Chapter 18 from The Spotted Ball, A True Story by Larry Cohen c 2025
“Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, doctor, lawyer, Indian chief”
At this point, it would be unfair to my dear readers if I did not introduce a college friend of mine, whom I mentioned only in passing early on in my true story narrative. This was not a classmate, but rather a schoolmate and, to coin a word, a dorm-mate since Lloyd lived in the same dormitory that I did during my first semester in college. We were placed in the same dormitory because there were so few students at the University during the Summer when I began my first semester that Upperclassmen had to be mixed with the Freshmen. This was only two weeks after graduating from high school in June. There was to be no Summer vacation for me that year.
Lloyd was a natural card player. He set up shop in the Student Union and, for all practical purposes, never left. Classes? Study? Lloyd looked at those activities as those that would only get in the way of his more serious work of contract bridge and any other card game in which he could lure in three other players. Lloyd did graduate, nonetheless, according to him, “with the lowest cume (cumulative average) of any student in the history of the University.” But, to me, Lloyd was pure genius.
Coming from a middle-class background in one of the “outer boroughs” of New York City, Lloyd not only managed to graduate but also began a very difficult program in insurance actuarial school. Lloyd explained to me that there were five levels in the actuarial program. He managed to reach the second level when casino gambling arrived in Atlantic City. Armed with what he had learned in his actuary training and his natural love of cards, it was only a natural fit that Lloyd began taking the bus down to Atlantic City from New York to play “21” or Black Jack, as it is commonly known. It was “Goodbye, actuarial school” and “Hello, Atlantic City”
In fact, in telling me his story, Lloyd said the casinos would only charge $6 for the trip from Midtown Manhattan to Atlantic City and also give the riders $10 in casino chips. The casinos, however, were going to lose a lot more than $4 bucks when Lloyd began playing Blackjack. You see, dear readers, Lloyd was one of the original “card counters” that was and were eventually banned from New Jersey casinos. A legal case was started, but the casinos lost. The courts ruled that they had to let the “card counters” play. To counter the card counting, the casinos added more decks to the “shoe.” The casinos thought they had fixed the problem, but Lloyd told me it made no difference to him. He kept on winning until he was just banned completely when he was told “he was too good for them.”
As I mentioned in an earlier chapter of True Story, Lloyd gave me his notes that he kept while playing Blackjack in Las Vegas and every other location when casino gambling. What was of interest to me is not how he won, but the tricks that the casinos would use to defeat him or keep him out. As a known card counter, the teams that ran most of the new American Indian run casinos were really outfits out of Las Vegas, where he was already known. He did say that the managers at the casinos could call for an “early shuffle” or lower the betting limits when it came time for the “big bets”. Lloyd remained undeterred and would try to find new casinos where he was either unknown, such as those in the Caribbean, or where the Las Vegas crews were not established yet.
The genius of Lloyd was not that he could win, but that he could hold on to his winnings. He held on to enough of his winnings to a) pay for a Ph.D. program at the University where he earned a doctorate and b) pay for three years of law school. He is currently a professor emeritus from a noted law school just below the Mason-Dixon line. Interestingly, I happened to be watching an episode of “60 Minutes” on CBS one Sunday night a few years ago, and there was Lloyd being interviewed by Mike Wallace on the topic of organ donations. (Lloyd believed that since everyone in the process got paid, viz, the hospitals, the doctors, the nurses, et al, that the donors should be paid, too)
Yes, Lloyd was pure genius.
I guess he really was “Rich man, poor man, beggar, thief, doctor, lawyer, Indian Chief” in an unusual, odd sort of way, I guess.
To be continued…