Atlantic City was a run down, blighted town full of projects (low income housing), unemployment and had seriously deteriorated over the years from the tourist attraction that it once was. New Jersey approved casino gaming in Atlantic City in 1976 to revitalize the town and boost the economy. Atlantic City's first casino, Resorts opened in May of 1978 and it all took off like a rocket from there. Everything except the economy part for the town, that is. Casinos were going up and had a stark contrast to the impoverished neighborhoods full of low income housing surrounding them. This is a situation that holds true to this very day.
I wasn't around for the beginnings of Atlantic City's casinos; I was at the beginnings of learning to play blackjack in Vegas on infrequent trips. I didn't step foot in an Atlantic City casino until the 80's after moving and settling down in New Jersey. It was in the 80's that I met Johnnie Y. We started off as business associates but became good friends over the years. He was a friend, a mentor and a knowledgeable individual that broke me in to "This is how we do business in New Jersey". Sounds ominous? That's because it is! Johnnie Y. in his youth was a Marine that served in Korea, had run "fencing" operations in NYC in his younger days, had served as a bodyguard for Myer Lansky's son (who was apparently disabled and in a wheelchair), knew every Italian crime figure and local politician "back in the day" in the NYC and NJ areas and despite his obviously questionable or criminal background had wisdom beyond what most people could ever possibly attain in their lifetime. Johnnie Y. was of German descent and not Italian, so he could never be a full-fledged "member of the club" and merely an associate. Perhaps this was why Myer Lansky used him because a more "connected" associate would make a bad choice for a bodyguard for obvious reasons. The most likely possibility to get "whacked" often came from within their own organization.
I would always enjoy seeing that black Lincoln Continental pull up to my office and we would hang out and have coffee. His only weakness was that he was a hardcore gambler by his own admission which he described in great detail. His various exploits over the years were incredible to say the least. He knew of every "goulash joint" as he called them that has ever existed in New York and New Jersey over the years. He described insane amounts of money that he made in various criminal enterprise in years past, doing things such as bank fraud in which organized teams he had cashed bad checks all over the area, stealing traveler's checks out of a bank and cashing them (an inside job using a bank employee), fencing jewelry and selling it off to reputable jewelers, etc. He had also worked as a "bookie" along the way and was well versed with the world of gambling.
This was a guy that would make $40,000 for the week, fly out to Vegas and blow it all at the craps table in a day or two and then simply look for the next big score to come along for another $25,000 the following week! If he took his wife to Vegas, he would hand her a stack of 100's to go play roulette, which she enjoyed playing. In his later years and by the time we were closely associated, he was living paycheck to paycheck like a regular "working stiff", working for people of (connected) Italian descent in the logistics and trucking industry in New Jersey and was all but flat broke.
We often talked about gambling in general and he described Resorts opening as an insane rush by the public to get in there. He talked at length of people being robbed on their way in and out of Resorts by the riff-raff out of the projects only a block or two away, how incredibly packed in the casino was and how you couldn't get a spot at the craps table no matter how hard you tried or how long you waited. He said it was total insanity and there was an unending supply of people with an unending supply of money eager for action. More casinos followed. Investors and politicians alike were seeing some serious dollar signs and it was a free for all to hurry up and build more casinos. This was all going on just about the time I was playing my first few hands of blackjack in Vegas as a "youngster", so I missed it all but Johnnie Y. gave an elaborate run down of it all to include describing the parties involved, the politician's kickbacks and much of the seedy action that goes on when there is money involved.
I had mentioned to Johnnie Y. about what I did as a card-counter and about how I played blackjack exclusively and wasn't much of a gambler beyond that. One day sitting in my office, I was flipping cards out of two decks of shuffled cards practicing as he walked in. He said, "So what's this card-counting thing all about that you described? Show me what you are talking about." I proceeded to shuffle up the two decks thoroughly and asked him to take a slug of about a 1/4 deck out. I then flipped through the cards, spread out the cards he had pulled face down and told him exactly what these cards were as in "What's left is three 2-5's, four 6-9's, five 10's/facecards and one Ace." and then flipped them over to reveal that I was dead on. He found it amazing and asked if I made any money doing this. I described some of the basic mathematical aspects of what I did and that playing with a theoretical advantage is actually no guarantee that you will win.
Johnnie Y. and I ventured into Atlantic City on occasion together and he of course played craps. He would spend hours and hours standing there. He played the six and the eight, had a strict regimen on how he played apparently but he lost a lot more than he ever won. Once we were sitting at a restaurant in AC and I asked, "So how do you play craps? I've never done it before and know nothing about it." He replied with, "You stick with exactly what you are doing now and don't worry about craps!" Not that I was all that interested in playing craps anyway but it sounded like good advice from what I had seen over the years.
Johnnie Y. died a few years ago at 71 years old. He died quietly sitting on the couch in front of the television, unlike many of the people he had associated with in his lifetime that died with a bullet to the head and having their bodies dumped into a swamp someplace. He trusted no one, stayed to himself in his later years, was close to his wife whom had stuck by him through it all. He once confided to me that I was his only friend, the only person he trusted in this world other than his wife. This was a bold statement considering all the people he knew as far as business associates and people in general. In a way the reciprocal was true also though. He was more than just a friend, mentor and business associate, I suppose and much like a father figure, someone I trusted also.
We were sitting around during the holiday season within a year of his death, sipping some B&B cognac liqueur and I asked why he never stashed away some of the money from some of the big lucrative hauls he made in his younger years. He stated that he didn't think about it or realize that it was ever going to end and never gave it much thought along the way. He also said that he had enjoyed a very full life and had no regrets. In other words, it was all water under the bridge and there was simply no use in thinking about it now. He made 100's of thousands of dollars in his lifetime, just incredible amounts of money but died a pauper.
