Matt Weinstock, July 2, 1959

Gambler's Aide Crapshooters Local 352 and the Amalgamated Order of Blackjack Players held a joint meeting at the Statler Hilton the other day and got the word on a devastating intruder, a buzzing, three-ton robot named Univac 120. Unie's sponsors, Remington Rand and the Hotel Showboat Casino in Las Vegas, were showing him off for the press. Unie came off looking like a million dollars, in terms of publicity. A similar computer has been installed in the Showboat and made available free to patrons who wish advice on all sorts of gambling matters,particularly when to quit. As a demonstration the Showboat people had a blackjack dealer deal three hands to a pretty girl identified only -- you guessed it -- as Miss Univac. With the machine's advice she won all three. ONE TIME her two cards totaled 12 and the dealer had a 3 showing. She asked Unie what she should do. A card was inserted into his insatiable mouth and, after chawing it around, Unie said to draw. She did and got an ace. Again she asked what to do. Unie said stand. The dealer turned over his hole card and disclosed h had 12. He drew and broke. Another time she had 15 and the dealer had a 4 showing. Unie said stand. The dealer's hole card was a 9, giving him 13. He drew and broke again. Of course, it was his deck of cards. An interlocutor confided that in questions about craps Unie had stated that the house odds varied from 1.39% to 13% against the player. Also that the odds against rolling 12 straight passes with the dice were 4,096 to 1. It may seem like a suicidal gesture for a casino to furnish information which could help customers beat the house but let us not lose sleep over it. In addition to the house percentage going against the player, there's his predilection for making foolish bets. I predict Univac 120 will have no effect whatsoever on the irrepressible hunches, impulses, and and dreams of gamblers. :: BIG ATTRACTION at the aforementioned clambake was a $500 prize -- 5 crisp $100 bills -- for some lucky person to be tapped by Unie. More than 200 punched cards containing the names of newspapermen were fed into the machine and, after an ominous rumble, it selected this paper's Carter Barber. All agreed that as long as they hadn't won it couldn't have happened to a nicer fellow. Amid his jubilation, Carter decided to call his wife, only to discover all he had were 3 tokens and 2 pennies. Inasmuch as no one could change a century note, he borrowed 15 cents to tell her the good news. :: IT IS A shattering thought that countless gems of information are given to the world only by the sheerest accidents of fate. For instance, if the city desk gentlemen hadn't [illegible] into my pigenonhole a three-page, single-space press release, thousands would never know about Irene Wasserkort, 20, blond, blue-eyed, 5-5 1/2, 110, born in Frankfurt Germany. "Fitting it is," the press release states, "that a real Frankfurter should come to the great meat packing center of Chicago to be crowned National Hot Dog Month Queen of 1959." No mustard, please, just a grain of salt. :: FALSE ALARM A shark! A shark! the bathers cried, -- When all they'd really seen, Was a simple little old shadow Of a Russian submarine.     -- ROBERTA MORGAN :: A SHABBY stranger accosted Mike Molony on Hill St. and said, "Chum, can you bounce me a cuter, I got a bad case of jug fever." Mike, a connoisseur of language enrichment, was charmed. But from experience he had learned never to settle for the first asking price, so he didn't bounce the cuter or quarter, he sponsored the fellow 15 cents worth. :: BREAKDOWN OF the state's auto accidents in 1958 shows that at least one person was killed every day in the year and there was only one day, Feb. 28, when only one person was killed. Highest fatality score occurred twice, on Oct. 19 and Dec. 13-24 killed each day. So be careful.