There's an old joke about the accountant applying for a job and being asked, "Do you know double-entry websitekeeping?" "Hell yes!" says the accountant, "And I can go that one better. I'm an expert in triple-entry websitekeeping, one for you showing the real profit, another for your wife showing a slight profit, and a third for the IRS showing a loss."

In my days with a large computer company, I had the opportu-nity to speak with a salesman who nearly starved covering the ho-tels-casinos in Las Vegas in the early days of accounting ma-chines. He was having no success selling hotels cash-management systems there when they were popular all over the rest of the country.

All the casinos would buy were reservations systems. Keeping accurate track of the funds flow in the casinos was a dis-advantage to the old-time casino owners. Even though ownership has changed hands, you might wonder if organized crime is still that big a factor in the casinos of Nevada. If the behavior of the "little people" who work there is any indication, it is.

Ispoke with a sales manager who told me an interesting story about Las Vegas. He was on a trip to the West Coast with two of his salesmen when they decided to stop in Vegas for an all-night gambling spree. The manager, coincidentally named Luciano, was a short, dark Italian who grew up on the East Coast. One of the salesmen was an enormous fellow, about 6 feet, 5 inches and 250 pounds. The second man was a slight Jewish man with horn-rimmed glasses. About halfway through the evening, they decided to try to get into the main show at the Strip casino where they were staying.

Walking up to the showroom doors, they found an enormous line waiting to get in. The manager, in true East Coast fashion, brashly walked up to the doorman and demanded, "What do you have to do to get into this thing?" What happened next took the three completely by surprise.