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Ok, I’ve got my first year of card room ownership and management behind me, and other than my own permanent liver damage and my staff’s inability to add a column of numbers, it's been a blast. We've made remarkable improvements here and have taken market share despite economic headwinds like Cape Horn in winter. Honestly, on a given Friday or Saturday night, you'd look across our casino floor and see no evidence of local economic hardship (13+% unemployment and a housing market off 40+%), but I assure we kick and scratch for every table hour. We spend money on promotions like I blew through my first real bonus and throw alcohol, hotties and UFC fights around like a Congressman up for re-election. And to date, knock on laminate, it works.

Right now, our customer base has jackpot fever since our progressive bad beat jackpot hasn't hit since last year. Everyday, when a Club One number pops up on my cell-phone, I brace myself for the bad news, but in reality, I welcome it. The tables are hopping and I trust the math more than the typical guy all-in on the bubble with a 3 to 1 edge. Plus, I read the $787 billion stimulus package and there was nothing for the regular stuck two racks in 2/4. He sure as shit wasn't getting something from the Bushies, and if he's not getting something from the Yo'Bama Administration, where's he going find relief? Well, I'll be his huckleberry, because, you know what? He doesn't have a mortgage, his 10-year-old car is pretty much paid for and he's got no where to take the dough but back to our tables. Ok, so he blows a couple of dimes of our largesse on new rims and Louis XIII…so be it.

Anyway, to those of you who visited throughout the year—lakong, Adanthar, Shaundeeb, Bond18, TT, etc.—thank you. And to those of you who left a mark on the most recent LAPC, congrats. Bring some of that dough north where the games are soft, the alcohol hard and the women a little of both. We won’t be sitting on our hands, of course. This economic maelstrom is like no other I’ve seen and, from my own painful experience, fraught with carnage for many and many more before it’s over. Hell, Kirk Kerkorian, owner of MGM, worth some $18 billion in early 2008 is now… busto? WTF?

Lash it down, boys, we’re going round the Horn!

Edmond