In a message dated 6/19/04 3:06:29 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
mspevack@monmouth.com writes:
as long as we’re dealing with nothing more
than personal anecdotes here, how many of those were in Atlantic City and
how many robberies did you witness?
We just returned from Atlantic City and my 86 year old mother was robbed
right in the middle of the casino around midnight on Saturday. She was holding 2
of those machine tickets. A man SNATCHED them right out of her hand and took
off running. Fortunately she was not hurt and we take some amount of pleasure
at the look on the face of the thief when he checks out his 'treasures' --
one was for $1 and the other was for 50 cents!!!
We reported this to 2 "security suits" who happened to walk by. They said
they would look at the tape. The information is shared with the next 3 casinos
along the Boardwalk, plus they have outside cameras and could identify and
catch people within a certain radius. They made the security system sound so
wonderful, but I wonder how many they actually catch.
This was a good lesson and didn't cost much; but BEWARE and don't casually
carry those tickets around in the open. I see people collect them in a shirt
pocket - half hanging out - you wouldn't do that with a bunch of twenty-dollar
bills! I also saw players keep too much money on ONE ticket -- $500 to $1,000
- and go from machine to machine. This might make for easy bookkeeping to
know exactly where you stand, but is not very safe.
On the same weekend, a friend of mine was walking to the parking garage (but
still inside the casino) carrying 2 casino gifts. A man came up to him and
said, "I want one of those and if you don't give me one I will shoot you." My
friend told the guy where he could go and, fortunately, nothing more happened.
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