It can be difficult to spot the sharks sat ready and waiting at table games and slot machines on a casino floor. It becomes even more of a challenge when one of those sharks is a “cute little” grandmother who can appear harmless to the naked eye. That would’ve been the grandmother of Karin Schnarr, Registrar & CEO of the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO), who first developed an interest in gambling by watching the leading women in her life build a reputation as forces to be reckoned with on the poker and blackjack tables. 

“I never remember a time when we didn’t play euchre, rummy or cribbage. You hear stories about grandparents where they let the kid win; my grandma was never like that – and we always played for money,” Dr. Schnarr reflects with Global Gaming Insider. “You learn to be good at cards very early on when there’s always money at stake. I’d go down to Las Vegas with my mom and grandma, who was this cute little lady and she’d go to the tables where people would look at her like ‘oh, how nice.’ And she’d clean their clocks.