20 minutes of waiting in a huge, unmoving line, back into the casino I went. I hate lines. I decided to let the taxis catch up with the line. After another 40 minutes of play, I peeked out the door. The line was still full. Back for another 30 minutes of play.

This was too much time in one casino. I cashed out and went outside. The line was worse. I walked over to the convention center hoping for a taxi there, or maybe to hitch a ride on a convention bus. It was there that I discovered the problem. An oil truck had flipped on the Interstate covering the roadway with oil. This was before the new highway parallel to the Strip had been built, and most of the traffic from the Interstate was diverted to the Strip freezing traffic in Paradise Valley. I tried to imagine how long it would take to clean hundreds of gallons of oil off the roadway. If it hadn’t been summer, I would have walked. However, I would have melted before making it, and there existed few stops between The LV Hilton and the Strip. Hughes’ Landmark Hotel had closed a couple of years earlier.

Unable to resist, back I went into the casino. I made it to within a couple of feet of the table when I was intercepted and invited to leave. There is a reason for the 45-minute rule.

And a second story, on the opposite side of the spectrum.

It was my first visit to The Venetian, so it must have been about nine years ago. It was early morning as I wandered in. There were very few players at this point, and not many tables open. With so few players in a large room, you look a bit conspicuous back-counting too long. No one else was standing. So, I sat as soon as I saw a table with a slight positive running count. Better than zero. The count quickly dropped. I won a small amount, which is common when the count takes a downturn, and left the table. I had been there only fifteen minutes. However, I felt uncomfortable about quickly switching tables, hung around the Craps table for a couple minutes and went to the cashier. On my way out, the pit boss, smirk on his face, yelled from about 40 feet away, “Come back anytime you need some quick cash.” Damn, fifteen minutes and he probably had me pegged.

 © 2009 Norman Wattenberger