Fred's High Roller Blog-Gambling at Home

Hi again everyone! Well, I didn't go out of town this week. Sorry to disappoint you. I can't go out of town every week. I had planned on just taking it easy, and having a nice relaxing weekend at the house. Haha, well it didn't really end up like that.

So Saturday afternoon I get a call from an old friend of mine. He just started playing blackjack about a month ago, and he was talking to me about it.

Now, there is a cruise ship that goes out into the ocean by my house, and it is legal to play casino games there. Remember that I live in Florida, and casinos are pretty rare here. So the way the boat gets away with it is they go into international waters and you play out there, so it's 100% legal.

Ok, well let me just say that I hate the boat. There are a bunch of reasons for this, but I'll give a quick rundown for you all.

1. They don't comp hardly anything.
2. They don't play high enough stakes.
3. They don't serve premium liquor.
4. They treat players pretty badly, especially the high stakes players.

There are even more reasons than that, but for now I'll just give you all the condensed version.

Alright, back to my friend. So he says that he wants me to take him to the boat. Immediately I'm thinking, no way! But after a bunch of convincing, I let him talk me into it.

We get on the boat, and he starts to play. I'm just watching him, and helping him out for a little while. Then a pit boss comes up to me and asks why I'm not playing. So I tell him that they don't play high enough for me.

So he points to their "high stakes" table, and it's $500 max bet. I laugh and tell him that I'd rather sit here and watch my friend play for $10 a hand before I play that game. I tell him that if he wants to bump it up to $50 minimum $1,000 max, and no mid-shoe entry, I'd play with them.

He thinks it over for a minute, and makes some calls. So then they open a table for me. I sit down and play for about an hour, and I'm up about $4 thousand.

By now I decide to take a break, so I sit on a couch and decide to watch the ball game. Then a security guard comes up and turns the channel. I'm the only one watching by the way. So I ask him to turn it back. The guy tells me that he had specific instructions to turn the channel.

Whatever, so I go to get something to eat. Then the waitress tells me that she isn't allowed to take my order!

I'm not an idiot. The casino is messing with me, and they wanted their money back. These are the types of little tricks that this place pulls to mess with their high rollers. So now I'm out for blood!

I storm back to the blackjack table, and play a couple of hands. Then BOOM! I take three spots for $1 thousand each. I get one blackjack, and I made 20 on the other two and won. Then I take three hands again and the dealer busts!

I play for a little while longer, and decide to quit right before the cruise ended. I was up $14 thousand. I felt pretty good about what I accomplished.

So then I go up to the pay window to cash out, and they tell me that they can't pay me. WHAT??? I ask what the deal is, and they said that they don't have the money. Now I've taken checks from this place before and they've always cashed, but now I'm hot. Not only do you mess with me over the TV and the food, but now you're trying to mess with me about my money?!?!

So by now there are a bunch of people lining up at the window, and I yell, "What do you mean you can't pay me? Are you saying that this boat doesn't have any money?"

I wish that everyone reading this could've been there because there was one heck of an uproar! Then a pit boss runs up and takes me aside. I tell him about my night, and I tell him that I'm not taking a check from you people. I want my cash! He tells me to wait until everyone cashes out, and they'll pay me.

I agree, and when it comes time to pay me here they come with the $50 dollar bills. They paid me about $4 thousand in $100s, and the rest in $50s. So now I have ten thousand dollars in $50s on me. Haha, these people just don't stop.

So needless to say, I don't plan on going back for a long time. That's no way to treat your high rollers, or anyone for that matter. So I felt great that I got $14 thousand out of them.

Well next week I'm going to Atlantic City. That should be fun. I've always been treated pretty well there and it should be a good trip.

After that though, I'm going to take a week off. During that week, we are going to do an "Ask Fred" edition of the blog, where you can email me any types of questions that you wish, and I'll pick out the best ones and answer them. So go ahead and start submitting those questions in the form below, and if your question is good enough we'll feature it on the site. Until next time, this is Fred, and I'll see you all again next Monday!