In the state of Nevada you still have to be 21 to do anything but visit the arcades and the roller coasters and eat with mom and dad in the restaurants. But when the kids get close to 21, they get antsy to get out there and see this town for themselves. The 18, 19, 20 year olds can't wait to get to the casinos, into the bars and clubs. In Vegas there are so many bars and clubs and casinos that if they do a decent job of dressing up and getting a good fake I.D, they can usually find plenty of action in this town without getting caught. Even if they do get caught, it's not much more than calling mommy and daddy to bring a $100 bill downtown to bail the kid out and then they might face a fine; the worse ones can be spotted picking up garbage on the side of I-15.

Tony Snow was good at this. He had a great fake driver's license; nothing unusual, all the stamps and markers we look for were there. He looked like the 22-year old the I.D. said he was and the women he would show up with were around his age, some older. The first time I met him was in the middle of a pretty good winning streak. He had a blonde with him, a typical North Hollywood ditz and she was nice, although I don't exactly go in for chain smokers. He was a typical spoiled brat from Santa Monica driving what I saw later was a tricked out Mustang GT. He had his bets up from $20 to $50 and then after hitting a couple of double downs threw me a green check, then another and another. He never tipped the cocktail waitress less than $5 or $10 and took care of everyone else as well. He was the perfect player. He wasn't obnoxious when he won, he wasn't too loud until he'd start getting drunk but by then I was off work and he was on his own. He showed up three weekends in a row, always had plenty of cash, always had a different girl with him, and always tipped well. I had I.D.'d him the second week just to be safe and the I.D. was perfectly good.

"Oh yeah, Tony, I remember you now, yah how you doin'?" I remembered he was a good

Nick was our shift boss. You didn't just call the shift boss, first you called the floor man, if it's a matter of a comp, then he or she'd call the pit boss who would either take care of things or call the shift boss on his beeper. When a good player wants something simple like a room, we just assume it's an easy thing to do if you've been sitting and playing a decent amount for a couple of hours and you've accumulated enough points on your players card, but when you've just walked in the door and don't use a players card then the shift boss has to get involved. By the time Nick came over it was almost a half hour and Tony was already working on his third beer with a shot of something. The girl he was with this time was great. She was cute and slutty and dressed like she was trying to come in first in a "new booby" contest, which is fine with me when I'm dealing.

This kid knew how to play. He didn't stick to any one game and it seemed whatever he played that weekend just worked for him. He took the $500 he started with on Friday night and by the time I left work on Saturday he had a couple thousand. He knew when to walk away from a bad game and he knew when to quit altogether. It was Saturday when he sat down at the poker table to take a shot at the Texas Hold Em game that was just starting. It was a five-handed $2 to $6 game. Since it was the only game, after an hour the now-six players were bored and Tony suggested they change the limit to maybe a $5 to $10 game and everyone was in favor. Two players were ready to walk if they didn't change the limit and so the poker manager pumped it up to a $5-$10 game. Now the boys were sitting up, talking and the chips were flying. The gaming tables are near the poker room although a few rows of slot machines separate both of us, but between all the noises I could hear Tony's voice talking up the game. The game went that way until the late afternoon when I checked and the table was full to 10 players. A second table had a four-way stud game; the four were waiting for a seat at the Hold Em game. Tony was way down on his $500 buy-in. He met me at the gourmet coffee shop near the game.

"You're a stud poker player; I thought you told me you didn't know Hold Em," I said.

"Play a little tighter and be patient," I told him. It was the only thing that came to mind, then another thought, "and quit playing games and bullshitting and talking to these guys and don't even look at them in the eyes, they've probably got you read like a cheap magazine." I said.

"So like what, you mean just look down at the table?" he asked.

"The best way to play is indifferent, you understand, just be disinterested." I took my double espresso and walked to the sports book next to the poker room.

He sat back down and didn't say anything. He seemed to take my advice right away and stared at the table and drank his coffee while he played. He took one good pot while I watched until my break was over. At 6, when I got another break, I went back and now he had a couple of racks of red $5 checks stacked in front of him and in front of that was another rack of green $25 checks. The pots were getting big now. The players were pretty much the same ones and Tony clearly had the chip lead on the game. He came back over to the blackjack tables to play a little. His first hand was for $100 which he won and the next one was the same way. He threw me one of the black checks and said "keep it for the good advice." He went back to the poker game. By 8 pm, when I was done working, I stopped by the table and he must have doubled what he had at 6 o'clock. When I figured it out he had over $2,500.

When I came in Sunday, I walked past the poker pit and there was Tony sipping on coffee at a table with three other players. They were still playing from the night before. Tony had almost $6,000 and the poker room manager was telling me they had been playing a $10-$20 game since 5 am. They were the last four left and they were just going to leave when the manager suggested either pumping up the limit or closing the game and letting the poor dealer go home after 11 hours of dealing poker. Tony slowly stood up and looked bushed.

"I'm gonna quit here soon and get some sleep and go back late tonight" He said. "But I'll come to see you before I go."

He came to the blackjack game I was opening and put five black checks on the table. "I should have given you this in the sports book so only you'd keep it."

"I appreciate that Tony but we're on camera and I'll get canned if I got caught taking it, How'd you end up?" I asked.

"I walked in Friday and bought in for $500 right? Well I got about 7,500 bucks sitting on the poker table right now, so I guess I did ok. I cleaned everyone out of the game. The whole night, I had them all pissed at me. They didn't even want to talk to me, man. Here, put this in the box for yourself anyway." He pushed the five black checks at me. I called the floor man over to ok putting $500 in my toke box before I even had the game open. "Throw it in there, its $500 ain't it?" he said. And Tony headed off to his room after he cashed out.

It was around 3 pm when the head of security came into the pit. He had Nick the shift boss by the podium and was showing him photos. Nick was shaking his head like he was upset and surprised about something. When security left Nick walked up to me and said "come and see me in my office on your break." I nodded and at the break walked to his office. I knocked on the door; Nick opened it and waved me in. He was on the computer but pointed to some photos. "Look at those pictures, you remember this player?" It was Tony.

"His driver's license."

"Does this look like his license?" Nick threw the license down. I picked it up.

"So what did you guys do?" I asked.

"Nothing we could do. He had cashed out all night long; a little at a time and by noon was all cashed out. Even the cage took his I.D. and ok'd it so don't worry, we're just trying to find out who and where he is."

"Does Gaming know about it?" I asked.

"Like what? Hundreds? Thousands?" I asked.

I left the room thinking to myself: "That schmuck, he took the casino and poker players for over $7,000; drinks and gambles for three days straight, hands me probably a thousand bucks in tokes over the entire weekend - and that's just what he gave me alone - cashed out and got roomed and fed by the guys he just screwed out of probably another ten grand, had two slutty girls, and mommy and daddy probably think he's at the beach surfing all day. All I can say is I haven't gotten toked like that in years and it was by a 19-year old kid that just bought himself a lifetime supply of boogy boards and Twinkies. But I got to tell him if he comes back they'll arrest him for gambling and drinking as a minor and a fake I.D. and he'll definitely see the inside

"Tony, if you're reading this, thanks for the tokes, we had one of the best nights in years, but I don't want to see you get busted. That was a great I.D." Oh yeah, one more thing: PLEASE COME BACK IN TWO YEARS!! Until then, bring your mommy or daddy if you want to hit the casinos.

- Ken Pearlman