show up, by arrangement, to film him, only to find him in a foul mood and unwilling to let us put the microphone on him. But in his good moods, Larry could be hilarious in a typically dry New Yorker way, and he was full of great stories. He took a shine to my colleague, the camera operator, and myself, and tried to fix her up with his son, who was studying a law degree back east. Larry took his visiting son and I out shooting craps downtown one night and we had a blast.
By the end of the series, Larry was not in a good spot and was down to his last $300 or so. He was looking for work but still gambling -- video poker was his main habit -- and his prospects weren't looking too good. I stayed in touch for awhile and would go hang out with him at the El Cortez every now and then. I took him a bottle of Grey Goose for Christmas that year, but I returned to the UK for awhile after that and we lost touch.
When I saw your question, I did a little sleuthing and found a listing for a Larry Sack of the right approximate age still residing in the Las Vegas area, although there's no way to sure it's the same Larry (without camping out on the doorstep, and stalking is beyond the remit of QoD). We placed a call to the players club at the El Cortez, but they were unable to release any information; the supervisor we spoke with did confide that the name didn't mean anything to him, but then again he could be new to the job.
So, unfortunately, we can't tell you much at all about Larry and his whereabouts these days. If anyone out there happens to know him, or has seen him around town, please drop us a line as we'd love to catch up with him.
Vanessa was just what you'd expect a Las Vegas dancer to be -- very self-confident and self-centered, and highly ambitious. "I want my name in lights" was her most frequently used phrase and she had dreams of being a producer. She was a good sport in terms of always being available when we needed to film her, but it was hard to get past the veneer to the "real" person.
Again, the current writer stayed in touch for awhile after filming, but hadn't heard anything of Vanessa for years until you inquired. So, Google to the rescue again, I did a little online sleuthing and the latest information I could find is that she attended the ABC bartending school in Las Vegas and landed a job at the now defunct Club SRO. Evidently showbiz didn't work out for her quite as planned.
Fast forward a few years and the most up-to-date information we could find was that Vanessa was bartending in Boston and, in 2004, was a contestant on NBC's "Fear Factor," where she was apparently admired for her killer physique, but was ultimately eliminated when she was unable to drink her quota of shots consisting of blended worms and maggots. No shame in that.
Originally from Vietnam, Scotty emigrated to the U.S. at the age of 14 and has been playing professional poker since the late '80s. When we filmed him he was going through a lean patch and the 2000 WSOP saw him cash in only one event, the Limit 7 Card Stud tournament, for a paltry $30,000 pay day. We haven't followed his career too closely since -- it's been the typical roller-coaster ride of many pro poker players -- although we know he is now divorced from his wife of back then and has since remarried. Scotty has yet to cash at the 2011 WSOP.
So, there's as much as we can tell you about the specific characters you inquired about. As far as some of the others we recall are concerned, here's what we know:
If anyone out there is familiar with the "Casino Diaries" series and any of the numerous other characters we profiled, please drop us a line with any additional information you may have (Mary Lou, are you still out there?!). It was a fun, if arduous, project that gained something of a cult status, especially in Las Vegas. It really was the closest we've seen to true "reality" television, with nothing staged and only "real" characters we found, not the wannabe celebrities of "Jersey Shore" and "Survivor." We had a large, revolving crew working all over town, filming characters from every walk of life for a year or more, so people got to know us and the characters we were profiling. Vanessa, of course, used to love being stopped to sign autographs by people who recognized her; Larry, less so.
