the game of chance

'he must love you a lot'.... i'm caught off guard by the punter standing to the side of my table, admiring my wedding ring which twinkles in the casino lighting. 'what's your name sweetheart?'... 'im bunny anna'.

after two months of intense bunny training, im now a qualified croupier and playboy bunny! me and 50 other lovely london bunnies can be found on the roulette and black jack tables of the world famous playboy club, just re-opended in mayfair, london.

i kept very hush-hush throughout the training, partially due to a clause on social-networking about playboy, but mainly because i was too busy to blog. i squeezed the full time bunny training around my nanny job and my weekend job at the club and was working 70 hour weeks with double shifts back to back on fridays and saturdays, all while planning a wedding! it was a marvelous feat if i do say so myself!

the 10 week training was fabulous. the main point was to learn roulette, which seems like a very easy game of chance where the croupier just spins the ball and hands out chips, but in actual fact it's extremely complex, with strict rules on procedures and it requires mathematical skills verging on genius. as bunny croupiers, we were to learn to do it all with 'style, flair and grace'. eyes up, shoulders back, playboy pinky fingers extended, smile!, voissin by fifty, 5, 8, 10 and 11 and the neighbours by 5, 'no more bets thank you!!'

while we learnt we laughed, we cried, and we forged amazing friendships. after all, we were 50 girls, london's finest and loveliest, all in the same position, all searching for some excitement, some glitz and glamour, to be a part of the history making as london playboy club re-opens after 50 years...

each week, different managers and high profiles would come to watch us practise, so we were to be perfectly groomed every day. high heels, glossy hair, manicured nails, dressed in our best. it sounds exhausting but we loved it! an excuse to dress up and look fabulous each day! the PR team would also come in to choose different girls for various publicity jobs; playboy perfume tv ad bunnies, Union Jack bunnies who would meet and greet with Heff at the grand opening, Grand Prix bunnies, Monaco private yacht bunnies, bunnies sent to Marbella, Catwalk bunnies and Media bunnies.

i was overjoyed to be chosen as a media bunny, who are to do all tv, magazine and newspaper interviews.. we were sent to a professional studio to do journalism training with big name journalists, who prepared us for tricky questions, how to avoid having our words twisted, and how to get our message across while remaining positive and upbeat. they did mock interviews of each of us, on film and made us watch them back as they picked good and bad points. i was put on the spot a few times and felt like i handled it quite well.. i must have because i was asked to do a BBC interview but unfortunately it collided with my thailand trip. 

on the 'friends and family night', before the grand opening, we were each allowed to bring two guests to a cocktail party at the playboy club, to which all the bunnies from the 1960's were also invited. i brought jerry and my girlfriend igne and we had a fabulous night, sipping champagne and talking to the old bunnies who told us they had the time of their lives as bunnies in the 60's. they were making more money than their fathers and they hung out with the rolling stones, the beatles, clint eastwood, frank sinatra and all the other celebs who were regular patrons back then. we did a little photo shoot in our bunny costumes and then had dinner in the playboy restaurant.

how the club and clientele would be was a huge mystery to us and extremely exciting, as was the prospect of big tips... rumours circulated about how much other croupiers in mayfair casinos were making and we began making plans for how we'd spend our fortunes...

after a fabulous wedding holiday, i'm struggling to get back into the grind. i guess every new job takes a bit to get used to..... the clientele are not exactly what we expected and neither are the tips but its still early days.. the best thing about the job is seeing all the bunnies each day... we get ready together in our 'bunny hutch', squeezing into our tailor made bunny suits, complaining about stolen ears and missing tails, bitching about annoying customers and graveyard shifts while curling our hair and donning our makeup. though we're desensitized to it now, it would be quite a surreal scene to an outsider... 

up on the gaming floor, its all about luck. superstition is thick in the air, dollar signs flash in everyones eyes as they test their luck, wait for their numbers to come up, curse and order 'change dealer' when the bunny deals them nothing, tips and 'darling' when the bunny spins their number. luck is everything.

'which number do you think i should i bet on?' the guy at my table asks me. 'i think you should listen to your heart'. i reply with a wink. he sizes up my bunny costume. 'your husband must be a very lucky man'.

;o)