Crispywalker – Managing Director

I seriously have neglected my blog. Out of sight but never out of mind. So big recap time.

In the beginning of March I left my casino job in London and moved in with my Mum and partner Walt in my old hometown. The reason for that was because I used my savings to start up my own consultancy business. It’s early days and it revolves around my 10+ years experience in my old industry before I was made redundant from it a few years ago. But I always had ideas in the back of my head I never focused on and to be honest I was getting sick of London gamblers’ attitudes; I figured that 2020 would be the year to make my “back of mind” dream of working for myself a reality.  The second reason I left was because Brooke was getting on my nerves always wanting to talk constantly if we ever saw each other in the house.  The final reason was because I had gained an additional 3 stone whilst I was living down in London and I weighed in at 494lb (over 35 stone).  Not only could I see it in my face and stomach and thighs but I could feel it on my heart whenever I walked up the stairs or even a moderate incline on the pavement when I walked to the tube station going to and from work.  That scared the shit out of me, moving around it felt like I would drop dead at any minute.  I figured if I could get away from the stupid random shift routine, sharing a kitchen with other people, not having the money to waste on takeaways nearly every night I and have the business to focus on I could move back in with mum and have a routine that will help me shift the weight.

I moved back into my childhood bedroom, redecorated the walls with fresh paint and bought some much needed “robust” office furniture.  I wrote out my business plan as a guide about the steps I needed to take.  Then I registered my business with company house and bought all the usual office equipment and stationery.  I was working on my ideas and writing out reports and presentations and compiling contact lists of managing directors for businesses in the industry my ideas are tailored for.  I was a few days away from reaching out to these guys when on the 23rd March 2020 the lockdown started. It’s selfish to be inwardly focused on the inconvenience this has caused me where hundreds and thousands of people have died from Covid-19, but out of all the times I could of started a business it had to have been this year.

For now I’ll just have to play the waiting game until the industry I’m waiting for to reopen finally does so. It gives me time to occupy myself with weight loss because being down in London didn’t do me any favours on the waist line.  I walk at least 5 days a week walking minimum 40 miles a week.  Since I moved back home I have lost just shy of 5 stone and the feeling of wearing t-shirts that have enough room to tuck into your waist feels amazing.

My New Chatty Girl Housemate

Recently a new girl has moved into my houseshare. Up until that moment I was content with being an anti social hermit on my days off from work; happily lying in my own bed in my organised chaos pigsty of a room ordering fast food at any time of day or night and barely having any interactions with other housemates (whom like me like to keep to themselves, but obviously exchange the usual pleasantries when we are in the communal areas of the house).

So let’s call her Brooke (as in babbling brook lol). Brooke is a lovely girl and hasn’t caused any problems or aggravation in the house. My problem is she talks too much and I have ended up spending more time out of my room talking to her. One instance I was working for like 8 shifts in a row during the daytime. Every night I would come home with a takeaway and my usual routine would be go in the house and straight to my room. But for 6 of those nights she would be in the kitchen having her dinner and each night she would always strike a conversation with me whilst my food is getting cold. She doesn’t stop talking. I’m tired and hungry when I come home and the last thing I want is to talk to anyone, regardless of how long the conversation is.

Also when I leave my room to use the bathroom sometimes she will just appear from nowhere and strike up another conversation. Woman I wanna take a shit leave me the fuck alone lol.

Most of the conversations she repeats what she has told me on previous occasions. Fine you don’t like someone at work but you don’t have to tell me the exact same story 3 times. Then there’s the questions, too many questions and sometimes she even repeats them twice. Our letting agent came over the house last week informing us of some maintence work that will be carried out, the majority of the house mates including Brooke were in the kitchen where we all heard him and we all had our questions to make sure we were up to speed. Later that evening she decided to ask me every single question that we all asked him earlier on like she had forgotten what had happened (seriously dude).

It kind of feels like living with your annoying bossy girlfriend without the sex or date nights. Yeah she’s abit bossy too. Always knocking on my door asking me to come out to the kitchen to talk. Usually my room is a mess but I was forced to clean it up properly for an upcoming inspection. Now this is weird because the last couple of days I have seen her I have invited her to my room to hang out (when I’ve prepared myself mentally for her lol), but she has always refused. I certainly have no feelings for her or trying to get lucky. She would be abit cute if she wasn’t so chatty.

So Summer Is A No Go

Why can’t I meet a woman who if she is interested in me wants to go out on a couple of dates and build things into a relationship?

Even more annoying why can’t I meet a woman who if she isn’t interested or unavailable just say “sorry I’m not interested” like virtually straightaway rather than some time down the line?

So since my last post with Summer things have been in a state of will they/won’t they limbo. We were still chatting alot online as I haven’t really seen her at work. We were getting to know each other better and exchanged personal stuff I don’t even think I have discussed with some of my closest friends (ie porn preferences 😉). Besides Gemma whom only because we used to be in a relationship I have never talked about porn with any of my other female friends, so I’m thinking maybe Summer is starting to see me as more than friends material. Then a few days ago with my overthinking brain in overdrive I asked her if she fancied anyone at work because maybe she actually liked someone else at work and just used the “I don’t like to date colleagues” thing to fob me off. She says there is a guy she likes but doesn’t work with us. OK so it must be someone she knows in her outside work social circle. Made it clear that it’s definitely one guy and there was no torn decision between me and him so I figured I’m slightly out of the running.

I was quiet online with her for a couple of days, then after a conversation with a mate of mine about the subject he said to me that I should ask her if this guy she fancies feels the same way. That way if she says no and it turns out he doesn’t feel the same way I could possibly be in with a shot, but if she says yes then I’m screwed. So I asked her, she not only said yes but she went on to say that they have already been on 3 dates……….. But it still early days. FUCK OFF!!!! hmmmm so when I asked her if she would ever date me, I do believe mentioning that fact would of been helpful before I wrote that long honest truth to her about how I felt in the last post. So I just feel like a fool and wasted my time. I don’t know maybe it’s because she’s a decade younger so it’s a different mindset, but come on.

Can You Beat Roulette? NO….. Next Question

CLICK HERE FOR FULL ARTICLE

A mate of mine tagged me in this article that was on Facebook recently asking me if this was true or not. It’s basically about a guy who says he’s been banned from 2 casinos in Birmingham UK since 2009 because he consistently wins at roulette using his “no lose roulette system” which has earned him £50,000. Now this is no reflection on the man in question but his system or any system designed to beat roulette is bullshit, roulette is unbeatable. If it was beatable people would be rich and casinos would either be losing millions or just not offer it as one of their games of chance and blackjack would be the popular house game like it is in America.

What is his winning system? When he was banned from the first casino in 2009 he had written a book (CLICK HERE) detailing his system. Surely a book like this would be a number 1 best seller if it actually worked right? It’s not. But if it’s not a number 1 best seller then surely it will be full of positive 5 star amazon reviews from customers praising the system and encouraging people to purchase the book? Well there are only 5 reviews (one 5 star review which suspiciously looks fake in my opinion and the other 4 ranging from 1-2 stars). The lower rated ones just said it didn’t really provide any groundbreaking information and that it was a scam. Well that proves there are at least 5 morons in the world. Sadly the book is now unavailable for purchase but I wondered how much the book cost. Going on Google I searched for anyone who by chance shared his system (CLICK HERE) and even non biased roulette system reviewers say his system doesn’t work.

The general theme behind his system is that you need alot of stake money and alot of luck, if it goes the ideal way with the correct sequence of numbers spun previously you could make abit of profit but if it doesn’t then you’re broke. It’s all good saying he’s won £50,000 over those years, but how much has he lost? No one who gambles regularly wins more than they lose in the grand scheme of things. He just strikes me as a guy who has the occasional big win, a few small or medium wins but most of the time lots of tiny losses that add up. As for those casinos banning him, there could be other reasons. It doesn’t make sense for a casino to ban someone if they are holding their money because they would want that person to come back and possibly lose it back to them. If nobody won at casinos nobody would come back. Only reasons casinos ban people is because of any bad behaviour, caught cheating, lack of play, laundering money or any criminal activity.

Coffee With Summer

Summer is a Dealer at the new casino I work at now. I first met her on a night shift over a month ago and I barely saw her until this week where we had the same 3 shifts together. She caught my eye right away, very attractive, great skin complexion in the face and she would wear these sexy stockings that would go up to about 3/4 of the way up her thighs. These are the things I found out about her on the few breaks we actually shared together earlier in the week.

Summer

• 23 years old
• Parents are from Saudi Arabia
• Has a Biology degree
• Likes travelling
• Worked at the casino for a year
• Foodie (perfect)
• Hates dry cheese unless melted like on pizza (me too lol)

On our final shift together a couple of nights ago, we happened to have a break together and we were on our own in the staffroom. My instinct was to ask her out on a dinner date. But then I remembered reading a post on WordPress about coffee dating and it’s benefits of it being a casual and inexpensive setting to get to know someone you’re interested in better (I wasn’t bothered about the cost, it was the casual aspect I was interested in). I’m not much of a Starbucks type person but she didn’t know that and the fact that I’m new to the city I could play it off that I didn’t know where the nearest coffee shop was (even though I knew with 5 minute walk of the casino there is at least one Starbucks, Costa and Caffè Nero). So I asked her if she wanted to grab a coffee after our shift finished at 6am. She initially said no because she had another shift to do the next night and didn’t want the caffeine to keep her awake during the day. I said fair enough, we kept chatting anyways about other stuff. 2 minutes before our break finished a moment of genius struck and I said to her that she could get a decaf version of whatever her usual drink is. She agreed and after work we went to Starbucks.

In Starbucks after I ordered my hot chocolate and she ordered her pretentious sounding mocha latte white bullshit (yeah I told her to say what she wanted because there was no way I would remember what to say). When we sat down, in our line of sight was 2 guys sitting on different tables typing away on their laptops which straightaway reminded me of that scene above from an episode of Family Guy. I think our unofficial coffee date lasted under an hour, but I thoroughly enjoyed her company. We talked at first about the casino and I was picking her brain about what she though about working there. Then the conversation just went from here there and everywhere, The World Cup 2018, geography and restaurants (which peaked my interest because now I don’t have Jasmine to try new places with I could do with a new restaurant buddy). We left, swapped Facebook details, hugged a little and went our separate ways. For an unofficial coffee date, it went better and was more enjoyable than most dates I have had in my life.

Now I needed to know how far this would go, even though I would of preferred to ask her out on a date in person I wouldn’t be working a shift with her for at least a week. The impatience got the better of me so without using the word “date” I asked her if we have a day off together soon would you like to go out for dinner? Her reply…

Sure, we will see if we have a day off together, sorry just to say that it will be as friends for now as i do enjoy your company

OK, which 2 words in that sentence do you think has caused me the most grief / confusion? If you guessed “FOR NOW” give yourself a gold star.

Was that a typo and she actually means she wants us to be just friends?

Does it mean she hasn’t made up her mind about me as a viable dating choice?

Is this a way for her to give me the brush off because she only wants to see me only as a work friend and not a friend to socialise with outside of work?

For further clarification besides actually asking her directly like a normal confident person I need to play this out longer. The ball is in her court in regards to going out for a meal on a free day, so if she truly enjoys my company as much as I enjoy hers she should bring it up again. I can’t bring it up again because I would come across as impatient and if there is the slightest chance I could have a shot with her then that chance would disappear as she could rethink her opinion of me.

To be continued…. Or this post to be updated depending on what the answer is.

Why I Moved To London

THE MONEY/ OPPORTUNITIES

That’s the main reason. I’m already earning more money than I ever had and living in a houseshare still works out cheaper than paying all the rent and bills than I paid living in my old flat. I am more determined to save but at the same time throw in a holiday here and there as I want to travel more. The long term goal is to save enough money (5 figure sum) for roughly 3 years to be able to afford a property back home and rent it out to pay off the mortgage on it.

WOMEN

There are nearly 9 million people living in London. So I believe my chances of finding a girlfriend in a city with a populace that size will be greater than back home. I certainly see there are alot more women to choose from on POF when you type in a London postcode. Not that I have had any luck getting a date since I have been down here so far.

WHAT LONDON HAS TO OFFER

Restaurants, night life, pubs, plenty of tourist attractions (Madame Tussauds and the London Eye are currently on my to do list)

GEMMA

If there was ever a post I really couldn’t afford anyone to guess who I was in real life, it would be this one. If you don’t follow my blog (btw you should) Gemma is my best friend (or now my long distance bestie). Although we used to go out with each other on and off 5 years ago and we do generally get on better as friends, sometimes the line is blurry. We could both be feeling lonely and just cuddle and kiss here and there. I mean I used to like it, I don’t hate it but I feel that people still thought of us as a couple. We do argue still and if in public we have had friends say we act like an old married couple.

I do care about her but in the past few months we keep rehashing old arguments especially about our relationship history. It’s a case of her having a memory specifically designed to remember stuff I barely remember or don’t even recall at all. The only thing really she does that pisses me off into an argument is if she mentions her friendship with the guy she cheated on me with in the first place, I’m sick of her still thinking it’s OK to talk about him. Infact the next time she says his name, I will immediately shut her down whether that turns into an argument or not I don’t care. She says to me she feels like she can’t say what she wants without me losing my shit. I lose my shit and I naturally get defensive if someone says to me about me that isn’t 100% true, I just have this need to always explain myself. So I have learnt (just about) to let her finish whatever she says; take a deep breath and I will say my piece.

In the past 2 months since I moved down to London, we have messaged each other a few times on Facebook. But there have been 2 instances where she has said things that I fully well know would trigger me into an argument. I don’t know if it’s because I’m nearly 200 miles away from her or because it’s written in text rather than a verbal exchange but I have decided to ignore both of them and move the conversation along. I doubt she’s doing them on purpose, but then again a small part of me wouldn’t put it past her. But she is still my bestfriend and I know this rant makes it out like I hate her guts but I don’t, I’m just sick of this bullshit repeating over and over and I dont have anyone really I can vent this all out to.

My New Life In London

Alot has happened since my last post. But let’s go back to the last couple of weeks in March and I’ll give a summary account of how I was working as a Dealer in a small provincial casino with only 8 months experience in the industry earning OK money and crap tips to being offered a Dealer job at a London casino with a higher salary and better tips….. Not to mention relocating there moving almost 200 miles away from my hometown, my family and friends.

Updated my CV on Indeed. Searched casino dealer jobs in London because of the higher wages, despite the obvious higher costs of living. 3 jobs came up and I applied for all 3 seeing as I had nothing to lose. 3 hours later I get an email from one of them offering me an interview and a table test 2 days later (thankfully by chance that landed on a day off).

Got down to London and eventually found the casino despite nearly getting lost on the tube. Had the interview with one of the duty managers, got asked standard competency questions. Then had the table test, dealt a few hands of blackjack with pretend bets that are higher than what I am used to but I got on with it fairly well. Then I started dealing roulette with pretend bets again higher than what I am used to but I did make a few mistakes. They said they would get back to me within a few days. The next day I get the call offering me the job and the salary of £21,000 per year plus tips.

Awesome I’m chuffed but now with the start date they had given me I had 2 weeks to quit my old job, move out of my flat and find somewhere new to live in London. That was stressful. I handed in a weeks notice at my old job and my former GM wished me the best of luck. One of my other duty managers gave me contact details of a guy called Bill who used to work at my former casino but moved down to London a few years ago. Added him on Facebook, had a good chat about what it’s like down there and he mentioned to me he has a friend who is working at the same casino I was due to start in and that tips per month averaged between £300-400+ a month. Excellent so now that means I can expect to be earning roughly £24,600 – £25,800 per year now (Minimum £6,500 more than what I was currently earning) and if I could find a place cheap enough down there it would be worth the move as it would be the highest paying job I have ever had to date.

Accommodation… London is expensive!!!!!!! There’s no way I could even afford to live in central London, and the cheapest one studio apartment I could rent out within a reasonable travelling distance by tube or bus would be £1000. Now with bills and travelling costs factored into it I would have less money to myself for the remainder of the month than I did in my own hometown and former job where my rent on a proper 1 bedroom flat is half that. I had to swallow my pride and find myself a houseshare. Good news is there’s no shortage of rooms available in London and for extra security and piece of mind I made sure I went with a letting agent. With all my preferences of budget, location regarding work and amenities and room / house furnishings taken into account I eventually found a room in a house in East London for £580 a month (all bills included). The room itself isn’t quite special (compared to other houseshares I have lived in the past, it’s not the biggest or the smallest room) but it’s reasonable for the price. I nearly lost out on it because these days letting agents require so much paper work and proof of identity and income because of immigration laws and apparently if you don’t pass the checks and they take you on as a tenant in any of their properties then they could be fined £20,000.

My old flat. Unfortunately I had to lose a months rent because in my tenancy agreement which I didn’t read I need to give 30 days notice when moving out. But I left on good terms with the letting agent I had dealt with for the past 5 years and he was happy with the condition I left the flat in on moving out day so I was refunded my full deposit.

My last night in my old hometown I organised a little leaving drinks do with friends and a couple of people who I had become friends with from my old casino. It was a good night. Gemma and Jasmine couldn’t make it so the 3 of us went out for a meal earlier that week. I will miss them both, not having my best friend and my restaurant buddy a bus ride away will be a little bit difficult. But Jasmine is already promising me to visit and we can try out London places together though since I have been down here I have only eaten out once.

Moving in day was “Fun”. My mum and her partner Walt helped me move down with both of their cars full of my stuff. Moving out of my old place was fun too, I had a couple of my former neighbours moaning at me for the noise I was making moving the heavy wooden furniture lol. I got my keys and signed on the dotted line with my new letting agent. My room didn’t come with alot of floor space to begin with and now I have even less lol. It’s been nearly 2 months now since I moved down to London. For the most part it has been an exciting change, there have been times where I have been pissed off and under pressure but the positives outweigh the negatives. For me this move has only been about making good money and doing something useful with it for once in my life.

Sweetest POF Rejection Ever.

Just a quick short post because I haven’t been active in a couple of months. So against my better judgement I ended up back on POF and it’s the usual “you message 50+ women, lucky enough to get 1 reply”. So it’s the usual bullshit but there was this one girl who wrote on her profile under the conversation starter to ask her an impossible” would you rather” style question. So I wrote her a good one which took me about 5 minutes to come up with. I completely forgot about it until a couple of weeks later she replied. Anyways I have a screenshot of that small conversation. But bless her for replying and for making me think I didn’t waste my time coming up with that question.

Casino Stories PART 1

I have lots of stories and observations about the casino life since I started dealing on the tables.  The problem is there are too many and I rarely seem to get the chance to sit down and write posts on my blog these days though I am working on it.  I know I have enough material to write a few of these stories down so there will be more to come.

The Tightest Man on Earth

There is this one man (Mr Tight Arse) who really is cheap.  The kind who will buy in for £5 on a roulette table, play a 50 pence chip every 20 minutes for like 10 hours during that time ordering multiple free cups of tea and neither tipping the valets serving him or the dealers if he wins anything decent.  Most customers don’t tip anyways when they make a decent profit but this guy just gripes me and don’t get me started when it’s just him on my roulette table on my own 🙄.  Well a week before Christmas, I was on a “no game” blackjack table and in my line of sight was Mr Tight Arse on a roulette table.  For someone with his betting style he was on a roll, betting more chips than usual and at one point had £100+ of chips in front of him.  He eventually took the chips and cashed them out leaving a 50p chip behind, I had noticed but the Dealer at the roulette did not due to him dealing to other customers.  After Mr Tight Arse cashed out his chips he left the casino.  The Dealer from the first table spotted the chip and told his Inspector that it belonged to Mr Tight Arse but because he had already left the Inspector told him to keep it as a tip.  I have always been told only keep tips if a customer directly gives it to you, otherwise just leave the chip on the table or if instructed by a higher ranking member of staff to keep it.  About 3 hours later I have just returned to the gaming floor when I see Mr Tight Arse arguing with the manager about why we stole his 50p whilst the manager was reviewing camera footage of the table.  Jesus Christ, the man wins a few quid, leaves and then comes back knowing full well he left 50p behind.  He’s either a tight fisted moron or a pathetic shit stirrer.  Sadly the Dealer and Inspector in question got a bollocking off the manager.

Mr “Never Busts”

So the past 2 occasions I have dealt to this guy on blackjack.  He doesn’t win very much or anything at all, but he never loses either.  He’s a pleasant enough customer, he will buy in for £40 or so on a £3 min blackjack table and he will go up and down holding no more than £70 (£30 profit).  But whenever he is down to his last few pounds, he will always win that hand.  He pulls 21 and I only got 20, he somehow pulls a 7 card totaling 19 against my Ace and I pull an anti climactic 6 totalling 17.  Now what makes this worse is that on the second occasion last week he was the only customer playing on my table.  Nothing is worse than dealing a game to a single player where they only play the table minimum every hand, especially when you are doing a long stint (in this case 1 hour 40 minutes) on the table at 3am and you’re tired as hell wishing this guy would leave the table (regardless winning or losing) so you can chill out on a “no game” table.

My “Polish Elsa”

(Let’s call her) Elsa who works at the casino is absolutely one of the most beautiful women I have ever met.  She’s kind, funny, affectionate (one of my favourite people to hug she’s so delicate and smells ever so lovely) and gives as good as she gets lol.  It’s a shame she is married and has children 😞.  If I ever had a woman like Elsa in my life I would consider myself a very lucky man.  I’ll make that my 2019 resolution lol.

“Happy” New Year

So I’m at work on New Years Eve, all gaming activity is suspended from 11:40pm till 00:20am so the staff and customers can have a glass of champagne (aka Prosecco lol) to toast the New Year.  After that I’m told by one of my managers to open up another blackjack table and get the table float (metal box full of cash chips of denominations from 50p to £100) from underneath the table’s base.  I bend over to unlock the base door and my trousers split right down the middle.  What made it more embarrassing was I was wearing the odd bright navy pair of boxers I own compared to the dozens of black ones I own and bright navy stands out when you’re wearing black trousers with a big ass hole.  And to make it even more embarrassing my uniform was specially ordered because of my size so there was no spare trousers I could change into during the shift and they refused to let me wear my jeans because the pockets aren’t stitched and that it would be a security issue should I decide to smuggle some chips home.  Finally to top off the embarrassment scale I had to improvise and had 2 safety pins placed to try and cover the hole, not to mention customers and staff taking the piss out of me for the rest of my shift.  Safe to say that was the worst New Years I have ever had.

On New Years Day I hop on my scales for the first time in months and I was shocked when it said 452lbs.  That is the heaviest I have ever weighed in my entire life, above is a chart of the various weights I have recorded of myself since I first started my blog back in 2015.  The main spike was when I started work at the prison and then now at the casino.  I knew I was putting weight on, I could feel the pounds being put on but I certainly didn’t think I had gained this much…….this fast.  Now I feel more depressed than ever.  Work said they would reimburse me for new trousers and shirts and now I have gone up from 48″ to 54″ trousers and my shirts have gone from 20″ to 22″ collar.  Don’t get me wrong they feel more comfortable but I have completely gone back in reverse and feel worse than I did back in 2015, I mean compared to then at least I weighed abit less and I was on abit more money.  I keep reflecting on the past and wanting to go back to the past but it’s all about the future and it’s obvious to have the future you want you gotta put the hard work in the present.  I know I can lose weight, the graph proves I can.