Q. Did they get one wild-card entry for each time they ponied up a
thousand in the monthly events?
A. Yes. Some had eight or nine entries and two people actually
qualified twice, so their second entry went to extra wild cards.

Q. Obviously, those folks weren't tourney pros.
A. No, because they could only play in the grand finale once. And
we had one qualifier who didn't show up in time for the first round, so we
got to draw an extra wild card for his place, too.

Q. Did he eventually show up?
A. Yes. He was a couple of hours late.

Q. I'll bet that made for an interesting conversation. Let's go
back to the monthly events. What do they get for the $1,000 entry fee?
A. A room for three nights and a chance to win a million dollars.

Q. Not a bad deal. How many players participated?
A. The first year we had 1,613.

Q. And you modeled it on 2,400. How much did you lose the first year?
A. Actually, we made a little money.

Q. Really? And your expenses were...?
A. We committed a million-eight cash to give away, plus we sold out
every weekend, so the room nights, with an ADR (Average Daily Rate) of at
least a hundred a night, cost us another half a million. It could've been
as much as $720,000, but we had quite a few locals ... plus there were
set-up costs and labor.

Q. Were they a lot?
A. We did the monthly on the floor, and it wasn't too bad, but we
had extraordinary labor costs. We had to pull ten people each day to deal
the games, plus supervisors, and the extra labor cost us time and a half.
The set-up for the million-dollar final was expensive, plus we had a
banquet for all the participants.

Q. Did the dealers revolt?
A. The loved it.