By Max Rubin 

The Good Bosses   The Bad Bosses

The good bosses are the guys you can use. It really doesn’t matter if they’re smart or dumb, hard working or lazy, stable or goofy. What matters to you is that you can trick or bribe them to get more stuff.

Generally speaking, if they’re congenial, busy with other affairs, or too damn self-absorbed to pay any attention to you except when they have to, you’ll get more comps by playing in they’re section.

  He’s the original casino love god. Married four times, his current wife is a dealer in the same joint, but he’s still got all the moves. You can spot him in seconds. If he is not hitting on the cocktail waitresses, he’s leaning over the tables, trying to get a gander of some sweet thing’s layout, while ignoring three $100 tables with rammin’jammin’action going on all around him.

 Usually a handsome guy, he’s a flashy dresser with perfectly coifed hair and in constant need of attention. He’ll flirt with every woman from a 21-year-old racehorses to 90-year-old wheelchair bound blind women.

 He’s easy to stroke. If you’re male, all you have to do is brag how slick he is to the ladies on your table when he’s within earshot and he’ll double your rating immediately. If you’re female, he’ll do what ever he can for you, as long as you laugh at his jokes. Don’t ever let him think he has a chance with you, though, because if you turn him down, your rating will suffer accordingly. If you do go for his lines and wind up an amorous relationship, you’ll hit the grand slam of comps. Until he gets tired of you (usually about two days)

 He is so busy sucking up to the shift bosses, trying to make his fellow bosses look bad, and generally stirring up shit, he has little time to actually watch the games.  Although he appears to be very efficient at rating his players, he has no desire to socialize with them and if you leave him alone, he’ll leave you alone.

 If you can read his dealers’ body language when he talks to them, you’ll know right away he’s the kind of guy who’d rat out his own mother if he thought he’d get a promotion. He’s especially susceptible to complements you give his boss about him, if you make sure he overhears you.

 If you can bring yourself to write a glowing letter to management about him, he’ll automatically triple your ratings on your next trip.

 Dressed like a $1000 call girl, she’s new to the trade (of working for a check, that is). Formally one of top managements concubines, she’s a little long in the tooth for them now (pushing 25) and they’ve insisted that the casino manager break her in as a dealer.

 After extensive seasoning of, oh, about five weeks and following a lengthy visit ‘upstairs” on one of her breaks, she miraculously gets the first promotion that comes along, bypassing the 34-year-old mother of three who’s just finished her masters in Business Administration. She’s usually extra friendly, has great interpersonal skills and if you’re lucky, comes with all her vaccinations.

 Known to date even 80-year-old trolls if they have enough chips, she’s an easy pick-up if your bankroll can stand the bludgeoning . Although she still has trouble adding to 21, she knows the exact average bet and line of credit of every male in the casino who can draw markers for more than $50,000.

 Warning! She’s to be avoided by male comp wizards betting more than $250 a hand (unless you’re looking to get lucky), because she’ll gun every bet you make and be on you like a chicken on a June bug. She’ll ignore you if you keep your ACES play within the $25-$100 range

 Strangely enough, if you’re an average-looking female betting gobs of money, Miss Happycheeks will often give you a higher average bet than she should, because even though you may have an excellent education, great career, wonderful family, and more money in blue-chip investments than she can conceive, she feels sorry for you. But if you’re a knockout, look out. She’ll give you a rating all right, and it ain’t gonna be a 10.

 Very personable, she’s a recovering drug addict trying to get out of the business by hustling all of her dealers to join a pyramid play while she pretends to watch her games. Often a born-again Christian, she never has a clue about what’s going on in the pit. Although oblivious, she’s a nice gal who’s been splattered a few times herself and would never do anything to hurt you, hence your ratings stay high.

 Danger! If she tries to bring you under her sales spell, under no circumstances should you ever suggest that what she’s doing is a pyramid scheme, because it’s really “network marketing.” To even hint that you believe otherwise will probably find your rating slip in the garbage. However, you can appear to be fascinated by her big-buck networking ploy. And you are—as long as it nets you big buck-buck comps.

 A college-grad tweezer-butt with visions of being the CEO in twenty years, he wears Brooks Brothers suits, wing tips, power ties, needlepoint button-down-collar shirts, and a smug look at all times.

A guy who’s read all the books, he counts down every blackjack player winning more than $500, but doesn’t know a thing about how comps work (they didn’t teach comps at Cornell). He’s never made a laydown in his life and has about as much street sense as, well, a street.

 These guys are great to comp-wizard on (now that’s a verb), because they may as well be blind for all they can see through their tortoiseshell glasses.

 Shelly went to dealers school a year ago. She had pretty good hands. She’s alright in the looks department, as well. Problem is with all these new joints opening up, management had to hire some new bosses from the ranks, and to meet their government quotas, they had to promote a few extra women. The smarter dealers didn’t want the job. Shelly wasn’t smart.

 She’s so out of her depth that she might as well be underwater. Frequently sighted with a thousand-yard stare and permanent loopy grin, Shelly, can pretty much be ignored. Just don’t let her ignore you when you’re making your big bets.

 Warning! Shelly sometimes has trouble figuring out that two hands at $100 equals a $200 average bet. If she’s exceptionally slow on the uptake, play one hand.

 He can be anywhere from 30-70, but he’s seen it all and done it all. Usually not to worried about his appearance, he’s constantly on the lookout for crossroaders (casino thieves). A former casino bandit himself, he doesn’t believe card counting works, let alone comp wizardry.

 He's’ a guy who’ll plant himself on the big game in his area and hawk it with a vengeance, making sure to keep the dealers and other players as uncomfortable as possible. He’ll pick the cards up out of the discard rack and inspect the backs and sides anytime someone makes a non-book play that wins, and he’ll ignore your piddly $25-$100 play all night. As far as comp wizard is concerned, he might as well not even be there, except when you’re making your first and last bets.

 He’s a hail fellow, well met, parties with customers, and usually has a pretty good handle on what’s going on around his area. The only thing is, he doesn’t give a damn. Look for a big gut, nose blossoms, a big smile, and an ill-fitting suit.

 He’s especially vulnerable to golf balls, fight tickets, and food comps from anywhere else. If you’re even close on rating you need, tell him, and he’ll do everything he can for you, if you make his shift fun. If you’re a boozer coming with a buddy or two and want to raise some hell in the casino, this is your man.

The Bad Bosses

 While it may take you a session or two to find the best bosses for your particular style of play, it wont take long at all to discover the bosses dedicated to making your vacation a bummer. Bad bosses are creeps. they don't like you and they'll make you pay for invading their territory. Sadly, you'll find them in every joint. As soon as you identify one, move to another pit.

An anal retentive, you can't crack her shell with a grenade. dressed for success (at a "Fierce Feminists" convention), she volunteers for all the latrine details and loves to work the schedule, fill out employee termination reports, call dealers in on their days off, and makes sure they work overtime if they need to leave early to pick up the kids.

 Effervescent as a tree sloth, she never talks to customers unless spoken to and then only to talk down to them. she thinks all dealers are pond scum unworthy of her omnipotence and really believes she's next in line for a big move up the ladder of command. She doesn't realize that everyone in the joint, from the casino manager to the porter, hates her guts and she's got about as much chance of getting the next promotion as you do.

 She's easy to spot, with bad hair and fully accessorized drab outfits to match, including eyeglasses that went out of vogue in the early ' 60's. She does everything by the book, except ratings, which she consistently under-values, because she thinks that the more she can chisel you out of, the better it looks on her record. You're better off not playing in Ima's pit at all than risking your bankroll trying to pry a comp loose from her clammy paws.

 An incurable cynic, he won't do anything for anyone and why should he? It's not like anybody's going to do anything for him.

 Usually sporting a 10-year-0ld suit (which was out of fashion then) he can't understand why, after 15 years of playing slots, snorting coke, and dating 17-year-old high-school dropouts, he's still busted and no one will give him a shot at moving up in the organization. A real pleasure to be around, he's the only floorman in the joint who listens to right-wing talk radio to learn how to handle customers.

 Hopelessly mired in the twilight of mediocre career, he's miserable, hates casinos, hates dealers, and especially customers who make him work by asking for a comp or a rating. Usually chewing gum and leaning against the podium, he won't rate a $5000 player unless he's asked. A dying breed (from cirrhosis and lung cancer, mostly) small pockets of them remain and you should avoid them at all costs (almost always your comps)

 You came here to party. She came here to die. poor Lydia has seen more therapists than Woody Allen, who've all convinced her that her clinical depression isn't her fault. If not hers, then whose? it must be yours. You're the one making her work this shitty job.

 Sometimes she's almost serene when the psychotropic drugs are kicking in, but even then, why should she help you/ it doesn't matter anyway. Nothing does. She never smiles, dresses like she's auditioning for the lead in "Dark Periods" and doesn't really have the energy to write $100 on your rating slip when $25 is so much easier.

 Even if you could somehow get her to boost your ratings 200% it wouldn't be worth it, because you go to the casino to have fun and a party-on-the-hoof she ain't.

The serial floorman. he liked to drown puppies, pull wings off butterflies, and start fires when he was a kid. Then he learned martial arts at 15 so that he could stomp the crap out of the popular guys in school.

 Now he's got the perfect job: watching people lose their life's savings. he doesn't have an interest in the house's money at all. it's you he cares about, perversely. he underrates everybody and will rip your head off if you ask him for something.

 He's hard to spot, but here are some clues. If you shake his hand and it feels like a newly opened tube of Pillsbury Buttermilk Biscuits, back off. If you ask him where he's from and he says "why?" get up and leave. if he smiles ant pats the dealer on the back every time she draws a 21 and sweeps the board, pick up your chips and go.

 Nervous as a cop in prison, she knows she doesn't have the heart for this job and thinks she's going to be discovered at any minute. casinos being what they are, the bosses beat her up, the dealers beat her up, and the customers join the fray anytime they get the chance.

 Doing anything to avoid confrontation with her bosses, she always defers any decision, including comps, to her superiors and she'll underrate you if she's brave enough to rate you at all.

 Usually assigned to the lowest-limit games in the house anyway, there's nothing you can do to convince here to take a chance with your rating. To prove she can't be bought, she'll cut your actual average bet in half if you do something nice for her. Usually wearing a dress with those pooched-out things on the shoulder and a doily collar, she should have been a schoolteacher, except the third graders probably would have beaten her up, too.

 How can I put this delicately? how about, "He's a punk"? Yep, that works just fine. Reared in Camden and other Garden State garden spots, Jersey Jacks are famous the world over for exporting their rude behavior to sunnier climes. He hooked up with corporate in Atlantic City and got a transfer to Tunica, but he hates the town and isn't afraid to tell anyone within earshot how much nicer it was to live where it was cold and dirty and congested with other rude people.

 A know-it-all's know-it-all, he's usually a head bobber with a sneer who's never really had his butt kicked (he wouldn't talk to people that way if he had). No matter how big or rich you are, he'll get in your face and bray his unwanted opinions on any subject, ranging from how underrated the Jersey giants are to how he would have handled Saddam.

 He has a double-digit IQ but you just can't trick him with your ratings because, with him, everything's a contest. fair play and social graces aren't included in the rules. if you're actually averaging $75 a hand and he sees you bet $25 once, that's your rating. 

You got a problem wit' that?