By:Brian Zanzonico
But when you gamble 130 days a year, are a best-selling gaming author and host a weekly talk radio show, you are the hardest working man in gaming writing. Call Frank Scoblete the Godfather of Roll.
The 57-year-old Malverne resident has written 14 books on how to beat the casino in craps, blackjack and other card games, written gambling columns for dozens of publications, has his own web site www.scoblete.com, is co-owner of another, www.goldentouchcraps.com, and consulted on countless television shows and movies. His first book, Beat The Craps Out of Casinos, is the biggest selling craps books of all time, according to amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.
For 15 years, Scoblete has been what is known in craps circles as a control shooter. Scoblete has the ability to strategically place the dice where he wants on the craps table to maximize his chances of beating the house. He has also mastered card counting, a practice long feared by casino brass for leveling the playing field, so to speak. But Scoblete was not a prodigy in craps and blackjack as, say, the late Stu Ungar was in gin. Whereas Ungar, the three-time World Series of Poker Champion, was beating men twice his age as a teen, Scoblete-s talent for gaming did not surface until he was in his late-30s.
In 1986, the Brooklyn-born Scoblete, cofounder of the acting troupe The Other Vic Gaming Company , was researching the role of a degenerate Las Vegas gambler. Having never set foot in a casino, Scoblete knew little about that life. Actress Alene Paone was playing his character-s love interest and had about as much experience with gambling as Scoblete did. Scoblete and Paone decided to take a trip to Atlantic City, New Jersey. It was there he met The Captain, a controlled dice shooter who worked with a team at the craps table. Whenever one of the Crew, as The Captain-s team was called, would roll the dice, the team would bet heavy. If an unknown was rolling, the betting was minimal. The Captain taught Scoblete how to spot the advantage players as he called controlled shooters and how to keep away from those who would recklessly fling the dice. While a lifelong friendship with The Captain was being forged, a connection was being made between Scoblete and Paone.
Some people can tell you the year, the date or even the moment they fell in
love, said Paone, recording secretary of the Malverne Historical Preservation Society. I can say that I always enjoyed every minute of Frank-s company from the very beginning and was sorry when a conversation ended. Somewhere in there, I fell in love.
Scoblete spent the next three years researching, analyzing and playing casino games. In 1989 he sold his share of the theatre company and began his career as a gaming writer with articles and short stories for Win Magazine. From 1990 to 1992, Frank spent over 200 days in Las Vegas and Atlantic City gathering material and living the life.
My real career was writing. This was just fuel for the fire, he said, noting that he was the feature writer, then editor, then publisher of Island Magazine prior to establishing the theatre company.
Scoblete and Paone married and became a lethal card counting team for the next decade. They even developed a series of nonverbal signals - with Scoblete playing the hands and Paone counting. If Paone would discuss the president and first lady, Frank knew they had an advantage. If Paone asked the pit boss for the time, Frank knew not to bet.
Between books, columns, television appearances and frequent trips to the felt tables, Scoblete-s celebrity grew. With his photo on book jackets and next to his byline, Scoblete could no longer gamble in anonymity. Even when he was not recognized, the beatings he and Paone would give the casinos drew attention.
Ninety-nine percent of the time I gamble without incident. But there was this one time, he said.
At a casino in Las Vegas one night, Paone was expertly counting cards when the dealer suddenly threw cards in Scoblete-s face. Scoblete then felt someone come up behind him and stick the cold barrel of a gun in his back. The couple rose from the table and walked out of the casino. At the same hotel the following week, security stomped two card counters, Scoblete said.
I felt very uncomfortable in that casino, Paone said. There were bad vibes in the place to begin with, so even though a gun in the back is a singular occurrence, it almost was not surprising. We were skilled players and felt very unwelcome there. We bolted for the exit with our chips and prayed they wouldn-t shoot us.
As his career took off, Scoblete began getting calls to consult CNN, the Discovery Channel, ABC, The Travel Channel and the film The Cooler. He also began peddling his own scripts to Hollywood.
I-ve been flown to Hollywood for pitch sessions. They tell you the contract will be in the mail and you get on the plane happy, Scoblete said. Then the contract never comes.
He also joined forces with fellow gaming writers and players to form Golden Touch Blackjack and Golden Touch Craps, organizations that teach novices how to gain an edge at the tables. In addition to creating a Golden Touch web site, Scoblete co-hosts six Golden Touch seminars a year.
The seminars are two-day intense instruction in either dice control or Speed Count blackjack. They are about 15-16 hours each, he said. Jamborees are weekends where there are three one-hour classes running side by side for eight hours a day. So on a given day, a person can go to about eight classes.
Scoblete said after a weekend of tutoring, students can go into a casino and play Sunday night. Golden Touch hosts show computer simulations and mathematicians discuss odds. In the Jamborees, students are taught odds, edges and smart money management. Seminars and Jamborees are held in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Tunica, Mississippi and in the midwest. Though he enjoys teaching new players how to gain an advantage, the travel is starting to take its toll. He finds himself growing increasingly tired and longing for the comforts of home.
It-s not as glamorous as it seems, he said.
(In the beginning) Frank-s traveling was a real adjustment for me, Paone said. For 10 or so years we had traveled together extensively to beat the casinos at blackjack and craps. Then his consulting work and seminars increased that the trips were more for
business than playing. At first, when I wasn-t with him, I was here pining for him but then I had to realize that such an attitude wasn-t doing either of us any good. Now, pining is reserved for the end of extended trips.
As The Captain before him did, Scoblete uses a team to gamble. After seminars and Jamborees, Scoblete and some of the Golden Touch instructors hit the casinos with the hopes of making a big score. When they gather around a craps table, Scoblete will bet as much as $600 on one of his shooters and $15 on random rollers. Usually, the team will pool its earnings.
I make some money off the seminar then go into the casino and beat them (casino), he said.
Though he declined to say how much he has made from gambling over the past two decades, he said he is able to live comfortably now.
In craps and blackjack I-ve won, he said not divulging a precise dollar amount. I put my two sons through college, bought a house, paid it off, I-ve no debt and I-ve got money.
While he is now a successful gambler, he had to take his lumps. In one of his first gambling trips, he won for nine straight days. When he went on a 16-day trip a month later, he lost all the money he brought to gamble with and all the money won the previous month.
Scoblete said the key to playing successfully is not being seduced by the glitz and glamour of the casino. He said mixing alcohol with gambling can produce a poisonous cocktail.
You start out conservatively, then after two, three drinks start getting more brazen and betting stupidly, he said, noting he goes to bed his normal time (nine, 10 o-clock) and rise his usual six a.m. when on casino trips.
But when gambling starts producing results, Scoblete said there is no feeling like it.
It-s a high like you can-t believe, he said. When you take over an industry and defeat them, you realize you-re better than they are and that is a tremendous thrill.
When he is not writing columns or beating casinos, Scoblete talks about it, on Good Times Radio broadcast in Tunica, Miss. Saturdays 11 a.m.-noon. He talks on the phone with his two co-hosts from his living room to give the show a three-man-in-the-studio effect. Though he is growing tired of the traveling grind, Scoblete said retirement is not even a thought.
I write. I have adventures. I live the life people dream of. I-ve got a great wife that allows it all, he said.
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