Cheat the Friendly Skies!

Remember the old United Airlines jingle..."Fly the friendly skies...of United?" Well, how 'bout a new Richard Marcus jingle..."Cheat the friendly skies..."

Have you heard what the billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson has in the works? His casino empire, the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, will soon have live casino gaming aboard its fleet of airliners flying high rollers from his flagship Las Vegas casino, the Venetian, to Macau, where the Venetian and Sands Macau lead the mega-development of Asia's casino boom. When I got word of this, my first thought was not, "How would I escape off a jet at 35,000 feet if I took heat doing a cheating move." That was my second thought! My first thought was, "Who the hell could arrest me if I did get caught and whose jurisdiction would it be?"

Well, my first thought is surely going to be a major international ball of confusion for whichever world courts and legal organizations have to untangle the web of possibilities created by a flying casino. Perhaps they might trick everyone and assign jurisdiction by altitude instead of what country or part of the ocean the casino planes are flying over. Say like, at 25,000 feet the jurisdiction is US, and at 30,000 feet China. Then 35,000 feet or cruising altitude could be...who knows...why not Taiwan? That would surely piss of the mainland Chinese! But in any event, maybe if I come out of retirement and book my cheating team on one of Adelson's flights, we better bring along our parachutes! I could imagine the scene quite well: We do a cheating move, get caught, then run back to our seats, grab our chutes out from under the seat cushions, then burst toward the emergency exit, yank the handle, and whisshhhhhh into the open air! Sorry if the rest of the plane freezes to death, but I gotta get my team outta there!

On a serious note, this news sounds exciting to me. Almost like I felt when the casino riverboats came into existence. Those of you who read my book "American Roulette" might remember the hilarious scene where my partner Pat Mallery, who had just taken some serious heat on a blackjack pastpost, actually dashed for the deck railing, and hurtled himself over it and into the drink! If airborne casinos ever do take hold and become widespread, you can bet whatever frequent flyer miles you have saved up with your favorite airlines that I am going to come out of retirement and become a very frequent flyer!

If you know what I mean!