A Philadelphia man is using Atlantic City not as a pleasant vacation destination, what with their pristine beaches and friendly locals, but as a lucrative money making scheme. The Post reports that 49-year-old Don Johnson has netted $15 million from Caesars, The Borgata, and The Tropicana, by playing blackjack. Johnson told the paper "I'll take luck over any other skill." We assume he's referring to the "luck" involved in counting how many cards there are in an auto-shuffle. more ›

Brooklyn native Seyit Ibrahim Yel has allegedly conned casinos across the country out of over $500,000 by using comped chips to bet at the blackjack table. However, no one has been able to sue him because he is nowhere to be found. Yel and a group of other con men somehow tricked casinos into thinking he was a 35-year-old businessman named Mustafa Seda, and within weeks of beginning a gambling spree in 2008 he was traveling on private jets and staying in complimentary suites paid for by big casinos. more ›

Staten Island may have to take a lot of heat for being, well, Staten Island, but did you know that chewing gum was invented there? (The modern gum, not the Greek mastiche.) The Wrigley Building, built in 1917, is on the island and currently abandoned (aside from some squatters possibly residing there); it may soon become a 92-unit luxury condo. Nathan Kensinger notes on his blog that prior to Wrigley taking residence on the island, modern chewing gum was invented there "with the help of General Santa Ana, the former eleven-time President of Mexico. In 1869, while living in exile on the island, he sold a ton of Mexican chicle to local inventor Thomas Adams. Adams hoped to make rubber tires from the substance. Instead, he created chewing gum. By 1884, he had introduced the world's first flavored stick of gum - Black Jack." Yum? more ›