ATLANTIC CITY - During his career as a supervisor at the Taj Mahal Casino Resort, Ray Kot was known as a peacemaker - a gentle, unflappable soul skilled at defusing the potentially volatile situations that can arise when money, alcohol, and stress mix on the gambling floor.
When he was shot to death inside the casino in May, allegedly by a man who claimed various casinos had cheated him, coworkers said the tragedy was compounded by the loss of such a soothing presence.
"If someone started yelling, Ray had a way of calming them down," said Leo Flasch, the Taj Mahal's night supervisor who would succeed Kot at the end of each shift. "He'd say, 'I can hear you just fine; there's no need to yell. Let's talk about it.' He was just such a gentle man."
The casino dedicated a small park in Kot's honor yesterday, celebrating the way he lived his life, not the way it ended.
The Chinese immigrant arrived in the United States in 1970, alone and unable to speak English at age 18. He worked menial jobs at Boardwalk gift shops and in hotel restaurants. He struggled to support himself while setting aside money to someday bring his parents and two sisters to the country, according to his wife, Nancy Kot.
"This was a man who was born the only son of a wealthy, cultured and educated upper-class family in Shanghai, and, by right of birth, should have lived a life of privilege and ease," she said. "But instead, because of the political and economic forces of a new and dangerous government or repression in his home country, his life was to take a turn."
Kot, his wife, and their teenage son lived in the Shires, an Egg Harbor Township development that has had five residents slain in a recent string of unrelated incidents.
Kot studied English at a community college, eventually earning an accounting degree from Rowan University. When Resorts International opened here in 1978, Kot was one of the dealers.
He was prized for his language skills, and worked at a local training school to help Asian immigrants prepare for and land jobs in the casino industry.
When the Taj Mahal opened in 1990, Kot took a job there, working his way up to gaming floor supervisor. It was there that he was working on May 27 when, according to authorities, Mark Magee of Norristown walked into a card-and-dice room inside the casino, pulled out a handgun loaded with hollow-point bullets - designed to inflict maximum damage - and opened fire at 57-year-old Kot, striking him several times in the abdomen.
A Philadelphia television station said it received a letter from Magee dated two days before the killing in which he accused casinos of cheating for 20 years. He has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial on murder and weapons charges.
Taj Mahal management said Magee had gambled there for several years and had interacted with Kot numerous times, but never in a contentious way.
Coworkers and friends recalled how Kot loved the New York Yankees, how he would make a beeline for his favorite Italian restaurant after his shift ended so he could bring home a pizza for his wife and son, and how he was a bit of a lightweight when it came to drinking.
"Once in a while a group if us would gather for a special occasion, and it was funny watching him loosen up with just one beer or glass of wine," Flasch recalled. "Before you knew it, his hair would be out of place and he would be giggling. I guess you could say he was the ultimate cheap date."
Atlantic City is naming a section of a street near the casino "Ray Kot Place." A plaque bearing his name and likeness was placed at a small park outside the casino's parking garage yesterday, and a fund has been set up for the college education of his 16-year-old son, Drew.
After listening to numerous tributes to her husband, Nancy Kot had one request for those who knew him.
"My greatest hope is that we remember him not for the way he died," she said, "but for the way he lived."