Winning at Blackjack in Vegas

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Monday, Aug. 19, 2013 | 2:28 p.m.

XS, as portrayed by Don Johnson and Steve Aoki

Don Johnson and his entourage of a couple dozen partying friends and associates have taken up nearly the entire cabana area atop Boulevard Pool at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. The man of the moment is wearing darkened glasses, needless on this overcast afternoon, and a super-casual T-shirt-and-shorts ensemble that belies his vast wealth.

This Don Johnson could buy and sell the other Don Johnson, the actor.

Johnson is asked what particular event was being celebrated on this Vegas Sunday afternoon. He grins and says, “We don’t need a reason to have a party.” Then he stops and adds, “Well, I have a new women’s clothing line that’s debuting at MAGIC Convention this week. That’s happening. But who needs a reason?”

Not Don Johnson, a notorious blackjack player and international reveler who was in town over the weekend to celebrate his friend Brody Jenner’s 30th birthday, promote his new Scrapbook Originals women’s apparel line and (chiefly) kick it up once more with his friends in Vegas.

In this cluster of cohorts Sunday was Jenner himself, rolling in after the group “hit Hyde in the face” on Saturday night, as one partygoer termed the conduct of the group the preceding evening. Vincent Crandon was leaning back on a deck chair and noodling on a MacBook Air; Crandon and his investment group 2UP Gaming is moving to invest about $500 million to buy a resort property in Atlantic City, the specifics of that A.C. strategy to be announced at a press conference at the Boardwalk in Atlantic City on Labor Day Weekend. Believe this: The purchase will be a very significant event, watched by resort officials around the world.

Kasey Thompson, founder of the poker pub All In Magazine, was mingling along the deck. So was poker pro Layne Flack, who has won six World Series of Poker bracelets and is one of that game’s top names.

But it was Johnson who was at once the star and host of this party, one of a series of gatherings while he visited Vegas over the weekend and into this week. He hit Hyde Bellagio with Jenner and his crew on Saturday, then the pool at Cosmo on Sunday. The various entourages targeted poker pro Phil Ivey’s home for another party Sunday night.

Johnson is at once unassuming and impossible to ignore — if you know who he is. In the business world, Johnson is known as CEO of Heritage Development, a company that operates out of Wyoming that uses computer-generated wagering programs for horse racing. But he made international news in the spring of 2011 after a holy tear on the blackjack tables in Atlantic City and the partying around the world that ensued.

In a six-month stretch, Johnson took about $15 million from three hotel-casinos in A.C. His own accounting is $4.23 million at Caesars Atlantic City in December 2010; about $998, 000 at Borgata Hotel & Casino that month, then $1.8 million in March 2011 and another $2.25 million over two nights in April 2011; and his crowning moment, a $5.8 million win in a 12-hour run at the Tropicana in April 2011.

That summer, Johnson began turning up at nightclubs from London to Vegas, spraying the crowd with champagne, paying it forward in a very boisterous, wet and sticky fashion.

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