Gambling is Great but It Is All about Money

In Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Reno, Costa Rico, or Macao, the name of the game is money.

It's spread all over town, in those glitzy neon signs that promise you the world in exchange for your patronage. I know. I wrote copy for some of those signmakers when I was down and out in Las Vegas and didn't know which way was up.

You need to love a city that gives so much of itself to the public, a sometimes uncaring homeless public that roams streets fighting for what remains in trash cans.

Money accosts you the moment you enter a casino. If you were honest, yu would admit it is the first thing n your mind in the morning and the last thing at night a o when you were anywhere near a casino.

Since I spend 85 percent of my casino time in a poker room and 15 percent in a horse room, I think I qualify to define what and how people think when it comes to gambling in Las Vegas or a sister gambling city.

The first thing I ask is; where is the money?

The second thing I ask is, how fast can I get there?

With poker, there is no question that a major bad beat jackpot draws the crowds. How many times have you driven to Las Vegas only to have crowds on every corner talking about the $60,000 bad beat jackpot at such and such casino. Then somebody else scoffs, 'That's nothing. The jackpot.is is over $200,000. All you gotta get is four anything cracked by f four anything or straight flush.Nothin' to it.

And pigs could fly if they had wings.

We were sitting in our usual $6-12 mixed game of limit Omaha High-Low and seven card stud high-low the other evening. A guy I'll nickname Ed because that isn't his name had just committed the worst sin anyone can commit in Omaha High-Low.

He had folded a hand that would have won the bad beat jackpot.

Now never mind that the hand Ed threw into the muck waw a nothing hand -- two jacks and a nine-seven. He threw away jacks, the flop came nine-seven-jack of diamonds, making somebody a straight flush. The fourth jack came on the river.

The jackpot at Talking Stick Casino was just over $14,000, which would have been a tidy sum for our table to share. Poor Ed hasn't lived down his boo-boo even though it happened last week. Omaha High-Low players have long memories when somebody costs them money. Today everybody calls Ed 'Jacks.' That's the price you pay for being a celebrity.

Now I have collected some big payoffs in bad beat jackpots. In one at The Orleans when the jackpot stood at $49,000, I glanced at pocket queens and 10s. The flop came q-q-j. When the betting was over, my four queens had beat a loser's four jacks. I collected the pot and $11,000, while the loser picked up $22,000 and each plaer at the table collected $1,400.

Jackpots are hit often at Talking Stick and Wild Horse Pass near Chandler, AZ. Any time I have a high pair and two reasonable