So one of the older kids (13-14 years old) bought $40 and went to the casino. I deal cards in Iowa so my stories aren’t as impressive as some of these are but the most I’ve seen lost was $76,000 in thirty minutes and the guy just went “huh,” shrugged, and tipped me his last $500. From my dad, who’s a dealer: I’ve seen someone bet $25,000 a hand. Saw a guy bet $2,000 on a hand of blackjack and double down. The kicker is two of his hands were double down hands because the dealer was showing a weak card, maybe a 5 or 6. So the guy ultimately had a $50,000 bet on one round of hands. The pot was about $50,000 so it was a big deal (and this was in Chile). The pot was probably like $1000 when all was said and done. I knew he was around but hadn’t seen him, even though EVERY floor person in the place was watching him like a hawk.
She sat on my $100 blackjack table, which is the highest limit on the peasant floor. Former dealer/floor supervisor/pit boss – I watched a prominent golfer lose $3,000,000 over a weekend playing blackjack and $100 slot machines. Dude just takes it out of his pockets with those bands around it and starts playing baccarat. Not really that big, but just yesterday some random guy walked by the craps table I was playing at, dropped $200 hard-8 hit it on the first roll, and parlayed it into a $2k hard-8 without a thought. He walked up to my table and I said, as always, “Hey, man, how’s it going? This regular came in (he usually played poker but sometimes he played some blackjack before going to the poker room), and sat down at my table and started to play. I got to meet some celebs and whatnot, but this one lady always had a massive handbag around with her and was a regular. It got worse as I got older. I got a call from her once at 3 AM, literally begging me to instantly wire her $1,800 so she could get a flight home from Vegas.
She was literally just walking around Vegas for those 3 days homeless, waiting for the wire transfer. I work in a well known casino in Las Vegas. He’s lost well over 10 million while he’s been with us, which is about three times the value of his actual house. I once was dealing craps on a table where a guy won and subsequently lost over a million dollars in one afternoon. The crazy part, however, was that the guy ended up winning the “bad beat jackpot,” which was over $100k. The biggest tip that guy ever gave was $30. There was a misunderstanding and my friend poured water into this guy’s glass instead of what that one guy was drinking, and he totally lost his mind at her. The dealer dealt to a three card 21 and the man lost his $50k… He then takes out a $50k marker from the house and proceeds to lose all of it in about 25 minutes.
My ex lost $10,000 in about 5 minutes of blackjack. Ended up landing on red, takes three more shots, and hits up our nightclub upstairs where I heard he blew like $10,000 more US dollars. Three days later we had to arrest him because he’d lost it all and assaulted someone. We’ve got all the best characters, from Kuwaiti oil barons to Big Three bank presidents. The funny thing was is that I didn’t care if they won or lost, as I couldn’t accept tips in my position so I got paid the same regardless of how they fared. And everyone at the table got paid like two grand. I think I’ve only heard of one or two bigger ones in town since then, but they were all multi-way P/L Omaha pots that ended up getting split. The two basically go hand in hand. Not a dealer, but my buddies and I were gambling at the $10 a hand tables at the Wynn (back when they still had them) and having a blast. He didn’t really care about the money; gambling – and drinking hilariously expensive drinks – was just something to do.
