It's better to be lucky than good

During my May trip to Vegas I didn't have very good luck. I didn't even gamble during my first day in town. My Sunday night began with an appearance at the Riviera, and during the time my girlfriend and I were there, we had drinks at the bar. The tables were full for the final night at the Riv, and it looked like a fun atmosphere, but my girlfriend doesn't play cards, so I figured I'd spend an hour playing blackjack on Monday morning.

Of course I arrived on Monday morning to find out the tables were already closed. And I'm not much of a slot machine or video poker player, so I never gambled a final $20 at the Riv.

Four nights of our trip were spent at the Orleans, and the final two nights were downtown at Downtown Grand. I had lousy luck at the Orleans. Really lousy. Luck was not on my side.

I had a few match plays for the Orleans, and I had one left on Thursday morning before we relocated to downtown. My luck had been terrible, so I decided that my luck couldn't be worse by using a match play at the roulette table. And instead of picking red or black, I made my girlfriend pick the color.

The match play was for $10, so I put it and $10 down on the color my girlfriend chose. I won $20 just before I walked out the door of the Orleans. I'm a low roller, so winning $20 on my way out of the casino was a nice consolation prize. I was down about $250 at that point. That's an hour's worth of gambling for some. For me it represents a couple of nights of non-winning blackjack.

I had match plays for downtown, some from the Las Vegas Advisor coupon book. Downtown Grand also gave us match plays since we were hotel guests, so I had a few to play there. I had a pair of $25 match plays and one $10. I didn't play them all at one time, but my girlfriend went three-for-three with them. Three correct calls with match plays netted me $120.

I also cashed in a $25 match play coupon at The D. And sure enough, my girlfriend picked the right color again. (Every bet was red or black. We never picked odd/even or 1-18/19-36.) That was another $50 in my pocket.

Now here's another example of how not chronicling everything immediately after my trip turns out to burn me. I'm not sure where I played the final $10 match play. It had to be downtown, but I can't figure out where. Perhaps I had two $10 match plays for Downtown Grand.

What I do know: I played six match plays on roulette, put up $105 for the bets and won all six of them, netting $210 in the process. According to one online source I found, the odds of betting correctly on six such bets is 74.4 to 1. There's a 1.33 percent chance you'll pick six in a row correctly.

And since we had multiple match plays at Downtown Grand, my girlfriend played a $10 match play with her own money. And of course she lost.

The $7,000 mistake

I'm too tired to write anything that requires critical thinking, so here's a simple tale from a night of gambling many years ago:

I don't remember much about this specific trip, but I remember I was at the Tropicana, playing roulette. I'm not a high stakes gambler, and I probably hadn't played much roulette in my life, but I knew the basics, I knew the payouts, I kept it simple. 

There were several of us gathered around a table, minding our own business. A guy, dressed up rather nicely, comes to the table with a lovely young woman in tow. She's dressed quite nicely, too. They didn't look like newlyweds, but they were overdressed for the low stakes game the rest of us were playing at the Tropicana. I think he was wearing a tux on this occasion.

He had $200 in cash – two $100 bills – and he placed them on the 3. He told the croupier that he wanted to bet the cash on the number, but the phrasing of his comment confused her. The woman was probably born in another country, but she didn't have trouble communicating or doing her job. She did just fine. It was something about the way he phrased his play that confused her. 

I was certain he was trying to say he wanted to make a cash wager on the number, and the way he placed his money on the felt convinced me of it. Even though he wanted to make a straight bet on the 3, he used a term (I don't remember what) that suggested he wanted to make some other type of bet. The croupier's confusion between his requested bet and his cash play resulted in her pulling the ball from the wheel. It had been spinning above the wheel when he walked up to our table, and with the croupier unable to understand his intended bet, she stopped the ball before it had a chance to drop down onto the wheel. 

The man, incensed by her action, grabbed his $200 from the table, tugged his lovely young companion by the hand and off they went. He verbally expressed his frustration as he did this. Nothing profane, he was simply irritated and made it known. All the while his female companion seemed a bit aloof and oblivious to the episode. 

All of us at the table looked at each other, equally dumbfounded by what just took place. We soon went back to our business and play resumed, the brash young roulette player nowhere to be seen.

Sure enough, the very next spin is 3 red. I don't think any of us made a special effort to bet the 3 after the guy stormed off with his $200, but we quickly realized that his premonition had come true and proceeded to look at each other, dumbfounded again.

I'm not sure how many people drop $200 on a straight roulette bet at the Tropicana, and perhaps the $7,000 payday would have been a drop in his proverbial bucket. 

This story probably dates back 15 years or more. I'm not sure about the rest of the players at my table, but clearly I never forgot this guy, his lovely young companion and the $7,000 windfall he walked away from.