Comportment

Comportment refers to how you act in a casino. I will not make any effort at teaching an act. Everyone is different. I will just try to provide some food for thought in this subsection.

Casinos are a retail business. People in retail businesses often amaze me. First, there is memory. When I lived in Philadelphia, I traveled to New York to buy a pair of shoes. A couple of years later, I returned to the same store and said I was a size 9. The salesman said, “No, you’re a size 9½. I remember from the last time.” I visited a bar, only once, in Washington, D.C. A couple of years later, I returned and the bartender remembered my drink. If I drove a cab, I would have difficulty remembering where the customer told me to go at the start of the trip.

People in retail also attempt to size up customers quickly. I believe their capabilities are more spotty in this area. An example:

This story I did not experience myself. It was related to me by a Golden Nugget dealer in the old days.

The GN casino was half a block long and had only a couple Craps tables at that time. Two guys walked in that looked like they had just dragged themselves out of the gutter. Sloppily dressed, disheveled, several days of fuzz on their faces, they walked up to the table and one asked, “What’s the table minimum?” The table was $5 to $500, I think. Instead of saying $5, the dealer said the minimum was $500 to get rid of them. They pulled out $500 each and bet the line. On winning, they both said press the bets. Now the dealer has a problem. He lied and told them $500 was the minimum. They were now trying to bet over the maximum. He couldn’t very well say the minimum and maximum were the same. The dealer was fired.

Correctly or incorrectly, casino personnel will draw conclusions about you — often very quickly. What you do not want is to present contradictions. If you pull out $5,000, but the heels on your shoes are worn down and you have a $5 watch, the pit boss will be less comfortable. Not that this is necessarily contradictory. I knew a division head at Citibank who wore a Mickey Mouse watch, and filthy rich people often wear comfortable clothing. And, I am not

 © 2009 Norman Wattenberger