Slowly but surely, the gaming world is becoming ever so slightly fairer, with female gamers like poker ace and BBC quiz show presenter Victoria Coren beginning to break through to the higher echelons of the industry. Give it another generation and we’ll start to see an increasingly even spread of male and female gaming stars, but for now at least, the classic image of a casino icon is that of a man; a Frank Sinatra, a James Bond, a George Clooney, an impeccably suave alpha male with class, flair, money and serious cojones.

What man in their right mind wouldn’t want to be that guy? Well, with a bit of luck, a fairly considerable amount of expenditure and a good deal of careful thought, many of us Average Joes can actually get pretty close to the mark and become something akin to those pop culture heroes of casino folklore and pick up some of the action.

Without further ado, here’s a handy guide to the three key components you need to have in place to turn heads as a casino-slaying leader of the pack:

The Get-up: You’ve really gotta nail this one. While some serious gamers can rock the casual look complete with Hawaiian shirts, flip-flops and secret fortunes, you’re not just here to have a good time, you’re here to look like a king while you’re at it. The guy in the Hawaiian shirt never gets the best hotel action post-casino play! If money’s no object then we suggest a high-end tailored suit – you can be sure there’ll be plenty of people around you who can spot an ill-fitting jacket and you can bet your bottom dollar they’re pretty merciless human beings. If you’re on a budget, go for vintage cool – Harris Tweeds are surprisingly easy to pick up cheap and can be altered to fit for a small charge.

The Game: If you think you can just walk straight into a casino and impress your peers without learning the ropes first, you’ve got another thing coming. There’s nothing further from the suave casino ideal than an inexperienced player making a hell of a lot of noise without really respecting the culture and history of the industry. Make sure you know your stuff before even setting foot in a casino. To get your game up to scratch, practice anonymously online at sites like Jackpot Capital Casino, immerse yourself in the mythology and history of the industry and learn your hard hands from your pokies.

The Girl: To feel like the complete casino king you’re going to need a dazzling queen on your arm – the Julia Roberts to your George Clooney, the Eva Green to your Daniel Craig. Whether or not you’re already attached, you’ll find that getting a lovely lady to join you on a trip to the casino is anything but a hard sell – just be sure to wine and dine her at your chosen pleasure palace’s glitziest restaurant to keep her howling at your every roll of the dice.

At least for now.

The Playboy Club located at the Palms in Las Vegas will be closing down. We were there several years ago for the PMOY party for the lovely Ida Ljungqvist and we snapped the photos you see above of the famous Bunnies.

The space is stunning as it sits atop on the the towers at the Palms with breathtaking views of the Las Vegas Strip, but the popularity of the venue has been declining in recent years, and the new management at the Palms is obviously looking to inject new life into this property. We’re looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

As for the Bunnies, we suspect they’ll reappear soon at another casino property in Vegas.

As a casino fan from Ohio, I was always content with jetting off to Las Vegas for some 24-hour fun at the tables. But as more and more states started allowing casino gambling, it became frustrating to watch Ohio voters consistently reject proposals that would permit casino gambling in Ohio.

Two things helped change that. First, we had the massive recession in 2008, and Ohioans saw billions of dollars leaving the state to casinos in adjoining states like Pennsylvania. Then, Cavs owner Dan Gilbert got involved. Gilbert knows how to get things done, and with his involvement the pro-casino forces finally got their act together and Ohio voters passed a constitutional amendment in 2009 that permitted the construction of four casinos in Cleveland, Toledo, Columbus and Cincinnati.

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I’ve been going to Las Vegas for over 25 years, so I’ve stayed in every type of casino Sin City has to offer, from the high end resorts to the $25 per night temporary motel rooms behind the old Stardust when they were renovating it years ago. No matter where you’re staying, Vegas has so much to offer that you’ll always have a blast. But my recent weekend in Vegas staying at the amazing Aria Resort & Casino was a very pleasant reminder that a first class weekend in a luxurious hotel makes all the debauchery Vegas has to offer that much more enjoyable. It’s also so much easier to nurse a hangover in a comfortable bed in a beautiful room where you can shut the curtains and get total darkness with the press of a button from your bed!

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Bullz-Eye publisher Gerardo Orlando recently spoke with Richard Roeper about his new book – “Bet the House.” Roeper loves to gamble, so he came up with a great idea for a book after seeing Morgan Spurlock’s documentary “Super Size Me.” Roeper concocted his own 30-day challenge – he would bet at least $1,000 per day of his own money every day over a 30-day period. It’s a great read and we highly recommend it if you like to gamble. Roeper tries just about every form of wagering he could think of, from poker to a coin flip. He covers blackjack, slots, craps, sports betting, horse racing and much more, along with numerous trips to Las Vegas and some great stories about the Kentucky Derby.

His stories about some of the characters you run into when playing poker are hilarious.

BE: Some of the funniest parts of the book were the references to some of the other poker players you played with – the stereotypical, young poker player with the trucker hat, sunglasses, headphones. Talk a little bit about that because we’ve all run into those characters when we’ve played poker.

RR: Well yeah, it’s been about what…six, seven years now since the poker boom really hit, in the early 2000’s. So you know, you get a lot of these young players who, you know they were 14 or 15, watching the World Series of Poker and they have really been influenced by it, to me, in a comical way. Where they see these guys on TV with the sunglasses and the headphones and the Ed Hardy t-shirts and all that stuff. And they all think that they’re the next sensation and they’re so, you know, so serious and…unfortunately, it’s also given a lot of people license to really behave badly, in a boorish manner at the tables. And they don’t get it that if you’re Phil Hellmuth, you get away with it because you’ve got 11 bracelets and you’ve created a persona. If you’re some kid playing at a charity tournament in Chicago, you know, lighten up, get over yourself.

BE: Yeah, it’s hilarious when you run into those guys.

RR: I love messing with them.