Lessons lower the fear factor for Colorado's craps, roulette newbies

I’ve got to admit I’m crappy at craps.

A gal pal and I took an overnight trip to Central City’s Fortune Valley Hotel and Casino recently to bone up on craps and roulette, the two new games that debuted July 2 when $100 stakes launched in all three of Colorado’s gaming towns.

Prior to upping the ante, many casinos offered craps and roulette lessons for dummies (and I’m including myself here).

“When you walk into a casino, this is where the noise is,” said John Duffy, a table games supervisor with 11 years’ experience in Atlantic City casinos. “If one person rolls and wins, everyone wins. It brings an adrenaline level and excitement level.”

OK, we’ll bite. But don’t bet on us understanding this game in one lesson, 
I warned Duffy.

“A dealer trains for four hours a day, five days a week for 12 weeks,” he said.

We concentrated so hard during the hour-long lesson that our brains hurt. Luckily (and you know luck is involved), Fortune Valley has printed up craps cheat sheets for the unenlightened. Now, that’s the way I roll.

Roulette bet. After dinner at the Cedar Grille (excellent food and service, BTW) and a couple glasses of courage, our executive hosts Jim Baer and John McDonough (we were pretending to be high-rolling big-shots) escorted us to the roulette table where table games manager Lori Steele and Duffy schooled us in playing the wheel.

Steele slid over stacks of chips – each player gets a different color to keep track of bets – and started rolling. Those in the know know there’s more to roulette betting than just black-red, even-odd, and we quickly learned how much fun it is to play numbers, corners and rows of numbers.

Gal pal started winning – big. “I wish this was my own money,” she said the third time she hit the number the spinning ball landed on. With so many chips, we soon started covering the betting board with our blue and orange chips. Would I be so brave and generous with my own dough? Don’t bet on it. But how much fun did we have playing pretend roulette?

Cina’s scene. Chris Cina, a noted Denver chef, has landed in the kitchen of the Timberline Grill, an upscale steak house, at the Ameristar Casino in Black Hawk.

Cina, who’s worked with such celebrated chefs as Sean Kelly at Aubergine and Kevin Taylor at Zenith, also had chef stints at The Fourth Story, the Palace Hotel in Switzerland, the Loew’s Denver Hotel, Beckett’s at the former Canterbury Golf Course (now Black Bear Golf & Country Club) and Twig’s Wine Bar, a Littleton restaurant that closed last November.

He’s working on tweaking the primarily steak menu by adding seven new entrees when the Ameristar hotel opens this fall.

Eavesdropping on two women at Fortune Valley: “Did you notice how everyone says, ‘Good luck’?”
“Yeah, because they know we’ll need it.”

~ Penny Parker is a columnist for The Denver Post. She’s always on the prowl for tidbits 
and tips from Colorado’s gaming communities. Call her at 303-619-5209 or e-mail 
pparker@denvernewspaperagency.com.