Question: We saw you on the "Top 10 Ways To Win In Las Vegas" special on the Travel Channel a couple of weekends ago, and I have a question. Did you really hit the number on the roulette wheel, or was it a set up for the program?
Karla in Des Moines, Iowa
Answer: For those of you who haven't seen it yet, there is a special airing on the Travel Channel in which I do a couple of segments about the best times to visit and how to take advantage of players' clubs. It has been on a lot (or so people keep telling me) and will apparently keep airing, so check your local listings to see if it is on anytime soon.
In it, there's a shot of me at the Luxor betting a bunch of money at a roulette table on the number 17 and then reacting with amazement when the ball lands on 17. Karla's question is regarding that segment. The answer is ... sort of.
It was a live table at Luxor, but the money wasn't mine. They gave me a stack of $25 chips -- probably $5,000 worth -- to pretend to play with.
As the camera crew was getting ready to set up the shot, I was telling the Luxor representative the story about the first time I ever played roulette. I told him that years ago I walked up to a table at the Four Queens, put $3 down on 17 because it's my "lucky" number, and was soundly chastised by my friend, Mary, who said single number bets are for suckers. Imagine both of our surprise when the ball landed on 17 and I won $105. Ever since then I always bet 17 when I'm at a roulette table.
So, they were ready to shoot and I shoved several hundred dollars worth of chips onto 17, figuring, "Hey, it's not my money!" The woman at the table spun the wheel and -- believe it or not -- it landed on 17. Everyone was shocked.
The problem was that the camera crew missed the whole thing. They were filming something else at the time. So the producer of the special decides that they would just fake it. They showed me putting the bet on 17, her spinning the ball, I was to fake a reaction, and then they'd move the ball over to 17 from wherever it landed and take a shot of that.
So they film me putting more chips on 17, and turn the camera to the woman, who spins the ball. As it is spinning they start moving the camera around to the other side of the table so they can film my fake reaction and -- guess what? The ball landed on 17 again! Two times in a row!
But of course they weren't filming because they were busy moving to the other side of the table. So we did it a third time, and although it didn't hit 17 a third time in a row, my "staged" reaction of winning was pretty real. Of course, since it wasn't my money, I didn't really win the thousands of dollars that was being shoved in front of me, so if you see a bit of disappointment behind my eyes in the shot, that's why.
Ah, the magic of television.
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