Good afternoon. You're listening to Gambling with an Edge. Now here are your
host, Bob d Answer and Richard Lunchkin. Good afternoon, Welcome to Gambling
with an Edge, John, Bob Answer, and I'm Richard Lunchkin. Today
is another mailback show. Richard and I are answering questions from you submitted via
several sources. First question, I have a question for Bob. I'm a
lot hustler while I get some okay mailers from my local shops. The amount
I earned from positive games absolutely dwarfs the amount I earned from mailer's cashback comps.
It's probably a ninety eight percent to two cents split for me personally,
ninety eight from playing positive state games and two percent from comps. Here's my
question in your EIGHTP careers, what percentage your income roughly was split between positive
EV games and casino comps? Bob? Could you answer the question in two
parts? When I was playing primarily VP and now he's gotten into ap slots,
I'm quickly interested in this percentage now that he's playing slots. All right,
this has changed over the years. Back in nineteen ninety six, Treasure
Island, Mirage and others on the Las Vegas Strip offered a point six seven
cash back on ninety six Jackson Better Video Poker. That's ninety nine and a
half percent game. This gives players almost point two off the top. Monthly
promotions where they gave away hundreds of thousands of dollars to invited guests who earn
tickets starting Thursday midnight to the seven pm Saturday drawing for about fifteen thousand dollars
coin in, which was less than one hour on a five dollars machine,
you got full RFB. You could delay your Sunday checkout until eight pm or
so, which extended your RFB status until then. The MGM Grand had a
bigger slot club. Venetian and Golden Nugget were in the mix as well.
There was one of these events almost every weekend with a cash ev around two
thousand dollars per weekend per player per casino b with some players eight five hundred
dollars meals every night. Sometimes it was a slot tournament giving away the money
so you didn't have to be there for the party afterwards to collect your prices.
That way, you could participate in more than one event per weekend.
I hadn't played the Caesar's property at that time, simply because I didn't have
enough time. Back then, it was fairly rare for video poker players to
be kicked out or restricted from casino. This golden age of video poker promotions
lasted for me anyway until two thousand and one, when I was reading from
all MGM properties, which you had bought half the properties on the strip by
then. Gradually all the slot clubs began to pay less, and you sometimes
got mailers in the mail, and it became common for winning players to be
shown the door or restricted in one or more ways. The games themselves for
high denominations anyway, we're almost never in excess one hundred percent, so you
needed the slot club in various promotions to be in excess. There were several
years when I was down one hundred thousand or so on the machines, but
it had three or four hundred thousand in cash back promotions and drawings. My
million dollars year. By luck, I was they had more than five hundred
thousand on the machines. That happened exactly one year. It's primarily at ninety
nine and a half percent games, plus there was all the other stuff when
we played at the MGM Grand their awards were bigger. In addition to this,
we were able to monetize a whole lot of rooms. Meals, fight,
choke, if it's, et cetera. I couldn't tell you what percentage
came from the games or what percentage came from the other If I had to
come open the number, I'd say maybe if our average total was one hundred
percent, the video poker turned out to be a minus twenty five percent,
and the other stuff was worth a positive one hundred and twenty five percent,
which gave us their totals video poker. A couple decades later, the games
are tighter, slot clubs are smaller. They still have drawings and promotions,
and mailers are a part of the mix. There's a lot fewer full time
video poker professionals, simply because they aren't as welcome as they used to be
and the good conditions don't exist anymore. There used to be a whole slew
of quarter full payd deuces wild players who can make ten dollars an hour or
so, which will nicely supplement their many care or requirement checks. Not so
many of those anymore. Is that game has largely disappeared from Las Vegas,
and so far as slots go today, I'm probably not the best one to
ask. Many of the casinos that restricted me from playing video poker years ago
are not interested in removing those restrictions. And when I play slots, so
a lot of places I get no manners at all. I can still play
without a card, and so the vast majority of my sloting can plush from
the games, not the benefits. Yeah. Yeah, for me, it's
like, you know, ninety nine percent the games, and I mean the
vast majority of my playing has been without a card, you know. I
mean, first of all, in the old days there was no card,
and then since the whole slot club thing, for the most part, I
avoided it. There were a couple of years in the late nineties where I
was specifically playing four comps, and that was back in the day when you
know, you could earn ten thousand dollars for the Tyson tickets they gave you,
or many of the casinos were giving you airfare reimbursements, so you know,
you could get go in and pick up a few thousand just in airline
tickets or whatever. But still, as I say, I would guess ninety
nine percent of it is over the table, and you know, maybe one
percent is stuff casino. Maybe even less than one percent is stuff I got
from comps. All right, let's move on. Question asked. I've heard
Bob say in the path how New York state video poker machines are different from
other states. I was hoping you could explain the difference. Okay, I
haven't played in New York, so this is secondhand. As I understand that
the rosinos in New York, which are the ones associated with a racetrack,
there are special state approved measures where the games have a fixed payout. The
game may look like the ninety nine percent game based on the pay schedule,
but the random number generator isn't random in the way that most games are random,
where every unseen card has an equal chance of appearing. The games are
fixed so the players will receive ninety three percent or whatever it is set out.
As I understand that video poker casinos not at race track to New York
are not subject to the same regulation. Right, I believe Washington is the
same way. Yeah, well, yeah, it's it's not random, but
I don't think it's random in the same way I don't think it's and but
I think the rules in Washington are different than the rules in New York.
Okay, now give a question for Richard. Casinos have been battling card counters
for decades, even resorting to illegal measures to keep them from playing. Why
don't casinos just utilize CSMs across the board. Not only would it speed up
the game, but also make card counting useless. Recreational players wouldn't care,
and non recreational players aren't the type of customers the casino wants. Anyway,
seemed like a simple way to avoid the unpleasant legal confrontations associated with barring or
limited aps. Well, that is what's happened in many European casinos. That
is exactly what they've done in Vegas and in the United States. I mean,
it's simple economics. They tried it here in Las Vegas, and they
found that the players just didn't play as much, so their revenue went down.
So they resorted to eight decades with lousy cuts and six to five on
blackjack. But for there for some players, they do not like playing against
the continuous shuffling machines, so the casinos took a lot of them out Okay,
next question, how do you evaluate the return of the mailer on top
of the return of video poker games. Assume you get one hundred dollars free
play per day for the whole month. You discount the whole three thousand dollars
mailer by like twenty to thirty percent, since you could miss some of the
days to pick up the free play. Okay, there are casinos where you
can earn nice mailers, but if you pick them up, it drives down
your daily theoretical to low levels and you don't get any more mailers at such
places. It really only makes sense to pick up the mailer when I'm planning.
I'm playing anyway. Another way to do it is to make one big
play earning the mailers, and then pick up all the mailers with no future
play. If in your exam ample, you might get daily one hundred dollars
for months, daily twenty dollars for the next month, then twenty dollars weekly
for the third month, you wait another month, and then you give them
another big play, creating a new sun of mailers. This works in some
places, not at all. I only count the mailers if I pick up
if I'm playing ninety six jacks. It takes twenty thousand dollars coin in approximately
to lose one hundred dollars in ev you don't mention what else comes along in
the mix. Do you get slock club benefits? Are there a double or
triple points some of the times or their drawings? If you play a million
dollars coin in for the year, do you get a car lease? Whatever?
The mailer is just part of the mix. You have to consider everything,
but the mailer pickup and the play are not really edible because economists call
the first a stock amount, meaning it's fixed, and the second is a
flow aunt that is one hundred dollars. However, many times you pick them
up, they're all hundred dollars. But whether you play nothing or play a
ton, it's still one hundred. The nine six jacks is a game that
bleeds off round numbers an average of fifty dollars of loss per ten thousand dollars
coin in less, but the slot club pays. If anything, if you
play more, you lose more. If you say I'm going to play twenty
five thousand dollars coin in every time I show up, well, that translates
to about one hundred and five dollars lost ev wise in the slot. Let's
the slot club return and now the one twenty five for the play and the
plus one hundred the the mailer are adible, but until you commit to playing
a specific amount, they're not. Next question, My wife and I play
together and switch off periodically without changing whose slot club card is being used?
Question? Is it important to always pull my card and have her insert her
card when we change positions? Can they refuse to pay if she wins when
my card is in? But I'm sitting there just watching. An Indian casino
here in Florida was a little mad about it ten years back when my wife
hit a twenty thousand dollars royal and my card was in, but they did
pay. Okay, different casinos have different rules. I do play on Bonny's
card, usually was her sitting right next to me. If I'm going to
be getting a lot of wpg's onto play, I also checked with the slot
director first. I don't want an after the fact problem. Next question,
I have a question regarding slot machines. Can the casino adjust the machines so
that the bonus payback is less but the line pay is more so the machine
is still paying out let's say eighty seven percent, but the line hits are
bigger than the bonus payoffs. And in my local casino, that Buffalo Diamond
doesn't pay as much as it used to during the three and four X bonuses,
but lots more line pay It's possible that casino noticed the game is beatable
and made changes. My answer might be a difference without a distinction, though
the casinos cannot do that. The program that runs the slot machine is locked
up and isn't accessible to the casinos. But the ca machine manufacturers can certainly
do this, and they do. The manufacturers can offer different versions of the
same game. The casino can choose version to install at their casino. More
likely, manufacturers come out with different releases. If version one point zero wasn't
performing the way the casinos like, the manufacturers will come up with version two
point zero, which is addresses what the casino casinos issues were. The games
can look the same, but they're not. Sometimes it's hard to tell the
different. Sometimes sharp plays can notice that this is version one and that one
version two, and sometimes you can't tell them tell you just see your results.
Next question, I'm as Caesar's Diamond plus member. Working my way to
maintain that status for next year. I've never been to Reno, and I
thought i'd give the Silver Legacy a try. I have a host and I
think I'd like to book a room through her. I'm finding the best flight
to leave Rena would be late in the evening, and I was wondering if
you think or no, it's poor formed a book a room through the following
day, but check out a day early so that I have a room to
relax in if I need it before my evening flight. Do you think checking
out a day early in this fashion for my convenience will be problematic for me
or my host? What would you do when you have a late flight?
Well, I've done what you're suggesting several times. The only difference is that
I asked the host what's the best way to handle it. Sometimes they want
me to send a tech such as check me out a room one, two,
three, four, and they'll do it. If there's any type of
problem with doing that at this particular property, they'll say something like, we'll
do this once for you, but try not to do it in the future
because of blah blah blah and if that happens, you make plans for your
next trip accordingly, but do it openly and tell them why, and usually
the host will work with you. I mean. The other thing is,
how do they know that you left early? Right? If you if you
have a late flight and you stay in the room, or you keep the
room until you know five PM and then just you know, pull the cover
down on the bed and leave. Nobody knows that you're not there until the
next day, and they don't know that you didn't stay there. Yeah,
there are times so that you would like to check out and say, uh,
send this to my host before you use my reward credits to pay for
the pay for the balance, something like that. And if if they check
you out the next day, they just automatically will charge your credit card or
whatever they want without sometimes seeing that you wanted to do a host review.
Got ye, all right? Can you discuss prenups for aps? Well,
I've had not a lawyer and have no legal advice on the subject. It
does doesn't strike me the prenups for aps are inherently different from prenups for any
other professional Richard, do you have a prenup? No? I don't,
and and uh, I, to my knowledge, I don't know anybody.
I mean, you're the first person I just turned say that you had a
prenup. But prior to hearing that, I don't think I knew any apes
that had a prenup. So, but I agree, I don't know why
it would be any different for an apum than anybody else. Um. So
I don't know that I have any advice here, but let's let me wallow
in this a little bit. UM. When I married Shirley back in the
mid nineties, I had considerably considerably more wealth than she did, and both
of us had a history of more than one divorce. So I was I
didn't want a situation where I say I do three months later she changes her
mind and and walks away with half my assets. So I didn't and so
I said no. So with her I set up a deal so that basically,
if she stays married to me for ten years, she gets fifty percent,
Nine years she gets forty five percent, six years she gets thirty percent.
You know, two years she gets ten percent of the combined wealth.
So so if she's going to be there for the long term, well then
fine, she gets half debs and we stayed together seventeen years, and we
our property settlement took us about a half hour, and what didn't involve lawyers,
and so the exact wording of the prenup wasn't really critical. It was
it'd been together long enough that we both knew that it was going to be
fifty fifty and we could either do it quickly or pay lawyers to take a
lot of money. So that was the form where that we used. I
don't know that I recommend that anybody else, and everybody everybody's situation is different.
Next question. A couple of casinos at my local market now allow players
to use cell phones at will, even while sitting and playing hands at the
black check table. The only restriction is you can't point it directly at the
table, but you can look at tech check scores, etcetera. As much
as you want without leaving the table or backing away. I'm new to the
card counting ap world, so it wasn't around the casino environment when cell phones
became commonplace. I've always been curious how big a risk somebody using a cell
at the table really is and why casinos make a big deal about him.
It would seem that if a casino suspected somebody is cheating using a phone,
it would be pretty easy to zoom in on a suspected phone and confirm if
the player was using for anything nefarious. By making players stand up and back
away, they are losing hands and the player could be gambling. And if
someone was cheating, why wouldn't making them stand up and step away? Why
would that make any difference? Am I just oblivious to easy cheating scandals?
Or is this just another case the casinos costing themselves money due to paranoia?
Richard, you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, you're You're exactly right.
The casinos did it because they are paranoid and stupid. And you know,
a smart casino puts chargers at the table to keep people there. You
want to encourage people to take selfies in your casino, not tell them they're
not allowed to photograph, and the casino it's all just stupidity. You're right.
You want to keep the players there as long as possible. You don't
want them to have to step away and get out of hands. I mean,
you know a lot of aps use this to their advantage. When they
don't want to be playing, they can get up and you know, talk
on their phone or check their texts so they can avoid playing when they don't
want to. So you hit the nail on the head. They do it
because they're paranoid and stupid. And by the way, if somebody was cheating
in some way using a cell phone, they're a pretty bad cheat. I
mean, it would be pretty obvious that that's what they were doing. Well
what it un necessarily there could be codes from somebody away from the table and
that relate to your phone that nobody else would could read. Well, I
mean, would that be cheating? If I get a text from somebody who
I don't know what are what are they doing that that my phone is now
just a device to receive a text, it's not a you know what I
mean? And for you to get a text that would be crucial in the
middle of a hand as opposed to I don't know, I'm thinking more.
You know. The kind of stuff that I would hear pit bosses say is
that you know, people could use the phone to count card somehow. Well,
okay, but counting, I mean using using a computer to count cards
on a multiple deck game with a lousy cut is pointless. You can do
the same thing in your head. I mean, you gain almost nothing using
a computer in that way, and the idea of using a cell phone,
I don't know. You're gonna put it, you know, angle it somewhere
down on the table where the camera is low enough that you somehow are going
to see the dealer's whole card. Well, that would be pretty obvious to
anybody there that that's what you were trying to do. So I don't know
it. Just I think the risks are minimal. Okay, next question,
I can't seem to win a casino drawing, even when I have thousands of
entries. I don't live close enough to a casino to be able to do
it every to go every day. Is it worth my time even trying to
earn entries or is it just bad luck that I haven't won one? Is
it even possible to win with just one entry? I'm especially suspect of electronic
entrance and how they can be manipulated. Well, I address this quite a
bit in my in my weekly blog. The general rules on this are the
kind of drawings that suit your play. If you are a big player,
then picked drawings where the more entries you have, the better your chances are
if you're a small player, pick drawings where everybody gets exactly one ticket or
some such. If you're a big player, you don't want drawings where everyone
gets free entries. If everyone gets free entries, it it makes it a
crapshoot, and being a big player doesn't help you any So different drawings have
different strategies. Drawings have been very lucrative to me over the years, not
so much recently, but they still do okay. Next question, how easy
is it to get a casino in America, particularly Vegas, to play to
pay a slot ticket as a bank transfer as opposed to cash. I'm not
tying hand paid territory more say six hundred dollars to one thousand and accumulated winnings
throughout a session. I have never tried that. I am thinking that would
be tough, especially since you can easily put six one bills into a machine,
hit the cashop button, and now you have the ticket you're talking about,
and asking for a check for that ticket. Most casinos would not be
interested in doing that for reasons of money laundering. Well, and he's not
even asking for a check, he's asking for a bank transfer. I can't
imagine a casino doing that. I mean, I don't think they want to
wire money for you to your bank, unless like you're a credit player and
you wired it in. But yeah, you'd be better off having a friend
you give him the money and he then mos it to you that goes directly
into your bank or zell whatever. Hi next question, as a non United
States resident obviously aware of the ten thousand dollars limit for taking cash road in
your experience, is it best to tell them in advance that you have the
ten thousand dollars on your person. If you don't tell some countries in advance
and they finally cash on you, they will see the entire amount, not
just the additional amount from the ten thousand Richard, Yeah, no, that
you're correct. So if you're leaving the United States with more than ten thousand
dollars or entering with more than ten thousand dollars, you have to declare it
now. When you're coming in, it's not a problem. You have a
customs form and there's a thing right there on there that asks how much money
are you carrying? And you can declare it, and that's not a problem.
The problem is when you're leaving the country because nobody in the freaking airport
knows who you're supposed to report it to, and you can run around trying
to find the office or whoever is in charge of that, and sometimes it
is a real hassle trying to find whoever it is you're supposed to report it
to, and nobody knows. They don't know anything about it, mainly because
it's so rare that it happens that none of the airport employees know. You
know. One idea might be to call customs before your flight and say,
hey, this is the airport I'm flying out of. I'm leaving with more
than ten thousand dollars in cash, where specifically in the airport can I go,
you know, fill out the form or do whatever I need to do
to declare it. On a related subject, do if you're flying to another
country and you try to leave that country with more than you brought in,
is that a problem only if they have currency restrictions. So yeah, and
so when I played in Korea, they had currency restrictions. You were not
allowed to bring out more than ten thousand dollars other than money you had brought
in, So you would declare when you came into the country. I'm coming
with this much cash, you were allowed to take that much cash out.
Other than that, you were allowed to take up to ten thousand dollars.
Same thing in Poland they had currency restrictions now and now these things may have
changed. I mean the last time I was in Poland was like nineteen ninety
so. But yeah, so you just have to check if the particular country
has currency resort and if to do and you have more than that, you
have to find another some way to get it out. Yeah, then you
have to get creative, all right. Next question, I count cards,
but play rated with a very modest bet spread, getting most of my value
from the comps generated. Recently, I had a lucky session and now have
been flat betted. I can still play earn comps, but if I spread,
I fear I'll be eighty six. Any suggestions on how to get this
flat betting restriction lifted, Richard, No, I don't think you can.
Yeah, I don't think you'll be able to get it lifted, and trying
to get it lifted may do more harm than good. So maybe you're in
an area that only has a single casino. But if not, maybe try
one of the other casinos, and if they if the comps are particularly good,
I mean, if you're getting cash comps and things like that, well
then flat betting you may still have an advantage, you know. I mean
you can walk away from negative shoes, go to the bathroom or change tables
or whatever. But um, but as far as getting it changed, I
doubt it. Oh. Now, wait one other thing. I mean,
oh, no, you said they might bar you, so because I was
thinking in Missouri or Atlantic City they sometimes flatbtch you and they're not allowed to
bar you. So you know, you can just Oh but you're playing on
a card, so they're going to know who you are and that you've been
flatbet Yeah. So suspect the listen won't like your answer, Richard. That's
the way it goes. Next questions for me, is a strategy for Deuce's
wild double double bonus available? Can it be figured out with the video poker
for winners? And I do not have that strategy, and it cannot be
calculated using video poker for winners, which doesn't work for most people. Now
anyway, good luck. The cannot be calculated using win poker either. You
would have to write your own software. Now, I looked up what Michael
Shackelford said on that particular game, and he found a couple versions of it
for returns of ninety eight percent and lower in some other state. And so
if that's the game to me, it would be no reason to learn it,
because even if he did learn in its own and ninety eight percent game,
possibly higher returning games or somewhere, but I have not seen them in
Vegas. All right, high I got my first royal flush on five deuces
while I held two cards. I've been catched a photo. My question is
this, I'm fairly sure I made the right play induces, but what are
the actual odds of me hitting a royal holding two cards? I usually grind
on the hired denominations. It was a little upset that it finally happened on
Nickels, nevertheless, and thrilled to get the monkey off my back. Okay,
so you sent a picture showing you're playing in ninety seven point six percent
game. Why on earth would you send a picture of such a bad game
to a show that's about gambling with an edge? Drawing three cards and connecting
is one in sixteen thousand round numbers you're playing triple play, though, so
the odds aren't nearly that long since you have three pops at it. As
long as you've been playing such terrible games, you better stay at Nichols because
when you go to hire, do you know I'm You're gonna lose your shirt?
Game selection is a lot more important than just playing The Royals will come
next question. On my last trip to Vegas, I discovered three way action
video poker in Palaestation and I loved it. There were only a few machines
on the floor and most of them were used at all hours to day and
night. I went to VP three two to see if I could look if
other machines. Didn't find any The game seems popular enough with at least some
people. Why aren't there more of them around? Also? Do you know
where I can find the game in Vegas? Okay? Poker has been around
for more than twenty five years. A friend who check told me twenty years
ago that there were no paced schedules returning more than nine plus. The quick
strategy isn't always obvious, so I never study the game because I didn't have
a strategy and I didn't want to play a game that tip anyway. I
have seen it for low denominations at the Gold Coast, maybe a year ago.
I don't know if it's still there. I certainly haven't done a server
that VP free two generally deals with games returning more so that's another reason they
would not be listed on that site. But if you if you ask on
VP free, wouldn't wouldn't that be a place where he might find an answer
to that question. There are video poker chat rooms. VP free has a
chat room. Wizard of Vegas allows for video poker questions. Video Poker for
Winners has a chat for him, so you could certainly post your questions to
those places. I don't think you're going to get any usable answer, though.
Okay, the Plaza in downtown Las Vegas has seventy five dollars match play
per day for Bengo. This seems like an obvious ap move, but it
seems strange that the place would you be able to advise if there's a catch
in this and not what it seems to be. They advertisers well throughout the
casino, and I imagine nearly everyone in the Bengo hall is taking that promotion
and answers yes, all players have swiped their card get three twenty five dollars
match play coupons. The thing is everybody has them, and the size of
the prizes are based on the fact that everybody has them. I haven't gone
into the Benga room, but this doesn't sound like an AP move to me.
The aps when the prices are geared, so you pay less than other
people did. But if you're paying the same with everybody, then it doesn't
seem to be any advantage. All right, We're now going to take a
commercial break and we'll be back with more questions from you, our listeners.
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right for you. All Right, we're back with our mailbag show. Recently,
the World Game Protection Seminars went on. This is hosted by Willie Allison,
who has been a guest on the number of times according to CDC Gaming
Reports. Sal Piacente, UH Surveillance Expert Gaming Expert was one of the guests,
and he's quoted as saying advantage players don't want to cheat and aren't doing
anything illegal, but instead you use their minds to beat the game, whether
watching to see if a dealer exposes a whole card, or by card counting.
M Richard, do you agree with that? Assessment. Uh well yeah,
um. And and I was fortunate enough the day that article came out,
I spent the afternoon with Sal and a few other magicians including uh Matt
Franco and fantastic magician named Charlie Fry. And but when I saw a Sal,
I said, uh, you know, I really appreciate the fact that
you pointed out in the article that you know, card counting and advantage play
is not cheating. And you know, he said he wanted to be really
clear because so we get lumped in with cheaters so often. So anyway,
I appreciated what he was saying and that he made a point to do that.
So Sal's a great guy. We've tried to get him on the show
a number of times. He always seems to be too busy, So one
of these days we'll have him on. And and I'm not so sure about
that statement. For every thousand apiece, you'll have a thousand different definitions of
what exactly is cheating and what isn't. Like I've been cheated by an ap
I've been stiffed in my writings. I've confessed to some not quite kosher moves
along the way along my journey. Some people have taken be except into some
of the things that I said that I've done. M Richard once told me
about a famous AP that Richard said, he likes the guy, but he
would never do business with that guy. He just would not trust him to
be a good business partner. Um. The idea that aps never cheat,
I think is a bunch of hooie. Some do some don't. You know.
You can have a you know, say taxes. Um. If two
aps or just watching a football game and they made a hundred dollar bet at
the end of the game, they paid it, one of them, one
of them paid Uh, that is a taxable event. Um. I think
the odds are really strong that there were no taxes paid on that event.
Nope. UM. On all cash phase businesses, of which gambling frequently is,
taxes get short changed. Gamblers are, whether AP or not, are
or in that mix, they will frequently cheat in that way. To me,
there's a very big distinction between people who cheat on their taxes and cheating
in casinos. And to me, a lot of people use the word cheat
when what they mean is unethical. But when I talk about cheating in the
context of players in a casino, I'm talking about the legal definition of and
to me, advantage players are people who take money from casinos without breaking the
law. So I'm not talking about whether they cheated on their taxes by not
declaring one hundred dollars football bets. And when they write these articles about the
people playing in casinos, they lump advantage players who are not cheating in the
casino with people who are cheating in the gino. And that's what so many
of us object to. Okay, I'm let me give you one word.
Let me give you one more example. I hear people say if you if
you see the dealer's whole card and play, that that is cheating. Well,
no, the Supreme Court has ruled that that is not cheating. What
they mean is they find it unethical, which is fine, everybody chooses their
own ethics. But it but it is not cheating. Well, the whole
carding. The most famous whole parting case is as Einbinder, where the judges
basically say, if the dealer is gonna show you the card, you you
know you're allowed to use that information. But in in a tribal casino in
Michigan, that was ruled as cheating. So it's the same in fraction as
it were, but different jurisdictions have different definitions of cheating, so sometimes there's
no big agreement. A similar case maybe would be the Phil Ivy, Kelly's
son. Most players felt that what Ivy and Son were doing was perfectly legal.
It was kind of seducing the UH the casino into going along with what
they wanted because the casinos were greedy and wanted to win. And it turned
out that the courts didn't agree with that. The courts made Ivy and Son
pay right, but they did say they The judge did say they were not
cheating. The judge in London did say that. I don't think the judge
in Atlantic City said that, But they did make Kelly and Son or Ivy
and Son reimburse the casinos in one case give the money back. Another case,
the casino never paid him to start with the yeah. So so like
there was no big no clear definition of what is what was cheating or what
is not cheating in that particular case and different players, I don't think necessary
now, and my saying all apes cheat absolutely not. Some of My best
friends are aps, and I trust them as much as I can trust anybody
I have a partner with whom we share and if he says he lost eight
hundred dollars today, well and I accept one hundred percent that he lost eight
hundred dollars today and I have to pay my share of that. So I
don't have any problem with that. But some just because you're an AP doesn't
mean you're always doing things legally. So a statement that aps do things legally,
I think, well, some do, so don't and it isn't necessarily
And saying just because I'm an AP that means they don't cheat. I don't
think that's a fair statement. Well, we'll have to agree to disagree,
okay, and I suspect I will get hate mail, but that well story
in my life. At the end of our show, we have recommended sections.
So Richard, do you have recommended for our listeners. Yeah, I'm
watching a new show called Waco and it's about the whole Waco debacle back in
Texas with the Branch division in compound. Only two episodes have come out.
It's it's really excellent, really really interesting. Uh huh. So the massacre
hasn't happened yet, No, not even close. It's it's the very beginnings
of it. And I mean it just it just makes it clear, like
how screwed up the FBI, uh and the UM I forgot the other organization,
but how screwed up they were. The whole thing was just I mean.
The series actually starts at Ruby Ridge, which was another you know debacle.
Oh it was the ATF and the ATF and the and the FBI are
kind of, you know, blaming each other whenever things went wrong. And
uh, it's it's infuriating watching it. But but but really well done,
well acted, and really interesting. I believe it's on showtime. So my
recommend is going to be another book by David Baldacci. I've been rereading or
re listening to these books, all of which I listened to years ago.
The most recent one that I really struck me is called The Collectors. It
is the second book in the Camel Club series. The Camel Club is about
four bodballs living in Washington, DC who helps solve big things. And The
Collectors, which is the second one in that series, introduce a female con
who is very very good, and so she goes to her cons and so,
several of which are described in great detail before she hooks up with the
other members of the Camel Club. I found it quite interesting and very enjoyable.
It's The Collects by David Baldacci. We welcome your questions at Gambling with
an Edge at gmail dot com or send them to Richard or me individually via
email. Richards on Twitter, so send them there at our WM twenty one
and yeah, you'll notice this episode is a little bit shorter. That's because
we ran out of questions, so definitely send send them in, all right,
thank you very much. Richard brought and hit lots of royal flushes everybody.
Good day.