AC Revenue

[olds442jetaway]

Well I hardly think AC's problems are simply the result of "beggars", but I do agree with everyone here that beggars are an issue in BOTH AC and VEGAS, since I have encountered them in just about EVERY casino I have ever visited (Including FOXWOODS and Mohegan!)   It goes with the territory, since in every casino someone is always going bust or gambling way above their head, and then they suddenly realize they have no money to get home, or for food, or for booze or dope or whatever....so there is only one alternative (short of crime):  ASK strangers for money.    The problem is greater in VEGAS in my mind simply because of its size and the sheer number of people....but a key difference is WHERE you encounter the beggars.   In Vegas, you find them out in the public streets and in the DOWNTOWN casinos more than the STRIP casinos, since Strip properties have much bigger security staff as well as an image to protect. In AC, where casino security is fast becoming a joke except at Borgata, beggars and machine "hawks" thrive between the hours of 2am and 6am in most boardwalk casinos....whenever I play at those hours I always encounter two or three people with the proverbial "lost bus ticket" story, and I always tell them "there must be a HUGE bin with tons of lost bus tickets somewhere so go look there..."     Machine "hawks" are those players who swoop in NEXT to you while you are playing, see that you have X amount of credits and then brazenly ask you for some of them because they need the money for whatever, and all you are doing is giving it to the casino!    I have to refrain from punching them in the nose, it gets to be so annoying.    But one group I always give money to is the obviously disabled and hurting folks who just sit on the boardwalk with a cup in their hands, usually in wheelchairs.....whenever I hit a big win I make it a point to plop some money in their cups.   For some reason I am ok with giving money to people who DO NOT ask for it but who clearly need it......unless it is outside a 7-11 or convenince store, where alcoholics ask for spare change to go buy a nip or a 40 oz malt....I never refuse them since I know that the DTs can actually be fatal. The AC city police are agressive in hauling off beggars on the streets of Pacific and Atlantic Avenue, so they are not an issue there.   Vegas PD and Clark County Sherriffs are a little more tolerant of panhandlers except during certain busy seasons or on a Friday/saturday night on the strip.  

Well, playing a lot on overnight hours in Mohegan certainly attracts all of the above types. I will say though that the few hookers that have approached me all had teeth. One even had a great line about needing money for next semester at school. I wouldn't be surprised if that was a true story. I will be definitely be borrowing the lost ticket bin in the bus lobby line at my future visits. I have no use at all for the machine Hawks. I found one who was preying on seniors in particular and had that one permanantly banned. As to helping the real down and out and disabled, I too try and help them as much as I can. Rather than give money, I try and set them up at one of my local spots with a bowl of soup or something instead of handing out cash that would most likely go right down their throat or up their nose. And those that are severly disabled, especially veterans, I like to help out the most. They hardly make the news anymore and are still dying for us every day overseas.

[Casino Knight]

Billy Joe, you may be better served by hollering
"LA MIGRA"

[Tedlark]

  In all my years of playing I've only been approached once by a beggar in a casino and it wasn't in: Las Vegas, Reno, Lake Tahoe, Laughlin NV; nor, Atlantic City, NJ; nope not Tunica, MS; Minnesota Wisconsin Iowa Misouri or the Chicago area either. It was in Four Winds casino New Buffalo MI. I guess I'm just not the approachable type, maybe I should smile more?

[BillyJoe]

Billy Joe, you may be better served by hollering
"LA MIGRA"
I do that when I want to get ahead in line in the Emergency Room.

[DaBurglar]

before i start singing the praises of the Golden Nugget-AC too vociferously, I gotta share this fiasco that happened the last time I stayed there back on September 23: It was 6 am and I just woke up (i am an early riser) and I got my coffee and went to the 9/6 JOB machines by the entrance next to the coffee shop....I was banging away kinda running in place for about 45 minutes, when I finished my coffee and wanted another....I cashed out, spun around in my poker machine chair to hop into my wheelchair when all of a sudden i noticed that my wheelchair was in fact.....GONE!! See, when I play VP, I typically hop out of my wheelchair into the poker machine chair, and in all my 20+ years playing in casinos, no one has ever made off with my wheels until this time.....I regualarly check my wheelchair when I am playing but this time at the GN-AC I was too engrossed in my play....plus the fact it was early morning and the casino was essentially barren. But when I discovered my wheelchair was gone, I literally YELLED "WHAT THE F&%K happened to my wheelchair!!!"    A security guard across the floor saw and heard me and said "Was that YOUR own PERSONAL wheelchair?"    I siad  "Yesssssss!!!  where is it!!!" He syas "Hold on..."  and runs off around the corner....two minutes later he returns and said "The floor manager had taken it to help a patron whe slipped in the bathroom, it will be retruned in a minute..." I am fuming at this juncture, when all of a sudden the floor manager and some other casino exec in a suit wheel my chair over with the injured patron still in it....they say nothing to me as they both stand there while behind them a third employee is pushing a gurney, which they then help the injured (and drunk which I determined soon after he came within ten feet of me) patron up on the gurney and wheel him away .... I just sat there, in stunned and angered silence, wondering how or what I should do about this.  Ultimately I did nothing.....I mean for real, what could I possibly say in this situation???   Obviously they are clueless and obviously they felt they had a real emergency with this patron and panicked, commandeering my wheelchair and never even telling me!!   but alas, I felt somewhat culpable since I never saw them come and take my chair away in the first place....and if they had asked, I would have said yes, so......  Still, it was most unnerving......my wheelchair costs 3,300 bucks!!

[pokerforme]

Where I agree it may be your fault for not seeing them take your chair I have a question for you to ponder...do you think its alright to take ANYONES wheelchair? If anyone needed it to get where they currently are they are surely going to need it to move once again. Kind of shameful imo. They should have bent over backwards to make that right with you, good will costs them little.

[sam434343]

olds442jetaway, They all had there teeth,I think at Foxwoods there little more subtle. (LOL)(LOL) I had one sit next to me start playing VP and was hinting stuff, my wife had just gone to get us some food(I sit and eat and play same time(lol)well she sit back next me wife and gives me food and the lady of the night says oh looks like you guys got some good food,and gets up leaves couple minutes later, Wife was not happy she knew. Place was empty.(lol) Daburglar, Its like Catch22 and possible $3300 loss. Should ask them for some free play for(Inconvenience) use of your wheel chair. Sam

[Casino Knight]

[QUOTE=Casino Knight] Billy Joe, you may be better served by hollering
"LA MIGRA"
I do that when I want to get ahead in line in the Emergency Room. [/QUOTE]

The fastest way into the Emergency Room is via an ambulance, clutching your chest.

[DaBurglar]

[QUOTE=billyjoe] [QUOTE=Casino Knight] Billy Joe, you may be better served by hollering
"LA MIGRA"
I do that when I want to get ahead in line in the Emergency Room. [/QUOTE]

The fastest way into the Emergency Room is via an ambulance, clutching your chest. [/QUOTE]
  My brother is a paramedic in Western Massachusetts, in a community that is actually predominantly WHITE still (about 65% white, 20% african american and 15% hispanic)   he states that EVERY DAY, at all hours, his ambulance crews (4 ambulances total) regularly get called to the SAME general houses and apartment complexes by the same subset of population calling 911 and then, when the ambulance arrives, they find these "frequent flier regulars" fully conscious, alert and functional but who claim "chest pain" along with "dizziness" and "pain in general", who want to see a doctor but dont want to wait in either a clinic or ER waiting room, so they hop aboard the express lane in an ambulance. In Massachusetts, EMTs and paramedics are not allowed to evaluate and clear anyone to avoid the ER, so EVERYONE who calls and claims illness MUST be taken to the ER!!  My brother says it is so obvious that most of these people (WHITE people) are clearly abusing the system, but do not care, and since most are poor and on public assistance, it costs them NOTHING, but costs the public A LOT.... I know this to be true:  in the last 3 years I went to the ER 3 times with several HUGE kidney stone attacks coupled with a fever (the pain alone is bad but is not enough to make me sit in an ER, but rather the FEVER was what scared me since it usually means infection when with a kidney stone.)    While in the ER, I would watch the people wheeled in on a gurney from Ambulances, and 4 out of 5 were clearly NOT real emergencies (the big tip off, besides the patient's demanor, is the presence of an I.V. ;   Ambulance crews will not start an I.V. unless there is a real injury or illness, not simply vague symptoms) If anyone wants to know why healthcare is so expensive, this is but ONE of the reasons, the sheer waste and overkill. Last point:  In massachusetts, as if simply calling an ambulance is not expensive enough, by law whe never an ambulance goes out, a Fire Engine MUST at least show up at the scene as well, ALWAYS!   that's right, a BIG Ol' fire engine with its crew of 4 to 6 accompanies the ambulance on all calls!  Ridiculous.....   WTF does any of this have to do with AC's anorexic business????   I just hijacked my own thread

[Tedlark]

  DaBurglar I really don't understand why you posted the above but I can tell you that dispatching a truck with an ambulance is not just a Massachusetts thing, its all over the US. Because of the vagueness of some of the calls received by 911 they will dispatch a fire truck to the scene in the event that a rescue is required. If the caller goes into cardiac arrest and can't get to the door to unlock it for the paramedics then the firemen will gain entry into the structure for the paramedics. Most firemen are cross trained as EMTs anyway.
 
  As for some of the other check on the wellness calls sometimes it just boils down to an elderly person feeling poorly and they just need that little bit of humane comfort. If you are critical of this then you are really a p.o.s.
 
  For the record, my cousin was a long time Paramedic for the City of Chicago who was shot in the line of duty and I have many friends who also currently serve in the CFD.