Schuetz: Talking Trash And Collecting Cash

“One toke over the line, sweet Jesus”

— Brewer & Shipley

The Las Vegas Review-Journal’s David Danzis recently reported on a Vegas casino discussing a possible change in its tip policy. The article addressed a contemplated change in how they would be dividing tips among the dealers in the table games department. The discussion took me down memory lane. 

I dealt cards and dice in the early 1970s in Reno, Nevada, at night to finance my way through college. The casino I worked for did not pay much, but the tokes (tips) were great. The dealers pooled tips made in the table games department per shift among those working that shift. I dutifully reported the approximate $11 a night I received in tips on my tax filings with the IRS.

After a few years, I understood that I was part of a massive audit of those dealers by the IRS, suggesting that people like me made much more than we had declared. The audit notice came down after I had quit dealing and had moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, having been accepted into a graduate program in economics at the University of Utah. 

The rumor was that a few dealers who had run into tax problems had agreed to provide records of their tips to the IRS to avoid prosecution on other issues. Since we pooled tips, the IRS concluded that many of us had been dishonest about the tips we had filed for many years.

The audit came out of the IRS office in San Francisco. Since I had moved to Salt Lake City, I hired a tax professional there to help me through this mess. My new tax guy seemed very competent and came highly recommended. I also came to understand that he was an important member of a very important church in the state, remembering I was now living in Utah. He had many tax books and documents stacked on his desk, and on top of that was a Book of Mormon.

While I can’t remember many of the details, it seems my tax guy had my audit moved to Salt Lake City, a place that is not overly familiar with how casinos work. Well, lo and behold, down the road, my audit was dismissed. Apparently, that was a very mighty Book of Mormon atop that man’s desk.

Lessons learned

It turned out I was fortunate, for the most common result of this extensive audit was not good news for most of the people involved. Many had to sell cars and take out loans and such.

Toward the end of my educational efforts in Utah, I took a job teaching economics at an area college. What was then a surprise was that I earned less teaching economics at a college than dealing cards and dice in a Nevada casino. I then decided I could not afford further improvement, so I quit my teaching job, jumped in my car, and headed back to Nevada. 

Getting my old dealing job back was pretty easy, and it was still sweet. Again, the casino company that hired me did not pay much, but we made good tokes. This casino still pooled among the dealers per shift, and as one gets older, one generally gets wiser — so I became very diligent at declaring what I received. The way the IRS played the game in the earlier incident had scared me. I did not want my financial life ruined. Plus, dealers were a pretty easy target.

I soon found that declaring my tips accurately was costly. I would have my estimated tips liability deducted from my paycheck, and I often ended up getting a paycheck that was zero or less. This was not good.

I was then offered a dealing job at a casino seven miles west of Reno, Nevada, called Boomtown. This was a perfect setup for many reasons. One was that I could work the swing shift, allowing me to be first on the ski lift every morning at Squaw Valley, where I was aggressively pursuing a career as a ski bum. The other benefit was that Boomtown was a great dealing job.

Boomtown was an unusual casino in that it was, at its core, a truck stop. It was no ordinary truck stop, however, for it had a parking lot for 700 18-wheelers. It also had dozens of diesel pump stations, a laundromat, showers, a couple of hundred hotel rooms, several bars, a restaurant, and a huge buffet. Oh, and I almost forgot, it had about 40 table games and 1,000 slot machines.

I learned a great deal at Boomtown, like sunglasses, belt buckles, and mudflaps were important topics of conversation for truckers. I also learned many truckers packed serious weaponry in their waistbands, and Budweiser in the bottle was their beer of choice — and a handy projectile when the boys got to feuding. Oh, and they also took lots of pills to assist them in gettin’ down the road, generally chased down with Bud (in the bottle, of course).

Aside from truckers, we also had a strong bus program out of Northern California. Because of our casino’s friendliness and a looseness about things, we also had many folks who drove the seven miles “up the hill” from Reno to play in our casino. There were also the randos driving along Interstate 80, who dropped in for gas, a meal, and/or to test their luck.

Boomtown was also known as the best dealing job around because this strange combination of customers generally, in some state of intoxication, were great tippers. Boomtown was also “go for your own.” That meant that each dealer kept the tips they made during their shift, and also, of importance, only they knew how much they made. It was their word against the IRS, and each individual had a different situation.

Happy birthday, Richard!

Going for my own gave me a whole new entrepreneurial spirit about dealing. I was always “talking trash and collecting cash,” as I used to say. When a woman would tip me, I would reply, “Sweetness is your weakness.” The next time she would tip me, it was, “Like berries on a vine, you get sweeter all the time.” And on it went for my eight-hour shift. 

Yes, I even drove myself nuts. 

I had a birthday every Sunday, and when my fellow dealing friends left the pit for a break, they always wished me a happy birthday as they passed my game. This would start a conversation with my players about me having to work on my birthday, which would generally lead them to begin tipping me, for, it seemed, sweetness was also their weakness.

The casino did have a firm policy against hustling tokes, but I had perfected a great “soft” hustle. The casino was pretty cool with this, for it made the place fun, and they were also cool having the guests pay our wages. Also, not having heat on the dealers from the IRS saved the casinos a lot of money.

Through time, I became one of the best toke earners of the men dealers. The women slayed the toke scene, and we had many beautiful women who, shall we say, were endowed with other noticeable features. Some of these women damn near had to haul their tokes out of the pit with a wheelbarrow. It seemed that the truckers were enamored of other things besides sunglasses, belt buckles, and mud flaps.

And then the party ended.

It started with a letter from the IRS, which evolved into meetings with some IRS folks in one of our meeting spaces. The deal was that they did not believe many of us regarding our tip disclosures (I was back to $11 a day) and that if we signed a letter that we would be honest about it going forward, there would be no harm/no foul about our past declarations. However, if we did not sign, it was suggested that things might not end well for us.

It became clear to me how I needed to proceed. I signed the amnesty agreement and then immediately accepted a promotion to management. As for talking trash and collecting cash, that party was over, and I was out of the toke world.

—

Richard Schuetz entered the gaming industry working nights as a blackjack and dice dealer while attending college and has since served in many capacities within the industry, including operations, finance, and marketing. He has held senior executive positions up to and including CEO in jurisdictions across the United States, including the gaming markets of Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Reno/Tahoe, Laughlin, Minnesota, Mississippi, and Louisiana. In addition, he has consulted and taught around the globe and served as a member of the California Gambling Control Commission and executive director of the Bermuda Casino Gaming Commission. He also publishes extensively on gaming, gaming regulation, diversity, and gaming history. Schuetz is the CEO American Bettors’ Voice, a non-profit organization dedicated to giving sports bettors a seat at the table.