TALES FROM BEHIND THE FELT
For most of my career I have worked at casinos, on land in California and Nevada, and at sea all over the world. Let me just say that you learn a lot about the human personality when you watch thousands of people from behind the felt of a blackjack table.
I wrote a novel, Cruise Quarters, about my experiences living and working on a cruise ship. While I was promoting my book, I received a request from a website asking me to provide a quote from my novel. Imagine my surprise a few months later when I Googled my name and I found a list of websites where my quote had been used. The first and most exciting was Goodreads, where it was listed as a top gambling quote. Being a writer, I was thrilled because Goodreads is the world’s largest site for readers. Online casinos picked up my quote, people on social media sites, and even Seeking Alpha, a financial website. My words have even been used as part of a legal argument in an Indian lawsuit.
Working at a casino is hard. You are on your feet for eight hours, with seven demanding faces in front of you. Even though it is a challenging job I like it because I know all the rules and procedures I have to follow. The rules are all written down in a very big manual.
The truth behind that one quote was not all that I learned by working at a casino. So I have decided to share some more of my wisdom with you. Even though you might not ever visit a casino, hopefully you enjoy them.
1. It is hard to walk away from a winning streak, even harder to leave the table when you are on a losing one.
This is the quote that started it all. As a dealer, I have watched this a million times from behind the table. People who
are losing will pull out more money then they budgeted, will borrow from their
friends or even open up a line of credit. Because they just believe that on the
next hand, the next spin, or the next throw of the dice things will turn
around. It reminds me that sometimes desperation will lead you to do crazy
things. How many times have we driven by an ex-boyfriends house or drunk dialed them even though we know that we are never, ever, getting back together.
To take it one step further when someone stays at the table so long and loses so much money, they don’t walk away with that last fifty dollars. Instead they prefer to lose it all. When they leave I watch them walk away with an empty wallet and a look of relief spread across their face. Like in that bad relationship you have to do all the crazy stuff, to convince yourself that it is really over, and only then can you begin again.
3. Before you sit down at the table make sure the dealer runs an honest game.
All the casinos in America run honest games, licensed by the state and the federal government. But you need to research the rules of each casino, whether you get paid even money or time and a half on a blackjack, or if they stay or hit on soft seventeen, because those rules can really change your odds of winning. The same applies to dating, always make sure the person you are dating is sincere. If you are dating a guy with a girlfriend or even worse a wife your odds for success go down. And if you are dating a serial womanizer, just give up.
4. In life, there are gamblers and there are people who gamble. Gamblers have studied the odds.
As I have said the rules at a casino really matter. To a gambler the difference in the rules at certain casinos can mean the difference between winning and losing. So think like a gambler, research a potential date like a gambler researches the odds at a casino. Serious gamblers follow the rules of basic strategy for blackjack. These rules are designed to increase a gamblers odds of winning at the table.
Since I consider myself the Hopeful Romantic, I have developed a basic strategy of love. Bits of hard-earned wisdom designed to increase the odds that your relationship will work. Click here to read my Basic Strategy of Love
5. Juice might get you in the door, talent keeps you there.
The casino business is like any other industry the people you know, your connections might help get you the job, but you must have the talent to succeed. In love the same rule applies. You might have an initial connection but it will take work to make the relationship work.
6. A winning streak can only last for so long.
No matter how great your life is going, one day you will hit a road block. I consider myself a realistic optimist. I hope for the best but prepare for the worst. In life that means saving for an emergency fund. I think in life we also need an emergency fund for our relationships, a back up plan if things don’t work out.
7. You’ve got to gamble big to win big.
You have to gamble big, but only if you have studied the
odds, considered all the obstacles along the way, and have a back up plan. I
think that in affairs of the heart you have to love with all your heart. I took a huge chance when I married my Scottish husband Ray, after only knowing him for three months. On top of that we moved from a cruise ship to Palm Springs. It was a huge gamble but many years later, I am happy to report both the move and the marriage have paid off.
8. The best part of playing one-on-one with the dealer is that there are no other players to piss you off.
I guarantee that if you sit down at a blackjack table that it won't be long before one of the other players will be happy to offer you some unsolicited advice. Players just don’t sit there in silence, they are happy to let you know how you or the other players screwed up the hand. Somebody took the bust card, someone didn't hit when they should have, the list goes on and on.
That is why I love dealing with just one player at the table, especially if it is a person who knows that if they follow the rules of basic strategy they greatly increase their odds of winning. In life there is always someone giving you advice you never asked for, telling you why your relationship is doomed. Sometimes they are right and sometimes they are wrong. The best advice my father ever gave me was, you have to make your own mistakes, no one else can make them for you.
9. When people work in the money store, they begin to believe the money is theirs.
In a casino the dealers and the players are surrounded by money. The dealer stands in front of a tray filled with chips and sometimes the temptation to throw a few of those chips into their tip box is just too great. Even though they know that if they get caught it will end their career, they do it because they feel like the money will never be missed.
I have been watching a
fascinating mini-series on HBO, Love Fraud. It is the story of a guy who
travels around the country scamming hopeful women looking for love out of
their money. So, people be careful, guard your money and your heart, because
sometimes when you date people they begin to believe your money is theirs. The same goes for lending money. A wise lawyer once told me, once you lend someone money they begin to believe it is theirs.
10. You can’t replay the last hand, that is in the past. You have to play the cards in front of you.
Regret, that is what holds most people back. So many times at the blackjack table people are in their head replaying the last hand, which means that they can’t concentrate on the cards in from of them.
No matter what cards life have dealt you, good or bad, I know one thing for sure, you can't relive the past. Most of us can’t get over that last relationship, or that last job. But when you keep playing that script in your head you spend so much time regretting the past that you miss the present. If you keep pining for the guy or girl who hurt you in the past, you will never see the person standing in front of you now.
Isn't that what being in the present is all about?
Click the link below to order at Amazon
Casino Queen by Cara Bertoia | NOOK Book (eBook) | Barnes & Noble® (barnesandnoble.com)
Cara Bertoia is the author of Casino Queen a new mystery novel that will be published by the Wild Rose Press on March 16th. It is based on the many true stories she lived through in her many years in the casino industry although the names have been changed to protect the guilty. Read the blurb here.
Caroline Popov, alone, heartbroken, and deeply in debt ends up in glamorous Palm Springs, California where Native casinos have just opened, offering employment to thousands. She lands a job at the Palm Oasis Casino and is mentored by the charismatic tribal chairman, John Tovar.
Embraced by casino culture, Caroline works her way up to casino manager of the Night Hawk, in the High Desert town of Joshua Tree. There, she is responsible for managing multicultural team members, satisfying the demands of challenging guests, growing revenue while rooting out corruption.
In the process of rediscovering her inner strength, she learns, you have to gamble like your life depends on it. Because it often does.
