Gaming host Hirschorn leaving the biz a winner after 46 years

Gaming marketing host Allan "Jamup" Hirschorn's casino journey comes to an end Sunday at Bellagio.

He'll retire after 46 years in the racket from downtown to the Bahamas, the past 19 spent in Las Vegas. The endlessly affable Hirschorn is a "pure host" whose career spanned a couple generations of casino owners. The man was so popular at the Paradise Island casino in the Bahamas that he could have been elected to high office.

When Gene Kilroy was Muhammad Ali's manager, he accompanied the heavyweight champ to the Bahamas, where he was scheduled to meet the prime minister.

"In the Bahamas, everywhere you went it was Jamup. He was everywhere," recalls Kilroy, a casino marketing veteran at Luxor. "When we met the prime minister, it was like, 'Who's the guy with Jamup?' If you wanted to get anything done in the Bahamas, you didn't call the prime minister. You called Jamup. And it got done."

Hirschorn is what you would politely call loquacious. In 46 years in the business, he talked his way into more good times than 10 CEOs.

And unlike some of them, he's quitting a winner.

BAGGAGE LIMIT: Rick's Cabaret boss Eric Langan swore he loved Vincent Faraci despite the reputed Bonanno crime family member's baggage.

How can I put this politely?

Don't let Langan carry your bags. He might drop them once the lifting gets heavy.

With Faraci's felon status, mob notoriety and connection to the Crazy Horse Too scandal, his work history was well-known when he recently joined the publicly traded company as a club manager. When local reporters applied a little heat, Faraci left Rick's, officially over a salary dispute.

Faraci's attorney David Chesnoff shrugged and said, "He just wants to earn a living and feed his children."

I wonder what happened to the Langan who only last week said confidently, "We're aware of his background. He's been cleared by the sheriff's department to work in Las Vegas."

LV REWIND: A recent column on lowering the legal age of gambling brought this response from longtime local Pat Dingle, the retired North Las Vegas police detective and executive director of the Southern Nevada Zoological Park.

"What's the problem with lowering the gambling age?" he asks. "As a kid I gambled underage regularly."

As a teenager, Dingle worked at Anderson Dairy and cashed his paycheck at Binion's Horseshoe, where he felt somewhat obligated to accept the casino's free drink. And, of course, while he was waiting for the drink to arrive he only felt it was fitting to play the slots.

"I cashed my paycheck there every two weeks for two years until I was old enough to join the Navy," the 61-year-old Dingle says. "I would do the same when I came home on leave from Vietnam until I was 21, when I took a job to enforce the laws of the land. One of those laws was that no one under 21 could gamble."

Something tells me he didn't take too many teenage scofflaws into custody.

Dingle joined a reunion of approximately 100 retired police officers at the Cannery Wednesday for an evening of storytelling.

"We're dinosaurs today," he says, "but we sure as hell did police work."

STROMBOLI STAR: They're ready for your close-up, Mr. Perkins. Four Kegs owner Mario Perkins is once again being featured on Guy Fieri's popular Food Network show "The Best of Drive-Ins, Diners, and Dives." (Sorry, Mario, but the Kegs' famous stromboli is the real star.) The show is set to air Sunday.

DINNER INDIGESTION: The Las Vegas Advisor reminds me that the 2009 Zagat restaurant guide ranks Las Vegas (presumably along the tourist corridors) as the priciest place to eat in the country with dinner averaging $44.44 per person. In tough economic times, that sends the worst message imaginable to potential visitors.

ON THE BOULEVARD: The gentle partisans at the Kopper Keg at 2257 S. Rainbow Blvd. remind me it is a loud, proud Cleveland Browns bar. In a recent column, it was lumped in with several Dallas Cowboys bars. Now that I've repented, will you let me back in? It's awfully cold on the sidewalk. ... We heard all about "Joe the Plumber" during the presidential campaign, but not as much about the Dina Titus camp volunteer who went by the moniker "Joe the Horse Player." He's thoroughbred aficionado Joe DeLuca. (I'm guessing Joe D. bet on Titus and the points.)

Have an item for the Bard of the Boulevard? E-mail comments and contributions to Smith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295. He also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/smith/