The Man With Swagger

The Man With Swagger

His walk of confidence cleared the air ahead of him. I saw him from afar the minute he came into the cruise ship’s colorful casino, his swagger, his attention-getting stroll, not a rolling posture of arrogance but of certainty. That’s why I watched. That’s why I never looked away.

He sauntered across the casino floor towards me.

Heads turned one by one to follow the man’s footsteps before quickly snapping back to see cherries ding loudly or screens flash wildly in front of their faces, machines demanding more money for more lights and more sounds. 

People, mostly older ladies, sit for hours and dump coins into the ever-hungry slot machines. Smoky semi-circles of crusty card players sit side by side grunting and waving coded hand signals which are anything but coded if you watch for more than five minutes.

Not me. I like Roulette. I understand Roulette. Many people do not understand it and many more don’t know quite how to conquer those kinds of odds. Still others prefer to play with other players while I like to play alone. Just me against the house. I don’t want to wait for you to make a calculated bet, double down, scream at your spouse, or worst of all, blow cigar smoke my way from two seats over. No thanks. I’ll play roulette. Not many people stick around there. That, I can handle. The house doesn’t always have the upper hand if you know what you’re doing. I thought I knew what I was doing. I won money at roulette.

But when Mr. Swagger walked over and stood right alongside me, immediately commandeering the roulette table where I sat, I knew I knew nothing at all. Not about roulette, not about confidence, not about a casino and how it works, nothing. Especially on a cruise ship! Something told me I was about to get a master lesson.

Land casinos have a defined percentage of advantage, are closely monitored, each state instituting their own laws. Cruise ship casinos bend the rules a wee bit. The odds can be different and the house absolutely commands a higher percentage. In either case, somebody occasionally gets to win. Has to win! Otherwise, the gig would be up and no one would put another quarter into an Incredible Hulk glowing green Double Diamond slot machine with double payouts for maximum play, or sit for hours at the edge of a tattered stool dumping quarters into a coin machine waiting for the towered piles of quarters to drop … the pile wrapped inside a $100 bill!

(Hate to break it to you, but I’ve watched them load that coin machine. The hundred dollar bill is all but glued in. You aren’t getting it.)

Anyway, back to Swag, now that we know him, we’re on a first name basis, right?

He sidled up to the edge of the roulette table and a hush fell over the few of us sitting there. Someone immediately got up and left. The intrigue scaled up a notch. The dealer perked up from his boring two, five, and fifty dollar shuffle. Cruise passengers can be stingy (casinos require CASH) and they normally know very little about casino games or gambling. Passengers fritter money in small increments and win much the same. Small. 

I’ve worked on cruise ships for years and I’ve only seen a few big wins. While tourists spend money on stupid stuff in nearly every port, there are only a few of them on each cruise who gravitate to the casino on a regular basis and the others pass through once or twice, lose their money, and don’t come back.

Swag pulled out fifties and hundreds. A wad. He expertly peeled off two hundred dollar bills, spread them apart on the green-felted table and asked for chips in a particular fashion. I froze. I listened in and watched in calm silence, which stilted my breath a little so as not to interrupt the man’s train of thought. The few idlers left there watched closely too, but dared not make a play or move.

I tried to blend into the background. Disappear, hoping Swag would not notice me inside his apparently native habitat and I would then be able to stay close and observe a rare species: a REAL gambler. Caught in the wild. He stood right next to me, on my right side. He smelled nice. Like a winner.

Swag briskly and deliberately placed all of the chips within two seconds. I watched, stunned. He knew exactly what combinations he wanted and what numbers to play. No hovering over a number, then changing his mind, like I do, waiting for the “feeling” from the Universe that THIS, this number I’m randomly selecting is not at all random. Since that’s happened to me maybe once … maybe another time, I’ve convinced myself that I have some special ability. I don’t. I’m just another silly roulette player who understands the game, wins a bit occasionally, but mostly wastes a bunch of time being wrong.

Part of me couldn’t believe anybody would risk $200 so fast in one pop. Meanwhile that’s not even a high bet and I’d broken an occasional sweat betting anything more than $20. He’d done this before. I could tell.

He was the only player playing, all the chips on the table were his. It’s like we all knew. The dealer gave the wheel an aggressive spin. Hard. It went around and around extra times compared to when he was spinning it for me.

I tried to guess which number the little ball would land on, silently in my head. I missed.

It stopped. 33. Black. I swiveled my head and looked swiftly back to the table.

Swag had a 10 token on 33. At 35 to 1 odds, that’s $350 right there!

But he’d also placed $10 and $5 chips about that square and tossed another onto the outside perimeter, into the black zone, betting on any black number, 2 to 1. So there’s another $10 won, for any black number, plus $10 for the 2 to 1 “odd” number bet, plus the other bets surrounding his win and I lost track of the rest. Suffice to say, the one play won Mr. Swagger close to $1000, I think.

I was floored! It happened very fast. So fast, that the casino floor manager shifted dealers, a sure sign of house uneasiness. What would Swag do? Nothing.

With no visible reaction at all, the epitome of coolness, he accepted his winning chips from the equally unemotional dealer, while I sat there completely emotional inside, but maintaining cool on the outside, quietly and permanently storing every move and every “tell” I had just witnessed, mostly the swagger, the confidence exuded, the swiftness and sureness of play.

The man knew what he was going to do before he came to the casino. He’d done this before and he’d done it successfully. I’d witnessed my master class in casino gambling. A Swagger class. A class I aspired to try….

Swag immediately put the original $200 back into his pocket. Smart move. Then he did it again and again. Big bets, followed by putting the bet amount away, followed by bigger bets. The math grew complicated, I tried to keep up, but within approximately 10 minutes, this man of confidence pocketed well over $10,000 and then he walked out.

I think that pays for a pretty fancy cruise, say, for a family of four?!

He hadn’t come for fun like the rest of us or to pass the time. This wasn’t entertainment to him. Or maybe it was? He came to collect. He’d taken money out of the house. Ouch. (That’s why your margarita on a cruise ship costs $17.)

The leaving is key. Smart hitters hit and run. They don’t stick around to lose their place or their money.

It took me two days to mull over and digest what I’d seen. On the third day after I’d seen Mr. Swagger do the deed, I bravely went back to the casino. I went very late at night, early morning, really. I took $200. I had a plan. And I’d rehearsed it in my head for two days. The believing probably mattered.

I left with $3500 too. And I left fast. I didn’t want it to be a fairy tale. The next morning I looked over at the nightstand. The money, still there. It was October 1^st. I’d hit straight up on #1. My $100 chip, the last chip down on the table, after a flurry of $10 chips, placed in a hurry as the dealer started the spin, I plopped it down on the date. I seem to remember faint applause and a hushed “Wow” when I swaggered back out of the casino.

Just another Lori story.