It all begins at home as our stressful lives send us dreaming at night of getting away to something just a little bit different, just a little bit over-the-edge, something just a little bit wild. Something you're not going to find anywhere else. Safaris being rather expensive these days, the only other choice is Las Vegas.

Once you've decided, your heart races just a little bit faster as you watch all you can on TV about Las Vegas, and there's plenty. From the Discovery Channel's never-ending stream of shallow documentaries to ABC's awful "Las Vegas" series (with no chance in the same time slot as the Fox hit "24" - they're going to either find another shift or go to the graveyard shift forever), to the even worse ESPN's shot in the form of TILT, an absurd look at the blooming Vegas Poker industry where they try to imply that all people do in Las Vegas is either cheat or sit around thinking about cheating.

You buy a deck of cards and maybe a couple of dice and practice blackjack and craps at home in anticipation of winning millions on a little luck and you're new found perfection of your blackjack and craps games. As you pack, your hands shake just a little, your palms sweat just a little. Now, if you can keep it together as the money flows in… You get on the plane with the same daydream stare the other passengers seem to also possess on the Las Vegas flights, which isn't experienced on any other air flights. The first thing you're thinking about is getting liquored up and heading for the casinos you've been watching on TV and reading and hearing about from everyone that has preceded you telling you, "Man you've got to check out…"

Flying into Las Vegas, everyone's either starting the party early on the airplane or they're staring out the windows dreaming of the big win; of how they'll react when they stick their hand out and the lady starts peeling hundred dollar bills into their hand counting …One thousand, two thousand…..thirty thousand, forty thousand….One million, two million. How will they handle the press? Where will they build their first new house? The second house? How much will they give their parents, their siblings, their friends? Should I get a limousine and a driver and a cook and a secretary or should I just keep my life simple like it is now after I buy the business and fire my boss?

The blackness of the sky is shattered by the lights of Las Vegas looking like a huge firework exploding in the darkness. From two thousand feet they can make out the fountains at Bellagio, the light from the Luxor flooding the sky above the pinnacle. Your heart starts beating louder in your ears. As the plane circles to land, then taxis up to the ramp, you can hardly contain yourself, you can't sit still.

"Please remain in your seats with your seatbelts on until we come to a complete stop." As they make the announcement on the airplane everyone's already putting everything in their carry on bags, fixing their hair, counting their money, making their last-minute cell phone calls to tell everyone at home they're alright which really means, "Ha ha, I'm in Vegas and you're not, it's 75 degrees here and below zero there, HA HA!!"

Sitting in the cab all you can think to say is: "Take me to the Strip"

"What hotel?" the taxi driver asks.

"Shit I forgot to get a room, just take me to a cheap Strip hotel." And now the ride begins.

"You like girls?" the driver asks. "If you want girls just let me know and I'll get some for you and if you need anything else just let me know."

It boggles your mind trying to think of all the bad stuff you can do here and here's the guy telling you to your face "WELCOME TO SIN CITY, WHICH SIN DO YOU WANT TO COMMIT FIRST?" This echoes through your head, you can't think of what to do first. If you're lucky he'll head straight for a reasonably priced casino like Excalibur or the Luxor with prices hovering under $100 on the weekdays making it a reasonable price these days.

Checking in means you open the room door, throw your bags on the bed, turn around and head for the casino. You'll take the stuff out of the suitcases later, you'll shower and shave later, you'll eat later, you'll sleep later. Everything you can do at home you'll save for home.

You're in Las Vegas and there's action going everywhere. Just coming off the elevator for the first time can be intimidating. This way is craps, that way is blackjack, down there is the sportsbook, you've got a pocket full of money and you're beginning to get a little overwhelmed by all the tables, all the machines, all the people everywhere, girls competing with other girls as if this was Xtreme Makeover or some stupid television show that takes normal people and turns them into a cross between Bela Lugosi and Jaws as they wander the casinos mumbling to themselves: "Want meat, want blood, need money, need money, more of this, more of that"

With the three-days-no-sleep look on their faces, they come to my table looking lost and hungry. They're triggers just looking for a place to shoot themselves. And in Las Vegas there are plenty of places to shoot yourself.

All I have to say is "How are you doing?" and the hammer hits the bullet.

There's not enough money to go around for anyone in Las Vegas. Nobody in this town ever has enough dough. But they never take responsibility for their own actions. All they know is they can't head for their room no matter how much they've lost. This isn't an option. Once you get a taste of real action you can't imagine sitting in a room while all this action is going on only a few floors below. The dice are popping, the cards are snapping, your brain's on the verge of sensory overload, your neurons are sizzling as the half-naked cocktail waitresses compete to get you drunk. Incredible looking women are walking around everywhere but you just don't have the time to be trying your pick up lines on anyone, as the tables and machines talk to you, telling you to never quit, never give up. You've seen it done on TV and in the movies, your friends tell you about the winning, but they forgot to tell you about the losing and how they did or didn't handle it. And EVERYONE'S experienced the losing end of the game.

The ball's rolling around the wooden wheel for large amounts of money, how can you watch re-runs on TV or sit in a restaurant wasting time? The idea that we're open 24 hours just doesn't sink into their brains. If a casino would close at 2am like the bars back home, they would gamble feverishly in the last couple of hours like patrons drink twice as much between 12 and 2am than they do any other hours in the day including happy hours. But being open 24 hours with no windows or clocks works on everyone's psyche as 12 am turns into 4am then 9am. Then, when you look at your watch it's the next day - forget about sleeping now, it's too late for that - time for breakfast, and then maybe to another casino to say you saw the place. But now you don't even stop to see the expensive exteriors they've spent millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours to build because all you can think of is whether to split 8s against the dealer every time like they say or just when the dealer has an 8 or under or…

The insanity builds as time itself starts eating away at your good times. You can't think of getting back on an airplane and going back to the same old grind, especially if you've had a winning stay. So many people have "The Move" in their minds; it starts with your first real winning experience and NEVER stops until your first real loss. Understanding the importance of losing makes it all come clear; it's so that not everybody who wins a $5 blackjack hand will instinctively go home, quit their jobs, sell their homes and move to Vegas, which almost always ends in messy divorces and single parents left alone in a city that couldn't care less; they've all got their own problems here.

It was on the game where I first met Allison and Gary. They were friends of the family from Chicago and I felt a little responsible. I promised them before they came out that we'd get together on one of the three days they would be here and, since they both liked to gamble, I decided I'd better get them the first day so they'd have some sort of chance against the casinos. They had only played at home and hadn't even seen a casino except for what they could make out on a 27-inch TV screen. But even from a 27-inch TV screen, the sight of the Strip sends people into a dream like state of mind. They had seen the new casinos on TV, seen the new games as well as the old ones, the laughter, the insane screaming from the winners, even the losers looking happy just after the initial sting.

They thought by playing blackjack and poker with their friends, being voted the best gamblers by their Friday night poker game players, they were a sure win in Las Vegas as if they had a stamp of approval to go out and win huge sums of money thanks to those 25 cent poker games, (sevens and one-eye jacks wild), stop for the cell phone call, stop for sandwiches, stop to go pee in the middle of the hand and so on.

They were a typical mid western couple in their mid 20's. They've only been out of town once for a week in Hawaii that mom and dad bought them five years ago for the honeymoon. Coming to Las Vegas was something they've planned for the last year and they were looking forward to spending their five-year anniversary in a suite at Caesars Palace, thanks again to mom and dad footing the hotel bill.

I met them after my shift and they had just tinkered with the slot machines waiting for what they figured would be my expertise to help them win, never realizing that I just came from the other side of the tables and if I knew anything that anyone else didn't know I wouldn't waste my time at a 9 to 5 job when I could just gamble for a living. Where would all the dealers come from if they found out after some time on the job that there really was a way to beat the casinos at their own games? What the dealers do come to realize after time is that the only way to win money in a casino is to take it out of the casino's hands and put it back in your own.

So I explained that Poker, which puts your wins on the back of other susceptible players, rather than the casinos never-ending supply of time and money, was one way to side-step the casinos. The rake was payment for a dealer/referee to keep the games honest. There was Pai Gow Poker that held one of the smallest casino advantages on a table games, less than one percent which could be side stepped by playing the banker when possible. There was what I call "safe craps" which is simple: betting the pass or don't pass lines and taking the odds and not getting too involved in the game until you fully understood it and are willing to up your wagers to cover the numbers. But there were no guarantees.

In whatever they wanted to play, everyone was better than them, so be humble, which means don't go on some stupid vendetta after you lose your first hundred. Don't get mad, don't get even, just live in the moment, look around you, you'll be home soon wishing you were back in Las Vegas, back in the action. It was hard to see their smiles turn into determination that they were going to soak up everything I could teach them in a couple of hours about the games they wanted to play. Probably a little bit dangerous as the saying how a little bit of knowledge can be more dangerous than no knowledge at all rings so true.

The more information I gave them, the more they figured they knew and after an hour, while running a hundred dollar bill into $600 thanks to a couple of lucky double down hands got them ahead for that session, they were ready to do it themselves. I gave them a little advice, told them to set a goal and stick to it and cash out when they're supposed to, regardless of what time it is. They assured me they were going to cash out very soon, as they were both tired which in the casino business is code words for "We're going upstairs to screw and change cloths and come back down and start again." But they were happy and having a great time when I left.

The next night I received a call from Gary: "Hey, you doing anything?" He sounded weak and beaten, the sound in the voice when a human is ready to give up. "Stay positive and go sit in the sports book and make a bet on a game and sit a watch it for the next couple of hours and I'll see you later," I said.

Sure enough, when I showed up the carnage was everywhere. They were mumbling to themselves, hardly speaking to one another. He had hit a losing streak on blackjack, carried it to roulette and craps and now they had lost back the $600 plus another $500 out of their pockets. They had only set aside $200 a day for everything and now they were just about broke and two days left. They were both depressed and trying to drink it off. I had seen this over and over for the last 25 years in this town and I didn't want to see it happen to these kids. I took $200 of my own money and we hit the tables. I made a $200 profit and took that and gave them the other $200 and they sat and Gary sat and played poker and Allison went shopping. I sat with him for an hour going over and over the game until he could sit down and look reasonably healed and he actually pulled it off. On his third hand he popped a set of cowboys and a third on the flop. A pair of threes on board just added to his hand as no one could beat his full boat and he picked up a nice $200 pot for his trouble. After three hours he was up almost a thousand. Allison came back and found me reading a gaming newspaper not even paying attention to Gary. "Just leave him alone and he'll be fine," I told her. But she was determined to get him off the table with the thousand dollars. She said something in his ear and in a minute you could see the tension build. He was in the hand, he had a nice hand going, a four card straight on the flop, but he missed a bet and a raise and didn't notice there was three clubs and there was also a pair on board and there were two other guys raising and re-raising after he had hit his straight. I was trying to get her away from the table but she just stood there trying to intimidate Gary to quit but by then it was too late. He had sunk three hundred on a straight calling a double raise on the end. It was only then I could pull him off the table and salvage the $650 he was left with as he was beaten by a flush which was beaten by the full house and he finished dead last in the hand.

"This is going home with you guys." And I racked up his checks and hit the cashier.

The last day I spent driving them around town, up to Red Rock Canyon, down to Hoover Dam, anything but a casino and when they left they had a couple hundred more than when they landed three days earlier. What I figured was three days in the Vegas Cooker turned out to be the best time they've ever had. They loved the town and the casinos. They loved gambling even if it was just a $2 blackjack game. It was the same old story and the casinos win again. I'm sure on the flight home all they'll talk about is how they won this hand and almost won that hand to the others on the flight who will be giving them the same stories back. Whether winners or losers, they'll be back. They're probably making plans to return next year, just days after returning.

I received a call from Gary the day after they hit the Chicago snow. "Hey Kenny, thanks for everything, we had a great time and we're really looking forward to next year." I returned the call with one word: "Practice" but whether they will or not doesn't matter.

It was all so true that it isn't the winning or losing; it's only about being in the A*C*T*I*O*N.

-Ken Pearlman