Baptism by Blackjack Part III: The Paroli

Hal Whitney shares the third and final installment of his intriguing blackjack memoirs.

My first trip to Las Vegas in 1978 was a financial success thanks to a double-up progression system called the Martingale. My ambition was to be a card counter, but when that plan was blown away by the incredibly diverse set of distractions offered by the casinos, I used a progression system as a fall back since that had served me so well in Jai Alai. Mathematically it should have been a complete disaster, but I managed to beat the odds and come out a winner. I won enough to pay for my trip plus some good dinners and a show or two.

I’m a bit hazy on the recreation and partying from that first trip but since my budget was meant largely to finance my first foray into playing blackjack it left little for expensive amusements. My buddy, Jack, and I toured the casinos by night, and the lights and energy of Sin City became the entertainment.

The entertainment highlight was seeing Rip Taylor performing in a lounge at either the Riviera or the Sahara. You could sit at the bar and sip inexpensive drinks while watching the lounge acts and Taylor was one of those. As far as I know, he’s still performing, and whenever I see him, I grow nostalgic for the Las Vegas of that time.

Most of the casinos we visited were lively and animated. There was always a buzz and spirited anticipation that the next big win was coming with the next roll of the dice or when the blackjack dealer slowly turned over his hole card. We walked through the Sands hoping to catch sight of the Rat Pack. Nope. Not this time.

The one exception to this was the Desert Inn. The DI was one of the classiest joints on the strip and catered to an upscale clientele. But moving through the DI was like walking through a library. It was so quiet. It was as if the players were deeply focused on their games and couldn’t be disturbed until they had solved some profound gambling mystery. The lighting was low and subdued, but without the warmth, I’d felt at the Stardust. The DI was very cold and sterile. Maybe my low roller self-esteem was intimidated, but I didn’t care for the DI.

But low roller or not, I was a winner on that first trip, and I couldn’t wait to return.

About a year later I got married, and my wife and I decided to honeymoon in Las Vegas. To this day she still kids me that the only reason I got married was to use the honeymoon as an excuse to go back to Vegas.

She had visited Las Vegas herself a few years before but as a child. I think the excitement that I brought back from my first trip rubbed off on her and she was looking forward to the return too. We booked the MGM Grand for our trip.

My first trip the year before hadn’t included a stop at the MGM, so this was the first look at the place for both of us. The excitement started as we turned into the driveway off the strip and then stopping under the largest porte-cochere I had ever seen. Just looking at the exterior made a lasting impression. It was oozing with elegance.

The memory of walking into the hotel after leaving our car with the valet and our luggage with the bellhop is still deeply and indelibly etched into my limbic system. The only thing I can equate it to was walking into Yankee Stadium years before as a 10-year-old kid and seeing the great expanse of grass that was the playing field. It was awesome! The MGM Grand was even better.

As you walked through the doors into the building, you were slightly elevated from the casino floor which was down three or four steps of stairs.

This was another great expanse. But not grass. It was a vast sea of plush red carpet sparkling with rows of slot machines that glowed like embedded diamonds and beckoned with their cacophonous chiming and the sultry sound of the whirring reels spinning their images of cherries, watermelons, BARs and 7’s. There were islands of green felted tables surrounded by players. They seemed to recede forever into the distant horizon of the casino floor. Mirrors in the ceilings served to double the illusion of an endless carnival of delight.

My wife and I were in a daze as we walked to the long, brass-railed check-in counter. After handing over our paperwork to the desk clerk, we were suddenly jarred awake from our reverie when the clerk said, “I’m sorry, but the room you reserved isn’t available.”
WHAT???!! I was ready to explode when she quickly followed with, “But we’re going to upgrade you to a deluxe room for the same price.” Alright! We hadn’t even finished checking in, and I felt like I was continuing my winning streak.

Our room was beautiful. As you stepped in, there was a large whirlpool hot tub surrounded by deep shag carpeting. Stepping down a small staircase into the sunken living area there was a large canopied bed and the room offered a fantastic view of the strip. There were separate bathrooms and, the most impressive thing of all; telephones right next to each toilet! Now that was the piece de resistance!

The big show at the MGM was “Hallelujah Hollywood!” It was a natural extension of the Hollywood theme of the hotel and a typical, although vastly larger, Las Vegas review show. It was staged as a tribute to the lavish Hollywood musicals of the 1930’s and 40’s. Even the room where it played was a tribute; The Ziegfeld Theater. There were topless showgirls adorned with glittering rhinestones and beads along with feathered headdresses that reached so high you’d swear they were going to topple over at any second. Think of the Stardust’s “Lido de Paris” or the Tropicana’s “Folies Bergere” but at three times the scale. When I read some Las Vegas histories, I’m told that Siegfried & Roy had a part in the review, but I don’t remember their contribution. The topless showgirls made a more lasting impression. The show was quite racy for its time.

It was our honeymoon but of course playing some blackjack was part of the itinerary. It had been a year since my first Las Vegas trip, and I had done some studying and more practice counting. I learned that the Martingale progression that I had used previously was perilous to my bankroll and gave me a lot of agenda having to make those large bets just to win $2. I decided first to try counting again and use another progression as a fallback.

My first hour of counting gave me a small profit, but it also left me with a headache and a feeling of mental exhaustion. I gave up. This was my honeymoon. This was vacation and relaxation time. Counting worked, but it was way too much work.

So I began using a new progression I’d read about called the Paroli. Instead of doubling bets when you lost, as the Martingale called for, this system said to double the bet when you won and look for two wins in a row. And it was working. I had to make some slight modifications for the split and double-down situations, but I was squeezing out a small profit each hour I played without having to make ridiculously large bets. Some of the bets were large in proportion to my basic $2 wager but nothing crazy.

And at the end of our Vegas visit, damn if I didn’t do it again and turn another $400 profit! Two trips in a row almost completely paid for by using a progression system. I started calling the Paroli system the Payroll-i system.

I thought I had found the perfect road to riches. I wouldn’t use it to make a living. I enjoyed playing blackjack, but it wasn’t something I wanted to do eight hours a day, 50 weeks a year. But it would be a great way to take frequent all-expense paid vacations in a town that my wife and I both loved; Las Vegas.

It was hard, though, to find the time to go out to Las Vegas from Connecticut. So we decided to try Atlantic City which was only a five-hour drive from our home near Hartford. Atlantic City was expanding with more hotels to compete with the original Resorts International, and there was no longer the time-consuming wait to find a spot at a blackjack table.

Off we went to what I expected was going to be a free three-day holiday on the boardwalk in Southern New Jersey. I was wrong.

The first thing I noticed that was different was the shoe. They had shoes at some of the tables in Las Vegas, but it was still mostly a single-deck, play-to-the-bottom game that was offered. In Atlantic City, I couldn’t find a single or double deck game. All they had were 6 and 8 deck shoes. I knew from the research that the single deck game gave a positive expectation if you played perfect basic strategy. I didn’t realize how much that expectation skewed to negative when a multi-deck shoe was used.

Using the “Payroll-i” progression, I got absolutely pounded and wound up losing about $1,000. Even more, when you consider, I had to pay for the hotel, meals, and the show!

I gave back all (and even more) of the profit I had made in my two trips to Las Vegas. The Law of Large Numbers had caught up with me and spanked me hard.

I was chastened about my dreams of all expense paid vacations in Las Vegas, but we never gave up on actually taking those vacations. My wife and I fell in love with the town and returned again and again. We’ve lost count, but it has to be over 20 (maybe closer to 25) visits from the east coast over those years. We loved the shows and the lights and the bigger and bigger resorts opening each year. Even after casinos opened less than an hour away from us in eastern Connecticut, we still made the trips back to our first love. The adrenaline rush and the flow of endorphins we experienced on each visit made us Vegas junkies. I don’t think there’s a cure.

[Images: Michael James, MGM Grand, Chuck Barris]

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