Whale Sighting - Some neat info

Otherwise it's the exact same game and rules?

 

yes, it's always the same game.

 

Oh, then maybe I'll try it on this trip.
I thought it was a carnival game version with funky rules or something with a bad player edge.
Didn't realize it's just a lower limit identical version

 

Fantastic story, thanks for posting!

Yeah sure, pretty under-whelming to play with a whale like that, but one cool experience nontheless.

You'll hardly get to see these types at the junk local casinos and probably never at the NA Indian casinos. Though there are plenty of well-heeled folks throwing away 50 Ks and 100 Ks....

There was a show on TV once (some Brit guy following a whale) and this guy who's a businessman flew in from Michigan on his own private jet, and before the day, or shall we say night, was out he blew just over a million on all sorts of games including the HL slots.

That begs the question - where are our local billionaires (and any millionaires still left) gambling these days? Is it only the Asian tigers?? where do all the Google guys and the Facebook flunkies go to piss their money away? :Þ

 

However, between mini and midi/regular baccarat the pace of play is dramatically different. With the players handling the cards and going though all the machinations of peeking under the cards, etc, it can take minutes to complete a hand. At the mini table you will be cranking out many hands per minute, thus increasing your losses. Your exposure at a $50 regular table is probably the same as playing at a $15 mini table.

 

mini is quicker, but I wouldn't say it was that much in my experience. Maybe 1.5-2x but not 3.5.

 

actually a few years ago one of those vegas shows highlighted where some whales play. Some of the vegas casinos have their own area for the whales, away from the main casino. I think they showed the room at the MGM and maybe Rio? It is completely private so us commoners won't bother them and don't even know they exist. We can't even walk near that area. There is also a private area where whales stay.

The show also showed where some hotels will bring the game to the whale.

I think while some whales don't mind playing with us commoners many would rather play in private, away from others.

 

The Mansion at MGM

 

yes, the Mansion has private salons in the back. i walked around them last trip and checked everything out. they're open when nobody is playing in them. there's also a door in the Mansion hallway that goes directly into the salon areas and some of the salons have doors that can be closed for privacy. so all your celebrity players like Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, etc can walk straight from the private Mansion into their private salon and never be seen in public.

the nice thing about every salon is they have a big TV right in front of the table behind the dealer, so you can sit there and gamble while you're watching a game or something. that's something totally missing from the main floor as it's nice to be able to glance at a game while you're still playing. there's also a dining room with a 10 person dinner table and a couple of sitting rooms for your entourage to relax. one of the salons even has one of those big leather massage chairs. it looks totally out of place there, but i'm sure one whale requested it one time and now it's there for him whenever he shows up.

on that note, i walked through one of those salons way in the back and they have these green speckled chips. not sure what they call them, but they are 100k chips. i had never seen 100k chips before.

another story, so i heard from my host that Jordan is one of the worst tippers there is. he doesn't tip for anything, ever. bellman, drivers, butlers, dealers, etc, get nothing. just like Tiger, but that's another story. so one time Jordan and Barkley were playing BJ in the Mansion and Jordan hits them for about 1.5M. as they get up to leave Barkley says to him, aren't you going to leave anything for the dealers? and Jordan's like no way this is my money. so Barkley throws the dealers a 5k chip out of his own stack because he was embarrassed to be associated with that.

 

At least one of them showed some class!

 

I hate hearing stories like that about MJ but they occur often enough that I believe them. Such a shame finding out one of your childhood idols is actually like that.

On the other end of the spectrum is Doyle Brunson. You truly expect him to be a bit of a jerk given his rough poker background and the fact that he didn't enter poker for any of the celebrity behind it (there was none back then), and yet every story I hear about him makes him sound classy, including when I met him briefly.

 

If you haven't read it, Whale Hunt In The Desert by Steve Cyr is pretty interestng and provides a good glimpse into this group of ultra hih rollers.

 

Jordan is a well known jerk in NBA circles. Have a friend that used to work for the early nineties Bulls and he always had stories about the stuff Jordan would pull. He treats everyone like that. Loved watching him on the court, but not someone you would want to hang out with off the court

 

Wow, I didn't know that about MJ. So déclassé' and
Tight! Well, he too was a cheater and morally inferior.
Only inferior people treat others inferiorly.
Boo Michael !

 

Shifter- thanks for the Michael Jordan story. Disappointing to hear that he's a classless cheapo. Would love to just observe on of these Whale rooms. Maybe one day....

 

Whales are fun to watch and even more so when they win. Wouldn't like to be around when they take a big hit. Yet I wouldn't want them sitting at the same tables as I am. They are too disruptive especially they are doing it with markers. Slows up the game.

 

Actually seeing a Whale take a big hit sometimes curbs my gambling.

For example, I'm about to chase my losses when I see a guy playing blackjack in the high stakes room at Bellagio with about $10k in front of him. He quickly runs this up to maybe $120k in about 5 minutes, and then proceeds to lose it all back.

Now I no longer need to gamble and instead settle for a mojito.

 

That's turrible.

 

I was at the Bellagio years back and there was a big player with half a craps table reserved. He apparently owned one or more casinos in Monte Carlo. What I found interesting wasn't that he was playing with large $$ amounts but that he had chips in every rack of his half of the table. They started with $1 and $5 chips and wrapped on both sides of him until you got to the $5,000 $25,000 etc... in front of him. At least he had half the table open for others to play. He would toss $100-$500 to the shooters if they were doing well.

 

LOL!!