UNLV grad persuades Plaza to proffer game he devised

IT took me only five hands to double my money when I sat down to play Casino Dominoes at the Plaza last week.

Trust me, it was beginner’s luck.

The new game, which faces final Nevada Gaming Commission approval Thursday after a successful 45-day trial that wrapped up in November, is being played as a table game

RICHARD N. VELOTTA

exclusively at the Plaza daily between 6 p.m., and 2 a.m. With any beginner’s luck for the game’s inventor, 42-yearold Harold Moret, a UNLV graduate, it’ll be available in other casinos in Nevada and across the country before long.

For Moret, who has been passionate about playing dominoes ever since he learned games from his grandfather 30 years ago, getting a version of dominoes on the casino floor in his first try was his version of beginner’s luck.

It was a historic first as well: Casino Dominoes is the first game successfully brought to the casino floor by an African-American game inventor.

But it’s more about hard work than luck.

“You can’t just get excited and do something for a couple of weeks and think that it’s done,” Moret said. “You really have to stick to it.”

Sticking to it means traveling and meeting with casino bosses to sell them on dedicating floor space to a game that has the same footprint as the average blackjack table. It also means showing up at the Plaza four times a week to distribute brochures about the game and talk with players.

He sells casinos with the

VELOTTA