“You want to bet every race?” said Colizzi. “You don’t even know who’s running.”
“For the maximum,” said Molony. “Sir, speak to you Monday. Be good.”
To see him through the weekend, Molony took all the magazines and papers he could lay his hands on. At the dock Brydson noticed he’d parked in someone else’s spot. While they loaded the boat she went and moved his car. It was pure Brian — a stale-smelling mess of pop tins, McDonald’s wrappers, junk mail, and old newspapers. The sun visor was broken, and the turn signal hung on its wires from the steering column.
Stepping into the motorboat, Molony showed Stu Butts what he had in his bag — a bottle of Bacardi and a dozen tins of Coke. “I know she’s big on the great outdoors, but if she thinks I’m going to fight off mosquitoes for an entire weekend without this, she better think again.”
“If you’re not careful, she’ll invite you back next weekend.”
“With all respect,” said Molony, “I intend to be otherwise occupied.”
August 29. Caesars Atlantic City. Bob Moran.
4 p.m. Observed Maloney on Baccarat #1. Player was betting $500 to $5,000.
August 29. Caesars Atlantic City. Frank Hines.
8 p.m. Maloney has $30,000. Betting Pass line, Come, $2,000 each. Lost $5,000.
August 29. Caesars Atlantic City. Matt Wilson.
10 p.m. Very good purple action on Craps #12. Maloney on game. Has about $38,000 in front. Playing line to about $2,000.
Several times each week, through the summer and fall, Molony left the bank with two drafts. The first, payable to Richardson Securities, he used to purchase bearer bonds. On the way back from Richardson’s he stopped in at Friedberg & Co. With the second draft, payable to Friedberg’s, he purchased U.S. cash. At his branch he took the bearer bonds downstairs to the securities department. “Mr. Oskaner wants to sell these at market. Give me the sell order and I’ll have him sign it.” Then he went up to his office on the mezzanine level and put the cash in his credenza. The outing took less than half an hour. In a single trip he had bought bonds with money from one fictitious account — usually Brydson — paid down the Oskaner account, and obtained cash to use on the weekend in Atlantic City.
He was also ordering cash parcels at the branch — so many, in fact, that the tellers’ supervisor mentioned it to her superior. Brian was ordering U.S. cash twice a week, said the girl, as often as Brinks delivered. “This is Bay Street,” she was told curtly. So regular had his orders become that he no longer even had to alert the head teller. Twice a week she came to him. “I’m putting in the order for Tuesday, Brian. Need any cash?”
In the casino, meanwhile, Molony was becoming a mythical figure. Unlike most high rollers, he wore cheap, ill-fitting clothes. His moustache and glasses made him look like a nerd. He was also gaining a reputation as an unfailing loser. “Lock up the cash,” the floormen said to one another with a wink. “Look who’s back.” It wasn’t that he didn’t know the games. He knew them inside out and appeared to gamble with a purpose. But he started playing the moment he arrived and kept at it until the casino shut down or the money was gone. You couldn’t tell from his demeanour if he was winning or losing. He gave no sign of pleasure or disappointment. The Iceman, somebody called him.
Dealers are paid minimum wage and make the bulk of their income from tips, which are pooled. The dealers liked Molony even though he didn’t tip. At baccarat, two hands are dealt, the player’s and the bank’s. The gambler bets on one or the other, or on a tie. The casino makes its money by taking a 5 per cent commission on bets won on the bank. With most players you had to mark their commission and inform them at the end what they owed. Molony kept a running total in his head. Some players used a scorecard to keep track of the hands. Molony remembered what had happened in each of the last fifteen or twenty hands. Unbelievable memory. He didn’t talk much but wasn’t unfriendly. He never drank. When one of the casino executives gave him a present — a jogging suit, or a gumball machine, or a Rolex watch — he tucked it away without even looking at it. He came to play, and his intensity was something to see.
A baccarat shoe contains eight decks of cards, about eighty hands. Ordinarily it takes forty-five minutes to get through a shoe. When playing by himself, Molony got through it in twenty minutes. Before you could spread the hands for overhead surveillance and add them to the spent cards, Molony had the next hand coming. It seemed his object was to play more hands, more quickly, for more money. If you did anything to hinder him, if you were slower than necessary or made a mistake, he motioned to the floorman and you were gone. If he liked playing at your table, you couldn’t help feeling flattered.
While Molony was becoming legendary at Caesars, he was becoming more elusive to family, friends, and colleagues. Everyone had a different idea of where he was on a given night and how he spent weekends. He misled without actually lying. He told Brenda he was driving down to see Doug, letting her conclude he’d be in Sarnia for the weekend. “You’re kidding, Brian. You drove all that way just for dinner? And now you’re going to turn around and drive back?” There was something he had to be back for, Molony said, leaving Doug to imagine a wedding or family dinner. He could not tell anyone the truth. What if somebody asked the question he, in idle moments, came perilously close to asking himself: why return to the casino again and again when logic says the house advantage is insurmountable?
One part of the answer grew out of Molony’s emotional need for optimism. Once he had begun dipping into the bank, he could not admit the possibility of failure without risking the collapse of self-image. Staying psychologically intact meant deluding himself, holding to the belief that success was inevitable. In one sense each loss, each fraud, had the salutary effect of bringing the happy day closer.
As the months passed, however, as he became more deeply mired in debt and deception, he felt another looming inevitability. A branch was typically audited every twelve months or so, and Bay and Richmond was overdue. Molony didn’t know when the audit was coming, but each day he failed to win back the money brought it closer. The audit had the boding weight of doomsday. When it came, he was finished. He had to keep going back to Atlantic City, he told himself, because he had to win before the audit ruined him.
Another, less evident explanation of why he kept returning and losing has to do with the nature of the casino itself. As a drain on pockets and bank accounts, it is a formidable and underrated mechanism. No institution is more deeply rooted in human frailty, and none more richly nourishes itself on self-deception. One way we calculate the probability of a future event is by recalling its incidence in the past. We remember things that happen frequently more easily than things that happen infrequently. Why, then, do casino gamblers — assuming they want to win, and given that they usually lose — keep coming back?
Partly because other variables skew the equation. Ease of recall, for example, is just as important as frequency in shaping our judgement about the probability of future events. As evidence, take the psychological study in which people were asked to judge whether “k” was more likely to appear as the first letter of an English word or the third letter — do you happen to know? The preceding sentence contains three words with “k” as the third letter, only one that begins with “k,” and that’s the ratio for the language as a whole. Since “know” comes more quickly to mind than “likely” or “asked” or “take,” however, most people guessed incorrectly that “k” is found more often at the beginning of a word. The easier it is to recall instances of an event — even an infrequent event — the more probable we consider the event to be. This principle is exploited by every casino. A slot-machine payoff — flashing lights, sirens, and a prolonged spewing of coins — does more than obscure the fact that hundreds of other machines are not paying off at that moment. It makes the player’s winning pull far more memorable than his losing ones, impairing his judgement of future probability.
Our ability to envision a future event also affec
ts our calculation of its true probability. The sandlot quarterback who dreams of playing for the Dolphins no doubt has a higher regard for his chances than the scout who has graded hundreds of sandlot quarterbacks. In a casino, the act of envisioning a big win obscures the likelihood of its taking place. The player is encouraged at every turn to picture himself a future winner. The “Slotbusters Hall of Fame” at Caesars, around the corner from the executive offices, includes photographs of Odell Chisolm (with his cheque for $1.5-million), Geraldine Hendrickson ($1-million), Dolores Perry ($1.36-million), Frederico Morales (no teeth, but $305,708) — just plain folks who put a hit on the slots. Many casinos display the gold, the Mercedes, or the cash you stand to collect in a big win. They do not, of course, depict self-contempt, cancelled vacations, or personal bankruptcy.
Many gamblers are badly served by a faulty understanding of the laws of probability. Asked to create a random sequence of imaginary coin tosses, people tend to produce a sequence in which the proportion of heads to tails is much closer to 50 — 50 than chance would predict. They believe a small segment of random events will reflect the larger proportion, as does the losing gambler who believes a hot streak lies inevitably round the corner. Shown a sequence of imaginary coin tosses that includes a high number of tails, people tend to continue the sequence with a disproportionate number of heads. Many gamblers, too, assume the process is self-correcting, that deviations cancel each other out. The roulette player who watches black come up five times in a row and therefore bets the limit on red is acting on this fallacy. In truth, short-term deviations at a roulette table are not corrected by the subsequent spins, merely diluted. The chance that red will turn up on the sixth spin is precisely the same as that black will come up yet again.
Casino personnel promulgate such misinterpretations. The unifying lie in every casino — which employees perpetrate and gamblers long to believe — is that luck determines a player’s fortunes. Like all gamblers, Molony was constantly encouraged in the idea that he was due, his luck was certain to change. Of course, this banter was no more serious than the greeting, “How are you tonight?” At the same time, a casino is a house of mathematics. Casino personnel are well aware that a gambler faces the same disadvantage each time he plays and that luck is merely a euphemism for short-term fluctuations in the inevitable long term. Their livelihoods are staked on the certainty that if a gambler stays long enough, or returns often enough, he’ll lose everything. A dealer at Caesars, asked if he could spot a losing gambler, replied, “Sure. Anybody you see more than twice.”
Nov. 21. Caesars Atlantic City. Archie Rich.
1:45 p.m. Baccarat #3. Big play — Maloney. Losing big. Left pit but has seat reserved.
Steve Richardson couldn’t believe it. He got back to the branch after lunch in the employees’ cafeteria at Commerce Court to find he’d missed Roger Oskaner again.
As Molony’s credit officer, Richardson, a genial young Englishman in his first credit posting, dealt with most customers whose accounts Molony handled. He called about missing documentation, pointed out that an interest payment was overdue, asked if the Thursday meeting with Brian could be switched to Friday morning. An assistant manager used his credit officer as a combination serf and secretary. In this way the credit officer learned all aspects of lending and, if he was good, prepared himself for promotion. On some accounts the credit officer had more contact with the customer than did the assistant manager.
Roger Oskaner, however, Molony kept to himself. Each morning he gave Richardson the day’s instructions — “Have Nette copy this, Steve, I want to get the application in this afternoon. Let’s call Hardy about his pro forma — he said we’d have it yesterday. I’ll need the Stillwell file before my meeting at eleven. What’s your recommendation on the Thomas overdraft?” Mention was rarely made of Oskaner, even though the account was extremely active. Evidently Oskaner traded heavily in precious metals. Molony invariably handled the account himself. One day Richardson said, “I don’t like this — Oskaner’s way over his limit.” Molony said, “I phoned downtown and got the approval, I’ll do a memo for the file. Now what about that lawyer’s opinion for our German friend — have we got that yet? Better give him a call.”
The weird thing was that Roger Oskaner often stopped by the branch to pick up his cash. It always happened when Richardson was out. Punctually at 11 a.m. Richardson went to lunch. All the credit officers went early, so they’d be back to look after the posts while the assistant managers had lunch. Richardson usually walked down to Commerce Court, where the subsidized meal cost forty-five cents. When he got back, at noon, Oskaner had come and gone. It turned into a standing joke.
“Do you think the guy’s trying to avoid me?”
“Maybe he’s a Liverpool fan, Steve. Doesn’t like anyone from London.”
One day, returning to find that Oskaner had been in picking up cash yet again, Richardson said, “Maybe tomorrow I’ll bring a peanut butter sandwich and stay at my desk. Seems like the only way I’ll ever meet this guy.”
“Brian, Jess Lenz. I’m the casino manager. If there’s anything we can do for you, let me know.”
Jess Lenz had a firm handshake, dazzling teeth, and the laser eyes you see in anyone who has spent twenty-five years watching what money does to people. He had moved to Atlantic City from Las Vegas. Like many people who settle in Nevada, he’d been on his way to California. As a young man in Chicago he had dreamed of becoming a pro golfer. Instead he found work dealing at the grind joints in Las Vegas, the Fremont, the California, learning the business before moving to the more prestigious spots on the Strip. From the Desert Inn he went to Caesars Palace as a floorman. When Atlantic City got going he was transferred to New Jersey.
The new casino developed a reputation for excellent dealers and control of the games. In large part it was Lenz’s doing. He could look at a printout of the drop, spot the pit that wasn’t functioning at peak efficiency, and zero in on the dealer who wasn’t up to par. That’s why he got a salary in six figures and a luxury car. He didn’t say much — in meetings he was known for his one-word answers — and he was not a conceptual thinker, but he knew his stuff.
Many casino employees were fresh-faced graduates of one of the dealing schools. There were things they didn’t teach you in dealing schools. Like how to hold a die between thumb and forefinger and flick it, spinning it on its axis, to detect “weight.” Like how to spot double-number dice. Like gamblers who lay one big bet, collect, and disappear. Like shooters who don’t end a roll with a clean hand — palm up. Like nicked cards and late bets and dirty dealers. Jess Lenz knew all the scams. Sometimes, after hours, the less experienced employees gathered round one of the tables and Lenz put on a clinic.
Lenz made a point of acquainting himself with the big players at Caesars. When a gambler’s losses get into hundreds of thousands, you want to know everything about him. When is his wife’s birthday, so we can send a little gift? How does he like his steak? What’s his shirt size? Favourite colour? Wine? Song? It’s worth the trouble. A hundred thousand cash represents a lot of free-drink artists nursing nickel chips at blackjack, endless busloads of arthritic widows feeding their complimentary rolls of quarters into the slot machines before piddling away their social security cheques. A cash player in six figures merits serious, personal attention. If he feels no connection to your casino he’ll take his money next door.
Molony made clear to Jess Lenz, as he had to Michael Neustadter, that he didn’t want attention. He was not unfriendly, but he was all business, ducking any question meant to elicit personal information. Lenz was understanding. Fair’s fair. Some cash players were skimming from the grocery store. Some were laundering drug money. Records of their transactions might cause problems with wives or colleagues or the taxman. The art of being a casino host was to treat gamblers as they wished to be treated. If somebody made clear he didn’t want sycophantic attention, you laid off, even if you were all the more curious about his background. You handled
him with discretion. Made him think you were scarcely aware of his presence. At the same time, you did the little things that let him know he was valued.
One Saturday, while Molony was pulling bundles of cash from his pockets at the casino cage, Lenz invited him to the annual Christmas party. The party would get under way Friday evening and Caesars would be delighted if Molony and a lady friend could attend. Molony said timing was a problem. He’d be busy until six on Friday and there were no evening flights to Philadelphia. In that case, said Lenz, fly to LaGuardia and we’ll send the helicopter for you. If the weather’s bad we’ll send a limousine. It’s going to be a great bash and we’d like to have you as our guests.
Molony needed no encouragement to return to the casino but Brenda, it turned out, was dead set against going. She had grown to despise his gambling. She hated that he went away every weekend and stayed out every night. She hated that he wouldn’t discuss it. When she tried to raise the subject he grew impatient and annoyed, told her not to worry, which only made her worry more. The last thing she wanted was to spend a weekend in Atlantic City. But Brian had accepted on her behalf and would be embarrassed if she didn’t go with him.
For the two days they were at Caesars she didn’t leave the room. He rarely left the casino. Friday night he skipped the party. He closed the baccarat pit at 6 a.m. and opened it four hours later. Each time he went up to use the bathroom or change his shirt, he put on a cheerful face. Brenda’s hostility was ferocious. He hurried back downstairs and continued doing as miserably as he’d done that week on sports and horses. He had brought more than $200,000 cash. By Sunday morning he was into the money he’d set aside to pay Colizzi. When they flew back to Toronto, with their bags and their Christmas gift — a cordless telephone, compliments of Caesars — he was cleaned out.
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