Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Kristen Lavin, a gaming dealer at Harrah's, has seen everything from sick birthday celebrations to high rollers.
Welcome to Maryland Heights Up All Night, where Maryland Heights Patch takes a look at people who work the graveyard shift around town. This week we caught up with Kristen Lavin, a dealer at Harrah's Casino. Lavin has worked as a dealer at Harrah's for about four years. She deals Blackjack, various kinds of poker, and craps from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. four nights a week. Her mother was an employee when Harrah's first opened, she said, and suggested Lavin attend a Blackjack school the casino was offering. Lavin said she and her classmates graduated and became dealers. Most of them still work at Harrah's, she said. Craps is Lavin's favorite game. "[It's] a lot of action, fast paced. Something you have to keep up with. It's challenging as a dealer…
38.751859
-90.479472
Harrah's St. Louis Casino
777 Casino Center Dr, Maryland Heights, MO
/articles/harrah-s-early-morning-shift-brings-wild-scenes-to-dealers
1888138
/locations/5712642
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Our resident geek girl can’t figure out if she’s an extra in "Terminator" or "War Games" as she goes head to head with a talking video poker machine.
Everything is better with strippers. Well, maybe not everything. STI Tests might turn out better without their help. Oil prospecting with strippers would result in deeply unfortunate sunburns. Meterology with strippers has already been done in New Zealand. Even the gamblers at Harrah’s agreed that while poker with strippers was entertaining, you played a better game without them. That explains why there’s an entire massive suite dedicated to serious poker and only a small handful of four-player machines manned by dead-eyed electronic video stripper dealers. As a geek, I couldn’t resist. The combination of animation and video served up the best graphics in the house. I had to find out if the enticing “Come play with me,” purrs were the …
38.751859
-90.479472
Harrah's St. Louis Casino
777 Casino Center Dr, Maryland Heights, MO
/articles/robo-dealers-take-the-geek-girl-and-her-mustached-companion-for-their-wagers
1888138
/locations/4060119
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
This week a stetson-wearing gambler teaches our geeky girl respect for poker.
The poker tables were bustling on my second visit to Harrah’s Casino. I waited until a grey haired man pushed away from one table in disgust, his hands empty of chips. I darted in to take his place. My pockets were full of twenty $1 chips and I had the shiny-doe eyed look of someone who didn’t have a clue of how badly she was about to be taken. The dealer ignored me and dealt to the rest of the table. A gaunt, middle-aged man in a cowboy hat put his arm around my shoulder. His breath was heavy with tobacco. He leaned in and asked, “Missy, have you got a clue in your head how to play this game?” “Kings are high,” I said. “Twos are low. You either want high numbers to match across different suits or you want the same high number in every …
38.751859
-90.479472
777 Casino Center Dr, Maryland Heights, MO
/articles/cowboy-up-at-the-maryland-heights-poker-tables
/locations/3079615
Myra Lopez
2:53 pm on Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Rob, I really like the Up All Night concept. Who are you going to feature next? more ›