Ap White dropped out of college three times before finally going back and finishing his
degree. And then he got what every college graduate wants, a cushy,
six figure a year job with benefits. But there was only one problem.
He really didn't like the job, so he chucked it all the way to
go out and become a professional gambler. How did that work out for him
now, a few years down the road, does he regret the decision or
does he think he made the right choice. This is Life is a Gamble?
Episode two. My guest ap White. Okay, well, welcome ap
White to Life is a Gamble. Hey, Richard, thanks for having me.
Glad to be here. Yeah, absolutely, So I want to start
with you have this six figure your job, and you decide to chuck it
all away and go out and become a professional gambler. So tell me how
that happened. Sure, so, Well, I was doing a piece Oncetime.
I was about just about twenty one years old, just started counting and
stuff, and I just remember ever since I was eighteen, you know,
I dropped out of school like three times, first because I got addicted to
World War craft, and then every time it was just it was so I
couldn't pay attention to anything. Everything was so boring. Eventually, I finished
school with a supply chain management degree. And even then the only reason I
got past that is because I had a cool professor and he would let me
write all of my papers about AP. I just kind of tied it into
supply chain and he'd let me do it and it was great. So wait,
wait before you go on, when you say AP, which stands for
advantage play for those of our listeners, was this something more than just counting
cards or was or was that specifically what you were doing? So yeah,
no, this was pretty early on. I kind of started figuring out slot
machines on my own before I before I learned about them online. Like I
figured out like Golden Egypt and like just some simple slot machines, and I
thought that was really cool that you could beat slot machines. This was probably
back in twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, and so no, I kind of
I was talking about that to my classmates, to my professor because I thought
that was much more interesting. Agreed, So you were doing slot machines and
you got interested in counting cards. Yeah, well it was the opposite order.
So I was counting cards, and then when I would wong out,
well actually at my table that I would count in, I would it was
across from a golden Egypt, and I would just see people play it and
I thought like, oh, that looks like something's left behind. And sure
enough, you know, I just go up and I found it. And
then I just walk around the casino and look for machines like that. Okay,
But then, so you have this six figure a year job. Yeah,
so I have this job in management. And you know, I've worked
half a dozen jobs in my life and I've just never been happy at all
of them. And I always remember thinking, ever since I was eighteen,
the original plan was go to school, be a pharmacist, and then I'd
be happy because that seemed like a pretty quick way. Then I get the
six figure job, and I just hated it. I remember I was in
a corporate zoom training and the proctor of the class basically made us go around
in a circle and like just made us jerk off the company. We all
had to go around and say great things about it, and I just remember
in that moment being so angry at myself for allowing myself to be in that
position. I just hated it. And when that happened, I remembered to
our ex Gambles Gambling with an Edge interview when she talked about how she had
a six figure dealing job and she hated it too, and she was like,
if I could just quit and just make fifty thousand a year, I
would just be so much happier doing that. And I had the exact same
thought. I was like, I don't care if I have to go grind
on the road and make fifty sixty k a year, I would just be
way happier doing that than working this job. So I am a big proponent
of quitting. You know, I think life is too short to work at
things where you're miserable. But still, this was an incredible risk, right,
Okay, so yeah, let me talk about some of the catalysts that
really propelled me to quit the job. So I always wanted to quit,
but I never really had the courage to do it. And I talked to
a lot of people in the discord about it, and I'd always get mixed
signals like, oh, you know, that's a tough spot because you have
a really good job. I don't know if I would do that and so
I was always on the fence about it. Then I had a classmate of
mine get diagnosed with a really rare type of cancer and die, and that
kind of just made me realize like my mortality, and I was like,
well, I just don't want to die being miserable. And I remember reading
a study done on people in hospice and like their number one regret in life,
the most common regret life was like not living a life true to yourself,
something along those lines, and that just really struck with me when my
classmate died. And then the final thing that really pushed me though, is
one night I was in a discord with a guy in the advantage plate community
that I respect more than anybody, and when I asked him what he thought
I should do, he didn't hesitate. He didn't say that was a tough
situation. You said, yeah, quit, Life's too short to do something.
You hate Richard for that advice. I am eternally grateful to you,
because that really was the Next day after I heard that from you, I
went and told my boss I was planning on quitting. Oh wow, I
had no idea when I asked you to come on here, I had no
idea that that was the case. But you know, I have to tell
you. I was a blackjack dealer and I had joined a team and started
counting cards and I was making more money playing than I was dealing. But
I was afraid to quit the job because I had two houses and two mortgages.
And I was talking to a pit boss, a guy we used to
call him Glenn Greyhound Gordon because he's at the dogs, and I was talking
to him about it, and he was like, are you out of your
mind? Quit the job. He was like, you know, if if
if everything goes to hell in a handbasket, you can always get another job.
And I was like, you know what, You're right, and I
went and quit the job. So well that that's great. So okay,
So now, first of all, how old are you at this point when
I quit? Yeah, I'm twenty five years old. And did you have
a wife or a girlfriend or I had a girlfriend at the time, but
it was a long distance relationship, so everything was just over FaceTime. Okay,
So so kind of her opinion of it, probably wasn't that crucial for
you, right, uh No, But she wasn't exactly supportive. Nobody in
my life was actually supportive of it. None of my friends, none of
my family. I was actually just recently at a party for my family and
one of my aunts told me, Wow, well you proved us all wrong
because we all thought you were gonna be homeless. Okay, so what happens
now? You go out and did you have a team or anything, or
you're just a solo player? What happened? I didn't have it. When
I really decided I was going to commit to it, I went to RX
Gamble's whole card class in Vegas, and that was really the first time I
made any sort of a network. I met some big names in the community.
And actually a funny story too, is when I got there, a
guy knew me. I did not know him, but I get there,
he looks at me and he goes, hey, you're my full legal name,
and my mouth just dropped. I said, I thought maybe I was
like famous somehow, and I'm like, how do you know that? He
goes, we played together on a double decked table and high limit and you
were playing raided and I saw your name and that was like a year ago.
I've been backed off for a year from that place. So I thought
this guy was a creep, but he turned he's like one of my really
good friends. Now. Wow, So when you first went out playing,
you were playing raided. I was part of the reason for this place is
they had really good I was using a small spread and they part of the
ev was coming from a really good free play. Ah okay, And so
now how long ago was this, by the way, that you quit the
job? Just about a little over a year. Oh, it's only been
a year. And so how is the first year gone? Good? I'm
gonna be crossing the six figure mark for this year, so halfway through the
year I'll be closing in on six figures soon. Wow. So doing better
than the job that you left I am. Yeah, that's great. So
you had an incident that came up at the Palms? Yeah? Should we
name the casino? Is that all right? Yeah? Yeah, it's I
guess it's part of the story, so we can name the casino. So
it was at the Palms, and it actually came about because I was This
is all thanks to gambling with an edge. Gambling with an Edge has just
been the biggest influence on my life. It's been like all the gambling education
I've had. So again, thank you to you and Bob Dancer, if
you're listening, thank you anyways. But I was listening and I'm going to
RX Gamble's Whole Card Class because I heard about it in Gambling in an Edge.
And then I'm listening to an episode with Anthony Curtis and he's describing how
the Palms just reopened and they have this double dock game with amazing rules,
and I plugged it into Wizard of Outs and it was like one tenth of
a percent disadvantage. He was wrong about one thing. There was no surrender
on it, so it was really like a point two six but still great
game. And I needed a home base in Vegas because I didn't have comp
rooms anywhere yet. So I was like, okay, well, when I
go to this class, i'll go build up some comp rooms on this double
deck and it'll be great. So I go there and immediately this pit bop
starts flirting with me pretty heavily, and at first I'm just thinking, I
don't think anything of it. I'm like, you know, she's just being
nice, she's just being a pit boss. That's her job. But then
after a few hours of playoff host comes over and he introduces himself to me.
He's just like, you know, if there's anything you need, let
me know. And I'm like, okay, cool, and I'm spreading mind
you one to two and this isn't in high limit, so it's one hundred
to two hundred. I'm just trying to keep a really really small spread to
get some cops. Later in the trip, I go to the host and
the Palms has a suite with a movie theater in an I'm like, that
is so cool. So I go up to him and I'm like, you
know, I know I don't qualify for this, but what kind of action
do you need to see to get something like that? And he goes,
you need about a theoretical of seven thousand a day, and he goes you
should be there, and then I'm like okay, great. So oh and
then he came back later when I was only betting black, and the same
pit boss he was flirting with me goes, oh, you were betting different
colors earlier, and the only other color on the table or like the purple
and the whatever the thousand dollars chips were orange, I think, so I
was like, wow, she must have rated me super Maybe she wrote it
down as a thousand instead of a honey, that's the only thing I can
think of. But even then, a thousand bucks a hand on that game
for a couple hours, I still don't think that would warrant a seven thousand
dollars theoretical No, yeah, yeah. So I go home after the class
and I start getting mail from the Palms. Pretty soon I'm getting like two
thousand dollars two or three times a month in promo chips, and then they're
sending me just random stuff like a thousand Hoar Macy's gift card, a thousand
dollars Southwest gift card. I'm like, great, let me go back,
and I text the host and I say, hey, can you set me
up in this suite with the movie theater And he goes, yeah, no
issue. So yeah, So I tell some friends. I'm like, hey,
I'm gonna have this giant sweep flying to Vegas, will have a good
time. So I go back and I'm the same plan, just gonna keep
a small spread and get these promo chips and hopefully get them again in the
future and have a good trip. So I show back up to the Palms
and I I go there and I check into my suite and they say,
oh, your sweet's not ready yet, but we're gonna put you up in
this other theme suite. It's giant. It's great. I'm like cool.
I get up there and it's like Barbie themed. Everything's pink, the chairs,
the couches, the rugs. It was really weird, but it was
huge, two thousand score feet. I have a private butler service, so
it's great. So I go down. I'm spreading my one to two and
my host comes up to me and I'm like, hey, do you think
I could have a you know, a comp to the steakhouse? And he
goes, yeah, no issue, whatever you want. So I look at
the menu and there's a way Goo steak. I've never had Waygoo before.
I'm like, let me try. That says it's one hundred dollars on the
menu. I call I text my butler. I'm like, hey, I
want this Waygoo steak in a bottle of wine. The wine was like one
hundred bucks too. He's text me a separate menu and he goes, Vince,
which Way Goo would you like? And I'm just a dump kid.
And you know how like they have enhancements on steaks like you can add a
crust or a sauce for an additional charge. I thought that's what he sent
me because it was very blurry, and I thought it so it said like
a forty two Cowboy Ribby or something forty two Cowboy raby, and I thought
it said fifty euros. I thought it was a little e for euros,
and then fifty. I don't know why it would be in euros. I'm
just dumb. So I'm like, that one, please. The butler brings
it up in the wine to my room. They like throw a bib over
me and like make up my table and stuff, and I sign a receipt
for two hundred some odd dollars. I'm like, all right, that sounds
right. Eat my steak, go to bed, and while I'm laying in
bed, the butler text me, can I come clean up your room?
So he comes in while I'm in bed, and he's like he does everything
for me, but tuck me in. Basically, it was great. And
the next morning I go on my TV and you can look at your room
charges, and I look at my room charges and it's twelve hundred dollars and
I'm like, what did I charge? I didn't do anything. All I
had was the wine in the steak, and the wine didn't get me that
drunk. So I look again at the menu that the butler sent me,
and I zoom in real horror, and I'm like, oh, that's not
fifty euros, that's eight hundred and fifty dollars. So now I've got this
twelve hundred dollar room charge and I'm really scared that they're not going to cop
it. So I go back downstairs and I start spreading my one to two
to get some more play, and about five minutes of playing the phone rings,
I'm the only one in high limit and they say, sorry, surveillance
is backing you off for suspicion of card counting. Like, really, you're
going to back a guy off on full RFB for suspicion of card counting.
You couldn't figure it out first anyway, So they backed me off. I'm
like, shit, that sucks. Go upstairs about checkout time, and my
host texts me. He goes, hey, sorry, VH one, the
TV station is coming to filming your room. I have to move you in
a different room. I said, okay, that's fine, whatever, and
then I'm on the strip later that day and I get another text from my
host and he goes, hey, White, I heard about your back off
today. Unfortunately, I have to cancel your room. So I lost my
giant movie theater suite. Never got to check into it. I had to
text my friends and tell them to cancel because I didn't have a big room
big enough to accommodate us anymore. But luckily he did still camp all my
room charges, which was about fourteen hundred bucks at the end of the trip.
Oh well that's good. Yeah. Oh and the two hundred dollars receipt
that I signed for that was the fee for the butlers to bring it up
to my room. Wow. Yeah, I know. Wow, that's bizarre.
You know I regarding them rating you with that bizarre rating. I remember
staying at the MGM one time and I would come down on Sunday morning.
I got in on Friday, and I came down on Sunday morning to collect
my airfare because they would reimburse my airfare. And I go up to the
desk and the girl brings up my account and she says, wow, don't
you ever sleep? And I said, what do you mean? And she
says, well, you got in on Friday and it says you played thirty
three hours. I said, well, you know, I can sleep when
i've been Now how they got thirty three hours, I have no idea,
but maybe something was a two and it looked like a twenty when they input
it into something. But yeah, well, anyway, that's an incredible story.
So what about the girlfriend's situation. Are you still single? Have you
found that to be a big problem trying to tell somebody what you do for
a living. So me and the long term girlfriend broke up shortly after me
going full time, and I didn't meet another girl at a wedding, and
we weren't really dating per se. But I would take her on all these
trips with me, and she was basically an extra players card for me.
But we would hang out all the time, and she was really interested in
the job and it was great. I could put her on machines and stuff
like that. But I really found that it was costing me more than it
was worth to be with her because and I didn't just see her as a
moneymaking opportunity. By the way, I did like this girl. We had
a really good chemistry. But when I brought her along on these trips.
I just found myself having to entertain her more than anything, and it was
just it was taking too much away from my work. I really do like
to work. I really do like to do advantage play things. And so
she was really interested in the work too, She really liked it, but
I just it just wasn't working out. We were getting in a lot of
arguments, and that one ended probably man. We broke up in Vegas basically
about three months ago, and since then, you know, I just don't
have the time really to go out and date. My whole life, I'm
either in a casino or I'm in my room, like reading or something,
So I don't really go out and pursue that, I guess, but I'm
getting to that age or I should probably start. How many hours a week
or a month do you are you out plying between the driving and plane Probably,
I guess probably at least eighty eighty a month, Oh no a week,
eighty hours a week, yeah, Oh yeah. I'm just when I'm
local or like towards my home casino, I just live in that hotel five
days a week and I work out in the gym, I go to the
casino, and I sleep for you know, six seven hours and that's all
I do. Wow. Wow, Yeah, it would be uh, it'd
be an adjustment for me for sure. Wow. Well, anyway, I
want to thank you for doing this. You know, in this case,
life was a gamble that seems to be paying off. So far, so
good. One more question, what are your long term plans or do you
have any sure? So well, I don't have any long term plans as
far as what I want to be doing for work, But AP or any
job really for that matter, has never really been like I've never wanted to
do something for a lifetime. My goal has always been to live under my
means and invest everything I can and then retire early and then just pursue whatever
I want to pursue. I could see that being AP for a while.
But yeah, no long term plans as to what I want to do.
And I do want to say one more thing too. Even if you know,
AP didn't work out for me, if all my opportunities dried out tomorrow,
I would still be thankful for doing what I did, and do you,
Richard, and I wouldn't regret it. Even if this was a bust
and I'm broken a year, I'd still be happy. Then I took this
risk. I took this gamble. Wow. Well that's that's great and that
sounds like a perfect place to end. So thank you for doing this awesome.
Thank you, Richard. Well that was ap white and now just a
couple of announcements I need to make. I want to remind people to please
if you are getting this show on the old Gambling with an Edge stream in
your podcast app, switch it over to the news stream. Under life is
a gamble. Also, if you liked the show, the best thing you
could do to help me out is to write a review and tell a friend
somebody else that you think might like the show as well. Now, stealing
something that we used to do on Gambling with an Edge, I'm going to
give you a recommended this week, and this week my recommended is a show
called The Bear. I recommended this show back on Gambling with an Edge when
it came out and I watched its first season, and season two just came
out and I binged all ten episodes in two days. So it is a
fantastic show. I really really enjoyed it, and I think you might too.
So okay, that's it for episode number two. Hit me up let
me know what you think. You can reach me at RWM on Twitter.
You can send me email at Life is a Gamble Pod at gmail dot com
and I will see you next time. Bye,