I got a real shock when I ran into "Hugh" at the poker room here in
Wendover. I met him at Ho Chunk out of Wisconsin Dells, Winconsin
about 4 years ago. I was back there playing bonus machines and
surveying out for VP plays. Hugh is an old casino hustler going back 30
years. He can regale you with stories of how the hustlers operated back
in the day. I ran into him again at a casino out of Black River Falls,
Wisconsin and we took off around Lake Michigan playing bonus
machines and, of course, I reconnoitered the VP. We hit Lac de
Flambeau,Wisconsin (Lake of the Torches) Escanaba, Michigan; Petoski,
Michigan, and two casinos out of a town I can't remember the name of
but is up in the Northwest corner of the lower peninsula. We also hit
Soaring Eagle in Mount Pleasant, Michigan but wound up in Manistee,
Michigan at the Little River Casino where I zeroed in on the quarter and
dollar X-Factors and he zeroed in on the "blue screen Bingos."
Hugh needed a place with the bingos because he generally started every
day off broke and I had to loan him the money to get started. If there
was no play to be had, Hugh would bang away on a sucker machine.
By August that summer most of the bonus machines had been stripped
out of Soaring Eagle and all those hustlers piled into Little River creating
a hustlers overload. I told Hugh I had had enough and was heading
back to Reno. He dropped me off at the Greyhound station in Pontiac
and I hadn't seen him since. I never found one VP play in any of those
casinos.
Hiugh is one of those guys who never developed any real gambling skill,
but knows every trick in the book when it comes to hustling a casino.
He's now 60 ylears old and never paid much in Social Security Tax n his
life and they told him he wasn't gonna get much of a check if he didn't
go back to work.
So now he is a "bedstripper" at the Peppermill in Wendover. He says
he gonna stay until he is eligible for SS. They provide housing for him
with a charge of $68 per week. It comes right out of his check. He
gets paid every Friday and dumps the money at the poker room on
Friday night. Last night he was telling me how tough the players are
there. I don't have the heart to tell him the difference.
But he is a hustler and has a racket going with good booze left in the
rooms. They used to have $2 coupons in the funbook you get when you
check into the hotel and, of course, he had a racket with those (picking
them up in the rooms as he stripped the beds) until they stopped putting
them in the book. He can usually be found at the Wendover Nugget
hustling credits when he is not working. He can't mess around on the
Peppermill properties.
I think there was some past activity on VPFree about tipping maids.
Hugh told me this is how things work in housekeeping at the Peppermill.
The "checker" goes in the room first, checking for tips. The
bedstrippers and maids are not allowed in the room until this is done.
Once the checker has cleared the room the bedstripper strips the bed
and then the maid comes in. All tiips are divided equally between the
maids. This system may be used by other Hotel/Casinos.