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In early 1995 the television newsmagazine “48 Hours” was planning a show on gambling and chose Brad and me to represent the “little guy” gambler — the low roller. This was our “15 minutes of fame” (actually, it was only 10). Two cameramen and an assistant producer flew from the CBS offices in New York to our city, then came to our condo where they started taping our every move as we packed and went to the airport. They documented our efforts to get bumped from each connecting flight, then flew with us to Vegas. They stayed in the same hotel we did, though they paid $70 a night, while our room, of course, was free.
Because the casinos are deathly afraid of negative publicity, most would not grant the crew permission to film us in action, so we all went “undercover.” The cameramen had tiny cameras in their caps and I was given a special pair of glasses with a camera in the nosepiece. They fitted me with what I called my “terrorist” vest, the inside pockets full of wires and recorders. Two more producers joined us, plus the on-camera correspondent, Susan Spencer.
We led them on a five-day casino assault mission into our world of positive-expectation video poker, comps, and couponing.
They filmed us day and night, right up to the time we fell into bed, exhausted, each night! They said we “spoiled” Vegas for their after hours—they wanted to gamble but they’d learned just enough that they knew they would be making “bad” bets.
On the last day they followed us as we checked into the Stardust. I was so tired that I was giddy. With the hidden cameras rolling, I pranced around a Mercury Mystique in the lobby area and jested, “Film me with this car. I’m going to win it in the next drawing.”
Two days later it was time for the drawing. I was sick, but determined to attend. Brad said I was out of my head. We’d been in many of these big-ticket drawings and hadn’t even won a small “last-place” prize. The “48 Hours” people weren’t even there— blessedly, the whole crew finally left town to go back to New York.
The “impossible” happened. My ticket was pulled out first and that shiny new Mercury Mystique was really mine. When we notified “48 Hours,” they flew out two cameramen who taped our limo ride from the casino to the dealership to choose the color of car we wanted, and to take delivery.
It was an ending worthy of a made-for-TV story, titled “Lady Luck.”
