10. THE SALMON
I must confess to not wanting to divulge “The Salmon’s” real name out of fairness to the man. I first got the name from reading the excellent book by Edward Thorp called “Beat the Dealer“. In that book his “Salmon” played blackjack in the early years and was the only player to win when everyone else was losing. So seeing as Salmon swim against the current upstream then the name struck a chord with me.
This was because this was exactly what this particular roulette player was doing…..winning over a period of months when everyone else was losing after placing substantial action. The method of “The Salmon” was to watch the wheel just like Joseph Jagger did all those years ago.
In fact The Salmon once turned £0.50 into £600 in a matter of minutes on roulette and I should know because I was that dealer. I then started to clock this player and how much he bought in for and how much he cashed out. I was staggered to find out that this player was 20k ahead over six months and placing very tiny bets to begin with.
To him, our casino must have felt like nothing more than a glorified ATM. I actually met him in private once and he wasn’t the type of person that you wanted to befriend because he had quite an annoying character. But you have to take your hat off to someone who beats a game that few others think cannot be beaten.
