Good afternoon. You're listening to Gambling with an Edge. Now here are your
host Bob Dancer and Richard Munchkin. Good afternoon, welcome to Gambling with an
Edge. I'm Bob Danswer and I'm Richard Munchkin. And today is our last
day as far as we own now, we're not. This is our last
show, and it's possible we'll have sessions in the future. Kind of spurred
at random. Um, there's no plans to do that now, and who
knows what the future will bring. It's been a nice run, we've enjoyed
it, and we're gonna get down to your questions. Um. First ones
were we just got the day we're keeping this show, And it came from
Colin Jones, who is a Black Tank apprenticeship good friend of the good friend
of Richard. To me, what is something you have learned from a guest
while hosting Gambling with an itche for me, I think it would be Captain
Jack telling us about the sign up bonuses that were happening in Arizona and other
places for in the sports book. And when you live in Las Vegas,
the border Arizona border is not that far away, and so I was able
to travel to Arizona and get down all kinds of bets. It was a
lot harder than I thought it was it would be. It's not there's there's
a learning curve to dealing with the fine casinos and funding them and stuff like
that, and so it was not falling off a log that I thought it
would be in. It took several trips. It's just never easy. And
later I did it flying to Denver to take advantage of the Colorado bonuses and
with a different set of beginner problems that I had to deal with and got
some of them solved and not solved. Overall, it was a highly profitable
play. But that's one example of something I learned a while hosting Gambling with
an Edge. Richard, did you learn something that you implemented, Well,
it didn't come really from one guest. It just came from our guests in
general, which was the idea that every single game can be beat under the
right conditions. And one of the things I'm proudest of is that we have
had people on this show talking about beating every game you can imagine. And
the person that really drove that home for me was Mohan Sevastova, who we
had on twice, who was a guy who figured out a way to beat
scratch off lottery tickets, and just a month ago we had mister Dapion,
who you know, years later made enormous amounts of money playing the lottery.
And so when Mohan was on, I was like, if you can beat
the lottery, you can beat anything. And that is true. You can
beat anything. Now, not all the time and not every casino, but
under the right conditions, everything can be beat. And so that that's what
was really driven home. Yeah, I agree with that. And if if
you haven't read it yet, Mohan wrote a short story about scrabble that won
some awards. He's Canadian and won someone words. So his last name is
impossible, it's shrivastavas r Iva Stava. But if you look at Shrivastava scrabble
you'll find it. It is well worth spending the five minutes to read this
short story. It is delightful. Or you could actually if you just search
for the episode wherever you get Gambling with an Edge. I'm pretty sure that
the link to the article is in the show notes for the episode. He's
on one of the two episodes he's on, all right, So we weren't
planning to have it recommended for today. But that's the one I wasn't planning
on giving, all right. So how about an ap play that you missed
out on that you wish could have executed. Why don't you go first?
Because you asked me this just before we went on the air, and I
came up with one, and then now I've already forgotten what it was.
All I have several. One was from a period of time Caesar's Palace in
Las Vega installed one hundred dollars three coin full Pay Duce is Wild. Now
full Pay Duce is Wild is a one hundred points seven six percent game plus
the normal slot club benefits, and in this would be three hundred dollars a
hand. And so it was gone before I ever heard about it. People
shared the machine amongst themselves, like you can have it for four hours and
then I get it back, or whatever they did, and it was long
gone. Somebody had the nerve to be dealt in royal and for I guess
I'd be two hundred and forty thousand dollars. And that was the straw that
broke the camel's back. So so I just one. I actually I actually
have two. So the first one is back in the early eighties when when
I retired the first time. It was the heyday of computer blackjack, and
I had moved to LA and was busy trying to break into the film business.
And my teammates two different teams started playing with blackjack computer and made seven
figures. And I was, you know, busy trying to be an actor.
So that that's one, and another one is in the late nineties.
It was the heyday of banking the games in California, and I got involved
just a little bit, but again I was doing other things, and you
know, my friends who got all the way into banking in California again,
you know, made seven figures. And so those are those are two of
the ones that I wish I hadn't missed out on. And I have another
one that I hadn't missed out on. Ticket in ticket out is relatively new
phenomenon from the mid nineties on, I guess. But it used to be
when you would get a jackpot, which would be and when the machine locks
up, the casino will give you will put five coins in to start your
next hand. Now, if you're playing dollar video poker on a four thousand
dollars jackpot chappens every forty thousand hands you get an extra five dollars, or
in some games aces with a kicker you get an extra five dollars. That
is no big deal. But then Sunset Station installed one hundred dollars machines.
This requires five hundred dollars to play. And every time you get three of
a kind or hire it's a w TWD. And so instead of getting fifteen
hundred dollars for the WTG WTG, they would give you the fifteen hundred and
then give you five coins for the next one to make to turn it into
a two thousand dollars jackpot. Wow, the pay schedule was dreadful, but
it doesn't matter. This was a I don't know about one hundred eighty percent
game on a five hundred dollars a hand game. So the players who just
figured this out, none of them could afford five hundred dollars. They just
uh, but they been when it's a partnership, it's impossible to lose.
But of course they the casino only put up with that for an nine hands
and hold the plug on it, and and during those nine hands they did
lose, So I wouldn't feel bad about missing that one just because you know
that's not gonna last. I mean, no matter how dumb the casino is,
they're going to figure that one out pretty quick. Yep. So did
you have another one that you were going to mention? You said you had
two. I mentioned of both the banking in California and the computer play in
that case, Collins. Third question is what is our favorite? Wow,
I can't believe I'm doing this moment as an ap. And for me,
that was in the late nineties playing video poker. There were huge promotions.
Every weekend. They had ninety six Jacks, which is ninety nine and a
half percent with a six seventh slot club, generous comps, big promotions,
and so just going and playing ninety six Jacks are better, which is probably
the easiest video poker game ever to play perfectly. This was like several years
in a row for three or four hundred thousand dollars per person if you're playing
this full time, and it's just it would beat us well and give us
comp tickets, and it's just like, you know, I just think we
could be working and this was just a moment that we knew it wouldn't last,
and of course it didn't, but that was my wow, I can't
believe I'm getting to do this moment. Well, I have two again.
One of them was initially meeting Ed Thorpe at the Blackjack ball and having him
tell me he enjoyed my book and and and having him show up year after
year. You know, that was just really cool for me. Um.
But the other, the other one was a play that I really can't go
into the details of the play, but it was a play that involved there
were three other Hall of Fame members on the table with me on a play
that lasted twenty four hours and um was the largest table win of my career,
so um and and it was a play where a guy betting most of
the money was about as famous as you could get in the blackjack world,
and and the casino had absolutely no clue what was going on, none at
all. And and four months later invited him back, even after he we
decided he had to give up, he had to cash out the money because
we just thought it would be too weird for a guy to walk out the
door with that much in chips. Um and so he gave up id CTRD,
gave his real name, and four months later we were like, you
know, they never barn you, maybe we can go back. And he's
like it's not possible, like there's just no way, and but we said,
well, hey, call him on the phone and say you're thinking about
coming back, and see what they say. And they said, yeah,
come on, you know, we'll get your room and blah blah blah.
And we're like, oh my god. And we went back and within the
within the first hour, they came and shut the play down and said,
uh, look, we googled you and again had no idea what was going
on, and because the game Wilson Blackjack that I think had a lot to
do with it, but yeah, it was maybe my favorite play of all
time. Yeah. Actually I haven't heard that story even offline, so I
would. I know, maybe the rest of you want more details on and
I know I certainly do, but it sounds like we're not going to get
him. All right. That's fun, Richard. I know you've mentioned enjoying
Ken Euston's million dollar Blackjack, something he said I take issue with as well
as I blew Colin Jones. Colin haven't mentioned playing early on with the seventy
percent risk of ruin? What can Euston said in the chapter on determination of
betting strategy, if we are winning players, chances of tapping out are never
more than one opportunity. I've often skeptically thought of that comment. Sitting short
stacked at the table, Richard, Well, I don't quite understand that one
out of two, I mean, fifty percent chance of tapping out. That
sounds absurd, Like, uh, you're of course you're going to tap out
if you do that. So I'm not sure what Ken meant. I remember
back in the eighties Ken calling my partner Daryl and saying, Hey, I
got these guys to put up some money from bankroll. How should I bet
it? And Daryl was like should I say to him? Like, why
don't you look in one of your books? Ken? So Ken Houston was
not the best guy to talk about bankroll management. But I don't know what
he's referring to, but yeah, so yeah, and it seems oh oh.
And as to Colin, Colin says like he didn't know what he was
doing. He obviously was playing with way too high a risk of ruin and
he didn't learn about that. Until much later in his career. So that's
that's what that's about. Yeah, and that's certainly true for me in video
poker on I didn't how to calculate risk of ruin early on. But there's
also seems to be a difference between a tapping up session wise and bank roll
wise. And so I'm thinking you never are going to bring your entire bank
roll to the table and risking that, although tapping out for individual session that
happens all the time where you have you know, four hundred or five hundred
bets with you out of whatever your bank roll is and lose that in an
individual session. All right. Next question, Bob, I met you many
years ago Bargota for a class and a copy of your books. Will you
be continuing with your Tuesday blog on Las Vegas Advisor? Answers Yes, I
continued. I planned to continue that blog indefinitely. Stopping the podcast has nothing
to do with changing my whole life for getting out of gambling completely or getting
out of writing. I'd like to find a way to I teach again.
I can find a casino that is interested in having me and has games that
are teachable. Next question, what is a penalty? For using ninety six
backs or better to play ten seven double bonus. And I haven't calculated this
recently, but I think it's about a half percent, taking the game from
one hundred point one seven to ninety nine point six approximately, probably more because
if somebody isn't talent enough or dedicated enough to learn ten seven double bonus,
that person probably doesn't know ninety six jacks or better perfectly anyway, all right,
Next question is a sports betting about odds boosters that is promotional that some
sports book may offer. These bets mostly have plus EV. What do you
think about them? They could be a marketing tactic by the sports book to
get you to take on more variants. And a lot of sports books offer
small bonus bets every day they want to keep you coming back to their site.
Most of these are plus EV, so if you want to go to
their site, there are players who will go to all the sites in their
jurisdiction every day and make these small bets. And that is definitely positive EV.
And you can start out your day with fifty or one hundred, two
hundred dollars EV and then go on and do what you normally do. So,
yeah, if if I can recognize a good bet. I would.
I would definitely take this unless starting your day with a couple hundred dollars ev
isn't enough to be worth your time, which could be if if you're Richard
and talking about this game with four Hall of Famers on the table, stopping
to pick up two hundred dollars, it was way way too much so for
Richard, if you talk about it. How much whole carding did you do
in your career as a blackjack or other games? If you did hole carding,
did someone training what to look forward? You figure out and scout games
for yourself? Where'd you learn the correct strategy for playing against a known hole
part? So yes, I played quite a bit of hold cards in the
beginning. No nobody trained me in the beginning. It was finding dealers where
it was obvious, which there were so many hand dealt games in Las Vegas
back then that you know, there were just hundreds and hundreds of games to
look at, and the majority of the games were not what we used to
call front loaders or third basers with a handout game, but first basers because
the dealers used to peak under tens, so someone at first base could see
what the whole card was onto the ten. So I played much more of
that than I did. You know, Flashers, Yes, Blackjack and other
games. When other games got invented, that was a big boom for a
lot of people because many of the new games there were edges to be had.
So what was the rest of the question, I think? Or did
I answer all of it? Yes? I played it. Yes, I
played multiple games. No one taught me. Oh, where did I get
the strategy? Originally there was a strategy in Ken Euston's book. I think
it was million dollar Blackjack. There was a whole card strategy chart. You
know now the you know, the gold standard is Exhibit CIA by James grow
All. Right, now, question for me, says Bob. You've stated
on the show that card pulling, at least the type where you pull the
card between the deal and the drawing video poker isn't a thing anymore since machines
will retain the card's information through the draw. But do you ever or did
you ever employ other types of card pulling, such as removing the card before
the deal when you have a lot of multiplayers in ultimate act? And my
answer is I card pulled very rarely, simply because I'm a well known player
and at least in video poker, in every casino that allows me to play,
I assume there are some management people who think it's a bad idea for
them to let me play, so I try very hard not to give them
a reason to kick me out. I can never know when a camera is
looking at me or being reviewed even after I leave, so I always act
as I'm being watched. I have ever done it? Yes? Do I
do it very often? No, in in slots. There's a lot of
really easy ways to do this on some games that you can generate huge losses
basically almost invisibly. But Dicky Krim mentioned a few of these uh month or
so ago. But um, but video poker, no, I'm not.
I'm not a card poler. Okay. I've been a regular listener for Gambling
with an Edge podcast last few years and I really appreciate all the time and
effort. Thank you very much. As you wrap up the show, could
you please recommend any other podcasts, blogs, forums, or other media resources
that come closest to providing the type of high quality current information and news about
advantaged place for which Gambling With and edges. No, this can include both
freed or paid resources. I don't mind paying for access to information. I
also listened to Risk of Ruins, Tens and Aces, the black Jack Apprentship
podcasts all are great, but they all release episodes much less frequently in gambling
with an edge. Okay, so what are the best podcasts? It depends
on your game. Sports betting has a number of good podcasts. I think
you know Captain Jack. I think Spanky Rufus has some of his own in
addition to the ones he does with Captain Jack. There are poker podcasts,
a number of them. I'm not up to date on the best ones.
Is that's not my game? The Richard, do you have anything to recommend
in that area? Well, if you covered, you covered the bulk of
it. I would also add m guy Rob Pizzole, who we had on
the show, has a podcast called Circles Off, which he's a really good
interviewer. It's a it's a sports betting podcast, but I found it engaging,
even though I'm not a sports better. And the other one that I
would recommend, which isn't really a how to show but a very entertaining show,
is called Gamblers and it's on The Ringer, which is, you know,
an offshoot of ESPN of some sort, so he doesn't do that many
episodes. He has like a season. It's run by David Hill, who's
been on the show, and he'll do like eight episodes and then you know
it'll be gone for a few months or whatever. So um, I would
add those those two to the mix. Yeah, and Richards also recommended like
the Freakonomics podcast and a few other podcasts which are not directly related to gambling
usually, but he's commanded them, and I assume he's still does. Oh
yeah, absolutely, yeah. I have lots of other podcasts I could recommend,
but that aren't gambling related. Okay, what is the biggest life lesson
that you've learned while gambling? Not so much gambling, but life lessons.
So my advice on that is to take care of yourself healthwise and LifeWise.
Stop smoking, manage your weight, exercise lots of water. Being vaccinated is
a smart thing to do, whatever your politics. Maintain relationships with other humans,
even if you're a solo road warrior. Findet zoomed that interests you.
I participate in a Toastsbaster group out of Iowa. They still have it on
Zoom. They started. They've been around forever, but they started Zoom podcasts
they're still doing them. So I've never met any of the people personally,
although I know one from another podcast. But I now I'm kind of in
relationship with fifteen people who are interesting who I've ever met, but I certainly
know what they look like and what their life's all about. Having an interest
in other people, it's probably important consider volunteering. Branch out. Don't be
the one trick pony, either in gambling or in life Richard. So life
lessons from the show or from gambling, The two that stick out or three
that stick out to me are learned to look at life in terms of expected
value, like really understand what expected value is and apply that to other things
in your life. Another one is, man, I cannot say this enough
time, sort of stressed enough. Your success is going to be determined by
your network and how hard you work. It's just then your network is so
incredibly important. And as I mentioned on the last Mailbag show, one of
the greatest benefits of this show to me was it expanded my network so much
by meeting people I never would have met otherwise, so and it just makes
me anyway happier because I have more people that I interact with in interesting,
in creative ways. So those are the two to jump out at me.
Yeah, I definitely agree with that. Now, Richard likes people more than
I like people, and so it is easier for he has been so much
more successful at networking than I ever have. But I do believe believe that
my life works better when there's at least some other human interaction, and both
on a professional and a personal level or another Yeah, I'm sorry, go
ahead, finish your thought. No, go ahead. I also would add
I'm a big fan of quitting, So when things are not working, quit
So I think people get stuck in ruts where they feel like I can't quit.
I've got a mortgage or I I for whatever reason. But if you're
not happy doing what you're doing, then just stop and do something else.
You won't starve, You'll find another job or whatever it is. But life
is too short to hate. I really like the Anti Duke book on called
Quitting or Quit about some guidelines of when it does make sense to quit and
when it doesn't, and having a good quitting strategy makes a lot of sense,
all right. Next question. About a year ago, I met some
fellowayps who used to play black deck, but they told me they started building
players cards for free play. They started getting me into it, but it
soon turned me into working for them, where I would gather all their free
play for them off of multiple cards. They assured me it wasn't illegal,
but after seeing all the money it was producing and made me feel pretty uncomfortable,
I recently told him I wasn't going to be doing this anymore, but
I kind of figured that activity. A lot of people are doing this and
wanted to know from you guys if this kind of activity was legal or not,
or had any sage advice as to how to proceed would leave my conscious
feeling better. Now. I do play on my wife's card where it's allowed
or where I have not typically been told not to do it, which has
happened in a few places, But in general playing on somebody else's card,
especially several other person's cards, I believe it's fraud. There are a lot
of listeners to this podcast who do it. I'm not a fan. This
is an AP move, but it is also, in my opinion, cheating.
I would just add that it may be illegal in some places and not
others. But even if it is not illegal, I know quite a number
of people who have been arrested for it, and some charged for it,
and some who had to plead guilty to some charges for it. So it
is it is something you have to realize there is risk involved, and they're
giving you the risky part, right, You're the one going in with the
multiple cards to pick up the money. So yeah, I would definitely not
be doing it for somebody else unless they're I mean, even if they were
paying me a lot a big chunk of the of the money. Often you
know they're paying people ten percent or twenty percent to go pick up the free
play. You know. I think it's I think it's crazy. All right.
What do you both predict for the future of AP Richard, Well,
I've said this on the air a number of times. I predict that ten
years from now there may be no live casino games anymore. That it'll all
be machines, and it will be impossible to play anonymously because places they're already
restaurants and things like that that will not accept cash. It's eventually it'll be
casinos that won't accept cash. It'll be some something on your phone or some
device that hasn't been invented yet where you will get your money into play through
that device, and because of that, they will have all your information.
So for the vast majority of people, AP will be dead. But sharp
aps are always going to find ways to beat games. I at least I
believe that even if you can't be anonymous, and even if there's no cash,
sharp players are going to find a way to beat games. Yeah,
it's a mindset. I mean it's yeah. It might not be card counting,
it might not be video poker. Who knows what it'll be. I
mean, nobody thought they'd be out playing slots full time twenty years ago.
But that's a thing, right, So things change and you adapt or die,
all right, Does anyone still earning in black jack with automatic shuffle machines
Richard, Well, most of the people making money in blackjack aren't playing.
I think you mean continuous shuffling machines. Automatic shuffling machines are just machines that
shuffle the cards for you, but they still deal them out of a shoe
with a cut card and deal, you know, four decks out of six
or whatever are but continuous shuffling machines, then card counting is mostly dead in
that situation. That doesn't mean that the game of blackjack can't be beat,
but it is mostly dead for card counters if all they have is continuous shuffling
machines, like some of the countries in Europe. But they still might have
whole carding possibilities on these games or promotions or something. Well yeah, but
not in Europe because they don't take a whole card. But there might be
other ways to beat the game. Yeah, all right, what is your
favorite casino game of all time? Well, I mean, I'm I'm just
tempted to say blackjack, just because that's where I spent the most amount of
my time. Yeah, well, you're still debated. Yeah, let me
let me try my answer. For me, even though I play a lot
of slots these days, video poker has been the my meat potatoes for almost
thirty years, and for me, in video poker my favorite. I enjoy
induces while and quick quads more than other video poker games, but I always
ranked favorite in terms of expected dollars per hour, and for me for an
extended period of time, that was always at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas
during my Million Dollars run twenty some years ago, where they were given away
the store and didn't realize that. I just kept playing and playing and playing,
and that was definitely something that was really favorite for me. Yeah,
what's your largest failure in a casino? Did we have this question before?
I thought we answered it? Maybe not, maybe I just read it.
But anyway, if I've told the story before, forgive me. But in
nineteen eighty five, there used to be a magazine called Gambling Times. It
was a monthly magazine and I would read it religiously. And I saw a
little ad in the back of the magazine that said they were opening a new
casino in Aruba and they were going to have single deck. And I immediately
called my friend Daryl, and I said, Hey, we need to go
to a Ruba. And so I had found two games. One was in
Through a Sow where they had an early surrender, and then there was this
game. So we went to Curius Out first. We got stuck right away
with the early surrender, and so we ended up there extending our trip and
we didn't have a lot of time left, so we finally flew over to
a Ruba and we get to a Ruba and we asked them where's the new
casino, and they send us to a place and we go there and there's
no single deck, and so we go scout all the other casinos on the
island and it's not there. It was all a false alarm. So we
lost this money and we head back to Vegas and I later found out that
there was a casino that we missed somehow. It was not right on the
beach and we did not find it. And the guy who did find it
was able to win three hundred thousand dollars on that game before they kicked him
out, and those are nineteen eighty five dollars. And so that was my
biggest failure, the fact that we did not find that game, knowing that
we were going there specifically to look for that game. All Right, what
is the single best piece of gambling advice you could give to an up and
coming gambler. Well, I think we just kind of covered that a couple
of questions ago. But the best piece of advice is think about things in
terms of expected value, and your success will be determined by your network and
how hard you were. Yeah, I'm thinking the person who sent this question
is wants to know how to get rich without doing any work, and I
don't know how to do that. Yeah, good luck with that, all
right, Where you're going to have our last commercial break and we have poor
questions before we wait, you know what, wait just a second, I
have one more piece of advice. Conventional wisdom is maybe conventional, but it's
not wisdom. I think there is money to be made in areas where people
say, oh, well, you can't do this, and and sometimes those
are the areas you need to go really investigate because you won't have competition if
you find a way to do what everybody tells you you can't do. So
just you know a couple examples or one example of that is it used to
be, you know, when six to five came out, people were just
like, oh, this is horrible, the death of blackjack, and you
know, nobody should ever play six to five. And there were a lot
of players who made lots of money playing six to five because they didn't listen
to the conventional wisdom. Another example was every time somebody brought up computers on
the old BJ twenty one, Stanford Wong and a whole list of guys would
immediately say that's illegal, you'll go to jail. Well, it was illegal
in Nevada, that didn't mean it was illegal everywhere. And so again,
you know, people who did not listen to the conventional wisdom were able to
play with computers and places where it was still legal. So just one more
piece of advice, and ploppies, those options are not available to ploppies.
I'm assuming ploppies mean you know nothing about advantage gambling, and what Richard's talking
about is pretty sharp players looking for new ways on top of the old ways.
But they're really well versed in the old ways, so it may not
be thing. So you got to learn some stuff before you're able to do
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right for you. All right, Have either of you ever advantage played a
carnival game at an actual carnival. No, I don't think I ever have.
I can think of one example where I did. I probably was eighteen
or nineteen years old and with my first real girlfriend, and we both were
Sunday school teachers at the local Methodist church, and so they took all so
we kind of chap broke a group of kids who went to a carnival and
they had a fire a gun and hit a target and if you can knock
go the target, you get a free teddy bear. So Gretchen Toby she'd
like a teddy bear. So it didn't look that hard. So I went
and went up there, and they showed me how easy it was, and
they just like tipped it with a long stick and fell right over, And
then they put it back up there again and had me shoot, and even
if I bet again, they would let me use the stick to push it
over. And of course it didn't work because but I noticed the thing I
had to tip over had it it was lopsided, and if the the fat
side, then when you tip the top it just falls over and but doesn't
fall off the shelf. And if you if the fat side is behind,
then when you tip the top it actually falls into the hole. So um,
but I noticed that it had a I noticed the spot, and when
they did it to show me how easy it was, the spot wasn't there.
And when I had to do what the spot was there. So after
I had the stick to they just allowed me to push it over if I
paid for the bet. Then I said, you need to turn it around
because you're cheating, and if you turn it around, I'll tell everybody how
are you cheating them? So they turned it around and let me push it
over with the thing and I got Gretchen a Teddy Bear. So um,
I have no idea where that teddy Bear is today. I suspect it is
long gone, but I have not seen Gretchen for sixty years and Teddy Bear
either. All Right, you said that the worst thing you can do with
the promotional match wager is to get on Roulette and have one person place their
match bet on red and the other place at the same wager on black,
and then split the wind if the wind happens. It took I took my
friends to be acclaim and using Southwest promotion that has been mentioned on the show.
Thank you very much, and my buddy who rare. Hambles took the
advice from the group DGEN to use the strategy attempt to talk both out of
it, and alluded to the show saying they're better off placing it on number
or numbers. The DGEN said, but this is a sure thing. Um
well it hit green, so I felt validated. Can you explain this again
so I can share with them? Or in what episode can I find this
information? Oh, we don't want to spend their last episode talking about math.
Uh yeah, I don't. I don't remember what episode it was in.
But you know, people like that, I think you're better off not
even trying to or or you know, a better thing is whatever they think
they're guaranteed to win, offer them that amount of money to buy the coupon
from them, and then better the right way and earn the extra EV.
Yeah, and you know, one one thing about EV is you can lose
on this particular If you're really concerned about winning this particular time, then yeah,
taking the guarantee is worth something. But if you're in this game for
a length of time, winning this particular time is not so important. It's
how you do over over the year, over your lifetime that matters. Also,
by the way, most places will not allow you to bet those coupons
on a single number, so it may not have even been an option.
Yeah, And when when I play at the d with my those coupons,
I use it on the it's the gambling pass line, just the craps pass
line, and it's resolved fairly quickly. I win my forty nine percent of
the time that are supposed to and it works out fine. And so they
can you can have a lot of these coupons all at once. You get
two every two every time you show your pet. In addition to Southwest,
they also will accept boarding passes from Spirit Airlines, and so you can do
it every time you come to Vegas. As long as you flew on one
of those airlines, you get two of these twenty five dollars match play cupons.
So if there's two of you, that's four coupons for all right.
And when I play, I'm also playing someone slots at the same time.
I'm not going in there just to collect the bonus. If I'm in there
and they and I have to go to booth to collect it, I make
sure they have play on my card on day, all right. Next question
I'm a new listener and very much enjoy your podcast. I played Black Teck
for years and have recently tried high local hard counting system and, being honest
with myself with my attention deficit disorder, I found the hours on end concentration
remark successfully implement the system is just too much for me. Instead, I'm
playing perfect basic strategy at the most busy table I can find while playing rated
with casino comps. I'm actually playing very close to break even and having fun
doing so. My question is is there any advice for lowering the house edge
further than what I'm already doing without using a professional card counting system. My
interested is being the smartest gambler I possibly can, given that card counting is
too tough for me. Well, I would say probably there were There are
things you could do. I assume you're playing double deck, which is going
to give you the lower house edge than the shoe games, and there are
some kind of combinations of cards that would give you a tiny amount, but
better would be to try to fool them on your size of your bet and
the amount you're playing. So Comps City is a book we've talked about a
lot by Max Rubin, And the idea is your comps are based on your
average bet and the amount of time you're playing. So if you can convince
them that you're betting more than you really are and that you're playing more longer
than you really are, that will lower the amount that you're giving to the
casino and EV but get you more in comps. So the ways to do
that are to bet more when the pit boss is over there filling out the
rating card and then lower your bets when he walks away, and taking frequent
bathroom breaks, doing things like getting to the table before they're going to change
the cards, because it always takes time for them to go through all the
decks and change the cards, and you're on the clock while that's happening.
So yeah, those are the things that can increase your comps and lower the
amount of EV you're giving the casino. Right, last question about video poker,
I've recently started practicing on my phone, and when trying to play quickly,
I occasionally hold a face car to throw away a low pair just by
accident, but it will make me feel better if they don't see an additional
low card of the same value on the draw because I figured it wouldn't have
hit a three or four of a kind with that car. Is this the
correct mentality or would the draw be different had I kept the pair? I
figure out I'm wrong, But it does make me feel better about making a
mistake. Well, I'm glad it makes you feel better whatever. Whenever that
happens to me, I slow down. Usually such mistakes are made by playing
too fast. These airs add up, which can mean the game you thought
you were playing with advantage you aren't. So whatever card you actually hit on
this practice on your phone, you have no bearing on anything. That's not
really a payoff window. And when you're playing, if you make this mistake
in a casino, it's the cards are still shuffling, and so the actual
cards that you get after holding the single high card are going to be different
than the ones you you got if you if you held it a tick slower.
So basically, slow down and you'll be And so we're at the end.
Do you have any last words for our listeners, Richard, Just that
it's been a pleasure. I started August of twenty eleven, so twelve years
ago, almost twelve years, and it's just it's been great. I've learned
a lot, met a lot of great people. So yeah, I've really
really enjoyed my time doing this. Yeah, and I started six months before
that where Frank Niela was my co host for a while. And I've learned
a lot and I appreciate the I've become. I become less of a pariah.
Since I started this, I have historically had lots of bad um things
written about me in various blogs, various Internet forums. And since I started
the show and people have gotten to know me more. Um, a lot
of the questions still have gone away. The still on I'm not the I
don't have a lot of fans on blackjack discord. I understand that, and
they still trash me regularly, but um wait, they love you. They
love sexualizes and video poker. Okay, shall we say that opinion is not
unanimous over there. But uh, but I've enjoyed it. I've grown a
lot as a knowledge wise UM have now accepted as a wise senior citizen of
in the gambling world, which is um not a bad position to be in.
I continue to get invited to the Blackjack ball, for which I'm grateful.
I enjoy that, even though blackjack is not my game and getting to
know Richard better has been a plus, and I'm one of my goals is
to stay in touch with him even after we end this the good part of
my network, well, thank you all our listeners for this. Thank you
Richard. Go out and hit a royal flush everybody. Good day to