Palms $1 rake/$4 promo drop plan turns into chaos, costs house $22,000

I'm sorry but I feel compelled to respond to this thread. I personally know this gentleman you are all bashing on here and it is not very fair. I also worked w him at the M and I know he would never personally steal money from anyone. He always had to best intentions and in his position did his best to see the room flourish. He would occasionally play in games to get them started and also to help keep them from breaking up. Nothing was for his own personal benefit, but for the benefit of the players, dealers and the room. I'm surprised a dealer would come up with this ridiculous story. He cared enough to try to keep games going so his own dealers can make money. He may have been let go, but it is not for the reasons you are claiming in this thread.
I think is unfair that you all go on here and bash him without him able to explain himself --not that he even needs to.

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Originally Posted by FTP1810

I'm sorry but I feel compelled to respond to this thread. I personally know this gentleman you are all bashing on here and it is not very fair. I also worked w him at the M and I know he would never personally steal money from anyone. He always had to best intentions and in his position did his best to see the room flourish. He would occasionally play in games to get them started and also to help keep them from breaking up. Nothing was for his own personal benefit, but for the benefit of the players, dealers and the room. I'm surprised a dealer would come up with this ridiculous story. He cared enough to try to keep games going so his own dealers can make money. He may have been let go, but it is not for the reasons you are claiming in this thread.
I think is unfair that you all go on here and bash him without him able to explain himself --not that he even needs to.

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He should speak out and defend himself if he's innocent. Everyone has the floor to do so and taking the silent approach will make anyone look guilty.

You say you know him but is it just directly from poker rooms he's worked/played at or are you long time friends with him in life outside of the felt?

If you know him why not tell him about this thread? I"m sure Todd (Druff) would be willing to talk to him privately if he rather not discuss his side on here.

Would be nice if he spoke here or to Druff.

Seems like there are two items:
1) did all the promo rake go back to the players?
2) did the manager take funds to cover his losses (and if so from where)?

My guess is the rake prob was not enough to cover all the promo money regardless. I have no idea if the manager pulled money for his losses. I can't speak to that. He easily could've been fired for losing money due to a bad promotion. Can't really tell except for what the dealer "told" Druff.

The Palms or Cantor must be kicking themselves in the ass for letting go Bobby Griffith who is a top-notch poker room manager.

I have only played at the M twice. The first time the room was packed. The second time there was just 1 tournament table running at 10 pm which is pretty much prime time.

Go me it seems like this guy constantly shits the bed. From opinions of other players that I have heard, the room at the M was poorly run.

I wonder why Palms or Cantor made that change???

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Originally Posted by Bootsy Collins

The Palms or Cantor must be kicking themselves in the ass for letting go Bobby Griffith who is a top-notch poker room manager.

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I agree. I worked for Bobby in the poker room as his cashier/brush from Jan 2013-July 2013 before my position was eliminated by Cantor, and Bobby about a month later. Sad state of affairs..

The only thing I need to know about the M and Palms poker room is that micon liked to run the donkdown horsements there

:baddecision

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Originally Posted by FTP1810

I'm sorry but I feel compelled to respond to this thread. I personally know this gentleman you are all bashing on here and it is not very fair. I also worked w him at the M and I know he would never personally steal money from anyone. He always had to best intentions and in his position did his best to see the room flourish. He would occasionally play in games to get them started and also to help keep them from breaking up. Nothing was for his own personal benefit, but for the benefit of the players, dealers and the room. I'm surprised a dealer would come up with this ridiculous story. He cared enough to try to keep games going so his own dealers can make money. He may have been let go, but it is not for the reasons you are claiming in this thread.
I think is unfair that you all go on here and bash him without him able to explain himself --not that he even needs to.

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Please let this guy know that he is welcome to register an account here and post his side of the story.

He is also welcome to contact me privately and explain things, if he wants. I will keep private whatever he asks me to.

If he was really reimbursing himself with the promo money for losses, yet keeping the profits, then that is wrong no matter which way you slice it. I'm not saying that he was doing this (as I said at the beginning, I was only repeating a story from a dealer there), but that's the part bothering everyone.

I will say that it's more likely his actions were geared toward generating excitement for the room than enriching himself, as even this story has him admitting to what he did immediately upon being questioned by the auditor.

I think everyone is most interested to hear if every promo dollar collected went back to the players via promotions, and if not, why?

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

If he was really reimbursing himself with the promo money for losses, yet keeping the profits, then that is wrong no matter which way you slice it. I'm not saying that he was doing this (as I said at the beginning, I was only repeating a story from a dealer there), but that's the part bothering everyone.

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I know it's not the same thing as what he did, but are shills allowed in Vegas casinos? I know that in Tunica the gaming commission allows the casinos to use dealers and supervisors to keep games going or to help get a game started.

Hello Dan,

Let me do my best to answer your questions. First off, your article is full of errors. I don't really believe this "secret source" of yours is from any of my former staff. If it was they could have just given you my phone number or email and you could of called to confirm. Everyone who knows me absolutely know I'm the easiest person in the world to talk to. It reads like your just trying to do TMZ reporting and put out some type of vague facts and let people assume whatever they want. If your goal is to run a reputable information source, you should do some follow up.

We were running a $1/ $4 rake promo all the way up to just the other day. The idea being that we could reintroduce the room to a bunch of players by creating excitement and giving away tons of money. The room had gotten so slow, that there was usually only 1 or 2 games going. We figured if we could get up to 6 or 7 games then we would be raking the same as 2 games yet open up the room to a whole new Guest base.

I had numerous meetings with the staff to get their opinions on any and all promotions. I've always included the dealers in all discussions about the rooms I've ran. I never keep any in the dark. The best way to create a team atmosphere and get ownership from the team members is to involve them in the decision making process. So when you say, the staff is mystified about the new offering, that is completely false. Not only were they well informed about the reasoning behind it, they were excited to see that we were doing a massively aggressive promo to recapture the business.

You alluded to the idea that the poker community was excited about the great deal (returning 80%) back to the players and unfortunately that isn't true either. Like you thought, I also thought is would be crazy exciting, and our room would get packed. That did not happen. We were trying to be hyper-aggressive and beat the competitors at the promotions game. Orleans, Mirage, and Monte Carlo all had a lot going on; and we were trying to make it so you couldn't afford not to play at the Palms. It just didn't work, even with all the giveaways, we barely ever got a 1-2NL game going and never got a 4-10 Limit game going. The only good thing was switching the 2-4 to a 2-6 spread limit. That game had tremendously more action and was a lot more fun for the players and dealers.

The idea that I would steal any money from the players is completely ridiculous. I have been in this industry, in this town, for 15 years and to my knowledge, my integrity has never been questioned. I am shocked and mortified that would even be whispered around. This is my career and I have every intention of having another room soon. It is very unsettling that you would send out these implications without even asking me. How are you trying to make the industry better by trying to ruin the reputation of room manager that is not only respected by his peers, but well liked by his team, and generally liked by all my players (which is hard to do.) I was always on the floor, getting the players opinions, fighting for as much giveaways as possible, and trying to make the staff as much money as possible. I did not accept tips and even when dealing gave the money to the cashier up front. Terribly insulting and completely inaccurate on your part.

Game Protection was just way to account for the money. We had 6 different promos going at the same time and we had to enter a line item for each one. It could have been called anything. AA Cracked, Set over Set, High Hand of the 1/2, Monkey Spins, Home Team Cash Giveaway, Splash Pots, Natural High Hands are all examples of the line items we used. Casinos have very strong oversight on all accounting transactions and all money must be accounted for. You said that when we lost we wrote it off, but when we won we pocketed the money. That is just a just a bald faced lie. I never cashed 1 penny out of those games. You are more than welcome to due your due diligence and ask the cashiers. They control the money. There are exactly zero times that I put money from the table into my pocket. Horrible accusation and shoddy reporting. All money stayed on the tables.

He was losing between $100-$300 everyday, is gross exaggeration, but somewhat true. Of course, I was losing while playing on the tables. I was losing on purpose, although I tried to keep it in the $50 range. There is no reason to try and take money from my own players. The idea behind playing is to keep the games going during down times so that they have the opportunity to fill back up with new active players. If the promotions would have worked as good as I had hoped then there would have been no reason to try and hold the games together, but as I have previously mentioned, there just wasn't very much traffic. By sitting down in the games I had the opportunity to talk with the players, hold the games together so the dealers could make tokes, and evaluate what promos they liked and which ones weren't as popular. Remember we had 6 different giveaways going on at the same times.

The accounting books have always been wide open and very transparent. They were always available for auditing and the staff. Quite a few players and dealers asked daily, How'd we do, Where we at, etc. Unfortunately the promos didn't drive the traffic that we anticipated and with just the 2 or 3 games going the giveaways were insanely expensive. With 6 games going we probably could have maintained the giveaways, but it didn't work out that way. The couple of 2-6 games we had loved it; when was the last time you saw a 2-6 game that had $1000s of dollars on the tables. Even the players knew it couldn't last.

As for why isn't Cantor putting the "missing money" back into the promo fund. There isn't any missing money and as of my last day the promo fund was at negative $22,000. So not only did we pay every penny back to the players, we actually added $22,000 of our own money and gave it to the players. We were taking in around $2,000 a day in promo money, but paying out $3,500 or so. Most promos were positively received and the AA Insurance and the $25 highest hand of the half hour on every table was overly expensive. AA is cracked more than it wins and $25 every half on every table is basically what they are raking.

I hope this answered all your questions. I think you owe me an apology. It is a terrible thing you accused me of, and completely unfair. I am very approachable, love the public relation aspects of poker operations, and also conduct myself in an extremely professional manner at all times. I have a family, attend church, am a cub scout leader, volunteer at the school, and represent myself and the poker community with the highest of integrity. Just because you didn't use my name doesn't mean that everyone didn't know who you were trying to implicate.

Thank you for your time, Todd Buechler

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Originally Posted by vegasbeek

It is a terrible thing you accused me of, and completely unfair.

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from the OP

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

*** DISCLAIMER *** This is a third-hand report, and I have not verified any of the statements below. I am relaying claims by a third party who works at the Palms, and while I believe them to likely be true, they cannot be considered 100% fact as they have not been checked.

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That's your response?

Are you the owner of the site and you have no follow up? I am hoping you are going to do the correct thing. I would like to see you change the title of this thread and at least apologize for flat out lying to the public?

What else would you like to see in order to remedy your mistake?

as one of the players--i couldnt understand why more werent coming in for the promotion either--and neither did a couple of others i saw daily also there because of the promotion. a large portion of the $2200 i have in my bankroll is from the promotional money--and im not sure of where to play now and any promotion good enough to beat the rake so easy that is low risk to such a small roll, and still beatable for a few hundred a week. for some reason--a lot of people who never go in the Palms just didnt realize the value of the promos. i hope i see a similar promotion somewhere in the future. for i hate bad beat jackpots, drawings and freerolls. this is actually the one promotion that is really useful and u get paid immediately all day long.

Sorry Short Bus,

I didn't realize that you posted the response and not Dan. His original post about the forum said he was looking for truth and open dialogue, not just quotes from random un-named sources and hearsay. I thought he was choosing not to respond to what I thought would answer all his questions and explain all rationale behind the idea.

Todd

Todd,

Thank you for taking the time to respond here.

I am a reasonable person, and will remove inaccurate statements about the situation if I am convinced (or at least partially convinced) that those statements are wrong/unreliable.

I have known your name all along, but did not post it here (and in fact censored it from another post) because I had not verified anything, and did not want this showing up in google results for your name unless this was proven (or highly likely to be true).

So if I am to understand your explanation, you said the following:

- You were indeed reimbursing yourself for losses from the promo pool, and listing it as "Game Protection". However, you were intentionally playing poorly in order to keep people in the games, so you were losing most days. You claim that most days you were not losing more than $50.

- You never kept a penny of winnings in these games. You also never accepted tips, and when tipped as a dealer, "gave the money to the casher in the front".

- The Palms lost $22,000 from this promotion, because they paid out far more to players than they took in from the $4 promo rake.

- Despite the incredibly generous $1 rake/$4 promo format, the room still failed to catch on with the public, and you had a problem keeping tables running.


Let me ask you a few follow-up questions:

1) You said you never kept any winnings. While I understand that you usually lost because you were intentionally playing poorly, what did you do with the money during the few times you won?

2) You said that you gave tips "to the cashier in front". What does that mean? Did you re-tip the cashier, or did you put those tips back in the promo pool. Just curious about this one. You had the right to keep all tips, in my opinion.

3) $22,000 is a lot of money for a small room to lose. Why did you let it get to such a high number, when it was clear the promotion was failing to attract much new action?

4) While I believe your account that the promo was failing to bring in many new players, I don't understand how this was causing the staggering losses for the room. All of the promos hit at the same rate, regardless of how many tables are running. For example, aces get cracked the same percentage of time on one table as they do a million tables, though the one table would obviously have more variance. I can't understand how these promotions would have worked even if the room was full, as 10x as many tables running would have also resulted in 10x the amount of promo payouts on average, right? The only way I can see this not being the case is if you guys ran really bad with large, rare promotions hitting, such as large bad beat jackpots that aren't supposed to hit for awhile. But it seems like you were blaming the smaller promotions such as "aces cracked" for the failure here.


Regardless, even if the promo was poorly conceived, that doesn't make you a thief. If you indeed did not take a penny from these games, then the promo situation was a net-win for the community, and only a net-loss for the Palms (of which I don't think any of us will be crying over).

I look forward to your answers.

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Originally Posted by vegasbeek

Hello Dan,
He was losing between $100-$300 everyday, is gross exaggeration, but somewhat true. Of course, I was losing while playing on the tables. I was losing on purpose, although I tried to keep it in the $50 range.

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Druff is a poker player and he puts items on here in that way, most of the time its tight aggressive and he's got the nuts, other times he has a good hand is floating the flop to see what happens.

From your above quote in my view that's either cheating or collusion. Or are you suddenly going to remember "O I only ever did it when I was in the blinds with another casino employee and everyone else had folded"

example of how more table wouldnt result in that many more times in promo money being given out.

splash pots per half hour--same amount given out in splash pots--regardless of how many tables is going.

Druff makes a good point in regards to why did Palms let this promo go on so long if they were getting too far in the red with it especially since it wasn't driving in the traffic they desired?

The competition is fierce in Vegas and by running this promo the key really is not only to bring people to the room but to keep them playing after the promotion goes away. If you can't keep some of these new players that you may draw with a promo that is so costly to the room then it defeats the purpose of it.

Taking $1 for the house and giving back $4 in a promo is not sustainable for any poker room to do for any long period of time. Even taking $2 for the room and giving back $3 to the players is a better model but that still is going to be costly as well if once again done for a long period of time.

I get it your trying to draw new players in but don't you think this promotion is was way too generous? A room needs to make money to survive and I could see running some wild promo like this for a day or even a weekend but this ran for weeks.

I'm surprised Palms agreed to do this promotion but if it failed badly as in my opinion this rake/promo model would if done for a long period of time then Palms will point the finger at someone and that is going to be the manager of the room. They shouldn't have allowed this to run in the first place and are to blame for a big portion of it but it's not uncommon in business to fire someone when something like this fails. Palms might not be completely right in doing that but that is just how the business world works.

Todd,

Naturally you do not have to answer these questions, but maybe answering will help provide some clarity and stop the whispers.

Who and why was the line item ‘Game Protection’ chosen?

Why not write down exactly what promo was being paid out. Typically auditing likes to know, who, what, why and where? Why did you break from these accepted conventions?

Have you ever known or worked in a room previously that used an ambiguous line item ?

Was your paperwork audited daily?

Who was supervising the games when you were playing in them ?

You say you never cashed out a single penny, you sat in the game until you was felted every time?

Who is the we you refer to “You said that when we lost we wrote it off, but when we won we pocketed the money”

If during the course of a session, you used promo funds to reimburse your losses, any tips that you gave to a dealer were not returned to the players. Or did you never tip the dealers

Was you employed for longer than 90 days?

And totally unrelated, but enquiring minds, did the M Resort seed the poker promo fund when the room opened ?

Hello Dan,

There was virtually no business so we tried to be crazy aggressive in attracting new Guests. While it could be a losing proposition the goal was to introduce the room back to the public. Your profile says that you used to live in Vegas, so I'm assuming you no longer do. Las Vegas poker has become a very promotional driven business. When you have a good promo, the players come out in droves, but as soon as its over they head elsewhere.

You are correct that $22,000 is a lot for a small room to lose, but the goal was to build clientele. The room had gotten so slow, that management wanted to test the waters and see if there was even any market for a tiny poker room any longer. Even with the over the top giveaways, players simply didn't come out. In the past 18 months, most small rooms have closed. There is no longer a room at Silverton, M Resort, Tropicana, Hard Rock (from 28 tables down to 3 in the pit), Cosmo started construction (but stopped), Fiesta, T.I. barely ever has more than 1 game going etc. At this point in time, it appears that only the big 4 corporations can continue to operate their rooms.

The promotional pool, while still probably continuing to lose, would have been less with more games; due to a couple of promotions that weren't dependent on game counts. The $50 at the :50 and the $25 at the :25 was fixed, regardless of game count. The nfl season was over, so the Home Team Cash Giveaway which cost thousands was done. AA gets cracked a lot less in no limit than it does in limit games. it is a lot easier to slow play AA in a limit game and only lose say $20 while trying to get them cracked and pick up $100. In NL if you don't play your AA correctly you can lose a lot more than you would win if they lose. The same holds true for natural high hands. It is much easier to call $6 for a gut shot straight flush, than it is to call $75 in a no limit game. The main reason this didn't work was it didn't attract any NL play. If goes back to highlighting the observation that there may be no demand for a small local room.

You said something to the effect that I was reimbursing myself for shill loss. That seems to imply that somehow I was putting lost money into my pocket. That never was the case. Nevada allows the use of shills or props. Any money signed out from the cashier would be lammered to try and hold the game together. If there was a loss, which was 90% of the time, then it would be documented and turned into accounting with the daily paperwork. If there was a win, then it was turned into the cashier and they would drop it into the reserve pool. There was never any cash moving around that would have to be reimbursed.

Most poker rooms, especially the small ones, use some type of shills to hold games together. So, I'm not sure what New Zealand Donk is referring to with collusion with another dealer, although that might not of been meant for my response, because the first paragraph didn't seem to have to do anything with me. A shill is put into place as a service to the players, as well as the room, to try and maintain full games, so its not about beating the players (colluding?). If you sat down and tried to beat up your players, they would very quickly become your former players.

Giving the cashier my tips while dealing just seems like the right thing to do. As a manager, I think it sends the wrong message, to both the staff and players to be out "hustling tokes", so any money I got from the players I just gave it to the cashier. She doesn't make very much money and those few extra bucks help her out dramatically. (as a side note to the players, when your cashing out of a game, give the cashier a couple bucks, it means nothing to you and helps their situation dramatically). I didn't accept tips from the staff.

As to why we let it go as long as we did. It really wasn't that long of a promo. It basically was stopped after 3 1/2 weeks. We tried to give it as much legs as we could, in order to get the word out, and get the traffic. Unfortunately our parent company has a no advertising policy, so our only 2 options were; word of mouth and Bravo Live. The major complaint that Guests have is that rooms change there promos to often. It happened a lot at Palms and it was a reputation that we were trying to change. They let it go through the Big Game.

I think I addressed all your questions. Reply if you need another question answered. Please change the name of the thread. The PALMS poker room manager, me, did not in any way, shape, or form, steal anything from any player.

Thank you, Todd

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Originally Posted by vegasbeek

Most poker rooms, especially the small ones, use some type of shills to hold games together. So, I'm not sure what New Zealand Donk is referring to with collusion with another dealer, although that might not of been meant for my response, because the first paragraph didn't seem to have to do anything with me. A shill is put into place as a service to the players, as well as the room, to try and maintain full games, so its not about beating the players (colluding?). If you sat down and tried to beat up your players, they would very quickly become your former players.

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I'm not speaking for ZD, but I think I know what he meant. I think he was saying that, as with any shill player not you in particular, you could intentionally dump casino money to "friends". I've always been a bit weary of shills although I know that they do serve a purpose.