MWRT – 2025 – Day 2 in St. Louis
Breathin’ air that ain’t been breathed before – Johnny Cash, Understand Your Man
My second day in St. Louis found me back at the River City Casino about 1pm that afternoon. Having left Oklahoma with a tidy profit, River City Casino had not been so kind, taking all my profit and them some from yesterday’s play. I decided this day I would play as long as they would let me for the afternoon. I arrived just as they were opening a 6 deck table paying 3/2 so I sat down and began play with the dealer heads up. That only lasted a few hands before more players began joining it.
Before the dealer got everything set up to play, a random guy sauntered over to the table and began praising her calling her “Lucky Dora” or something like that. Dora just smiled back at him while he said “I know you didn’t really have anything to do with it, but everyone is talking about how you are the luckiest dealer to play the 3 Card extreme side bets with”! Then he saluted and walked on. I asked Dora what that was all about and she told me the whole story.
Two days before, she had been dealing on the table next to the one we were at and a man had been playing the side bets which were two wagers of $5. One paid according to a table of payouts and the other could only be played if you played the first, making your bet eligible for the Progressive Jackpot. She said the whole casino went crazy when she dealt this guy a Royal 3 Card Flush paying out $960,000! JACKPOT!
This was the biggest payout in casino history apparently. Life changing money of the guy doesn’t give it all back. All the casino executives came down and a lot of pictures were going to be taken. That would have been something to see, just missed it by 48 hours. I hardly ever play those side bets, but they can be a lot of fun and you certainly can get a lucky streak going and make out pretty nicely. I usually play more conservatively and stick to straight Blackjack. Even on the other table games, they call them “Carny games” like you might play at a carnival, I usually don’t play the side bets.
Dora said the guy tipped $10,000. She had only been on the floor for a month and was still learning and memorizing the pay outs ect…
I played for the next 5 1/2 hours, mostly with Dora. Though she was new, she did a good job for the most part. However, that meant very slow and methodical with a lot of calls for help from the floor team. It was mostly a grind up and down all day when finally the cards turned my way and I began a win streak where I was pushing out my max bets. The dealers had been cutting only 26 cards all day and the last hand was about to be dealt with only 30 cards remaining in the shoe. I pushed out my bets, jumped up out of my seat and yelled “Lets Go”! I had done this before with no issues but this time the floor must have gotten annoyed and he came over and whispered into the dealers ear before the cards came out. The dealer exclaimed “shuffle” and the round was deep sixed.
I knew they didn’t want to let me play out that round with max bets and good chance of winning both but I acted like I was confused about it and asked the man next to me about it. I said I didn’t see the cut card come out yet and he said “yea, I’ve heard about them doing that sometimes but never seen it happen”. This was my clue to leave which I did. It was time for a break. I was back in positive territory recovering two thirds of prior day’s down variance.
I had a Chicken Ceasar salad in my ice chest that I’d picked up at the Buc-ees on the way to St. Louis so I looked for a park to go have a picnic. I found there was a park named for Ulysses Grant nearby with a park within a park named Whitecliff which turned out to be an old rock quarry. Beautiful little spot to have a meal and get some fresh air which I sorely needed.
The casino was on the way back to my hotel so I stopped in to play a short session before calling it a day. This was a good decision as it turns out. I was into the second shoe about two and half decks when things turned very favorable so I pushed in may max bets. The dealer, who was the fastest dealer I’d played with so far, hollered “Black Action” which means I had placed the $100 black chips in the betting circle. The pit boss has a main job of tracking all the action and accounting for all the chips so they are particularly interested in being informed when any black chips are played or cashed or exchanged. This dealer knew what she was doing and so the pit boss came over to her and smiled at me telling her, “you are cleared to play all black action, no need to call it out”. Game on!
This turned into one of those glory shoes with max bets placed, double downs, splits, all winning including a Blackjack payout 3 to 2. It seemed to last for half an hour but it was really probably only 5 or 10 minutes. It finally ended with two winning bets and I colored up and went to the cage to cash out, figuring I was done there this trip. The cage wouldn’t cash me without giving my ID or players card which I didn’t have. After some negotiating, she let me cash out $2,500 which meant I would have to stop by on the way out of town in the morning to cash the rest.
The next day I hit the road headed to Kansas City. Took some backway highways through the Missouri country side for some beautiful scenery.
