The difference between Las Vegas and London casinos might not be day and night, but it is at least sunshine and rain. Whereas inside the behemoth casinos along the Las Vegas sun-drenched Strip you had a bustling atmosphere about the tables and a constant cacophony of slot machine noise, the finer gaming establishments in dreary London were hushed and reserved, and each had only two silent slot machines, and few had even a single craps table. People inside them practiced restraint.



Back in 1986, before the devaluation of the British pound, one American dollar didn't even buy you a half pound sterling, which meant that casino game minimums and maximums were considerably higher in London than in Las Vegas. Joe determined that in spite of the losses incurred with the currency exchanges to and from British pounds, we had a very healthy potential in England's private gam?bling clubs.

That potential, however, was mitigated by certain British gambling regulations and casino procedures. The first adversity we faced was simply getting through the door of a casino. In order to enter a legal British casino, you had to either become a member or have an already existing member sign you in as his guest. Given the fact we were already an internationally known casino-cheating team (despite the fact we had never before worked together in Europe) with names that triggered red ?lags on computer screens, none of us could ever qualify for membership in a London casino. Our only way to gain entry was to be signed in by a member-who accepted responsibility for our actions once inside the casino.

Joe had a handful of British acquaintances that he'd known in Korea. But before we'd left the States, he had decided not to use them to get us into the casinos. He couldn't reveal our intentions to them and, at the same time, didn't want to risk their memberships. On the plane ride over the Atlantic, I kept bugging him about how we'd get into the casinos. Maybe it was better, I had suggested, that we forgo England and go directly to France. He had told me not to worry, that he'd figure out a way to get us in.

Joe's solution was London's cabbies. A gambling buddy back in New York had once told me that hookers would do anything for money; Joe said that cabbies would do almost anything. He found a chubby cabdriver sitting inside his big black London taxi outside the Park Lane Hilton, inside of which was the Rendezvous Club casino. He offered the cabbie ?500 to secure a membership in each of six London casinos and to sign us in as his guests twice at each one. In addition, Joe would pay all the membership fees, which amounted to ?300. A dozen cabbies outside London's fashionable hotels had al?ready refused Joe's offer, but this chubby fellow wearing baggy pants and dirty shoes got out of his big black cab, shook Joe's hand, and said affably, "You got yourself a deal, old chap." Sizing up the guy who was shaking his hand, Joe decided to throw in a suit so the cabbie could get himself into the casinos.

There was an odd law concerning British casinos: once you took out a membership you had to wait forty-eight hours before your initial entry. It was reminiscent of the American "cooling off' statute applied to the purchase of firearms. The member was, however, permitted to sign his guests in along with him the first time he entered the casino; he was obligated to stay inside the casino until all his guests had departed, though that abidance was less strictly observed.

During the forty-eight-hour cooling-off period, we did the Americans-sightseeing-in-London scene.