Atlantic City, New Jersey Chasing the Super Red Sevens

By Sue Raffety

With his fast talk about how to "strategize" a craps table, his self- designed gold-inlaid ruby belt buckle and a jet-black Western shirt embroidered with two crimson roses, Ken Wickham, 63, is the very image of a high-rolling gambler. He stands 6 ft. 6 in. in his 10-gallon hat that is festooned with red feathers and a Hopi rain-dance pin for good luck. Wickham soon lets you know he's no ordinary man: he says he's an evangelist minister who flew half a dozen missions with the 101st Airborne Division in World War II and played a sergeant alongside war hero Audie Murphy in the film To Hell and Back. He has ridden bulls in Oklahoma rodeos, played poker with Clint Eastwood and tossed dice with Robert Redford and Paul Newman in Las Vegas.

All of which makes Wickham just the right man for the job at hand: a slot- machine tournament at Trump's Castle casino in Atlantic City. Perhaps no one among the 360 participants is better equipped for the slot battle than Wickham, who owns a Jackson, N.J., sewer business whose motto somehow says it all: "If You Ain't on Our S--- List, You're No Friend of Ours." Clearly, here's a man who knows a royal flush when he sees one. But his real game, the one he has sharpened through 20 tournaments during the past four years, is the slots. "My strategy is to play as fast as I can," says the self-proclaimed Slot King.

Wickham leans over and pecks his wife of 42 years, Gladys, on the cheek. "Wish me luck, honey," he calls, as a uniformed security guard lines the players up double file and marches them into the chandeliered casino, where 30 gleaming Super Seven slot machines are cordoned off behind red velvet ropes. Sauntering nonchalantly up to his machine, Wickham assumes a calm, assured stance as he awaits the starting buzzer of Round 1.

Meanwhile, his rivals nervously shift their feet, twitch their fingers, rub gold crucifixes, amulets and talismans. Grace Craighead of Philadelphia quivers with stage fright. "I'm soooo nervous," she says. "This is my first tournament." Adrenaline is boiling, shoulders are hunched, fingers poised to punch the two keys that will spin the slot-machine wheels to winning numbers and bars, or losing spaces.

"Five, four, three, two, one. Let's go!" shouts slot-host Eileen Kasunich as the buzzer sounds. "C'mon, Ken. Bring out those sevens. Exercise those fingers." Slotters square off with their machines, tensing their facial muscles as they urgently press buttons and pull handles. "Everyone acts like he is about to be run over by a truck," observes writer Barbara Griffing of New York City. "You sense that the whole world is going to cave in if they don't get those points."

Pregame camaraderie vanishes as the player-against-player battle for cash prizes gets under way. All contestants start the tournament with 777 "Super" credits per round. Each push or pull of the one-armed bandit is subtracted from the credit meter, and every win is added to the kitty meter. Points are totaled after every round, and the player with the highest score at the end of the tournament wins the top prize of $40,077. Not a bad return on an entry fee of $577 -- a real bargain compared with the $2,000 some other casinos charge for their slot competitions. "We don't expect to make money off the tournaments themselves," says Castle president Roger P. Wagner, "but they bring in the folks for other casino play."

Unlike poker, this is a game where strategy is not only unnecessary but totally useless. "It's all probability," says Lee Isgur, a leading gaming and entertainment analyst at Volpe, Welty & Co. in San Francisco. Still, players cling to the idea that their own system will work: playing at a certain time of day, stroking good-luck charms or punching the buttons at a certain speed.

Slots are a booming market in the gambling industry, accounting for 58.4% or $1.72 billion of gross revenues at Atlantic City casinos. They are required by law to pay out a minimum of 83% of what they take in. But the bandits can be < characteristically stubborn, especially if you want them to hit. Many slotters claim the machines are preset to pay off in the beginning of a tournament and dry up as time goes by. "Most people do think that, but first of all it's illegal," says the casino's slot operations manager, Sandra Dierolf. "All our machines are closely checked by the Casino Control Commission and the Division of Gaming Enforcement."

"You are completely at the mercy of your machine," says contestant Deloure Mustico, a Trump Castle regular who looks like a cross between Dolly Parton and Eva Gabor. Not long ago, as she was on her way to winning a $5,000 jackpot, Mustico heard the Donald's voice booming behind her: "Are you going to take all my money, Deloure?" Mustico, who was a Holiday on Ice figure skater in the late '50s, pushes back her luxuriant blond coiffure and smiles wistfully. "That was a lovely moment, almost as much fun as winning the $5,000." She also has fond memories of the time she chatted with Imelda Marcos as the two played slots side by side last year at Trump Castle.

Heading for the finish line, Wickhamhas scored a mere 275 points in his final round, placing him 252 in a field of 360. He gives the bandit a kick with his black snakeskin boot. Tilt! "They put this machine in cold water," he growls. "It's giving me ice cubes." Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz! The tournament is over. Mr. Slot King has crapped out.