Thinking of going to Las Vegas, but the airfare is too expensive? Why fly when you can have fun here on Oahu and the Big Island, and sharpen your skills at the same time. Recently, I attended a friend's wedding and to my amazement, I thought I was in Vegas. They had a layout of roulette tables, blackjack tables and even a crap table. I just had to find out more about this, and met up with Ricky Oshiro (photo above), who is the owner of "Just Like Vegas." I asked him how and why he came up with this idea to bring Las Vegas to Hawaii. He related that his family has always enjoyed going to Vegas and he has learned a lot from Vegas, and also made his share of donations. "At home we've always done it for our friends and family, and primarily we started giving lessons. Then one of my family's friends asked if we could do one of their Christmas parties, so I said, oh yeah we can do that. So we tried to make better tables and one thing led to another, then other people started asking so I decided, yeah why not do this as a real business.""From the start, it was just home made tables for fun and its always been for fun, we don't do any gambling. We started off with a small 8-foot crap table that we made, then a blackjack table and roulette table. As the years went by, we improved on the design, and we make all of our equipment. As for the years in business, we started about 2004 to now 2011."
I asked Ricky about the legality, and how the laws affect his business. "The gaming law here in Hawaii is pretty simple, there are three elements, consideration, chance and reward. If you have all three, then it is considered gambling in Hawaii. All of these games that we have, like craps, blackjack, let it ride, and pai gau, are all games of chance. So in order not to make it gambling, you have to eliminate either consideration or reward. A person doesn't have to pay to play, if they have to pay to play then you can not give any reward. So you can actually pay, collect money, as a fundraiser, but you can't give out a prize. Or, like most parties, we're just entertainment, so nobody pays, therefore there is no consideration and they only give out prizes." In closing, Ricky related it's a good learning experience if you're not too familiar on how to play. "That's why we do everything just like Vegas. If you've been on our crap tables, we'll even tell you I'm sorry sir, only one hand on the dice. We want them to have the real Vegas experience so when they go to Vegas, they won't get scolding and won't feel shame or be apprehensive about playing. We also give gaming lessons, do poker tournaments, and recently did the Hawaii Big Deal on KHON2. That was our company that provided the poker services." For more information on "Just Like Vegas," "Click here." For sample photos. "click here."
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