Las Vegas Gambling Tips: The Truth about Casinos and Las Vegas
Las Vegas Gambling Tips: The Truth about Casinos and Las Vegas
On The Town With Vegas Vic
By: Victor H. Royer
Welcome to Las Vegas! My name is Victor H. Royer, but everyone just calls me Vegas Vic. I was named after that famous neon sign in Downtown Las Vegas, that cowboy with the hat on top of the Pioneer Club, always waving his hand and beckoning to his long love, Sassy Sally, on the other side of the street. I will be writing a few articles for AccessVegas.com, so I hope you enjoy them.
Victor H. Royer Interview: The Truth About Casinos and Las Vegas – Part I
by Victor Royer
Chances are, if you visited a Las Vegas casino during the “graveyard”, or late-night shift, you might catch a glimpse of Victor H. Royer. A prolific author of 22 gambling books and an impressive card-counter, Royer is an all-round expert on everything casino related. However, whilst you might have heard of publicity-fond players such as Semyon Dukach and Mike Aponte, when wagering Royer carefully shrouds his identity in order to keep playing and writing about casinos. We spoke to Royer about how he began his career in gambling, his ability to card-count and how he’s used it to his advantage (both as a player and as a consultant to Vegas casinos), online gaming and the truth about Las Vegas.
Royer’s involvement in the gambling industry spans just over 40 years beginning with an interest in old fashioned slot machines, such as the Liberty Bell and “Western movie” style pokies. In the 1970’s, Royer began to take playing poker and blackjack “seriously” and a decade later, he began to learn and utilise card-counting techniques and strategies. Royer told us that, after practicing for a year, he headed for the bright lights of Vegas, eager to turn the strategies he’d practiced at home into a profitable venture. Here, Royer encountered his first challenge: The distractions of Sin City. Royer told us that on his first trip as an advantage player to a casino, he was:
“Unprepared for the actual casino atmosphere and the challenges playing in a real casino, with real dealers, real pit bosses, real surveillance, other players, house players, shills, mechanics, and all of the other distractions and pitfalls of playing Blackjack in the real world.”
Undeterred by his first setback, Royer continued playing and changed his practice techniques to incorporate the hustle and bustle of Vegas. Royer’s determination to succeed meant he would often “turn on the television, the radio, play a record” in order to “provide distractions” and arm himself against the audio and visual assault that is a thriving Vegas casino. Royer’s practice paid off, as a few months later he managed to build up a bankroll of $64,000 and the rest (so to speak) is history.
Royer’s account of his beginnings in blackjack gives an indication of what drives the author to succeed. In the early 1990’s,casinos took a turn for the worse, as “corporate owners were trying to squeeze as much profit as they could out of everything, and they began to change the rules of blackjack, and dealing procedures, to a point where they nearly killed the game entirely.” It was around this time that Royer took up employment as a consultant for a casino in Reno. Royer’s job was to find out “what kind of exposure” the casino “would have to card counters, and specifically to card counting teams, in the event that they would descend upon their casino.” Royer still acts as a consultant, but now advises equipment manufacturers and as an adviser has written over 100 reports regarding gaming operations. It wasn’t until the mid-1990’s that Royer turned his talent for casino games into an opportunity for others to learn, thus beginning a new chapter in his gambling career.
As the author of 22 gambling related books, Royer admits that the jump from player to writer was, at times, exhausting. The 13 books which make up his Powerful Profits collection took five years to write and Royer spent around 14 hours a day, seven days a week working on them. However, once this labor of love was complete, the books offered something few other gambling experts have been able to accomplish: A complete repertoire of casino game guides, ranging from slots to blackjack and everything in between. While the books can be used individually, Royer notes that:
“If you read all of them one after the other in the order in which they were written and published, a lot of the information will reveal the overall clarity of everything that was part of my life that I lived as I had written it in these books.”
Royer’s impressive roster of gambling books could be considered off-putting to newcomers, eager to learn the basics of gambling, but don’t have to time to read 22 separate titles. While we believe that if you really wish to get to grips with gambling, Royer’s canon is essential, the author suggested that those looking for tips to apply immediately should read Powerful Profits From Slots. Royer notes that this book is perfect for three reasons:
“First, 90% of all players of casino games play slots. Second, of those 86% have absolutely no clue on which are the better slots and which aren’t, and why. Third, in Chapter 10 of the book I explain what the RNG is, and the fact that it really isn’t anything that really exists, and what it really is and how it works, and why this is important.”
Royer’s position as a gambling expert is unique, as he’s one of the few casino consultants who has also authored books, giving him a birds eye view of the industry and games, which other authors lack. As Royer observes, he has had “access to the actual mathematics and the actual software engineers who wrote the programs that run these actual games,” noting that “if you really want to know” how to play slots, “that’s the book to read.” For those interested in online gambling, Royer has also written Powerful Profits from Internet Gambling and while online casinos have transformed dramatically over the past few years, Royer notes that the issues and advice the book offers is still valid today.
To Be Continued…
Victor H. Royer, known as Vegas Vic, is the author of 42 books. Mostly known for books, articles, and columns on casino games and gambling, he is also the author of New Casino Slots, Great Gamblers: True Stories and Amazing Facts, The Great American Joke Book, as well as his works of Fiction, which include: Another Day, and the Western: Riders on the Wind. Versatile and multitalented, Royer is the creator, producer, and host of the Web-TV show Great Casino Slots, now showing atwww.LasVegasLiveTV.com. He also composes music and performs under the names Glenn Diamond, Pappy Jones, Hans Dorfmann, and Miguel Armandaiz. For more information, please visit him atwww.MoreCasinoDeals.com and www.GamingAuthor.com. Sign up for the Insider Advantage Newsletter at: http://www.accessvegas.com/old-access/membership
His books can be ordered through this website, by following the links provided
(c) Copyright 2015 Victor H. Royer. All rights reserved. For syndication purposes, contact GSR Holdings Inc. at: [email protected]
