THE FIRST FACE I SAW OUTSIDE THE DOORS I RECOGNIZED BY THE mustache. It was the pit boss, and he had that we-got-you look on his face. The large, beefy hand that had interrupted my passage fittingly belonged to a large, beefy security guard. He motioned me out of the elevator with a crooked finger while his partner said, "You'll have to come with us, sir." They led me back through the casino to the security office; which was down a narrow corridor at the side of the casino cage.

Inside the chilly, naked room were two metal desks on opposite ends of a colorless linoleum floor. There was a bank of steel-gray file cabinets behind one of them, on top of which sat a crackling radio broadcasting security transmissions throughout the hotel. A large bulletin board on the wall displayed those ugliness-enhancing photos and sketches of various people wanted for questioning or arrest.

I was told to empty my pockets and put the contents on the desk nearest the door. I removed all the green chips and stacked them on the desk. That took a few humiliating minutes. I also had the black chip from the move, my driver's license, and the hundred-dollar biil I always kept on me for emergencies when working the online casino. Then I was told to sit down in the chair adjacent to the desk. The big security guard who had led me into that back room said, "You know that the Nevada Gaming Control Board gives us the right to detain you a reasonable amount of time in order to notify a peace officer if we have probable cause that you've committed a crime on our property."

I didn't respond. I had seen the same warning engraved on plaques affixed to online casino entranceway walls a thousand times.

The pit boss left the room briefly, then returned with two chip racks and put all my chips in them. He picked up the racks, exchanged a few hushed words with the two security guards, then walked back out of the room, closing the door behind him. I was thinking that the $7,100 in chips were gone forever.

I was left alone in the back room with the two guards who stood by the door. Aside from their occasional small talk and the intermittent crackling of the radio, I sat there in silence for twenty minutes. I was very uncomfortable but tried my best not to let them know it. I had known since the day I'd claimed that first craps move at the MGM in Las Vegas that this confrontation was inevitable, but still, sitting there in that barren security room, I felt vulnerable and very alone.

Finally, a brutish character with a pockmarked face dressed in plainclothes entered the room. He was carrying a folder that he laid on the desktop adjacent to my chair. Then he sat behind the desk while the two guards remained standing by the door. He gave me a disdainful look, then began tapping the desk with his fingers as he continued looking me over. His whole being was unnerving.

'That was a cute little act you pulled there on the wheel," he said at last sarcastically, nodding his big head. "Did you know that cheating in a Nevada casino is a felony?"

I remembered how Joe had drilled me about how to handle myself in this very situation. He had said to keep my mouth shut, not to come off like a wise ass, and not to lie or deny anything. Nothing you can say can help you, he had stressed. Whatever they had, they had. If it was enough to arrest and charge you, they would. If not, they had to cut you loose. Remembering all that, I sat there and kept my mouth shut.

"You can be sentenced by a judge to ten years in state prison for a trick like that. Did you know that?"
I remained silent. Whatever trouble I was in, I knew I wasn't going to prison for ten years. It was about a simple pastpost in a casino. I wasn't caught crossing Stateline with ten kilos of heroin in the trunk of my car.

Article Source: http://www.articleset.com