It’s hard to get through a full interview with Clyde ‘Snack Attack’ Gaskins without pausing so that someone can step in to take a picture with him. In fact, the interruption is likely to happen several times over a short period of time, especially on the Las Vegas Strip.
The veteran Vegas poker dealer has achieved a level of fame usually reserved for Phil Hellmuth and Daniel Negreanu after an appearance on the ninth season of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy made him one of the most coveted selfies in town. We met up with Gaskins at the Global Poker Awards, where he was the special guest of Sean McCormack, the Executive Director of Poker Strategy and Development at BetMGM.
Predictably, the interview was interrupted by another photo-seeking poker executive. All of this is very unexpected, Gaskins says. “I've never been on TV before, but since they filmed it, wow. People are coming in (to Aria) just to get their picture taken with me. Isn't that funny? I know. I still can't believe it.”
It all started with a viral TikTok video and an attempt to get a few more subscribers for his small Snack Attack YouTube channel.
Snack Attack's big break
Gaskins moved from Ohio to Las Vegas, where he has dealt cards at the Aria Poker Room for the last few years. He caught his big TV break one day when a player snuck a video of him calling play-by-play while dealing — a delightful trick he has developed over the years as the spirit of any card room where he has worked.
The unnamed videographer put the clip on Tiktok. “It got 77,000 reviews. Then he put it on Instagram and I heard he got another 72,000.” It eventually ended up in front of producers for Queer Eye for the Straight Guy while the long-running makeover show was booking its ninth season.
“I got an email: ‘Hey we've seen you on TikTok.’ Well I'm like, man, I'm not on TikTok, this might be spam, so I emailed back — I think you're spam, I'm not on TikTok. But they came back at me and said, we know you're not, Clyde. Somebody put you on there.”
Gaskins asked them to send over a few episodes of the show to see if he liked it. He agreed right away. “If it's gonna help my YouTube channel, I'm gonna do it.”
Health setback delays filming
Producers sent over the paperwork and Gaskins put his name on the dotted line, but he needed quadruple bypass heart surgery right before filming was about to begin.
He spent time in the hospital and producers kept in touch. “They bought me flowers, they bought me stuff. They said, ‘Clyde if you still wanna be on the show, or if you don't, either way, we're okay.’”
Soon after, Gaskins was out of the hospital and on the mend. He started using a walker and his health improved to the point where he could film the show. The rest is reality TV history, and Gaskins can no longer walk around the Las Vegas Strip without getting recognized by one of the show’s fans.
From Sam's Town to the Snack Attack Studio
TV fame is an expected twist in a Las Vegas life that started like most others: somewhere else.
“I had my own painting company in Ohio and all the new construction went to crap. So I came out here. And I learned how to deal from America's School of Dealing."
It was a barter deal. Gaskins painted the school and his nephew fixed up the tables. “I got free lessons that were normally like $2,100.”
His poker career started at Sam’s Town on Boulder Highway, where Gaskins spent 10 years as a dealer and card room manager. He now works at Aria, where he deals in the cash room, and at the PokerGO Studio, where the top pros play year-round.
The Queer Eye appearance definitely helped his YouTube channel, a homegrown collection of original content that emanates from the Snack Attack Studio, where he interviews professional poker players and other characters that he meets in his life at a dealer.
“Before I had the heart thing, I had 300 subscribers. I would just put up a video whenever I could. But after I had the heart attack I did the show for Queer Eye, and all of a sudden it went from 308 subscribers to over 11,000.”
The Snack Attack Studio has the inside track to booking the biggest stars from around poker since Gaskins sees most of them at work. Not to mention it would probably be bad karma to blow off your poker dealer’s podcast.
“I'm interviewing a lot of the big-time local pros, and once a week on Monday I've been putting a new one up. I just did three of them yesterday that are getting edited for next week.”
It’s a lot of fun, Gaskins says, and everyone is having fun with him. “And they all want to come on my show because they say they like me. So I've been enjoying all of this. Now it's a lot of work. Don't get me wrong. I'm not kidding you — trying to get players to come to my show is not the easiest thing in the world.”
Check out Clyde The Snack Attack Gaskins on YouTube and follow him on X: @SnackAttackCG.
Photos courtesy of Clyde Gaskins/revolutionpix/Global Poker Index
