Quote:
Originally Posted by
PositiveVariance
Would someone mind telling me the origins of this forum?
Did Alan start this forum?
Later sell to Druff?
Cliff Notes:
Quick summary from my perspective. I joined when Alan ran the forum as Best Buys. The Las Vegas section was about the experiences that Alan and others had in terms of types of play and comps and what you had to do to get what ratings where. People would talk about restaurant experiences and slot club experiences, that kind of thing. I found it useful, as sports betting comps had dried up from really useful discretionary comps and a buck for every $100 to $200 wagered down to no discretionary comps and a buck for every $400 to $600 wagered. So I got to check out other comp options and comp rates and all that, and what Alan had to do to get what. The forum was useful and relatively respectful.
Rob, who had a weekly Gaming Today column where he was quite often featured on the front page, was reasonably respected as knowing Las Vegas pretty well, even if he didn't quite have an optimal handle on how to play video poker. In fact, an issue of GT quite often featured Rob opining on his various systems while another columnist would discuss optimal video poker advantage play in the same issue.
Alan did some videos that can be found on YouTube where he interviewed Singer explaining his systems. A poster named Arci went head to head here versus Singer's systems claims. At one point, Rob was supposed to send his taxes to Alan to prove his claims of winning, and Arci was also. Arci, who played modest amounts part time, sent his taxes, which verified his winning claims. Rob reneged.
Personally, I went 2500 posts without mentioning that I was a sports handicapper until one day Rob decided to wax eloquent about how to bet sports and was so wrong, I felt I should pull rank and speak up.
Eventually, Alan sold the forum to Todd (Dan). Rob, Alan, and I pre-date all of the others here. We're the three guys who used our real names (everyone knows Rob Singer is Rob Argentino, as he stated it in his GT column more than once), and we're three of the oldest posters.