Vegas stories don’t always stay there

There’s rich, and then there’s filthy rich. Lori Steele has seen them both, as well as the passing stages in between.

“I personally handled Michael Jordan, Bruce Willis, Charles Barkley, Demi Moore, Wayne Gretzky, Ben Affleck, people like that,” said Steele, recounting her days at MGM Grand in Las Vegas — and just to clarify, “handled” is a gaming term for a personal dealer, not a masseuse. Steele, now Fortune Valley’s table games manager in Central City, also certainly remembers the time Barkley, or “Sir Charles” as she called him, flipped her a $25,000 chip as his thanks for dealing him back up from $750,000 down.

During Steele’s time there, MGM Grand catered to this high-profile clientele with what was known as The Mansion Casino, a collection of private 4,000- to 40,000-square-foot mansions with their own gaming parlors, located behind the main casino. “The amount of money they spent was unbelievable,” she said, “though some of them didn’t tip at all.” The guests at these mansions, Steele explained, came in tow with their own chef, concierge, butlers, their own maid staff and yes, even their own masseuses.

One of Steele’s regular clients was a man she and her colleagues nicknamed “Speedy Lee.” “We bought a Bentley and a Ferrari just for him to keep at his mansion,” said Steele. “The other reason for his nickname was that he would go through $3 million in a few hours.”

Steele discovered Speedy card-counting during one of his many gambling binges, a skill she would also use to crack the strategy of one of the actual characters that inspired the movie, “21.” Steele’s keen eye is one of the reasons she was brought to Fortune Valley nine months ago. With the raise in betting limits in Colorado on July 2, casinos are recruiting Vegas experts to train their dealers to spot the “crossroaders” and cheats expected to show up.

“I’ve been here for nine months and it’s been nothing but preparation for July 2,” said Steele. “I’ve definitely seen my share of cheats, and so I know about game protection. When I opened a casino in Detroit, I had cheats coming from all over the country, and we caught a lot of people.”

One method cheaters use is called the “slides” — fixing dice in a winning combination under one’s hand and then sliding them across a craps table so they appear to tumble, but really don’t — the dice just rotate and the gambler’s winning numbers are preserved. Steele said one way to prevent this is by stringing a thin wire across the table to make sure the dice tumble. “It’s kind of like a speed bump for gamblers,” she joked.
Another method involves “past-posting” and “distraction teams.” “This usually happens in teams of two. Someone close to the roulette wheel will ask a question, spill a drink, something like that,” explained Steele, “in order to distract the dealer from their partner at the end of the table who moves the bet after the roulette wheel has stopped.”

As table games manager, Steele is also involved in creating fun games for players, not just looking out for cheats: “I’m introducing two new games to the state of Colorado at Fortune Valley — ‘Buster Blackjack’ and ‘Wild Six.’” Buster Blackjack involves a side wager on whether or not the dealer will bust and how many cards it will take him or her to do it. Wild Six is a poker variant that is basically three games in one: Jacks or Better, draw poker and traditional poker. “Right now,” said Steele, “it’s popularity is outpacing Texas Hold’em.”
Steele is also bringing what is widely considered to be the best roulette wheel in the industry to Fortune Valley — the Cammegh wheel. “You never need to lubricate or clean this wheel — you could spin this wheel and go get a coffee,” said Steele. Of course, it’s not cheap. A Cammegh wheel will run you a cool $12,000.
But then, hey, Steele has seen more than that in a tip.

By Sam DeLeo: 303-954-1437 or sdeleo@denvernewspaperagency.com