"Playing on the Rim." Is a rare casino term. After asking every dealer, every floorman in my casino what "Playing on the Rim" meant I got one of two answers. The guys all said it had to have something to do with Shaquil O'Neil or Michael Jordan. The girls all said "Huh?"

Only my shift boss came up with the correct answer and the answer leads to the story. "Rim" cards are strictly for the high-high rollers. "Playing on the Rim" is when a high roller who plays on the rim is advanced chips on call bets (similar to a marker) which are accounted for on a "rim card" that is signed for by casino employees and not the player.

As they're playing on call bets, they pay back the rim cards whenever they win. If they put a $5,000 lamer on the rim, the player plays with that money until he wins $5,000 then pays off the lamer and the call "Five thousand off the rim." There's an amount set by the casino but the player has more leniency to raise his limit since it's an ongoing game until either the player pays off any rim cards and wins, or hits the limit and has to pay off the marker before any more gambling occurs.

A marker on the other hand is signed for by the player in advance of play and is not to exceed a certain set amount. Where a "rim" card is a revolving line of credit that can be exceeded at the request of the player. While playing on the rim, the player that loses will often receive a break, usually 10-15% off his total losses as he's playing, and although the casino takes all the chances, to their credit, they actually can keep a player from committing suicide over a huge loss by assuming part of that loss to keep the player coming back in the future.

But playing on the rim is still a marker, no matter how much you exceed your limit; you owe what you lose, PERIOD! If the casino gives you a break on the loss, that's to their credit. Now you can sit there until Hell freezes over and say "But it's just chips, if the guy gives me $100,000 and loses and I advance him another $100,000 and he loses that, I still have $100,000 of his money, I can take off $20,000 just to be sure I get paid the remaining $80,000 which if he ever wants to gamble in Las Vegas again, he'll thank me for saving him $20,000 and cut me a check before he brushes his teeth in the morning."

Now say he doesn't pay me any of the other $100,000. I still have his initial $100 g's and all my chips I had before he started play, so what am I out? A lousy room and a few stiff drinks? But the fact is I'm out $100,000. And like any other business, how do I tell my boss he ain't getting his $100,000. And why not? Because the guy says so, he just told me to fuck off and eat my $100 g's, and next trip, he's staying across the street.

Well, until maybe ten or fifteen years ago. You would of said that to a casino boss and he'll quickly peel off 5- $100 bills from his pocket, WHY? He'll tell you "this is me paying your deductible on your health insurance policy, you're gonna need it." But now days, in Las Vegas, all you have to say is "Fuck you, sue me" and the casino host will probably take another $20,000 if you'll just pay up. To which another "fuck you" will probably get another $5,000 to $10,000 off your total. But after that, they call up the team of lawyers and tell them to start earning their living.

And so the story opens with Steve Mattes, a multi-millionaire from southern California who received an $8 million dollar federal jury's judgment against Park Place Entertainment (Paris/Bally's) that the whole industries watching to see if he'll collect.

But it wasn't simply a case of player walking into the Paris and losing money and not paying his rim card. This started in the casino host's office. Tom Bonanne was the casino host for Bally's/Paris hotels. This is one of the most prestigious positions in Las Vegas. This guy's job is to cater to the players. Most every player hands over his casino player's card, they swipe it through the computer and it tells them just what they can comp you or not, depending on their individual point system. The Paris and Ballys' is probably the worst of all the comp point systems. Anyone playing less than $50 per hand or less than four hours per session might as well bring their own Swiss cheese and Salami sandwiches if they're going to eat free at the Paris or Bally's.

But the hosts' real job is to bring in the high-rollers and more than that, keep them coming back. In most cases it's simple, just pick the guy up at the airport in a limo with booze in the back, give him a room on the top floor, feed him and get him drunk and take his money, take him back to the airport in the limo and give him a call in a couple weeks to do it again.

In the case of the whales, you may have to lay a Rolex and a bottle of Dom Perignon on him to get him back, but when he's dropping a million bucks every visit you kiss his tush as you place the Rolex on his wrist. In the case of one player at the Rio, the casino host walked into the jewelry store, took a pair of earrings worth $62,000 and laid it on the players' wife as the visit came to an end. On the limo ride to the airport, the player wrote out the personal check for $3.4 million bucks which was transferred before the end of the next business day. The Rio Hotel was glad to cut the check for a lousy $62 grand to the jewelry store.

But in this case, Steve Mattes personally loaned Tom Bonanne, the Paris' casino host over $250,000 as well as laying several gifts on him in order to allow him to play on the rim as much as he wanted. He was good for the money and Tom must have felt he could handle any problems. But what happened was that Tom promised his player a line of credit for that weekend of $2,000,000. They had an agreement that if he lost the $2 million, the first 15% would be on the casino. Playing Blackjack at a clip of $30,000 per hand and in the span of three days managed to reach that $2 million dollar loss mark, the casino cut him off. He knew he still was good for $300,000 in credit since that was what the casino told him they would cut off his $2 million dollar tab and so asked for that much in rim play but the casino refused, which is where he claimed in court they defamed his character.

The problem was that the deal was when he lost $2 million, they would take a check for $1.7 million and call it even, not that they would hand him another $300,000 on top of his $2 million dollar loss. And as far as his character defamation, to the one dealer who was dealing the game and the one floorman who was watching the game, neither could give a crap about the guys' character as long as he tipped, you can't get much money for making someone feel bad in front of two people who couldn't care less…except maybe in a California court.

So the case goes back to court but this time in Nevada. The jury in California somehow felt the guy must have felt so bad sitting there by himself at the blackjack table losing $2 million that the casino should somehow pay him $8 million for hurting his feelings when they wouldn't loan him any more money to lose.

I seem to remember a similar case many years ago here in Las Vegas when a Texas oil man was flown here by the Riviera to drink and gamble. He locked up $500,000 cash in the cage and when he lost that he started signing markers for another $1.25 million bucks. He was well known and had played in several casinos and was a well known whale that was a target by many of the casinos for his business. The next morning the Riviera called his bank to start transferring the money he'd lost and they told them he was only good for $750,000. The casino host told the guy he was done playing and that they'd take the $750,000 to start and they'd settle for another $250,000 due in a week.

His answer was to complain he was being mistreated and taken advantage of by serving him champagne all night in the Baccarat room and talking him into signing more markers. When he brought it into court the judge took the markers and compared the signatures and they were all signed by the same person, but more important, the last signature as well as all the previous ones from the night was just as clear as the first one so he couldn't have been too drunk and so since a marker's as good as a check, he owed the casino the full $1.25 million, costing the guy another $250,000 plus the attorney fees.

So the casino industry is watching the Mattes case closely to see where the courts stand on not just rim markers but any markers. But I can tell you that the next time someone wants to come to Las Vegas and play whale, he's going to have to start signing contracts before they start playing.

-Ken Pearlman