Linda Ellis and Joe Dorsey
295 pp., 2020, $19.95, Huntington Press
While all casinos grapple with the problem of gamblers not paying their debts, it is really the realm of the Las Vegas Strip where those unpaid markers can reach the multi-million-dollar level. Collecting those debts is therefore serious business, and no one did this work better than Joe Dorsey.
This collaborative biography, with poet Linda Ellis, details some of the methods and stories of his long career working for multiple casinos and some legendary owners.
It’s likely that, unless you are one of those who worked with him, you may never have heard of Dorsey. But we all owe him a debt of gratitude for being one of the first to realize that we could use the criminal codes designed to catch “bad check” writers to collect on casino markers.
While this is a common practice today in multiple jurisdictions, in the 1990s law enforcement seldom recognized the legitimacy of Nevada’s casino collections. Dorsey pioneered this technique, and it became a win-win game changer. District Attorneys were eager to help when the industry was willing to share a portion of the recoveries (usually 10%). Casinos were equally pleased to have the power of arrests, warrants and “boots on the ground” to aid in these efforts.
However, Dorsey was a master of using the subtle threat of prosecution to collect for his employers before going to court.
The “Dash” in the title of this work refers to a poem that Ellis wrote about the hyphen that appears between a person’s birth and death date. She noted that this simple punctuation mark represents an entire life.
I found this book, particularly the last half, to be a fascinating read. However, Ellis begins in traditional biography fashion by detailing in date order Dorsey’s childhood, military service and San Diego police backgrounds. For a reader interested in just gaming topics, it is easy to lose interest in those first few chapters. While his background is very relevant to his later success, it might have been better to start with some of his casino stories and exploits and then backtrack into his early career.
Dorsey’s gaming credentials start with the Nevada Gaming Control Board where he was an enforcement and background investigator. Humorously, he calls the background investigation process, “the most exhaustive, intensive, and painstaking experience a prospective Nevada gaming licensee will ever go through-next to a colonoscopy.”
After five years with NGCB, Dorsey’s first stint in Casino Operations and Casino Security was at the “Big” Hilton (the original “Las Vegas International” and today’s “Westgate”).
However, it was working together with legendary executive Dennis Gomes where his career really took off. (You might want to read more about Gomes’ early years in the controversial Hit Me!: Fighting the Las Vegas Mob by the Numbers, written by his daughter Danielle in 2013. Gomes passed a year before that book was released.)
Dorsey, as Head of Security, moved with Gomes from the Aladdin, to the Dunes, to Steve Wynn’s Golden Nugget and Mirage (Gomes went on to Trump’s Taj Mahal, while Dorsey stayed with Wynn and then worked as a consultant for IGT), and then back with Gomes at the Tropicana in Las Vegas.
It was with Wynn and Gomes at the Trop that Dorsey also became a legend in collecting debts from gamblers located in Asian countries. It was an area where others feared to tread. Some of his stories range from humorous to frightening. He skirted the worlds of the murderous Yakuza, Triads and Premans gangs. But in most cases, he succeeded where others had already written off the tasks as impossible.
Most operators will also find his stories of “old school” cheating and incompetence at the Las Vegas Tropicana to be fascinating. You’ll also love the stories of uncancelled promotional coupons, count room skimming and his time spent with boxer Ron Lyle. It’s worth sticking through the first few chapters for these gems (or just jump to Chapter Six and then backtrack later).
Joe’s Dash is published by Huntington Press (a great source to buy gaming titles). It can also be found at all the major online booksellers in paperback.
