When Marty Seldin accompanied his dad on a gambling junket to Las Vegas in the late 1960s, he had no idea he would one day make a living as an independent casino rep, arranging such trips at a variety of venues for loyal clients. The Miami Beach native graduated from the University of Miami and did graduate work in forensic toxicology at Saint Louis University before returning to Miami with his wife.
“There were some problems with the program and I was going to transfer to another school when a business opportunity in the medical field was presented to me,” he says. “[Looking to relocate to launch the new endeavor] my wife and I went to a few different cities—San Diego, Atlanta, Dallas, Denver—and it turned out we really liked Denver. I had never seen snow and we arrived at the old Stapleton airport in February 1979. It was one of those beautiful, blue-sky days. The University of Colorado had a graduate program in forensic toxicology, so I said, I’ll get the business going and go back to school. Little did I know that business is a full-time job. So we did that for 14 years.”
During that time, while sitting by the pool on a visit to Las Vegas, Seldin struck up a career-altering conversation with an acquaintance. “We were talking about how you never hear anything about those junkets anymore, because he was familiar with them, too,” Seldin says. “We got on the phone with casino marketing and the guy said, come on up. He told us the junkets we remembered from back then didn’t exist anymore. They were run differently. You had the gaming commission and the IRS to answer to. This friend of mine and I decided to start putting together junkets on the side and just have fun with it.”
Seldin got a gaming license from the state of Nevada and the pair organized a couple of junkets. “I had a meeting with one of the properties I started working with and they said we can bring out people with a $1000 credit line—I thought this was big time,” he says. “I didn’t realize how silly that was.” After six months or so, Seldin took over the venture solo. “There was an NFL sports figure who became a client of mine and I got my first substantial check from his casino play,” Seldin says. “That’s when I realized I could make this a profession. My wife said she’d take over the medical business and I went into the casino rep business.”
Independent casino reps work with a variety of properties and book perks to gambling venues including lodging, meals, beverages and airfare, based on a client’s level of play. “When you come to Las Vegas you can book a hotel or you can come through the casino side,” Seldin explains. “If you like to gamble you want to go through the casino side because of all the goodies available to players. You can come in as a house customer where you get a card that tracks your play and has an 800 number you can call to book your trips, but that’s very impersonal. You can work with a casino host employed by a particular casino who can make all your arrangements for that property or you can work with a casino rep like me who handles multiple properties and locations. If you decide you want to book a gambling trip somewhere besides Vegas, like the Caribbean, I can work with you. It’s very personal and there’s no charge. I get paid from the casino on the rated play of my players.”
“There’s something about standing at a crap table that’s just so exhilarating, about walking away from the table with more money than you started with—a dollar or a hundred or a thousand. It’s really fun when that bill comes at the restaurant and you just sign your name and don’t have to pay. When you get to the airport there’s that guy from the limo holding a sign with your name. You get to the casino and there’s someone there who’s expecting you and you hug and your players know these people. You feel special, like a VIP, and can walk through that casino with your head high.”
Most of Seldin’s new players come through referrals from current clients with whom he’s established long-standing relationships. “There are no geographical restraints and it really comes down to word of mouth,” he says. “With what I do it’s not just the goodies you get, it’s the personal relationship. You can call me up and we can chat and you know when I say I’ve got it taken care of it’s done.”
New clients also come from students who’ve taken his gaming classes wherein he teaches how casinos work and how to play craps and other casino games to maximize winnings and minimize losses. He also derives new clients through his weekly radio show, The Safe Bet, that he’s hosted for five years. “You can walk into a casino and see people there who have no clue what’s going on. We started the show to impart some knowledge, so when people go into the casino they can make their own safe bet.” Seldin broadcasts a special two-hour edition of The Safe Bet remotely from inside the sportsbook of the Golden Nugget casino in Las Vegas on Saturdays before the Super Bowl. “To my knowledge, we are the only radio show of my kind that does anything like that,” he says.
Anointed the “Professor of Crapology” by former Channel 4 sportscaster Les Shapiro, Seldin even penned a forward to the book Greatest Craps Guru in the World, by former Broncos receiver Mark Jackson and world-class authority on the game of craps, David Medansky. And while he continues to relish the gaming junket experience, he laments many of the changes the industry has undergone since his first visit.
“Your pit bosses, your shift manager and maitre d’ wielded power back then,” he says. “No more. Now it’s all on your player card. Now if you stand on the street and look up at a property you still see a casino, but to me it’s a mall, and the casino is only one store in the mall. The casino operators said, 'why do we want the worry of the restaurant business; let’s lease the restaurant to the so-called celebrity chefs. Why do we want to be in the entertainment business when we can lease it out?' And nowadays, people are more used to interacting with screens [than people]. Casinos that used to have six or eight crap tables might only have two or three because it’s gone to machines. I understand because casinos make so much more money on machines, but from where I’m sitting, I don’t like it. Shirley MacLaine said once on The Tonight Show with Carson that she hasn’t gone back to Las Vegas since the mob left because it was so much better when they were running it. It was an adult place and it was about casinos. Now it’s an amusement park.”
Nonetheless, gaming retains its appeal and the junkets Seldin arranges for customers who’ve often become close friends remain sweet. “I love to bring out players and if I get enough players, I get to go along,” Seldin says. “I get to travel with nice people, stay in nice rooms, eat good food, go to great shows and gamble a little. It doesn’t cost me anything and the casino gives me money. I rep a couple of cruise lines and my wife and I both love cruises.
“There’s something about standing at a crap table that’s just so exhilarating, about walking away from the table with more money than you started with—a dollar or a hundred or a thousand,” he adds. “It’s really fun when that bill comes at the restaurant and you just sign your name and don’t have to pay. When you get to the airport there’s that guy from the limo holding a sign with your name. You get to the casino and there’s someone there who’s expecting you and you hug and your players know these people. You feel special, like a VIP, and can walk through that casino with your head high.”
For more information, go to casinoplayerjunkets.com or call 303-399-CRAPS (2727). For more information about The Safe Bet radio show airing Saturdays, 10:00a.m.-11:00a.m., go to thesafebetradioshow.com.
Author Susan Dugan’s wide range of work includes newspaper and magazine articles, personal essays and fiction. An active volunteer in local schools, she has taught creative writing and brought authors into classrooms. If you know a member of our community who is contributing in extraordinary ways and might make a good subject for this column, email Susan at sadugan@gmail.com.
