Emboldened by the windfall of quarters, I decided to upgrade my play and resolutely headed directly to the dollar machines. A couple of $500 hits and a spectacular $1,000 jackpot later, I was suddenly a player with a bankroll, ready for action again at the blackjack tables.

I wish I could give this casino Cinderella story a happy ending, but it turned out that my late financial resurgence that day was all for naught. 1 ended up sadly replaying my earlier misfortunes at the tables, back where I started from, only now $10 poorer with my last roll of quarters gone too. 1 sadly shuffled over to the bus terminal with my return ticket and just enough pocket money to see me safely back to my Manhattan apartment. Though this foray was a two-act loser, it does show that you’re not dead ’til your ass is cold.

On the flip side, you should never count your chickens before they hatch, especially in a casino. Once in the late 1960s, my early freewheeling days, I gambled through two tumultuous days and nights, storming in and out of Las Vegas casinos, and I ended up with $24,000 of the casinos’ money. Up in my Sahara suite, $100 bills piled high on the table, I soberly reviewed the situation. I realized 1 was too hopped up for my own good, so, after a much-needed night’s sleep, 1 dumped most of the money in a casino safe-deposit box and wisely decided to plane out to San Francisco for the day. I always wanted to sample their King Crab claws on Fisherman’s Wharf. I really dig those King Crab claws!
Refreshed and well crab-clawed, I took an early-evening flight back to Las Vegas and the green-felt tables. Dame Fortune can be fickle, and with me she was then at her worst. Almost as soon as I started betting once again-and this was at my darling, always-profitable Sahara-I found myself on a tail-spinning losing streak that I just couldn’t buck. To “change my luck,” as the saying goes, I even took a $22 cab ride up from the bottom of the Strip all the way over to the other end of the world-The Hacienda, the first casino at the top of the Strip.

You think that did it? Sadly it did not, as my losing streak continued, relentlessly on-course, whatever casino I went to, whatever 1 bet, whether at blackjack or at craps. I couldn’t even coax more than a couple of coins at a time out of the damn slot machines!
The only reason I returned to New York with my seed money still intact and with $3,300 of the casinos’ cash, was that 1 had bragged to one of my girl friends that I would win enough money on this trip to be able to fly her out the following week to Vegas to see Sinatra at the Sands. I sure as hell would’ve felt like a horse’s ass to have to tell her we’re going by subway to Coney Island instead, only to fill up on hot dogs and beer. Just my ego kept me from losing that last $3,300.

Sure, looking back on my trip in retrospect, I can bemoan the fact that my post-San Francisco casino-hopping cost me more than $20,000. But I don’t. I quote Harold of Harolds Club in Reno, and only see the trip positively. “I quit winners!”

What you can learn from all this is to make sure that you leave the casinos with at least some of their money. This way, when you’re on the bus or plane, you can say, “Yes, I quit winners!”

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When I first got a seat on the casino roller coaster in 1950, I was still wet behind my ears. Sure, I read John Scarne's big book on casino gambling and listened attentively at Lyle Stuart's knee. However, my on-the-job training came in the casinos themselves. As much as Scarne and Stuart taught me, wagering at real tables and playing real slot machines gave me an entirely new dimension of understanding.

I never took much money along—I didn't have that much disposable cash to begin with—so my early forays, though mostly losers, weren't financially crushing. On my very first trip in 1960 I mainly stuck to the slot machines,- blackjack was an exotic, slightly intimidating experience that I approached cautiously—and only at the $2 tables. I didn't dare venture over to the $5 tables.

When I started to get a handle on the casino swing of things, I became emboldened to do foolhardy things that I wouldn't dare do today. I won money fast and I lost money fast. With these wild fluctuations in my bankroll, the only thing that kept me out of bankruptcy court was my iron-clad resolution to never—but never— play with scared money and never—but never—take credit. My last resolution was sometimes sorely tested when I was in Vegas with Lyle. Tagging along with the legendary High Roller, I was offered financial courtesies that I never would have been offered if 1 was by myself. Being with Stuart I was offered instant, on-the-spot credit, just on Lyle's say-so. Prudently, I always passed on these golden opportunities, though having a sudden influx of easy, heavy seed money right at the tables was always tantalizingly tempting.

While my point here is to discourage betting with borrowed money, 1 can't resist relating one exception. A friend of mine once told me about his uncle who worked as a teller in a bank in the days before computers and the proliferation of casinos. A horse-racing addict who fancied himself an ace handicapper, the teller would dip into the till on Fridays when the nags were running, and first thing Monday mornings would quietly return the "borrowed" money. My friend said his uncle retired a wealthy man, never having once been detected in his bank-financed racetrack escapades.

My stubborn refusal of credit was always my saving grace. When I lost, I lost what 1 could afford, period. Once my seed money was swept away on wagers I didn't win, that was it. I was tapped out, tapioca, as Manhattan saloonkeeper Toots Shor put it. If I had time to kill till the next bus left, I only played the slot machines—usually the nickel ones—till departure time.

Once, just once, at Atlantic City's Park Place, I was just about tapped out and so I invested my last $10 in seed money in a roll of quarters. I idly played a 25-cent slot machine, nursing the pile of quarters for quite a while, with a spate of small wins. Suddenly, like the phoenix, I arose from the ashes and hit a $750 jackpot!

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Lucky Pierres most winning score card (June, 1969)
DAY*)
CASINO SHOOT FOR ACTUAL RUNNING TO
Sahara 200 +400 +400
Sahara 200 +300 +700
Sahara 200 +450 +1,150
Sahara 200 +150 +1,300
Thunderbird 200 +650 +1,950
Riviera 200 +2,350 +4,300
Desert Inn 200 +3,500 +7,800
Stardust 200 +1,000 +8,800
Stardust 200 +1,200 +10,000
Stardust 200 +400 +10,400
Riviera 200 +300 +10,700
Riviera 200 -2,700 +8,000
Horseshoe 200 +1,300 +9,300
Sands 200 +1,000 +10,300
Tropicana 200 +800 +11,100

Sahara 200 +1,900 +13,000
Thunderbird 200 +1,700 +14,700
Dunes 200 -5,700 +9,000
Dunes 1,000 -800 +8,200
Dunes 1,000 +4,000 +12,200
Sahara 1,000 +3,600 +15,800
Caesars 1,000 +500 +16,300
Dunes 100 -12,100 +4,200
Dunes 1,000 -900 +2,300
Dunes 100 +3,300 +5,800
Sands 1,000 +4,800 +10,600
Sahara 1,000 +1,900 +12,500

Sahara 1,000 +3,200 +15,700
Sahara 1,000 +2,500 +18,200
Desert Inn 1,000 +2,500 +20,700
Desert Inn 1,000 +600 +21,300
Desert Inn 1,000 -2,200 +19,100
Sahara 1,000 +1,300 +20,400
Flamingo 1,000 +4,300 +24,100
Dunes 500 +500 +24,600
Dunes 1,000 +5,400 +30,000
Sahara 1,000 +1,125 +31,125

My three day Las Vegas Spree where it seemed I could do no wrong!
Shoot For: What my goal was in the casino. Actual: What the monetary outcome actually was.

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When one is lucky and running lucky, one can do no wrong and suffer no loss! … We keep telling him that the law of probabilities will eventually grind him out. And he laughs at us as he counts his winnings."

This from the July 1, 1969, issue of The High Roller, the much-respected, now regrettably defunct gambling newsletter of the 1960s. Looking back at what was written about me thirty years ago, I can only concur with the editor, on both counts.
Checking over the score card now, I shudder at my foolhardy onslaught on the Las Vegas casinos. As they say in the crude vernacular, I must have stepped in shit to have run rampant through the casinos in a nonstop, three-day rampage. Amazingly, I got back on the plane safely with $31,125 of their money.

Not only did I consistently win in casino after casino, but I ducked in and out of the same casino multiple times,- jour times in the case of the Sahara!
And I did it all on craps, a game I rarely play these days.
Looking back at it all now, in the cold light of July, 2000, I can attribute it either to youthful naivete or temporary madness.

Examine my scorecard, along with the story about me and my win in The High Roller, which I reprint in its entirety. As the editor wanted to protect my privacy he dubbed me "Lucky Pierre." The facts are true,- only the name was changed to protect the player. (With the wild roller coaster ride I foolishly went on in my helter-skelter three-day casino spree, the editor should have dubbed me "Reckless Pierre.")

I include this curious and aberrant episode as a warning to the reader to avoid such wild and reckless forays. Sure, I challenged the dragon and slew him, but if you foolishly follow in my footsteps, I guarantee the dragon will chew on your ass for dinner.
Postscript: In a subsequent issue, The High Roller scolded me for returning to casinos where I'd been unlucky and losing.

"[He] finds a casino where [he] does good, and wins their money. [Then he] finds a casino where [he's] consistently unlucky, where [he] can't even win a slab of gum from the penny gum machine. Instead of taking the lucky casino for everything [he] can, [he] wins big there, and then goes to the unlucky place and drops it."
Thank you, Mr. Editor. I subsequently took your sage advice and profited from the information.

I hope you will profit from this savvy gambling tip, too.

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My first rule in casino gambling is: Never bet with "scared money." Scared money rarely wins. Your investment capital (that's what you must consider it) should consist of "mad money"—money that, if you lose it, won't affect your lifestyle. If the cards and dice don't go your way, tough! When I lose—and, yes, there are times I do lose—I just shrug my shoulders and tell myself "tomorrow is another day. . . ." Victor Lownes, who ran the Playboy Casino in London when it was the most profitable casino in the world, aptly phrased it when he advised that, if you lose, just consider it "expensive entertainment."
My second basic rule is: Never take credit. Casino hosts masquerading as your friendly Dutch Uncles are eager to set up a credit line for you. Beware! Don't—I repeat, do not—ever bite the bait. If you do, you will live to regret it. Through the years enough credit has been offered me to buy the Empire State Building. In forty years of casino gambling, I have yet to swallow the hook, not even once.

Take special note of my next rule: Your credit cards enable you to ravage the ATM machines that are conveniently located throughout casinos: LEAVE ALL YOUR CREDIT CARDS AT HOME! If you must carry a card with you, take one that doesn't give access to ATM machines. Sure, there have been times when the dice went against me and my working capital was wiped out. But I never used my plastic card to restock the plastic chips, though 1 sometimes had to use it to buy a meal, or even a wee drop of the grape. (Yes, occasionally I do take a drink or two to help restart my motor. After three or four hours of casino-hopping a vodka-and-tonic tastes great. Still, if alcohol affects you adversely, stay away.)

As for the ever-conspicuous ATM machines in the casinos, I sometimes stand and watch those sad souls standing in line awaiting their turn to take money out of one casino machine, just to put it into another casino machine. And most probably never to see it again.

If you're going to Atlantic City or Las Vegas for a weekend, split your bankroll into three equal packs—one for each day of your stay. Put one pack in your pocket and the other two in the hotel safe. Don't imitate the hotshot from California who went to Vegas for a weekend. While his wife was waiting on line to check in, he hightailed it over to the craps table. Before she even got to the registration desk he meekly sidled over to her and said, "We're going home, honey. I just blew our bankroll."

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