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journey back in time)
CasinoDealers.Net
Interviews
(Click the red
links for an incredible
journey back in time)
He came to Las Vegas in 1967. Walking
through all those glittering casinos, seeing movie stars up so close you could
touch one, watching a thousand dollars change hands on one roll of the dice or a
single turn of the cards. This was where the action was! Never mind the
blood-boiling summers or the bone numbing winters because inside those
chandeliered castles everything stayed the same. Except for him. His life was
changed forever.
He went to a local dealers school, and learned the
intricacies of such games as Baccarat and Craps. No diploma when he finished,
just a tip on whom was hiring. His first job was as a break-in dealer at the Mint
Hotel and from there he went to the Landmark
and later the Dunes.
(They're all closed now but he swears he had nothing to do with it.)
Today, thirty three years later he is the Gaming Instructor at
Caesars
Palace, where he no longer the student but the teacher.
"It's a great job,
because I get to help people have fun which is what gambling was meant to be."
Scott:
Thanks
for taking the time to do this Barney, I've been a big fan of yours for a long
time now. I loved your books especially 'Chip Wrecked in Las Vegas'
Barney:
Thank you, and this web site is
FANTASTIC, I must say!
Now that we're done patting each other on the back, I guess we should get started.
Shoot from the hip kid.
In
the introduction you mention that you broke into the business at the old
Mint?
Actually, my first
job in '67 was as a shill and break-in at the Pioneer Club downtown. I got $11 a
day and free cokes at the concession stand. Then somebody hit a keno
ticket for $1,500 — and the Pioneer Club took our free cokes away from us.
I guess they had to make up the money somehow. So I started pestering
other casinos downtown, and landed a job as a break-in at the Mint. Angel
Naves was the shift boss. By now I was pulling in $16 a day and getting
tokes when I worked the tables. It was like dying and going to heaven.
God, I used to carry my apron in my back pocket on my days off!
And I think one of the funniest things that ever happened at
the Mint was on one of my first days dealing. There was this guy standing
next to me betting the "Don't Come." His bet went behind the 6,
and after a couple of rolls he said to me, "Take my bet down." I
looked at him suspiciously and asked in a low voice, "Can you do
that?" That's how much I knew about the game. Instead of assuring me that it was permissible for him to remove his
bet, he hollered in a loud voice, "CAN I DO THAT? DID YOU HEAR THIS
DEALER?" I never liked don't bettors after that.
On another occasion, I was on the stick. The boxman had
just removed the paddle to drop a bill inside. Just at that moment, the
shooter threw the dice, and one of them landed right in the slot. I said
to the boxman, "Call it." He said, "You call it."
The whole game ground to a halt, while the shift boss was paged. Finally
Angel came out of the coffee shop, a napkin tied around his neck. He took
one look at the dice cocked in the money slot and said, "No roll."
There used to be a degenerate gambler named Mugsy who played
at the Mint. And he played until he went broke. I don't think he ever won.
Then he would sidle up to you on your break and ask, "What size slacks do
you wear?"
An hour later he was back at the Mint with a pair of pants in your exact size,
the price tag still hanging on them. "These slacks are $35,"
Mugsy would say. "But give me five dollars and they're yours."
Then Mugsy was back in action at the tables.
We used to work double shifts on Saturdays, 16 hours at a
stretch. After about ten hours, we would start hitting other casinos on
our breaks for a good stiff drink to keep us going. Then after about 14
hours, dealers started going down right on the games. The bosses thought
it was from overwork, but it was from over- drinking.
I
couldn't imagine drinking and dealing craps.
That's not what I hear Scott.
Well anyway, you mentioned being a shill? Is that how they taught you the rules of the game back then?
They
were supposed to, but all I did was stand there at the dice table acting like I was playing -- so it would attract other people to the
game. Kind of like being a worm on somebody's fishing pole. There
would be two shills on the table, one on each end. One of us bet $5 on the Pass
Line, the other bet $5 on the Don't Pass. We never got a chance to deal on a
real game, so it was a terrible job.
Now
we're on to the Landmark Hotel & Casino. What
was that place like?
Well,
it was every downtown dealer's burning desire to get a job on the Strip, so I was excited when I was hired to open the Landmark in 1969.
Actually, it wasn't even on the Strip. It was across from the
International (now the Las Vegas Hilton) on Convention Center Drive. But it sure beat
working downtown, or so I thought.
The
Landmark
opened the same week that the International
opened, so of course everybody flocked to the International. All we
got at the Landmark was the overflow. The Landmark had two casinos: one on the main floor and
a smaller casino up at the top of the Landmark tower. That's where I was working. You'd get a 20-minute break for lunch. And by the time you
got down the elevator, into the restaurant and ordered your food, it was time to
get back on the elevator and up to the top of the tower again. I must have
lost five pounds the first week I worked there.
The most money I ever made in one day at the Landmark was
$40. Then the pit boss had the audacity to say, "I don't want to hear you guys ever say
again that you never made a score in here."
That was the day I quit. And I didn't even have another
job lined up.
The
place never did take off did it?
No, and I really thought it
would be a fantastic casino. It was so modernistic and everything, with that needle nose tower sticking up in the
air. That's why I was always hesitant about buying stock in the
Stratosphere: same kind of tower, same kind of theme, only the Stratosphere was stuck in the middle of nowhere, whereas the Landmark was in a
halfway-decent location. But it never did catch on.
I remember when the Landmark opened. Barbara Streisand
was playing in the showroom at the International, and Frankie Avalon was in the showroom at the
Landmark. He walked through the casino one day and said, "They should
call this place El Deado." In fact, we had our own nickname for it.
We called it
the Blandmark.
Where to now Barney, the Dunes?
Well, after I left the Landmark I started pestering casinos on the Strip. Another dealer named Russ Fisher went out with me on these job
hunts. We were going to give each other moral support. The first casino we
approached was the Sahara,
which was a great casino back in 1969. The pit boss said, "Well, I only have one opening for a crap dealer."
Russ said to me, "You can have it." I said, "No, you can have it."
The pit boss finally said, "Tell you what, I'll flip a coin." Russ called heads and
it landed on heads. "I guess you got the job," he said to me.
"No," I said, "you got it. You called heads, didn't you?" The pit boss bellowed,
"Does either one of you want this job?" So Russ got it.
Now here's a story I have never told before, and it's true.
There was a floorman working at the Dunes.
— I won't give his name because he's still around — but this guy was a compulsive gambler, and he was always broke.
He was a good friend of Russ Fisher's; they grew up together. Russ had told
him I was still looking for a job, so this floorman said, "If you guys will
loan me $400, I'll introduce Barney to the guy who does the hiring at the
Dunes." So we loaned him the money. He introduced me, and a week later I was
workingat the Dunes. Of course, we never got the $400 back, but it was a good investment on my
part.
Table
for table on the tokes right Barney?
Yes, we went table for table at the Dunes until 1984, I
think.
The Dunes was a fantastic job. I was at the there
from 1969 to 1988, so we're talking almost two decades here.
We got four junkets a week, two out of New
York, and if you made less than $100 a night in tokes you considered it a blank. Now remember, a c-note a night back then it would be
like making $400-$500 today. The action on the tables was unbelievable. In fact, on my
first night at the Dunes a player said to me, "Give me six thousand
across." I turned to the boxman and whispered, "This guy wants
six thousand across!" I didn't even know what the hell six thousand
across was. The boxman nodded and said," Put him up." The bosses
included such well-known figures as Sid Wyman, Major Riddle, Ash Resnick, and George Duckworth.
Sid really knew this business well.
I
remember George Duckworth ordered all the dealers to pool their tokes, saying,
"You're gonna need a wheelbarrow to take your money home." Tokes
immediately dropped by two/thirds. Here's another story: There was
one period of time back in the late 70s when Duckworth wouldn't let us have
action on dealer bets. Win or lose, we kept whatever was bet for us. Talk about robbing banks! We
were making a FORTUNE. That lasted about a month, and then we went back to our
old way of locking up the money only when we won the bets.
It wasn't all fun and games there was it?
No
Scott, the
Dunes was tough on the help. You could get fired for calling in sick, for
being late, for not answering your phone. I saw a dealer get fired for smiling when he called a winner. I saw a dealer get fired for refusing
to cancel a doctor's appointment to work on his day off. I saw dealers
fired just for being on the same crew with somebody else they wanted to fire.
But the money was so good you didn't care about all that.
You figured that you were going to get the axe sooner or later, so you might as well make
as much as you could in the meantime. Then Sid Wyman died, and the Dunes died with him. Morris Shenker took over, and the hotel went into a
nosedive.
He wouldn't spend money refurbishing the property, he canceled the Dunes' highly successful junket program, and at one point the employees didn't even
have health insurance.
Consequently, everyone started looking for better jobs and
the hotel
eventually closed in 1993. Gone forever were such unique Vegas creatures
as the "Miracle Mile" golf course, the exquisite "Vive Les
Girls" revue, Frederic Apcar's "Casino de Paris," the Sultan's Table, the Dome of
the Sea with its own floating mermaid, and the quaint bungalows overlooking three
different swimming pools. But on the bright side I met my wife Debbie at the Dunes in 1985. She was a blackjack
dealer. We got married in 1987, and she is now a Clark County Court Clerk.
I have very fond memories of
the old Dunes and the folks that worked there. I'll tell you Scott, I shed a
tear or two when they blew the place up.
Over 20 years in the
business, now the big house Caesars Palace
Yep, in 1988 I was hired at Caesars
Palace. Probably every dealer's dream
job. Unfortunately, I wasn't dealing anymore. After two decades of
bending over dice tables, my back was practically worn out. I finally had
surgery, but I
couldn't deal anymore and had to take a box job at the Dunes. So when I
got hired at Caesars, it was as a boxman, or boxperson, as they say nowadays.
And I have to say that getting hired at Caesars was probably the
best thing that ever happened to me — except for marrying Debbie, of course. Because after I had been at Caesars for five years, I was named Gaming
Instructor -- teaching tourists how to gamble. I tell them my job at
Caesars is to turn out six compulsive gamblers a day. More importantly, though, I
get weekends off ! And how many people do you know in the casino racket
that get weekends off?
At one time, Caesars Palace was probably the best dealing job
in town, but times change. The dealers still do well, but try to tell that to some
of the old veterans who were there in its heyday. Another problem at Caesars
is the constantly changing face of management. We've had four different
owners in the last six years: Caesars World, ITT, Starwood, and now Park Place Entertainment. Every time I see somebody in a suit, I think it's a new
owner.
But it's still a helluva way to make a living. I went
to a high school reunion a couple of years ago. One of my classmates was a retired Air
Force major, another was the national president of J. C. Penney's. But when
everyone found out I was working at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, I was the center of attention.
And something funny is always happening. For instance,
the other day a man was sitting alone at a blackjack table, betting $100 a pop. A lady sat
down with six $25 checks. The first thing she did was color up one of the $25 checks for $5 checks. After winning several hands, she colored up five
$5 checks for a $25 check. Then she lost the rest of her $5 checks, so she
colored up another $25 check. This went on for 15 minutes until the lady finally left the table. "Geez," the dealer said to the
player. "What a pain in the ass that lady was."
"Tell me about it," the man replied.
"I've been married to her for 17
years."
What a great career so far, then you become a best
selling author. appeared on CNN, NBC the A&E Network and the Morton Downey
show? Personally Barney, I never liked the old
Morton Downey Show, I always thought of him as a real asshole.
It's all an act. Deep
inside, Morton is a — real asshole. But he promoted my books, which is why I did the show in the first place. Of
course, it didn't help when he ripped one of my books in two and threw it on the floor, right on the air! They flew me to Palm Springs for the show,
though, so it wasn't a total loss. The promo's on CNN, NBC and A&E Network
really helped sell some books.
You
were a speaker
at the World Gaming Congress?
Yes, I've done a lot of public speaking in conjunction with my books. You know, writing a book is the easy part. Getting publicity for it,
and getting people to buy it . . . that's the hard part. You're going to find that
part out real soon here with respects with this web site of yours.
Yea,
so I hear. Let me ask you this, was Las Vegas a better place when you got into
the business back in '67?
In a lot of ways it was. The town was smaller, so everybody knew everybody else. You could get a job a lot easier. You got hired by
the pit boss instead of some conglomerate human resources dimwit. You didn't have
to take a drug test or pass a security background check. Dice crews went
table for table, and the money was a lot better. Of course, you were treated
like shit, but you could put up with that when you had a pocket full of hundred dollar bills.
Your opinion of today's dealers?
I honestly feel sorry for them in part because you trained most of them,........
I'm just kidding. Today, working in a casino is like working in a factory. You do your time, and every two weeks you get a
paycheck with your wages and your tokes, less federal income tax, FICA, 401(k), and everything else. Then you go home, and get ready to do it all
again tomorrow. When you look at it that way, it doesn't sound like much
fun at all. Are they a good as we were? NO WAY! We took pride in dealing dice,
always striving to become better. Hell, in the beginning we would practice our
ass off each and every day after work! That went on for years. The funny part
though, is that the math of the game was taught to us back then exactly the way
you're trying to teach it here on the web site. Learning the first nine bets and
rates of return is the simplest way to do it. You can take that same mathematical
theory and apply it to such games as roulette.
What do you see for the future of
gaming and working as a casino dealer?
I see a great future for gaming not only in Las Vegas, but around the country. Consequently, a good dealer can practically write his own ticket.
There's much more room for advancement into management than there was when I was breaking in.
I would suggest that anyone interested in the casino business
learn as many games as he can. It's not enough anymore just to know craps,
or blackjack, or roulette. Many casinos won't even hire you unless you know
half a dozen games.
If I had it to do over again, I would learn every game in the
casino. I
would also take casino management courses at the community college. And I would learn another career just in case.
Well, lets wrap this up Barney. One
more question. Can you get me a job at Caesars
Palace?
No!
NO? ............WHY NOT?
In all the years I've
known craps instructors, I've never known any that could actually deal well on a
live game. That's why!
That's very funny, yes
sir, as you can see I'm laughing my ass off! Well
let me ask you this, can you at least help get some old-timers to write about
dealing in the 50's and 60's?
Sure! But let me tell you
something about this wonderful site of yours, although it's under
construction, we can see your vision.
Believe
me when I tell you......'For
you have built it.........They will come'
*************************
Thank
you Mr. Barney Vinson
