CASINOS AND THE HARD ROCK A MARRIAGE MADE IN ROCK AND ROLL HEAVEN

Last week while I was on vacation in Florida, my sister treated my husband and me to a Brian Wilson Concert. Although Mr.Wilson shows his age, he still had the same voice I remember so well from my Beach Boys albums. He belted out his greatest hits for over two hours. It was a great concert and the venue, well where else could it be but at the Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood. Yes there is another Hollywood.

This casino was massive, glitzy, and heaving with people. The Hard Rock holds a special place in my heart. When I worked on cruise ships, collecting memorabilia from the Hard Rock was a favorite pastime for most of the crew. I even wrote about it in my novel. At first it seemed bizarre to me, collecting tacky souvenirs, but finally I got it. When they got home, the small metallic pins, shaped like guitars proudly displayed on their worn denim jackets proved that they had really been to faraway places.

As I walked through the casino I stopped to watch the monitors that tracked the action at Hard Rocks all over the world. That got me to thinking, how many Hard Rocks are there? I visited their website and found out that there are 173 venues in over 51 countries, so that is a lot of pins to collect. It all started out when Issac Tigrett and Peter Morton couldn't get a decent hamburger in London. They remedied that by opening the first Hard Rock in 1971.

Now I haven't been to all of them, but I have visited many Hard Rocks across the globe. Most of the time the casino staff couldn't agree on anything but when it was a holiday or birthday many times we celebrated at the Hard Rock. When you are traveling for months to far away places on a very big ship and start to feel a little homesick, what you really crave is a bit of home and a good pig sandwich. It was a favorite spot in Acapulco, back in the day when you could walk back to the ship without the threat of being caught in a drug war. Whether it was Singapore or Stockholm you knew that when you ate at a Hard Rock you would get good food at a reasonable price.

Now the big push is to casinos, and my husband and I know a little about this since we have been in the gaming industry for most of our adult careers. From London to Las Vegas whenever we walk into a Hard Rock casino we always see someone we have worked with somewhere in the world. I also love looking at all the memorabilia; they own the world's most comprehensive "visual history" of rock 'n' roll. I never realized that the 70,000 piece collection is rotated from restaurant to restaurant. After visiting the Hard Rock in Hollywood and Las Vegas I must agree, casinos and the Hard Rock are a marriage made in rock and roll heaven.

The link to my novel at Amazon, also available at Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords

Last week while I was on vacation in Florida, my sister treated my husband and me to a Brian Wilson Concert. Although Mr.Wilson shows his age, he still had the same voice I remember so well from my Beach Boys albums. He belted out his greatest hits for over two hours. It was a great concert and the venue, well where else could it be but at the Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood. Yes there is another Hollywood.

This casino was massive, glitzy, and heaving with people. The Hard Rock holds a special place in my heart. When I worked on cruise ships, collecting memorabilia from the Hard Rock was a favorite pastime for most of the crew. I even wrote about it in my novel. At first it seemed bizarre to me, collecting tacky souvenirs, but finally I got it. When they got home, the small metallic pins, shaped like guitars proudly displayed on their worn denim jackets proved that they had really been to faraway places.

As I walked through the casino I stopped to watch the monitors that tracked the action at Hard Rocks all over the world. That got me to thinking, how many Hard Rocks are there? I visited their website and found out that there are 173 venues in over 51 countries, so that is a lot of pins to collect. It all started out when Issac Tigrett and Peter Morton couldn't get a decent hamburger in London. They remedied that by opening the first Hard Rock in 1971.

Now I haven't been to all of them, but I have visited many Hard Rocks across the globe. Most of the time the casino staff couldn't agree on anything but when it was a holiday or birthday many times we celebrated at the Hard Rock. When you are traveling for months to far away places on a very big ship and start to feel a little homesick, what you really crave is a bit of home and a good pig sandwich. It was a favorite spot in Acapulco, back in the day when you could walk back to the ship without the threat of being caught in a drug war. Whether it was Singapore or Stockholm you knew that when you ate at a Hard Rock you would get good food at a reasonable price.

Now the big push is to casinos, and my husband and I know a little about this since we have been in the gaming industry for most of our adult careers. From London to Las Vegas whenever we walk into a Hard Rock casino we always see someone we have worked with somewhere in the world. I also love looking at all the memorabilia; they own the world's most comprehensive "visual history" of rock 'n' roll. I never realized that the 70,000 piece collection is rotated from restaurant to restaurant. After visiting the Hard Rock in Hollywood and Las Vegas I must agree, casinos and the Hard Rock are a marriage made in rock and roll heaven.

Click the link below to order at Amazon

Casino Queen (Night Hawk Casino Series Book 1) - Kindle edition by Bertoia, Cara. Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Click the link below to order at Barnes and Noble 

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.

 

MYTHS OF THE FELT - THE VIEW FROM BEHIND THE BLACKJACK TABLE

Hi, my name is Cara. My husband Ray and I have been in the casino business for most of our working careers. We have decided to show you the view from behind the table. We will pass on a few tips, so that superstition doesn’t ruin you game. Please let us know if they help you win the next time you visit a casino!

If you were a blackjack table visited by thousands of punters a year, you would hear the same five things repeated every day. Guess what, all five of them are misconceptions, mixed up with superstitions and topped off with a thick layer of so called expertise.

1. When the majority of players walk up to the table the first words out of their mouth are, “Dealer, are you running hot or cold?”

This old chestnut has been around as long as gambling. Movies, books, and even a dealer or two have added to the mystique of hot and cold dealers. Some things are easily disproved.  Trust me, if some dealers were naturally hot and some cold then the casino would only employ the hot variety. Have you ever seen an advert in the paper for a new casino, “Now interviewing for staff, hot dealers only need apply.” No one would be a dealer because dealers work for tips and generally people who are winning tip. Without winners dealers would have no income. I can assure you there is one person in the casino who wants you to win and that is the dealer!

2. Third Base is the most important spot at the table, because seat number seven controls the cards.

That would only be true if the player in seat seven had a crystal ball and knew what cards would appear next. Sometimes they play correctly and the cards fall perfectly and the dealer bust, then third base will take all the credit. Sometimes they play correctly and the dealer hits out to twenty one but they don’t take the blame for that one. In fact the cards are shuffled many times during the course of the day and no one knows the next card – or equally importantly the dealer’s hole card.

3. Someone at the table has to take a hit.

Let’s imagine the following scenario. The dealer shows a low card, maybe a five or a six, and everyone at the table has a stiff hand (12 – 16). All the players signal no card, but the benevolent player at the all important third base will offer to sacrifice his hand for the good of the table, because, “Someone has to take a hit.” We have never understood the logic of this one. Since no one knows what the dealer’s hole card is or the next card out of the shoe, then just like every other hand a player should stick to the rules of basic strategy. By the previously mentioned twisted logic, third base may very well take the bust card and his sacrifice will doom the table. But if everyone loses with a sigh he will proclaim, “Well at least I tried.”

4. When things are going badly at the table, players think they can change the flow of the cards by adding of subtracting a hand from the game.

  

       There is no flow or run of the cards, they are shuffled in a random order. Casinos go to great lengths to devise shuffles that produce a random rearrangement of the cards at every shuffle.

5. I know I shouldn’t split these sixes against a ten but I have a feeling.

Nothing gets a gambler into more trouble than a feeling. And really this is the point of our blog. The house always has slight edge even at blackjack but if a player follows the rules of basic strategy they can avoid increasing that edge.

Like most things in life blackjack is a game of skill, which can be easily learned. We feel that if a player is going to spend $300 on a night at the tables it is worth their while to invest ten dollars to buy a book on basic strategy. There are thousands of books on basic strategy, you can find them in the gambling section of any bookstore or online. No book on basic strategy or gambling mentions ‘hot dealers’ or ‘taking the dealers bust card’ or ‘flow of the cards,’ it’s all strictly math. So forget the old wives tales, buy yourself a copy, read it and study it. Happy Gambling.

Below is the links to Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships
Click the link to find at Amazon.com
Click the link to find at Amazon United Kingdom
Click the link to find at Amazon Germany

Click the link to find at Amazon France

Click the link to find at Amazon Italy

Click the link to find at Amazon Spain 

 
Click to find Cruise Quarters at Barnes and Noble

CRUISE QUARTERS CHOSEN BY TRIPATINI AS THEIR 'READ OF THE WEEK' JULY 11-17

Ray and I wanted to tell you a little more about this wonderful travel site so that you would know why we are so thrilled to be their "Read of the Week." If you get a chance to visit tripatini.com you will see our book featured on their homepage.

Click the link to find at Amazon.com

Click the link to find at Amazon United Kingdom
Click the link to find at Amazon Germany
Click the link to find at Barnes and Noble
Click the link to find at Smashwords

TRIPATINI LEADS LIST OF TOP TEN TRAVEL SOCIAL NETWORKS
MIAMI—SEPT. 08, 2010—Travel social network Tripatini.com, which the New York Post called “Facebook for Travelers,” has just been cited by HotelMarketing.com and HouseTrip.com as the best travel social network of 2010.

“There are numerous travel social networks, and many of them provide a lot of value. But they were not created equal,” said the report. “Instead of only receiving tips from fellow travelers (often the case on other networks), you also get more access to the professionals who can give you the insider tip that will make your travel experience truly memorable. And this in turn allows travel industry professionals to build followers for their own services by providing expert advice."

Tripatini’s Ask A Travel Expert widget comes in for special praise: “You can embed [it] on your desktop, blog, or Web site to help your site visitors get professional answers… or to help the pros keep tabs on the latest questions they can offer their expertise on.”

Tripatini also offers members their own individual blog spaces, as well as the ability to post pictures and videos, participate in lively discussions, and promote themselves, their blogs, or their agenda on a home page bulletin board. But above all, Tripatini offers nearly 400 discussion groups on everything from Accessible Travel to Zambia and from Adventure Travel to Travel Products to Vermont.

“Tripatini has risen rapidly since its launch a year ago, true validation of our premise: that travelers and travel industry experts both benefit from hanging out together,” said CEO David Paul Appell. “We’re thrilled and honored by this recognition, and look forward to developing more and better ways for travelers and experts to interact.”

In August, HouseTrip.com named Tripatini in its short list of top travel social networking sites, and Tripatini has also been singled out by Gadling.com, ASTA, the National Tour Association, and other members of the travel community including travel legend Arthur Frommer.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

About Tripatini.com

Dubbed “Facebook for travelers” by the New York Post, Tripatini.com is a social network for travelers and travel experts that boasts a unique international membership base and more than 350 specialized groups. Launched in summer 2009 to eliminate the traditional barriers between travelers, travel journalists, publicists, agents, vendors, and savvy insiders, the site gains new dynamic content, groups and membership daily. Tripatini.com’s community combines travel content such as destination spotlights, user-generated blogs, image galleries and news feeds with a fast-growing network of members to provide unprecedented travel information for all.









TRIPATINI is a fun, free social network and blog where travelers and travel experts from across the planet hang out, share and learn how to travel better and smarter.

Tripatini is, to quote the New York Post, "Facebook for travelers."

RED TIES AND CASINOS DON'T MIX - TALES FROM THE ROULETTE WHEEL

This weeks blog was written by Ray Bertoia.  

When I returned from the Bahamas and the glamorous life of working in Freeport, I found myself jobless in Manchester so I went to at a dive in the center of town. Our clientele consisted of almost 100% Hong Kong Chinese.

One day we changed our uniforms from the traditional waistcoat to a red jacket and tie – a real tie not a clip on, which I immediately knew was a big mistake. My boss disagreed, “Red is a very lucky number to the Chinese he pointed out.”

It didn’t take long for my fears to come true. Only a week later I was dealing roulette on a heaving game on a Sunday afternoon. That was the big day out at the casino for the local Chinese.

The ball had just dropped into the slot for black four, when out of the corner of my eye I noticed a middle aged woman in a smart jacket snatching her losing chips off the red betting square.

I politely told her that she had removed a losing bet.

She refused to replace the losing bet, and declared “I was in time.”

So I casually called, “Place you bets,” and reached in the wheel as if I was about to spin the ball again. At this point the same lady put her chips out again thinking she was getting a fresh spin.
As soon as I saw her place her chips, instead of spinning the ball, I said, “Thank you,” and reached over and took them!

The punter went crazy screaming at me in Chinese. I ignored her ranting feeling pretty smug. I felt like I had done a good job in outwitting a cheater.

Next, I called out, “Place your bets,” and leaned forward to spin the ball. Like a red flag to a bull, my tie dangled invitingly over the table. It was too much for the punter to resist; she grabbed hold of it with both hands under my neck, and pulled hard. I felt the tie tighten.

I grabbed her hands and a tug of war ensued with the tie gradually choking me. Everyone in the casino was shouting, the whole casino ground to a halt as they all came over to my table to watch me choke.

My supervisor yelled, “Let go.” But I couldn’t because I felt like I was really choking.

He jumped off his high chair, got behind me and tried to pull me away from her. At the same time the woman’s husband was pulling her from behind, too. We went to and fro several times when finally I pulled hard and lifted right off her feet until she was lying flat on the roulette table. Her husband pulled back and the sleeves ripped off her jacket.

He pulled out the paddle (that pushed the money into the drop box) and smashed it down on a glass ashtray. Pieces of glass flew everywhere including into my supervisors’ eye.

By this time the casino had erupted into a free for all with ashtrays flying, while punters were gathering up handfuls of roulette chips and flinging them around the room.

Finally I disentangled myself and ran the gauntlet past the irate players up the stairs and safely hid in the break room. On the advice of my supervisors I hid there for the next eight hours, fearing for my life if I went down the stairs or out the entrance as there was a mob waiting for me. Eventually management convinced the players that I had left by a back exit.

So the moral of this story is never wear a red tie while dealing, it gives the punters something to hold onto.

Check out our novel Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos And Cruise Ships

Click the link to find at Amazon.com

Click the link to find at Amazon United Kingdom
Click the link to find at Amazon Germany
Click the link to find at Barnes and Noble
Click the link to find at Smashwords

BOOK TRAILER AND SLIDE SHOW FOR 'CRUISE QUARTERS - A NOVEL ABOUT CASINOS AND CRUISE SHIPS.'

BLACKJACK, WHO'S GOT IT WRONG?

This weeks blog was written by my co-author and husband Ray. He is the least superstitious person on the planet. And don't tell him the dealer is hot unless you want to listen to a thirty minute lecture on odds! So if you are visiting a casino in the near future read this and you may remain a little calmer.

Here are a few thoughts on Blackjack.
When dealing Blackjack how often do you hear the following 'You took the dealers bust card!' This situation sometimes gets very heated. Here is an example. Dealer is showing a 5 and one of the players hits on a hard 15. He receives a 10 and busts. Then the dealer goes on to make a hand when in fact he would have bust had the player played correctly and not taken that ten. Seems logical enough at first. But of course that is only that one particular hand out of thousands. People forget all the other times when another player makes a wrong move and it turns out to actually cause the dealer to bust. In fact you cannot take 'the dealers bust card' unless you know the value of the next card out the shoe. And of course even then it would still by no means be a certainty that the dealer would bust..
                                                Imagine the following situation. -
A full table, second last spot has a 10 and a 5. Last spot also has a 10 and a 5. So they both have 15. The dealer is showing a 5. Now, if either of those players draws to their 15s the rest of the players will get annoyed. But imagine, had the same cards been dealt but just in a slightly different order, giving the player on the second last spot  the two 10s and the player on the last spot receiving both of the 5s, now of course everyone wants him to hit his two 5s! In fact they will get annoyed if he doesn't! But in reality nothing has really changed, just the order of two cards. The next card out of the shoe is still the same card as before regardless of whether the player takes it or the dealer takes it. Of course I realize it is bad play to hit on a hard 15 against the dealers 5, but that bad play rule only applies to the player actually making that particular hit. Nobody else is affected one way or the other by anything any other player does. Since the cards are random, the second card out of the shoe is just as likely to be the dealers 'bust' card as the first card out of the shoe. All of this assumes no card counting techniques, just straight play.

About the author:

Ray and Cara Bertoia are the authors of Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships. Her novel is really a travelogue, a narrative, a romance, a self-help manual for gambling and cruising, and a real-life story all rolled into one funny, obsessive, and entertaining story of two people whose separate life journeys meet at a crossroads. Kindle Fire Dept. says, "This novel is a gem that is nothing short of a vacation in a book!"

Below is the links to Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships

Click the link to find at Amazon.com
Click here to find at Amazon Canada
Click the link to find at Amazon United Kingdom
Click the link to find at Amazon Germany

Click the link to find at Amazon France

Click the link to find at Amazon Italy

Click the link to find at Amazon Spain 

Click the link to find at Amazon Brazil

Ray and Cara have also produced the number one guide on walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain.
The Desert Woman calls it inspiring. 
Click the link to find the DVD Camino de Santiago a Walkers Guide at Amazon

WRITING CRUISE QUARTERS WAS A 'NOVEL' WAY TO RELIVE OUR CRUISE SHIPS DAYS

Here is an excerpt of the interview I gave for THE BOOK BLOG. It is British blog about publishing and writing and has a section on featured authors. 

Tim I am so happy to be appearing on a British blog because my book is such a blend of the British and Americans. It is set on a British ship with many nationalities in the crew.

The road to my novel, Cruise Quarters – A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships, is a long journey with lots of twist and turns much like a good story. After I graduated college I got a job teaching high school in North Carolina. On a summer break I drove across country with two friends and we all got jobs in a casino in Lake Tahoe. Tahoe was a beautiful place and casino jobs were the best ones to have, especially dealing. Well they all soon went home but I stayed. I worked at Caesars Palace for a few years but then I moved to the North Shore of the Lake. The place I worked at was an “old school” casino, it had been a rat pack hangout in the old days and even now autographed photos of movie stars still adorn the walls. The casino overlooked the lake and as I dealt I would look out at a beautiful view of the crystal blue water.  The border between Nevada and California runs down through the middle of the casino.

The owner was a plumbing contractor from Fresno. The head of security was an ex-Mossad officer and every few weeks we would be strapped down and given lie detector tests. They let porn movies be filmed in the casino and there were rumors that he rigged the slot machines. I’m not sure if that was all true but he did manage to get his casino closed down by the Nevada gaming commission, no small feat. One day a sports agent with Hollywood connections played on my game and encouraged me to write down all my great casino stories. That was the day I became a writer, well my script got as far as HBO where it was eventually rejected but that didn’t matter to me. I was a writer.

A year later I went back to the real world and became a systems analyst by day, writer by night. I lived in Boston, the home of perpetual students and so I was able to take writing classes, join critique groups and improve. After a few years I began working on an MA in writing at Emerson because it had connections in Hollywood. Well, just before I was scheduled to intern in Los Angeles as a script reader I got the opportunity to join Princess Cruises as a croupier. My choice was spend my dwindling savings on an internship or get paid to see the world. I wasn’t scared of going - only staying. The Germans have a word for it torschlusskpanik, the fear of missing the boat.

I stayed at sea for five years and I would like to say that I wrote everyday but I didn’t. I spent those years soaking up all the history I could. The ship was my home and the crew bar was my living room and the nights I spent there were research since I planned to tell the story of all my crewmates someday. And then on my last contract I met Ray and my novel became a love story and that surprised me more than anyone else.

We settled in Palm Springs and I began my book. I had written most of it when I decided to test it out by taking a novel writing class at UCLA. One of the exercises in the class was to try out five opening lines, well the whole class voted for my current opener. My professor liked it so much she became my first editor. I started it in first person, but when I decided to include Ray we switched to third person. Ray’s adventures dealing around the world were just too good to leave out, and I really wanted to include the male point of view.

The goal of our book was to tell our story in a realistic way. After so many ridiculous casino movies like The Cooler, I had had enough.  I am the cynic and Ray is the happy chappy but we both wanted a book that rang true. We wrote down all our ship and casino stories in a book and then built a novel around them.

I casually handed our manuscript to one of my ship friends and asked her to read it. The next day she called me raving about our book. In fact she had already run off three copies for her co-workers. Then I knew that we had nailed it. My biggest beef with the books I had been reading for the last few years were that they all sounded alike. Especially the love stories, I didn’t need to dress ours up it was exciting enough. Our book is based on true stories but it is still a novel. I was so disappointed to learn that Three Cups of Tea was a lie. Surely Greg Mortenson knew that when you elaborate or move events around for dramatic effect it makes your book a novel.

I was always afraid of showing my friends my book but they turned out to be my best readers offering great criticism. I don’t know why I hesitated, dealers are avid readers, with a break every hour they always have book on the go.

Below is the links to Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships
Click the link to find at Amazon.com
Click the link to find at Amazon United Kingdom
Click the link to find at Amazon Germany

Click the link to find at Amazon France

Click the link to find at Amazon Italy

Click the link to find at Amazon Spain 

 
Click to find Cruise Quarters at Barnes and Noble

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