Vegas: Gambling 101 - Part III

First time? Start here. Read "The Primer" and follow the link at the end. Chronological order makes more sense for the stories.

The perfect storm is brewing. We have all the craps heavy-weights bellying up to the craps table. Legions of the fallen that have come before us are represented by dozens of stacks of chips guarded by the pit boss and two other dealers. The battlefield is set. We're deep enuff to do some damage. Its on.

I walk up to the table. There's no excitement.. not a good sign for craps. I get behind the table and right next to the dealer and set up camp.. then I cash in. Babs has the dice and finishes up rolling rather quickly. I didn't get much action on her rolls.. not sure if she hit any points or not. After she is done rolling, Babs and Equis leave.. no luck thus far. The shooting goes over to my brother.

Everyone is cashing in and getting situated. Memn is to my left, first time ever at a craps table. I tell him assuredly to just mirror me and play whatever odds he wants cuz I usually do max odds on "Pass Line" and "Come" bets.

Sidebar: I am not 100% sure how many points my brother or I hit but give or take 1 point for my own personal margin of error. Oh and another thing, I may use the word "dice" when I should use the word "die".. go fuck yourself if you have a problem with it.

My brother picks up the rocks and starts shootin. We're getting bets out there and before we know it he hits a good 4 points. We're starting off up at the table. That is usually a good sign but the dice is moving from my brother to foreign shooters on the opposite, far side of the table. Being gamblers we stay on the Pass Line and of the four or five shooters that have at it we pretty much stay even or maybe even gain a bit. I would say most of them hit at least 1 point if not two. Things are shaping up for this table to catch fire. The fact that strangers are keeping us afloat is huge. By last year we'd already be on our last leg.

Aww, shit! Maybe not. The dealer pushes the dice to me. I'll have you all know I am not the guy you wanna bet on in craps. I suck at craps. I love to play craps but I am no shooter. The only thing keeping me from passing is the day prior I played craps for 20 minutes and actually rolled a good dozen times without crapping out and made some cash for myself playing the Field.

For those that don't know, the Field is basically the numbers that aren't the most popular to hit. They are the rag tag bunch. You also get paid double odds on snake eyes and triple odds on double box cars (12). As sad as it sounds, these are my numbers. I roll the gayest crap you've ever seen. I know this, so I tell my friends, "Play the fuckin' field!"

The dice are comin out. I start hitting the stupidest numbers known to man. I am rolling Field numbers non stop and actually have a Field number as my point. I am keeping anywhere from $15 to $20 on the Field every time I roll. When all was said and done I hit the snake eyes twice and the double box cars once. I rolled 19 times +/-, hit 3 points and probably didn't roll a Field number twice. I made a good chunk of change off of my crap rolls. Did my friends listen to me and bet the Field with me? Of course not. My gain.

The next shooter up is Memn. New comer. He doesn't wanna shoot the dice after my ridiculous display. Everyone tells him to pick up the fuckin' dice. Damn good thing he did too. The man starts shootin like a champ. Hittin point after point and loading up the Come bets with numbers he is knocking down as well. After all was said and done I think the guy banged out 9 points for us. For those that don't know, this is huge. To hit 9 points you are rolling a good 35 times easy. He champed it up for sure.

We're all impressed, especially this older gentleman to Memn's left, The Next Shooter. This guy has been goin nuts, bettin big and winning really well since we strode up to the table. He's definitely a bigger gambler than us with quarters out on the table instead of nickels. The good thing is that he's gettin the jokes and laughing at my unique sense of humor. We all like this guy. The bad news is his wife is giving him the eye to get the hell off the table since he's up. He tells her that he's gonna shoot and they can leave. We wonder how he's gonna fare with a pair of dice in his hand.

The Next Shooter comes out and hits a couple points. Unfortunately, that was all he could muster. He shot maybe a dozen times or so, knocked down a Come bet for us but thats about it. He cashes out from the table up $1500. He's a happy man. We're sad to see him go.. but fret not! Cuz the bottom line is that he made us some money and the table remains heated for our two star shooters: RaeRae and Daku.

RaeRae is the next in line. A few years back RaeRae and Daku helped spark a blood bath in the Aladdin. We were at the table for a good 4-5 hours and just raped them dry. I think RaeRae rolled 51 times that afternoon and Daku rolled upwards of 70 and some lady with a voice deeper than any of us rolled in the 60s to 70s as well. That was something we've been talking about ever since. Today would be different.

RaeRae picks up the dice and starts chuckin em. Being the loud and obnoxious guy that I am, I keep the noise at the table up. I am the hype man. Its my job to keep the morale and the chatter going for our star shooters. The other side of the table finds me annoying as do my friends but I keep it up, shouting and clapping before every roll "Come on RaeRae!"

RaeRae does more than just that. He starts knockin down numbers, clearing Come bets and hittin the Hard Ways like its nobody's business. He's an unstoppable force. The table starts getting in on my hype. "Come on RaeRae! Come on RaeRae!" starts coming from the dealers even! We are regular yearly comers at the Luxor, most of the craps dealers know us. They know we tip if we win.. they are on our side, much to the chagrin of the pit boss. He wasn't ready for what we were bringing today.

"Come on RaeRae! Come on RaeRae!" Boom! Another point knocked down and the table erupts. More Hard Way bets are thrown down on the table, RaeRae doesn't disappoint. He's hitting Hard Ways almost every time he rolls an even number. The tide of the table is completely in RaeRae's corner. He surpasses his 35th roll, still gunnin. 40th roll comes out, still hittin numbers!

Dealer change comes up. They change out every 15-20 minutes it seems. No biggie. However, this time there's something brewing. The dealers aren't communicating well on the switch. This lady dealer doesn't understand who has what bets. Its bad. She starts arguing with Setty. RaeRae and I are getting pissed. He doesn't roll for at least 5 minutes. He comes out right after the bullshit scene and smacks down another point. That'll learn em to try and cool the table.

Then, not but a few rolls later, the lady dealer starts questioning shit again! It seems blatant. I don't like it. What the hell is her deal?, I keep thinkin to myself. Then, this whore does the unthinkable. All Come and Hard Way bets come down and are passed back to us. I'm furious. RaeRae has been hitting every number in the book and the House brings down the bets. Total bullshit. Its in their favor for sure and everyone starts replenishing their Hard Ways. The problem is you can't replenish Come bets unless you start re-betting. The shit of it is that every Come bet placed is a Come bet that shoulda been paid out. Total crap. We're all peeved.

This doesn't phase RaeRae tho. This huge, stoic, beast of a man from the other side of the craps table echoes my calls to hype the table back up, he booms out "Come on Rae!" I think the whole casino shook. RaeRae heeds the call. More shots come out, more money is made. The same guy then sets down $5 Hard Way bets for RaeRae. A player betting for another player, that's class. I take a look at this guy's chip stash. He has a complete row of black chips and then some. He has another mini row forming of purples ($500s). No wonder he's betting for RaeRae, he's paying off his house playing craps with us!

RaeRae continues. He rolls a good 10 more times, then bad voodoo starts breaking out. Some lady is trying to squeeze in between Setty and Daku. "That's not a spot, lady" says one of the dealers to her.

She ignores them and this goes on until she gets the point. RaeRae is continuing to cool down. Then, an argument breaks out on the far end of the table. Some stupid whore on that end has a $10 Pass Line bet out with like 15 chips backing it up as her odds.. that's way too much money. She's an idiot. The dealer tells her as much. RaeRae rolls during this discussion. Bad business... by the time the stupid whore understands she has to take off some chips she instead moves all of her odds from behind the Pass Line to the middle of the Come bet area! This is where RaeRae has shot every.. single.. roll.. RaeRae shoots, he hits the chip stack.. he rolls a snake eyes.

Let me give you some perspective here, we are on roll #50 and RaeRae hasn't rolled one crappy dice roll this entire streak. He hits that stupid bitch's chip stack and a crap number surfaces. We're all pissed. RaeRae is holding in his rage. He takes the dice and shoots again. His next roll is a 3. Another crappy dice roll. Mother fuck!

I shake out the bad mojo from my wrists and look at RaeRae, "Its getting icky here."

Next roll. "Seven."

Piece of shit! Then, perspective. 54 total rolls, 11 points. RaeRae boasts that the huge guy's Hard Way bets for RaeRae earned him an additional $200. I look down at my chip stack. I am not at a "full" spot on the craps table but I have bridged the canyon of an entire row with greens ($25). We all give RaeRae a huge round of applause.

Setty's next up. He fires away and gets us two points. I'll take it. Even money if not a little in the positive. No problem. The guy that's next up to shoot is some random clown. I dash to the restroom as my bladder was about to burst when we first started shooting.

By the time I get back to the table the random shooter is out and Daku has already commenced rolling. Daku is the satin gloved roller of all the craps players. RaeRae has set the bar high, we are praying that Daku can keep it up.

He hits a point, sweet. Without recanting the entire tale it was without much spark. Daku did hit a few points tho. We made money off him. My brother was the next up. I look his way. He already has his chips down on the table in front of him. I nod, time to go. We're up and we best walk away now. We destroyed the table and ended on a great roll. We pack up and cash out.

Everyone won between about $400 and $1400. The $400ish went to Memn cuz he bet conservatively being his first time ever at a craps table. Hell, if I made that much my first time at a craps table I'd be stoked. My brother took the $1400 spot being a bigger gambler than the rest of us. I did really well. It was my first time walking away from a table with a yellow chip ($1000). Makes you wonder how much The Next Shooter woulda won if he'd have stayed. Great times. Not bad for nearly three hours of playing craps. That's how its done.