Biz in Toronto, stayed over a weekend, got up real early on Sunday morning and watched the sun rise over Lake Ontario as I tooled down the QEW to Niagra Falls and Casino Niagara.

I couldn't remember if Niagara was the pick or if it was Casino Rama, the same distance from Toronto only north, so I called both joints on Saturday. Both had the same game: 8D, Doa, Das, S17, Rs4, no srndr, and both claimed the dealers cut off one-and-a-half decks (I always ask). I'm a red-chipper and Rama said tables ran from $15 min to $100, with "maybe some $10 tables, it depends." Niagara said, "we try to have some $5 and $10 tables open when it's not busy, and keep them open," so I decided to go there.

Driving in I saw a satellite shuttle lot and didn't think anything of it, then another one, but I head to the casino 'cuz they must have parking there, and they do, it's a big ramp, and it costs $10. So I figure that's the first thing I'll get out of them, I walk in, it's 7:15 in the morning, and there isn't a table below $25 min. in the entire joint. Plus the dealers are cutting off two decks.

Big place, too, you enter on level 3, two pits open and about two closed, down the escalators (with waterfalls on both sides as you go down, get it?) is another floor, two pits open, entire second floor is NS. Also pits on each floor with all those odd table games with brass inlay boxes with slots in them and other card games I don't understand. Roulette, The Wheel, a baccarat room too.

So I'm pissed. $25 and $50 tables, and I got $300 Canadian session money. So I started to back-count tables, which I was going to do anyway, but since I'll never be setting foot in this joint again, I did it with total, brazen impugnity. I didn't even look away during the dealing and then scan--if I was going to get a few $25 hands here and there, I wanted no mistakes in count, so I counted the cards right out of the shoe. If there is any value this report can give to any poor bastard who ever has to play here, it's to report that THE PIT DIDN'T CARE.

Or they didn't know what I was doing, i.e., they don't look for back-counters. Hell, I sat at third base at the start of a shoe, at a chair that had been pushed just a little outside of the action, and sat and drank their coffee while I counted. I talked to the pit while I counted, asking if there were any $5 or $10 tables ("Maybe some at $15, you'll have to look around").

What amazed me most was THE PLACE IS CROWDED. And I'm looking at all these people playing at $25 MINIMUM TABLES, AND $50 TABLES, for chrissakes, and were these people five times richer than the schmucks I play with at the $5 and $10 tables at my home casino? Hell no! It was exactly the same crowd: oriental women, blue-collar guys, young kids nervous to play, retirees, housewives, the odd businessman. I have never been so impressed with how much money the gambling industry takes in in my entire life. I saw a woman buy into a $25 table with $40, then I saw another guy do it!! I don't get it!! Both times they only bet $25 on the first hand!! And if you lose, your plan is what again? I saw one guy buy in with a Canadian $1000 bill, and some people buy in with two, three hun, but most people were so beaten the moment they walked in I wanted to shake them. And I bet a lot of them were regulars. Unbelievable.

I finally saw one $15 table that must have been among the ones that opened up while I was there, and of course it was packed. Every other table that opened while I was there was either $25 or $50 ($500 max, by the way).

After two hours I've placed a total of eight bets and I'm up 2 units/$50 bucks. Took a break and won $10 on a quarter slot. So at least I've covered the parking, lunch on the way back to Toronto, and gas for the rental car I'd had for a few days, I figured.

Then a shoe went real pos real quick (I'm using KOP) and I get in. Up to then I had only used a 1-2 spread, figuring my under-fundedness, but after winning a good four out of the first five hands at one and two units and the count one below pivot I go to $75 (yes, I've bet more than that on a hand of bj, but still, that gets the juice going for me) and I get the blackjack, I'm back down at $50 and doubling my 11 versus dealer's ace (a move I never made before getting on-line and reading posts, thank you, posters) and win that and then a few more hands and like a good counter I leave the table with a few hands to play, after losing a one-unit bet at just below key and the count going down. And I look down as I head to the cage and I'm clenching a $375 (OK, so it's Canadian) profit. Damn. So that's why some of you boys play green. Black too, I would imagine. I played a grand total of less than one shoe the entire three hours I was there and leaving I never felt more like a counter in my life.

So I drove to Niagara Falls, 'cuz I'd never seen it, paid $9 for parking, and, feeling really good, looked at Niagara Falls for a while. Damned impressive.

SJ