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Speaker 1: Good afternoon.

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Speaker 2: You're listening to Gambling with an Edge.

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Speaker 1: Now here are your hosts, Bob Dancer and Richard Munchkin.

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Good afternoon, Welcome to Gambling with an Edge on Bob

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Dancer and I'm Richard Munchkin. Richard and I are having

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one of our irregular podcasts, creating this the end of

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twenty twenty four, and Richard and I thought we'd just

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chat about what we are personally doing and have been

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doing the last year or two since we stopped the show.

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So Richard will let you start out. Are you still

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retired from gambling?

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Speaker 2: No, of course, not retiring is easy. I've done it

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a dozen times. But yeah. Part of why we haven't

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been doing regular shows is both of us kind of

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got busy in new ventures, and for me, I was

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kind of dragged back into working by my longtime partner

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named Darryl, and he convinced me about a year ago

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that we should get into sports betting, and so, I

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you know, I had resisted betting on sports for many,

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many years, decades, just because I didn't have any interest

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in it. But he was like, it's the gold rush,

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and you know, we'll have some fun and make some money.

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And and you know, and and learn a lot, which

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really that sort of once I started in it, I

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did start learning a lot and that always makes things interesting.

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And so that's that's what I've been doing.

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Speaker 1: So are you, But you basically are not a sports fan.

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Speaker 2: True well, and and you know, one of the reasons

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that I resisted forever was I felt like, you really

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need to be into sports to be good at it.

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And what I came to find out is, just like

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a blackjack team, different members on the team have different

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skill sets and so and just like advantage play in

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the casino, learning how to get an edge is one

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part of it, but learning how to actually make money

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at it is a totally separate skill set. And once

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I kind of learned that, I realized that, you know,

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just like a blackjack team, you need a numbers guy.

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And in sports we call them originators, and they are

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numbers guys who create models that figure out where to

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get the edge. And it's funny because I listened to

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a lot of podcasts and stuff with sports betting people,

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and I remember, very early on I heard a guy say,

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you know, getting an edge is easy, making money is

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the hard part. And in the very beginning, I was like, well,

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it's so easy, you know, tell me right, where's the edge?

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But I came to find out pretty quickly that there

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are a lot of edges to be had, and he

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was right that it seems like the more difficult part

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is actually figuring out ways to make the money. Because

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just like blackjack, where they throw you out of the

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casino once they realize you have an edge, the same

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thing happens with sports betting, although they don't usually they

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don't throw you out, like close your account entirely, although

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some do. One place wouldn't even open an account for

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me at all, but they limit you. So you will

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suddenly open your app one day and try to make

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a bet and they'll tell you maximum bet two dollars

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and twenty seven cents or something like that. I mean

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literally ridiculously small amount.

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Speaker 1: And so even with a bet ten percent.

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Speaker 2: Edge, yeah yeah, yeah, still still not worthwhile. And you know, unfortunately,

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one of the places here in Las Vegas, they are

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so paranoid. Like it used to be you could walk

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up to the counter at a sports book and just

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make a bet, and now some of the places are

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so paranoid about it that you have to show them

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a player's card to make any kind of bet over

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you know, one hundred or two hundred dollars or something.

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And once I show them the player's card, suddenly I'm

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restricted as to what I can bet, even over the counter.

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You know another thing that surprised me is Las Vegas,

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head or Nevada, had a monopoly on sports betting for decades,

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and they are now probably the worst place to bet

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on sports in the United States. They really have kind

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of shot themselves in the foot and done a lot

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of sort of stupid things to make it really undesirable

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for sports betters here.

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Speaker 1: But you need to physically be in the other states

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to make to bet there, is that true?

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Speaker 2: Yes, yes, but you know the Arizona border is only

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thirty two miles away, so there is that. And then

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you know what most people do is they have betting

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partners who live in other states, and you know they

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they make bets in a partnership deal. Yeah, you can.

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You can take advantage of multiple states that way. And

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you know, I found that my role in this, what

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I sort of was able to bring to the table

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is the fact that I've been in the business for

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in the gambling business, for a long time, and and

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I know a lot of people, and because of that,

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I can have many partners. And and so my role

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I mentioned that, you know, these sports betting teams have

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the numbers guy. But you know, another role is what's

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called a mover. And so I part with originators. And

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you know, they can't bet as much as they would

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like to because you know, they get restricted and they

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need more accounts and things like that. So I partner

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with them, and then I send bets out to my

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partners and we get more money down for them that

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they couldn't get for themselves. And you know, so I'm

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always looking for more originators. You know, in particular, if

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there's anybody out there who does NASCAR or F one,

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I'd really be interested in that. But yeah, so I

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partner with them, and then I partner with guys who bet,

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and hopefully we all make money.

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Speaker 1: And if I'm sure there are listeners out there who go, oh,

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I live in such and such a state, I love

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to partner with Richard and be one of his movers.

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I'm assuming that's not something you're really interested in in

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getting a lot of people who want to do that, correct.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, I'm not. I'm really not too interested in

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sort of total stranger partnering with total strangers because obviously,

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you know, there's a lot of you know, room for shenanigans,

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you know, when you're dealing with a cash business. And

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one example you know that's happened already is I was

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working with somebody, and there are certain sports books that

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are very sharp, okay, and the dumb sports books look

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at the prices at the sharp sports books and adjust

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their lines accordingly. Right. So if I have a betting partner,

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I tell them, look, I don't want you to bet

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at any of these places that are really sharp, right,

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because it'll move the line. So I'll bet at those places.

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The other agreement that I have with betting partners is

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you can't depending on the bank roll they have or whatever,

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like we split fifty to fifty what you bet at most, right,

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But if you want less that's okay too, but not

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more than fifty to fifty. So if you come back

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and say I got down five thousand and we're each

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getting twenty five hundred, that's fine. But you know, then

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you run into a partner who says I got down

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five thousand, and he actually went out and bet fifteen thousand,

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Well that's not okay, or if he says, you know,

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you know, I literally gave a guy a bet and

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I was looking at the screen and immediately I saw

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two of the places on the no no list light

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up on the board, right, And and then you know,

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I knew somebody else who was working with that person,

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and and you know, they said we had the exact

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same problems, and so anyway, I mean exactly, I'm no

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longer working with that person, right, So yeah, yeah, it's

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uh so, it's it's interesting and and and very much

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like the old blackjack partnerships and things like that, all

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of the same sort of problems and dynamics and all

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of that stuff that. And you know, another thing that

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I find really interesting is when in my early days

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on blackjack teams, my the people I knew who were

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card counters, they would not dream of going out and

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you know, playing craps or or you know, betting on

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something where they didn't have an edge. But it seems

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like there are a lot of guys who are sharp

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guys were making money at sports that you know that

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do that, that go out and blow money on things

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that where they don't have an edge or they really

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I'm surprised at how many of them really don't understand

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kind of fundamental gambling things you know about about variants

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and how ev works and how Kelly betting works. It's

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just surprising to me that they can be successful and

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not have sort of basic fundamental understanding of a lot

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of gambling concepts.

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Speaker 1: And you would figure the friends that you have known

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for a long time should know those things.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, Well, because the people I've known for

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a long time usually have come from a blackjack background

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where you you learn those things in the beginning. I mean,

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I shouldn't say nobody. I mean I have worked with

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some guys who who have some you know, some djen

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in them, but usually that's been like bps that we recruited,

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not actual like not so much the people who actually

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were numbers people or you know.

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Speaker 1: Uh huh So is there anything else that you've been

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doing gambling why that you want to talk about? Uh?

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Speaker 2: No, Well, I'm curious about you, Bob, because I know

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at one point you had driven to Arizona to take

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advantage of some of the bonuses that they were giving

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for new sign ups. But that didn't sort of spark

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your interest in enough to try to do anymore.

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Speaker 1: Not really. The only sports betting that I'm doing now

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is with Caesar's. If you're and this is a promotion

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going on in Nevada Caesars. There's sports books Caesars sports

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books all over, but the Nevada ones. If you're seven star,

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if you make a bet of one hundred and fifty

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dollars more or more this month, you get a free

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bet next month of one hundred and fifty dollars, which

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is small change. And yes, yes, I take advantage of

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that if I'm playing in Caesar's. And it's always better

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to when you get reward credits in Caesar's, assuming you

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play enough that your host is going to comp off

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all your rooms and meals and stuff, it's better to

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bet that money in the sports book than it is

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to take it in it fifty percent in terms of

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free play, because you always can take it a fifty

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percent in terms of free play. But in doing it

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on sports books, you're getting well over ninety five percent

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of the value of it.

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Speaker 2: Oh so this bet when they when you bet it.

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So let's say you were to bet it on an

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even money game. The one hundred and fifty. If it wins,

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they're paying you three hundred, or they're taking the one

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fifty away.

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Speaker 1: They're taking the one fifty away. So on the free bet,

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we're always betting.

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Speaker 2: Dogs super long shots, right right right?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, And on the the original bets that I'm

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decided at, looking for approximately minus two hundred is is

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the best solution to how much to bet or which

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ones to go.

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Speaker 2: Well on the initial bet?

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Speaker 1: Is?

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Speaker 2: So is this free bet a loss rebate or or

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even if you win your bet, you're gonna get that win.

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Speaker 1: It's not a lost rebate at all. It's you just

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make a bet and as long as you make that

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bet or more, you get the one one hundred and

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fifty free bet the next month.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so the bet, the initial bet then really all

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you all you should care about is the bet with

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the lowest ev a lowest house edge, doesn't really matter

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the odds are agreed.

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Speaker 1: But given that I h the it's one hundred and

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fifty dollars and yeah, and so I'm not spending a

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lot of time on evaluating exactly where to get that

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money down, So I'm just using the the rule of thumb.

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Look for minus two hundred, make the original bet and

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uh and then pick a long shot for the uh yeah,

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for the free bet, for the free bet, and it's

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it's so. And you're betting with reward credits, so it's

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yeah yeah. One of the problems I had is like,

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if you're only betting with rewards credit, your account has

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to go up because you can't lose because you're not

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putting any money and it's just reward credits. And sometimes

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you win the bets, so the money, the money is

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going to go up, and so the withdrawing of the

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money is I don't want to go and like like

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this year, I withdrew at the end of the year

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and it was like four thousand dollars and it was

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a little bit of a little bit of a hassle,

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not a lot, but so I'll probably withdraw smaller amounts

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more times during the year.

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Speaker 2: Right, But what I know, you travel still to play,

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and when you get to one of these other states,

242
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you haven't looked at what kind of sign up bonuses

243
00:17:15,720 --> 00:17:18,880
they have there, Because even if you have an account

244
00:17:19,039 --> 00:17:23,519
in Arizona at say Caesar's or DraftKings, you can sign

245
00:17:23,599 --> 00:17:30,319
up again in New Jersey Pennsylvania, you know, Virginia, whatever.

246
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Speaker 1: So I haven't and it's on my list, but it's

247
00:17:36,000 --> 00:17:38,799
I haven't and I don't. I don't really want to

248
00:17:39,359 --> 00:17:41,839
talk about on the air exactly which states I go to,

249
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but sure, yeah, but yeah, anyway, That's what I'm doing

250
00:17:49,960 --> 00:17:52,839
sports betting wise, which is which is not much.

251
00:17:53,480 --> 00:17:58,519
Speaker 2: Now you you have transitioned a lot into playing slots,

252
00:17:59,200 --> 00:18:02,839
and how how is that, Shane? How is that different

253
00:18:02,880 --> 00:18:04,319
than what you were doing before?

254
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Speaker 1: Okay, From when I came to Vegas in ninety four,

255
00:18:12,759 --> 00:18:19,880
from there to well passed, you know, twenty twenty ninety

256
00:18:20,920 --> 00:18:24,119
plus percent of my gambling income came from video poker,

257
00:18:25,359 --> 00:18:28,319
much of it as a player, some of it as

258
00:18:28,440 --> 00:18:32,880
royalties from things I've written, and there was some occasional

259
00:18:32,960 --> 00:18:38,519
consulting which people got upset about and nervous about. It

260
00:18:38,519 --> 00:18:41,599
never amounted to very much, but it was definitely enough

261
00:18:41,599 --> 00:18:46,359
to get people mad at me about. I did invest

262
00:18:46,440 --> 00:18:49,759
with Michael Shackelferd for four separate years on Super Bowl

263
00:18:49,839 --> 00:18:53,920
prop bets, and three out of the four years there

264
00:18:54,000 --> 00:18:58,319
was a safety and we bet the no safety, just

265
00:18:58,480 --> 00:19:02,599
like a bridge jumper and so on the whole there

266
00:19:02,720 --> 00:19:06,119
was I think there was a period of four years

267
00:19:06,160 --> 00:19:10,000
and seven where there was a safety, but otherwise there

268
00:19:10,079 --> 00:19:13,680
was like four out of the last twenty eight years

269
00:19:13,799 --> 00:19:16,880
or something there's been the safety. So they just happened

270
00:19:16,920 --> 00:19:19,480
to be. All the safeties came when I was betting

271
00:19:19,480 --> 00:19:22,160
the know safety, So overall that was not a satisfactory

272
00:19:23,279 --> 00:19:30,519
relationship financially, but I have forgiven Michael for that. My

273
00:19:30,599 --> 00:19:33,480
opinion on slots during most of my career in Vegas

274
00:19:33,599 --> 00:19:37,079
is that they were mostly for entertainment, and a drunk

275
00:19:37,079 --> 00:19:40,839
monkey could succeed as well as an Albert Einstein. At

276
00:19:40,839 --> 00:19:44,640
this same time, I did have some evidence that there

277
00:19:44,720 --> 00:19:48,079
was more to it than that. About thirty years ago

278
00:19:48,480 --> 00:19:52,640
there was a game called Piggy Banking that became popular

279
00:19:52,680 --> 00:19:55,559
and I played it some. This is the first slot

280
00:19:55,599 --> 00:19:59,960
machine I knew about with a feature today we call persisten.

281
00:20:01,799 --> 00:20:04,839
Although the word persistence for this type of slot machine

282
00:20:04,960 --> 00:20:08,920
is just a word I've heard fairly recently, we certainly

283
00:20:08,920 --> 00:20:13,079
did not hear them back in the nineties. Persistence games

284
00:20:13,079 --> 00:20:17,000
are when the game retains its value from spin to

285
00:20:17,039 --> 00:20:22,160
spin until something happens, and so you can glance at

286
00:20:22,160 --> 00:20:28,160
a machine and evaluate the positivity of that machine just

287
00:20:28,240 --> 00:20:31,599
by looking at some feature of it. In Piggy banking,

288
00:20:31,680 --> 00:20:35,640
there was a bank with the number in it, and

289
00:20:35,680 --> 00:20:39,559
when that number got high enough, you could go and

290
00:20:39,599 --> 00:20:43,839
bet one coin and the bank would spill pretty soon.

291
00:20:44,359 --> 00:20:48,079
And so you'd be betting one coin and you might

292
00:20:48,160 --> 00:20:51,720
get thirty backs, and I might take you three or

293
00:20:51,759 --> 00:20:55,160
four spins to do that, And so people went looking

294
00:20:56,079 --> 00:20:59,279
for piggy banking. So I did this. This is the

295
00:20:59,319 --> 00:21:02,000
only person dice game I knew about in the nineties.

296
00:21:02,079 --> 00:21:06,720
There were a couple others, and so these were one

297
00:21:06,759 --> 00:21:11,119
off machines. It wasn't never was a big part of

298
00:21:11,160 --> 00:21:18,200
what I did. In the early two thousand sometime there

299
00:21:18,279 --> 00:21:23,599
was a a player named Steve Goldberg who since passed on.

300
00:21:25,119 --> 00:21:29,480
He and his wife played on a quarter megabucks machine

301
00:21:30,160 --> 00:21:33,400
during a double point Days for Locals promotion at the

302
00:21:33,440 --> 00:21:37,440
Four Queens, and they hit for something like eight million

303
00:21:37,519 --> 00:21:40,240
or eleven million. I don't remember the exact number. It

304
00:21:40,279 --> 00:21:44,119
was larger than any other jackpot that I that one

305
00:21:44,119 --> 00:21:49,799
of my friends had hit. Another strong player at the

306
00:21:49,880 --> 00:21:52,079
time said he would have been on that game too,

307
00:21:52,680 --> 00:21:56,759
except he was not eligible for the double points at

308
00:21:56,799 --> 00:22:01,400
the Four Queens because he lived in California, and this

309
00:22:01,640 --> 00:22:06,079
conversation was like amazing to me because the Four Queens

310
00:22:06,119 --> 00:22:10,000
had a slot club at the time of zero point

311
00:22:10,039 --> 00:22:15,839
seven five percent over the good old days. But they

312
00:22:15,839 --> 00:22:19,119
were able to figure out the value of that megabucks

313
00:22:19,200 --> 00:22:22,839
machine within that much, so that single points was not

314
00:22:23,079 --> 00:22:26,359
enough and double points was enough. And I don't know

315
00:22:26,359 --> 00:22:31,640
how they did it. Possibly they had par sheets. I

316
00:22:31,680 --> 00:22:37,440
don't know. A par sheet is produced by a slot manufacturer.

317
00:22:37,519 --> 00:22:41,079
It's for the knowledge of the slot director and the

318
00:22:41,079 --> 00:22:44,720
slot department to put out games that they want. It's

319
00:22:44,799 --> 00:22:50,880
not intended for players. Possibly, I mean some players have them.

320
00:22:51,160 --> 00:22:54,559
It certainly makes your gamley decisions a lot easier if

321
00:22:54,559 --> 00:22:57,839
you know what the basic game is worth. But I

322
00:22:57,920 --> 00:23:03,519
had no idea how how they can calculated that. Invited

323
00:23:03,559 --> 00:23:07,400
Steve on the show several times. He always gracefully declined,

324
00:23:07,440 --> 00:23:09,319
and now, of course he's gone, so I can't ask

325
00:23:09,400 --> 00:23:13,920
him anymore. We had an Australian player on this show

326
00:23:13,920 --> 00:23:18,680
a few times, Peter Liston, who wrote a book about

327
00:23:18,799 --> 00:23:23,960
chasing slot progressives, primarily in Australia but also throughout the world.

328
00:23:25,119 --> 00:23:27,359
I want to know part of this. He described a

329
00:23:27,480 --> 00:23:31,799
system of his he'd have a tag team team and

330
00:23:31,839 --> 00:23:34,039
they would get on a machine and plan to play

331
00:23:34,079 --> 00:23:36,640
it for three months until it hit and at the

332
00:23:36,720 --> 00:23:40,079
end of the three months they would share all the money.

333
00:23:41,039 --> 00:23:45,720
And this to be sounded as exciting as a root canal.

334
00:23:46,359 --> 00:23:47,440
I wanted no part of it.

335
00:23:48,200 --> 00:23:51,000
Speaker 2: Well, Peter Liston was also playing a lot of most

336
00:23:51,079 --> 00:23:51,960
hit byes.

337
00:23:52,400 --> 00:23:55,160
Speaker 1: Yes he was. He was playing must hit byes and

338
00:23:55,359 --> 00:23:59,160
I'll talk about that in a bit. But and perhaps

339
00:23:59,559 --> 00:24:04,839
I maybe twenty ten a strong player that I knew

340
00:24:04,839 --> 00:24:10,680
from video poker, and he also has had success at

341
00:24:10,680 --> 00:24:13,039
the World Series of Poker and World Poker Tour and

342
00:24:13,160 --> 00:24:18,400
has has some bling and has some nice finishes, and

343
00:24:18,440 --> 00:24:21,960
he was basically known as a knit And we were

344
00:24:22,240 --> 00:24:24,920
playing at some kind of video poker event at the

345
00:24:24,960 --> 00:24:29,039
Poems back when the Poems had good video poker, and

346
00:24:30,279 --> 00:24:32,880
he asked the slot director to put in a particular

347
00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:35,480
slot machine. He said, if you put in that machine,

348
00:24:35,519 --> 00:24:39,119
I'll play it. And I don't know what the machine was,

349
00:24:39,400 --> 00:24:42,240
and I was rather dumbfounded. I did not know that

350
00:24:42,400 --> 00:24:46,880
any particular slot machine would be worth some more like

351
00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:51,119
us playing And uh, you know, slot director says, you know,

352
00:24:51,160 --> 00:24:54,319
it's not a video poker. It's slot and guy said, yeah,

353
00:24:54,559 --> 00:24:58,640
I know, I will play it. And so later I

354
00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:03,039
asked him, I said, is this progressive or something? You know,

355
00:25:03,119 --> 00:25:06,119
why would you want to play a slot machine? And

356
00:25:06,400 --> 00:25:11,599
his answer was, well, not exactly progressive sort of, and

357
00:25:11,960 --> 00:25:15,759
I don't want to talk about it. So I get

358
00:25:15,759 --> 00:25:17,559
a lot of those kind of answers when I asked

359
00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:23,240
questions about slots, and now people ask me about slots

360
00:25:23,279 --> 00:25:27,519
and I kind of give them a similar answer I

361
00:25:27,599 --> 00:25:34,240
did hear. I was in a gambling group with other

362
00:25:34,720 --> 00:25:41,279
strong gamblers and one time Frank Kneelan, who was the

363
00:25:41,559 --> 00:25:44,960
original co host of this show and had written a

364
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:50,000
book about progressive video poker, he gave us a lecture

365
00:25:50,200 --> 00:25:55,799
on must hit bise and which was an and gave

366
00:25:55,880 --> 00:25:58,839
us the formula for figuring it out and the exceptions

367
00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:04,000
and and those are still out there. There's a lot

368
00:26:04,079 --> 00:26:11,000
of must hit byes on the casino floor, and many

369
00:26:11,039 --> 00:26:15,960
people know how to play them. It's the same and

370
00:26:16,079 --> 00:26:21,440
generally you so they're out there, they're not you know,

371
00:26:21,480 --> 00:26:25,599
if it's supposed to hit by five hundred and you know,

372
00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:28,240
you know that if it's at least four ninety five afforial,

373
00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:30,640
it has to be a good play. But of course

374
00:26:30,640 --> 00:26:33,519
somebody else is on it a four ninety or four

375
00:26:33,599 --> 00:26:36,319
hundred or something. They get it on at four hundred

376
00:26:36,319 --> 00:26:38,440
and they keep playing until it's over and they hit it,

377
00:26:38,480 --> 00:26:40,680
but they, you know, lost a whole lot along the way,

378
00:26:41,559 --> 00:26:45,519
So must hit byes are not part of my arsenal.

379
00:26:45,759 --> 00:26:49,400
If I see one when I go by, I'll play it.

380
00:26:49,440 --> 00:26:53,359
But that doesn't happen very often, uh I.

381
00:26:53,519 --> 00:26:59,599
Speaker 2: You know, I'm wondering, are you Are you working harder

382
00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:02,440
than you before, or I mean more hours than you

383
00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:06,279
were before. The other thing that I've noticed is all

384
00:27:06,319 --> 00:27:08,799
the people I know who got into playing slot machines

385
00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:12,440
lost weight just because they end up doing so much walking.

386
00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:17,279
Speaker 1: Yes, and I, as you know, Richard, I lost quite

387
00:27:17,279 --> 00:27:20,440
a bit of weight, yeah, and a lot of that

388
00:27:20,519 --> 00:27:24,799
was from walking around on slots. And then I would

389
00:27:24,839 --> 00:27:30,279
also exercise and ended up needing a hip replacement, probably

390
00:27:30,319 --> 00:27:34,279
because I exercised too hard on an old body and

391
00:27:34,319 --> 00:27:40,359
needed a shoulder surgery. And so with those I kind

392
00:27:40,359 --> 00:27:45,720
of stopped going to the gym because and gained about

393
00:27:45,759 --> 00:27:51,799
half the weight back. But yes, doing slots in Vegas

394
00:27:52,519 --> 00:27:55,359
and elsewhere is a lot of steps a lot a

395
00:27:55,359 --> 00:27:59,759
lot of walking there is I got there. I tried to.

396
00:28:01,119 --> 00:28:03,880
I knew some plot players, and I was interested in,

397
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:08,279
you know, buying information from them or bartering, or is

398
00:28:08,279 --> 00:28:12,200
there anyhow I can get some information? And mostly it

399
00:28:12,240 --> 00:28:16,200
was no guys. Nobody wanted to and especially not to

400
00:28:16,279 --> 00:28:24,000
somebody who whom I had published stuff. Eventually, somebody was

401
00:28:24,039 --> 00:28:26,920
interested in helping me, and so I learned a few

402
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:34,640
games just enough to be expensive. So there's I don't.

403
00:28:34,440 --> 00:28:36,519
Speaker 2: Know, expensive.

404
00:28:37,319 --> 00:28:41,599
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's like three hundred games out there too that

405
00:28:41,680 --> 00:28:44,039
are beatable now, and so I knew four of them,

406
00:28:44,799 --> 00:28:47,519
and so each casino would have a couple.

407
00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:50,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, what do you mean to be expensive?

408
00:28:51,160 --> 00:28:56,160
Speaker 1: Well, it's a lot of At the time I tended,

409
00:28:56,359 --> 00:29:00,240
I couldn't find any that were all the way to

410
00:29:00,359 --> 00:29:03,799
the numbers that were recommended by my friend. So I'd

411
00:29:03,839 --> 00:29:06,640
play it a little bit less slide of that, And

412
00:29:06,759 --> 00:29:10,799
of course I didn't do real well and on a

413
00:29:10,799 --> 00:29:17,319
couple of his numbers were not good. So so to

414
00:29:17,359 --> 00:29:22,960
start with I didn't win. But eventually I started partnering

415
00:29:23,119 --> 00:29:30,200
with other people collect making my own numbers, and making

416
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:33,519
your own numbers is tough. You have to start, you

417
00:29:33,559 --> 00:29:37,279
have to record every hand you play or every hand

418
00:29:37,319 --> 00:29:40,799
somebody else plays. You know how much you bet, how

419
00:29:40,799 --> 00:29:43,240
long does it take to hit? You know what was

420
00:29:43,240 --> 00:29:46,920
the return? Yeah, because if you're returning, if it's a

421
00:29:48,440 --> 00:29:54,000
game where hypothetically you play when the miner goes off

422
00:29:54,160 --> 00:29:59,160
at thirty spans or higher, or the miner is thirty spins,

423
00:29:59,160 --> 00:30:01,559
and it's a place, so we'll just assume that's the case.

424
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:05,599
So when you're playing, get thirty spins for two dollars

425
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:08,759
or five dollars or fifty dollars, whatever the amount is.

426
00:30:09,440 --> 00:30:14,519
Some there's a variance in the returns. Sometimes on a

427
00:30:15,119 --> 00:30:18,960
thirty spins at two dollars will return twenty five dollars

428
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:21,799
and sometimes two point fifty, and sometimes it's a w

429
00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:25,359
twog And so there's a lot of data in there,

430
00:30:25,839 --> 00:30:28,599
and so yeah, you need to process it, and you

431
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:35,640
need to collect a lot of data and also collect

432
00:30:35,680 --> 00:30:39,720
information on the mini and meter or the major meter

433
00:30:39,839 --> 00:30:42,640
or the megameter, and so there's a lot of data

434
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:45,559
to collect. There's a lot of data to process. On

435
00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:50,079
the newer games, there's actually a rush to process it

436
00:30:50,240 --> 00:30:56,720
before other people figure it out. If once everybody knows,

437
00:30:57,440 --> 00:31:02,359
like the games listed by Michael Shackelford in his most

438
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:06,440
recent edition of Gambling one oh two. Those are largely

439
00:31:06,559 --> 00:31:12,240
games that all slot hustlers know, and there's no money

440
00:31:12,240 --> 00:31:16,079
to be made in anymore unless you see a ploppy

441
00:31:16,119 --> 00:31:18,799
playing it and they look like they're running out of

442
00:31:18,839 --> 00:31:22,400
money and the game is in good condition. So then

443
00:31:22,440 --> 00:31:25,240
you sit down and wait, and you might see four

444
00:31:25,279 --> 00:31:30,160
other pros waiting for this ploppy to stand up, and

445
00:31:30,200 --> 00:31:32,000
then they all fight to see who can get to

446
00:31:32,079 --> 00:31:36,160
it first. And so the only time you really make

447
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:38,920
money on the games is if you happen to be

448
00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:44,519
passing by right when somebody's leaving, which doesn't happen very often.

449
00:31:44,799 --> 00:31:47,640
Speaker 2: And well, the other thing, you know, you said that

450
00:31:47,799 --> 00:31:51,359
like it's a race to figure to try to, you know,

451
00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:55,720
get the information first on new games. But I would

452
00:31:55,720 --> 00:32:01,559
think like that there's a huge like you can just look,

453
00:32:01,759 --> 00:32:04,880
you can in two minutes, you can walk around a

454
00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:07,759
casino and spot the slot hustlers. I mean, they're so

455
00:32:08,200 --> 00:32:13,440
obvious and blatant, and it just seems like you can

456
00:32:13,559 --> 00:32:19,039
just watch what games they play. And conversely, if they

457
00:32:19,079 --> 00:32:21,759
know what you look like, you don't want to play

458
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:24,960
some game they don't know because it tells them, oh,

459
00:32:25,039 --> 00:32:28,640
that game is a play. So you know, how do

460
00:32:28,680 --> 00:32:31,599
you avoid that? I guess there's no way you can

461
00:32:31,759 --> 00:32:33,119
once you're on the machine.

462
00:32:33,759 --> 00:32:37,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you're on the machine and somebody knows who

463
00:32:37,519 --> 00:32:39,519
you are, well then they will take note of it.

464
00:32:39,640 --> 00:32:43,720
And then after you go, they'll watch and see what happens.

465
00:32:44,519 --> 00:32:49,759
And we do the same thing. This is a This

466
00:32:49,920 --> 00:32:58,119
actually is race related in that most of the slot

467
00:32:58,240 --> 00:33:02,359
teams seem to be Asian, and I know there's a

468
00:33:02,359 --> 00:33:05,440
lot of different varieties of Asian, but there would be

469
00:33:06,559 --> 00:33:09,920
I don't know, four or five or six, whether they're

470
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:14,119
Chinese or Korean or Vietnamese or I don't know, and

471
00:33:14,119 --> 00:33:18,759
they're all working together. And so you see that a lot.

472
00:33:19,799 --> 00:33:21,880
I did not see that at all in video poker,

473
00:33:24,039 --> 00:33:26,599
but there's a lot of there's a lot of teams

474
00:33:26,640 --> 00:33:31,880
out there where it could be. They have some some

475
00:33:32,079 --> 00:33:37,319
squatters who have a vague idea of what the machines are,

476
00:33:37,519 --> 00:33:39,440
what they're looking for, and when they can get on

477
00:33:39,519 --> 00:33:44,960
a machine, they call some central you know, these are

478
00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:49,920
the numbers that they're ten, fourteen, and twenty three, and

479
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:54,319
so the head guy will say, no, that's no good,

480
00:33:54,400 --> 00:33:59,960
or I'll be right there, and so so you see

481
00:34:00,119 --> 00:34:03,799
that a lot. And in Vegas the slot hustlers are

482
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:11,840
the worst of the number. The other towns not so bad.

483
00:34:11,960 --> 00:34:16,000
But every place I've gone there are locals who are

484
00:34:16,159 --> 00:34:21,679
looking for slots. They're not as quite as rampant as

485
00:34:21,679 --> 00:34:26,199
they are in Vegas, but they're there. And so whatever

486
00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:30,519
casino city you play at, there are slot hustlers there,

487
00:34:31,159 --> 00:34:37,559
and casinos are beginning to kick players out for this,

488
00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:43,039
and some casinos are just just put up with it

489
00:34:43,079 --> 00:34:44,679
because they obviously know what's going on.

490
00:34:45,639 --> 00:34:49,599
Speaker 2: Yeah, and how many hours a day are you out

491
00:34:49,679 --> 00:34:51,079
there working?

492
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:56,840
Speaker 1: Well, strictly, I have other things I'm doing other than slots,

493
00:34:56,880 --> 00:35:00,000
and I have other things in my life than gambling.

494
00:35:00,840 --> 00:35:06,159
But I'm probably beteam ten and twenty hours a week

495
00:35:06,480 --> 00:35:09,760
on slots, and then there's other things that I'm doing.

496
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:12,280
I still have some video other things in the casino,

497
00:35:12,400 --> 00:35:15,639
you mean, Yeah, I still have some video poker plays

498
00:35:15,639 --> 00:35:23,559
out of town and so we travel still have But

499
00:35:23,559 --> 00:35:26,119
but I have a circuit in slots, and I'm doing

500
00:35:26,199 --> 00:35:29,840
it a lot of you know, you if you want

501
00:35:29,880 --> 00:35:32,119
to walk one end of the strip to the to

502
00:35:32,199 --> 00:35:36,880
the other, and you know, circle each casino twice. It'll

503
00:35:37,039 --> 00:35:37,760
take you a while.

504
00:35:40,360 --> 00:35:43,639
Speaker 2: I can't imagine that you're doing that. I mean, that

505
00:35:43,679 --> 00:35:46,280
would probably take you more than twenty four hours.

506
00:35:47,079 --> 00:35:52,159
Speaker 1: I would think, well, yeah, and uh, and you know

507
00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:54,920
you can do one side of the strip on Monday

508
00:35:54,960 --> 00:35:58,440
and the other side on Tuesday, and so there's there's

509
00:35:58,440 --> 00:36:06,320
people who do that. And I'm restricted at several Vegas

510
00:36:06,360 --> 00:36:12,400
casinos due to video poker success and so so I

511
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:18,159
can still play slots without a card. There is, but

512
00:36:18,280 --> 00:36:22,199
I'm also recognizable in casinos, So there's people in a

513
00:36:22,199 --> 00:36:24,480
slot department who know who I am, whether it's facial

514
00:36:24,519 --> 00:36:28,920
recognition or they remember when they used to work at

515
00:36:28,920 --> 00:36:31,199
another casino where I was a video poker, and so

516
00:36:31,239 --> 00:36:33,599
they tell their bosses, this guy's supposed to be playing here.

517
00:36:34,039 --> 00:36:39,639
So there is still some of that. The only actually

518
00:36:39,679 --> 00:36:43,239
casino I've been eighty six from slots at in Vegas

519
00:36:43,400 --> 00:36:46,760
is the El Cortes, where it's as easy to get

520
00:36:46,800 --> 00:36:48,760
kicked out of slots there as it is to get

521
00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:53,960
kicked out in blackjack. Yeah, which means if you can

522
00:36:54,000 --> 00:36:57,199
count to twenty one without using your finger, you can fingers,

523
00:36:57,239 --> 00:37:03,039
you can pretty well get kicked out of the elk Cortez. So,

524
00:37:03,039 --> 00:37:06,880
so there's so basically that's what I'm doing. Gambling wise,

525
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:12,480
it is there's persistent slots and still video poker. Then ye,

526
00:37:13,480 --> 00:37:14,480
sports betting.

527
00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:17,800
Speaker 2: Sounds like you're I mean, you must be enjoying it,

528
00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:19,199
or you wouldn't be working that hard.

529
00:37:19,239 --> 00:37:22,119
Speaker 1: I would guess I am. I don't have the energy

530
00:37:22,159 --> 00:37:24,400
I did when I was younger. I'm seventy always seventy

531
00:37:24,440 --> 00:37:29,519
eight in early twenty twenty five and don't have the energy.

532
00:37:30,440 --> 00:37:35,559
And some medication I'm taking for makes me drowsy. So

533
00:37:35,559 --> 00:37:39,480
I'm taking the medication for stuff that when the older

534
00:37:39,480 --> 00:37:41,760
you get, the more medication you need to take. So

535
00:37:41,840 --> 00:37:45,280
I do lead a healthy lifestyle, but I still don't

536
00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:51,239
have the energy that I did even ten years ago. Sure,

537
00:37:52,119 --> 00:37:58,639
and so always looking for new things to do, not

538
00:37:58,800 --> 00:38:00,960
looking for a gambling Partartner's probably.

539
00:38:01,280 --> 00:38:05,000
Speaker 2: But you mentioned that when you started you knew how

540
00:38:05,039 --> 00:38:07,400
to play four machines. How many are you up to

541
00:38:07,519 --> 00:38:10,480
these days? Although I guess a lot of the ones

542
00:38:10,519 --> 00:38:14,199
that you learned are no longer worth even looking at right.

543
00:38:14,960 --> 00:38:20,159
Speaker 1: Right the there are games that you know if I've

544
00:38:20,199 --> 00:38:23,199
looked at it machine for two hundred times and it's

545
00:38:23,280 --> 00:38:29,039
never positive, then I kind of stopped looking. Sure. Yeah,

546
00:38:29,079 --> 00:38:35,000
but they're also of what they call new skins, where

547
00:38:35,039 --> 00:38:39,000
it's the same game that but it looks different because

548
00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:44,400
it's instead of a tiger theme, it has a panther

549
00:38:44,480 --> 00:38:48,400
theme or something. And right, So there's variety of that,

550
00:38:49,320 --> 00:38:54,639
but there's more than a hundred that I have some

551
00:38:54,800 --> 00:38:57,960
knowledge of, and enough knowledge that I'll bet on it

552
00:38:59,639 --> 00:39:02,039
if I sit out for a year and a half,

553
00:39:02,199 --> 00:39:06,760
I will know nothing, because there's always these new games

554
00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:09,960
out there. Yeah. So in the good old days, we

555
00:39:10,039 --> 00:39:13,639
used to end the show with a recommended, which I

556
00:39:13,679 --> 00:39:17,760
do not have for show. Do you have a recommended? Richard?

557
00:39:18,679 --> 00:39:25,960
Speaker 2: Yeah? You know, I have kind of gone back to uh,

558
00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:28,800
you know, I I like, you know, sort of hard

559
00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:33,639
boiled detective novels, along with a lot of other things.

560
00:39:33,679 --> 00:39:38,599
But so I sort of went back to the beginnings

561
00:39:38,679 --> 00:39:48,320
and and have been reading the original people like uh yeah, yeah, yes,

562
00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:52,559
and the original the really old ones Dashel Hammett and

563
00:39:53,480 --> 00:40:00,280
Raymond Chandler and the guy I'm reading right now, you is.

564
00:40:00,719 --> 00:40:04,840
His name is Earl Stanley Gardner, and he's best known

565
00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:08,599
for writing the Perry Mason series, which they've just revived.

566
00:40:08,639 --> 00:40:12,519
On HBO in the last couple of years. And he

567
00:40:12,679 --> 00:40:17,239
started writing in the thirties and you know, and all

568
00:40:17,239 --> 00:40:20,119
the way up to like the seventies and got involved

569
00:40:20,159 --> 00:40:25,840
in television and stuff. But what's really interesting, Ellen, he's

570
00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:30,519
a really good writer, really good writer. But I'm reading

571
00:40:30,559 --> 00:40:35,800
one right now called Spill the Jackpot that is from

572
00:40:35,960 --> 00:40:39,639
nineteen forty one, and it takes place in Las Vegas,

573
00:40:40,559 --> 00:40:44,199
and you know, that's before the Flamingo was built, I mean,

574
00:40:44,599 --> 00:40:49,920
and so Las Vegas is basically Fremont Street. So anyway,

575
00:40:50,039 --> 00:40:53,320
it's you know, it's a typical hard boiled detective novel.

576
00:40:53,519 --> 00:40:57,719
And this is part of a series with a guy

577
00:40:57,800 --> 00:41:01,599
named Donald Lamb and a woman named a Cool and

578
00:41:01,840 --> 00:41:05,079
the name she's the one who owns this detective agency

579
00:41:05,239 --> 00:41:10,760
called the b Cool Agency, and he works for her.

580
00:41:11,199 --> 00:41:13,719
And this is like the fourth book in the series.

581
00:41:13,800 --> 00:41:18,079
But anyway, so I'm just recommending the book a because

582
00:41:18,119 --> 00:41:21,360
it's you know, great writing, and b because of the

583
00:41:21,519 --> 00:41:26,039
sort of historical Las Vegas stuff. I'm just in the

584
00:41:26,039 --> 00:41:28,119
beginning of the first few chapters of the book, but

585
00:41:28,639 --> 00:41:31,360
they get this case in Las Vegas and he immediately

586
00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:35,679
gets pulled up in the casino because they think he's

587
00:41:35,760 --> 00:41:40,679
part of a slot sheet team. So yeah, you know,

588
00:41:40,920 --> 00:41:43,760
for people who like those kind of books, I think

589
00:41:43,800 --> 00:41:45,039
they'll really enjoy this one.

590
00:41:45,599 --> 00:41:49,480
Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm looking forward to seeing the link in the

591
00:41:49,480 --> 00:41:54,800
show notes. I actually I've been going back and reading

592
00:41:56,039 --> 00:41:59,800
rereading some of the series that I read. I reread

593
00:41:59,840 --> 00:42:03,079
all the David Baldacci series. Recently, I reread all the

594
00:42:03,159 --> 00:42:07,400
Daniel Silva, who're both authors I like. Right now, I'm

595
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:15,360
reading can Fall At Yeah, and it's been a while

596
00:42:15,440 --> 00:42:18,840
since I read it, and I'm enjoying it again even

597
00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:21,360
I kind of know how it turns out. I've forgotten

598
00:42:21,440 --> 00:42:26,840
some of it, Yeah, but it seems sober and I

599
00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:30,239
can listen to it on headsets while I'm playing slots.

600
00:42:30,920 --> 00:42:37,480
If I have to evaluate a machine carefully, i'll pause

601
00:42:37,559 --> 00:42:42,519
the tape. But if once I'm onto the game where

602
00:42:42,519 --> 00:42:44,679
I just have to keep hitting until I hit the

603
00:42:44,719 --> 00:42:47,519
major or whatever it is, then I can be listening

604
00:42:47,559 --> 00:42:50,880
to the story. And it's a more pleasant way to

605
00:42:50,920 --> 00:42:54,840
spend it than just hitting the tape with hitting the

606
00:42:54,880 --> 00:42:56,679
button with nothing else going.

607
00:42:56,519 --> 00:43:01,119
Speaker 2: On, Right, it looks better than than reading a book

608
00:43:01,199 --> 00:43:02,360
while you're pushing the button.

609
00:43:03,119 --> 00:43:08,599
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So I'm assuming some of the books you're

610
00:43:08,639 --> 00:43:12,360
reading are not on tape or are there.

611
00:43:12,679 --> 00:43:16,239
Speaker 2: No, I'm reading them. I'm actually reading them.

612
00:43:16,880 --> 00:43:19,400
Speaker 1: I remember how to do that, but don't do that

613
00:43:19,440 --> 00:43:20,280
as much anymore.

614
00:43:20,400 --> 00:43:23,760
Speaker 2: But there's something, you know, you know, it's funny. My

615
00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:27,519
my brother, for my birthday sent me a collection of

616
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:34,239
there's a writer. His last name is Pine, and he

617
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:39,400
wrote a series of detective novels set in Chicago. But

618
00:43:39,480 --> 00:43:42,079
it's one of those, you know, six books in one,

619
00:43:42,280 --> 00:43:45,440
so it weighs about four pounds, and I, you know,

620
00:43:46,000 --> 00:43:48,719
I just can't bring myself to read it because, you know,

621
00:43:49,039 --> 00:43:51,360
a lot of times I'm laying down in bed holding

622
00:43:51,440 --> 00:43:54,119
the book above me, except I use a kindle, which

623
00:43:54,159 --> 00:43:58,239
is very light. So I really like to be reading

624
00:43:58,280 --> 00:44:01,320
these books that he sent me, but I just can't

625
00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:02,480
bring myself to do it.

626
00:44:03,280 --> 00:44:07,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, very good. All right again, you.

627
00:44:07,320 --> 00:44:10,079
Speaker 2: Too will have to do this more often than twenty

628
00:44:10,119 --> 00:44:10,760
twenty five.

629
00:44:11,239 --> 00:44:13,039
Speaker 1: All right, So everybody go out and hit lots of

630
00:44:13,119 --> 00:44:14,840
royal flushes. Good night,