Okay, so I've been dropping celebrity names of late. I may as well drop one more. I was at the 92 WSOP. I railbirded the entire main event. Telly Savales was the player I sweated the most. He almost made it to the final two tables. He cashed for somewhere around $13,000 best I remember. He gave people a big grin when they said "Telly, who loves ya, baby." I've made posts as long as 4 years ago telling about my being at the 92 WSOP. This was the year Hamid Dastmalchi won it, Tom Jacobs came in second, Tuna Lund third. It was the first time I ever saw Tuna Lund. I knew nothing of his video poker heroics then. I was a neophyte in the gambling world then and poker was the first thing I zeroed in on.
Bob Stupak had a big hustle going on with his 2 or three day vacation packages. He had gambling packages for locals too so I got to see how he operated. He advertised mostly in newpapers around the country. The price of his packages were cheap and they came with free play that amounted to about the price of the package. In his advertising he made a statement something along the lines of "How can I offer these packages so cheap? Well, there is always a few high rollers in the mix that will pay for everything."
But when the nice couple from Corn Junction, Iowa got to the hotel/casino and got their freeplay, they found they could use it on only specially designated slots. I played those slots with freeplay in the locals packages. They might have been 20% payback at best. Bob got around the law because you played those slots with some kind of special token that was disclaimored as having no value. So once that Corn Junction couple got through with the freeplay with the little return, Bob had them trapped up in his isolated hotel/casino for the next 2 or three days. They didn't have those buses running past his joint between the Strip and Downtown back then.
I think Bob eventually took a heavy fine for his antics.
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--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "vpFREE Administrator" <vpfreeadmin@...> wrote:
LVA Question of the Day - 1 NOV 2010
Q: Today we tackle two questions in one, since related
inquiries came in coincidentally from two different readers
at almost the same time. First up: "From time to time you
mention Bob Stupak´s Vegas World vacation packages from the
old days. I remember seeing print ads for the VW offers when
I was a kid. I also remember seeing commercials featuring
Telly Savalas for something called 'Players Club
International.' Was this in any way Las Vegas- (or Atlantic
City-) related? Was this a deal similar to the one at Vegas
World?" Part II: "Was Telly Savalas a resident of Nevada? He
seemed to like to gamble; he even filmed one of the ´Kojak´
episodes there."
Read the answer here:
http://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/qod.cfm