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ODE TO MR. LAS VEGAS (aka Bob Stupak)
by Vinny DeCarlo
Vincent DeCarlo is a retired veteran casino man with over 20 years of upper management experience. His expertise covers the pit, security, surveillance and he even served as a General Manager for two different casinos. Currently, Vinny travels the states as a freelance reporter and a personal consultant to many Indian casinos. According to Vinny DeCarlo, there are two types of casino employee people; those that know DeCarlo, and those that claim to know DeCarlo, so, never believe what you hear.
Recently we’ve lost the colorful and conciliatory Las Vegas personality "Bob Stupak" to cancer. This caused a rush of memories for me that I would like to share with you now.
Bob Stupak (A.K.A. the "Polish Maverick") was a one of a kind, down to earth person that would readily admit he was lucky to be where he was and claimed he was at the right place at the right time and credited his fame to this analogy. Well, yours truly was hit by the "Stupak" bug, and when I say "Hit," I mean it, literally.
During one of my furloughs to Vegas in the mid to late 80’s, my reservations at Circus Circus were cancelled for "unknown" reasons. The kind (yet ignorant) person behind the check in desk offered to set me (and my group of six) up at another hotel. That hotel happened to be "Vegas World" owned by Bob Stupak.
For those Einstein’s out there that fail to believe that the sense of smell is part of our memory, the hotel smelled of bug spray, and to this day, every time I get a whiff of RAID bug spray, I melt back into the 80’s and into that "Vegas World" hotel room. The casino was clean and offered a good game (as did all of the dozen or so casinos that were open at that time). I was impressed by the ambiance and the Million Dollars on display which, I later learned was actually something like one hundred thousand dollars and a check for $900,000 hidden under the $10’s and $20’s. The next morning, I got up and something hit me. Being in Vegas in the 70’s and 80’s (translation: mob controlled) is in itself amazing but, what "hit me" will make you sit up and say: "Awww, what a dickhead this Vinny DeCarlo is." And yes, in hindsight, I was a "dickhead." So on with the (true) story of what happened to me and the tie in to the "Polish Maverick."
After a night of sucking in bug spray, I awoke to the Vegas dream of becoming a millionaire with just 25 cents when I decided to head down the strip to the biggest joint on the boulevard, Caesars Palace. On my way out, I happened to see a beautiful white/ silver Rolls Royce as it...
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