Senior Citizens Feel Young Playing Poker at East Las Vegas Community Center

The East Las Vegas Community Center is an exciting place to play a friendly game of poker. Most of the regulars at the card room are elderly people who enjoy talking about the good old days while playing no-stakes Texas Hold’em games.

One of the dealers is 89-year-old Bernie Sindler, who once used to co-own Circus Circus, Silver Slipper, and Frontier. He likes joking about how he has outlived not only casinos, but also many of his old friends. One might wonder what a person like Sindler, who has known several notorious characters and celebrities, is doing on week days dealing cards to senior citizens who enjoy playing poker. Sindler says that he is having a great time. He says: “I feel like I’ve been reborn. I love it. It’s for no money. They pay $2 a year. I’m one of the dealers, and I’m pretty good at it. I look forward to it and have come to dislike the weekends because they’re not open.”

Sindler, who had played gin at Las Vegas Country Club in the company of people such as Yale Cohen, Ross Miller, Charlie Resnick, and others, now enjoys his life as a dealer at East Las Vegas Community Center.

One of the senior citizens who play friendly poker there is Liborio Maceli, an 84-year-old retired milkman hailing from New York. He says: “We enjoy ourselves. The Camaraderie is very good. The people are very nice. It’s Texas Hold’em, and it’s not for any money. It’s just to have fun. And the motto of the thing is, “if you don’t want to have fun, don’t come.”

Some of the other interesting poker players at the community center are Raymond Morrow and Nancy, who moved into South Nevada from Pennsylvania and made friends while playing poker at the community center. Jerry Jost, a retired aerial photographer; Darlene Gnagy, a one-time casino cage employee; Robert Thorne, a resident of South Utah; and many others also play poker there. This interesting community of senior citizens who have seen and experienced a lot in the course of their lives makes it one of the friendliest of Las Vegas poker rooms.

Voicing his opinion of it, Thorne says: “It’s wonderful. It’s survival. It’s absolutely senior survival. If you’ve got any sense at all, you learn how to play cards and you end up here. They serve a wonderful lunch. Everyone is so nice here. I don’t know what we would do if we didn’t have this.”

The senior citizens talk about food, bargains, legal services, and medicine, to mention just a few, as they play poker. Sindler pitches the cards and says: “I feel like I’m a young man again. Everyone here is so kind and nice. It’s wonderful. They’re really glad to see you. Who in the hell in your life is glad to see you?” He says that the venue helps one rediscover ones sense of community in a place where friendship is rare and reminds players that there is plenty in life to laugh about.

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