Cyber Scouting

On Gambling With an Edge Bob and I had several shows where we talked about the importance of scouting.  I mentioned that it is important to check all the games in the casino, not just blackjack. This is especially true in casinos outside of Las Vegas where they are less savvy and often decide to run some promotion on a game where they really don't understand the math behind what they are doing.  Scouting is time consuming.  You could spend all day just scouting the casinos on the corner of Tropicana and the strip.

But there is another type of scouting that can be done from the comfort of your home.  I call it cyber scouting and I recently had some email questions asking if I could elaborate.  I break cyber scouting into two categories, news, and forums.  First let's talk about news.  Scouring news sources brings you information like: When the new casinos will be opening in Ohio (mid May) or places that are building new casinos (Fiji and Cyprus), or countries that are thinking of legalizing gambling (Japan).  You may find information on a cheating scam or new books coming out; all sorts of things turn up in my news sources.  So where do I find all this stuff?  Here is a list of the sources and websites I scan.

Google Reader is a collector of news and blogs that you choose.  Say there is a website that you like to read, that changes periodically, like this one.  You don't want to keep checking the site to see if there is something new, well Google reader will do it for you.  Whenever something new gets posted it will show up on your Google reader page.  Gambling sites that I subscribe to in Google Reader, The Wizard of Odds, The Bear Growls, Blair Rodman's blog, and the most informative is Online Gambling News at calvinayre.com.  That feed alone sends 15-20 gambling stories a day to my reader.  Many of them I can skip because they are about online gambling in Europe, or poker news that doesn't interest me, but it is still a great resource.

Google News  is a news aggregator that you can tell to search for news stories about gambling, poker, blackjack, or whatever you like.

Trapit This is another news aggregator and I like this site a lot.

BJ21 Newsletter This is a newsletter from Stanford Wong's site.  It is good but it only comes out once a week.

The Catwalk This is a newsletter for surveillance people that often has good articles by Bill Zender.

The next category is forums.  These are the forums I check, some much more than others.
http://www.beyondcounting.com/forums.html
http://www.qfit.com/bj/forum.php
http://backedoff.com/forums/index.php
http://bj21.com/frames/main.html
http://www.blackjackforumonline.com/w-agora/index.php?bn=bjf_forum
http://wizardofvegas.com/forum/gambling/
http://www.blackjackapprenticeship.com/

The thing about forums is there is a LOT of crap you have to wade through to find a little interesting or useful information.  Rarely will you find someone posting something like - I live in Podunk Utah and my local casino is having a promotion this weekend where blackjack pays 3 to 1, but it does happen.  The reason that forums are so valuable is because of the contacts you can make there. If you read people's posts you can tell pretty quickly who is a newbie, who believes in voodoo, who is a blowhard, and who just wants to stir up an argument.  But I also find that there are 5% or maybe less that are there for the same reasons I am.  They may still be new, or not have a big bankroll, but are serious.  I have made some tremendous friends that have become team mates just from talking to people in chat rooms.  I have made contacts all over the world on these forums. That means, I don't have to fly to Singapore to scout the new casinos; I know someone who lives there.

Gambling With an Edge - guest Dollie Wong

Bob and Mike discuss Mike's getting a license to carry a firearm.  Their guest this week is Dollie Wong who is a cocktail waitress in Las Vegas.  Her websites are Cocktail Doll and Cocktail Blogspot.

Dollie Wong podcast

Click to listen Alt click to download

Gambling With an Edge - guest Josh Axelrad

The guest on the show this week is Josh Axelrad.  Josh played on a very high-stakes blackjack team, and then lost all the money he made playing online poker.  Josh's story is told in his book, Repeat Until Rich.

Josh Axelrad podcast

Click to listen - Alt click to download

Gambling With an Edge - guest Jason Been

Hosts Bob Dancer and Mike Shackleford discuss Super Bowl betting with sports handicapper Jason Been.

Jason Been podcast

Click to listen - Alt click to download

Holy Rollers - A documentary about card counting Christians

Holy Rollers calls itself  "The True Story of Card Counting Christians" and documents a team of card counters that called itself "The Church Team."  The team was run by two guys, Ben and Colin, who shared a love of blackjack and Jesus. At some point they decided to expand their little blackjack team by recruiting and training new players.  Who better than members of their church? The team grows with both players, and investors, and from 2006 to 2009 they manage to win $3.2 million dollars before disbanding.

The film uses some simple animation to explain how card counting works at its most basic level, and also to explain how their bankroll is set up.  The Church Team had investors, players, and managers.  Their target was to win $100,000 at which time they would "close the bank" and divide the money.  The money was then divided among investors, managers, and players, but they never tell you what the percentages are.  The players are paid based on the number of hours they played.  In the case of the teams I played on the total number of hours played would be divided into the amount of players share dollars to determine the hourly rate.

A typical trip

When I tell people I am leaving town on a gambling trip they usually imagine something like this.

You need your tuxedo to blend in with all the other tuxedo-wearing high-rollers, and of course your silenced pistol to fend off the evil casino owners who all belong to the mafia and will kill you for counting cards; or at the very least take you to the basement, and beat you to a bloody pulp like in the movie 21. My experiences have been very different than James Bond so I thought I would offer some insight into what a typical gambling trip is like for me.

For me it always starts with a phone call.  Someone calls and says, "I found a game.  When are you free?" When I was young and single it would be nothing to take off for 2 or 3 weeks to Aruba, or Poland, or Korea, but now I have family obligations so I am limiting myself to domestic trips of 3 to 5 days. I check with my boss wife, and X and I pick some dates.  I head to kayak.com to look for flights and a car, but I like to use travelaxe.com to look for hotels. Booked and done.

Travel day - I'm up at 5:30am because I have an early flight.  The number one concern is how much cash to bring, and where to carry it.  Just as in the olden days when travelers had to worry about highway robbers, professional gamblers have the same concern.  Today it is not thieves on horseback with bandannas around their face; now it is TSA, DEA, and State Police who steal your money. When they find someone carrying a large amount of cash their attitude is confiscate it first, and ask questions later.  Anyone who carries cash must be a drug dealer right?  The professional gambler must then spend four or five thousand dollars on a lawyer to get his money back.  Cash will not set off the metal detectors in the airport so I usually carry it in a money belt and in my pockets.  I also have some chips for this casino we are going to, so I also carry those in my pocket.  Chips will show up in the Xray as something unknown.  The TSA will flag a bag that has chips in it so better to carry them on my body, and make sure I have nothing metal to set off the detectors.  If I were carrying a lot of chips, too many for my pockets, then I double bag them in clear Ziploc bags, and put them in the bin with my shoes and cell phone.  Be sure to keep your eye on that bin when it goes through because there have been cases of TSA Agents stealing from those bins. I zip through without problem and wait for my flight.

It's a few hours to Dallas, and now I have a couple hour layover.  Dallas is a great airport, but they don't have free wifi.  What's up with that?  I grab something to eat, and do some practicing.  I'm not going to this casino to count cards so I need some last minute brushing up.  I board one of those little puddle-jumper airplanes they use for regional flights.  I hate these things but I'm headed to the middle of nowhere and don't have a choice.  These planes have a row of single seats on one side, and 2 seats on the other.  Always book the A seat so you don't have to squeeze in next to someone.  The other bad thing about these planes is you can't take a normal size carry on bag onto the plane with you.  They take them when you board and then toss them out on the tarmac when you land, usually in a slush puddle.

By the time I land it is 10pm local time.  I pick up the rental car and now have about a hundred mile drive to the hotel.  The car is some type of new Ford, and it looks like an airplane cockpit.  There are nobs and lights everywhere.  I hit what I think is the cruise control and the car starts talking at me.  I can't figure out how to make it stop but I do find the thermometer.  It says 12.  When I left L.A. it was 80 degrees, and now it is freaking 12.  I don't have clothes for this.  I roll into the Super 8 Motel around midnight, and try not to wake X as I crash into bed.

The next morning X and I are up early.  We head off to the casino and find a disaster.  The game we were planning to play is no good anymore.  It is worthless.  This is a small casino, and there is nothing else here we want to play.  We head back to the hotel to decide what to do next.  I call the airline, and my ticket can not be changed so I am stuck here for 2 more days.  We take the next option, drive 3 hours to the next casino and see if there is anything there for us to play.  3 hours in the car, but at least it has warmed up to a balmy 22 degrees.  We get to Casino 2 and get some good luck - they have a game even better than the one we were hoping to play at Casino 1.  We get in a few hours of play, and book a small win.  We drive a few miles out of town to have some dinner and celebrate our good fortune.  We don't want to be too close since it would not be good for some casino employee to see us eating together. This is the midwest so the restaurant was named something like Deep Fried Lard on a Stick. Yum.

The next morning we get to the casino before the games open.  The tables open, we get to work, and spend 8 hours on the game.  We go up, we go down, we go back up.  I'm pleasantly surprised after 8 hours when X wants to call it a night since he is getting fatigued.  I used to play with a guy called The Vampire.  On my last trip with him we played 8 hours of day shift, then 8 hours of swing shift, and then he said, "I know a really good game on graveyard."  This isn't an Ipad Factory in China.  16 straight hours is about my limit.

The good news, after hitting a disaster at the first casino we have found a great game and scored a 5-figure win.  The bad news, I will have to get up at 3:30am and drive 3 hours to catch my early morning flight.  It's snowing pretty hard when I hit the freeway at 4am.  The freeway has not been plowed yet, and the driving is quite scary, especially when passing trucks.  But I make it to the airport with plenty of time to spare.

I was gone 4 days.  I spent 20 hours either in airports or on airplanes, 8 hours driving, and maybe 12 hours playing.  We won less than expectation but still good considering it could easily have been a busted trip. It may not be tuxedos and Bond girls, but it sure beats digging ditches.

Blackjack Ball 2012

Every year there is a party for some of the greatest minds in Blackjack.  Attending are great writers, and theoreticians like Stanford Wong, Arnold Snyder, and James Grosjean.  Also in attendance are some of the great players of all time, like Al Francesco, members of the MIT and Hyland teams, and James Grosjean.  But the Blackjack Ball 2012 was an epic gathering.  Cocktails began at 5:00 and my wife and I were fairly early.

James McDermott

I was thrilled to see this man in attendance.  Who is James McDermott?  In the 1950s this man, along with Roger Baldwin, Wilbert Cantey, and Herbert Maisel first calculated basic strategy for blackjack.  There were no computers.  All they had were adding machines.  They published their findings in a little book called Playing Blackjack to Win in 1957.  For the game of Blackjack this was the Big Bang.  Before this no one had figured out exactly when it is correct to take another card, or double down.  (Or if they had no one had published it.)

That little book inspired this man:

Ed Thorp

Ed Thorp wrote the first book on counting cards, Beat the Dealer.  It was the first book to prove that blackjack could be beat by keeping track of the cards.  The book changed blackjack forever, and without exaggeration was responsible for the earnings of tens of millions of dollars by the people in this room.  It was no wonder that he received a standing ovation when presented with a plaque which read:

With deep appreciation, we salute you for the immeasurable contributions you have made to the craft of Professional Blackjack

Max Rubin presents Ed Thorp with a plaque. 

Ed Thorp was the first person inducted into the Blackjack Hall of Fame, and every year at the Ball a new member is inducted.  This year it was Ian Anderson, author of Turning the Tables on Las Vegas and later Burning the Tables in Las Vegas.  Most books for card counters teach you how to count the cards, and what the proper strategy decisions are. Anderson was really the first author to discuss how to get away with counting cards; how to actually take the money out of the casinos, and this was a really important contribution.

A quick note about the Blackjack Hall of Fame.  It is not without controversy.  Often people question, why is this person in and that person not?  The people who founded the Hall of Fame wanted it to not just be for blackjack authors, but for players.  Guys (and girls) who have gone out and consistently taken money out of casinos, as well as people like Thorp and McDermott who have contributed through publishing.  Because of the secretive nature of what we do it is hard for people to know why someone belongs in there if they don't know that person, or have heard the tales of their exploits. For example, last year the inductee was Zeljko Ranogajec, a person you probably have never heard of.  But trust me on this, if anyone belongs in a blackjack hall of fame it is Zeljko.  There is probably someone out there sucking millions out of casinos that none of us have ever heard of.  Someone who really belongs in the Hall of Fame but will never be there because they keep their activity secret. It is not a perfect system, and it is evolving, but it is the best we have at this time.

After dinner was a calcutta auction, and then the famed competition for the Grosjean Cup.

The competition starts with a test of 21 questions.  Here are some of the questions from the quiz.

3. If you get this one wrong, you’re disqualified. Casino Player Magazine awarded this casino the title of “Best Blackjack in America” in 2011. As the sponsor of the Blackjack Ball and home of the Blackjack Hall of Fame, this casino can offer their loose rules and high stakes games because everyone who attends the Blackjack Ball agrees not to play blackjack there. Name that casino.

The answer - Barona.  I have to say that I think this is actually a brilliant move on Barona's part. They give the members of the Hall of Fame a comp for life with the understanding that those people will NOT play blackjack there.  All the people who attend the Ball are also supposed to agree not to play at Barona, and some of them are not so scrupulous about this, but still I I think Barona saves many thousands of dollars with this.

7. True or False? For the basic strategy player, the blackjack switch games at the Bellagio, which are dealt out of a continuous six deck shuffler, have a lower house edge than the Bellagio’s best double deck games.

Answer - It’s hard to believe, but the double deck games at the Bellagio that stand on soft 17 have a .19% edge off the top and their blackjack switch games, even with a continuous six deck shuffler are only .18%, so the answer to seven is True.

20. According to Stanford Wong’s December issue of Current Blackjack News, where would you find the most blackjack tables in December of 2011?

          A. In the Greater Seattle Area 

          B. In Florida’s land based casinos 

C.  In Reno

          D. At the Mohegan Sun

Answer - As of December, 2011, there were 132 blackjack games in the greater Seattle area, 173 blackjack games in Florida and 173 blackjack games at the Mohegan Sun and Reno, even when you take out Sparks and Verdi, tops the list at 189. The answer is C. Reno.
 
Four people scored a 13 on the test, Anthony Curtis, Big Tony, Wahoo and Mr Yuk.  We needed a fifth and there were 6 or 7 players who scored 12 so they had a sudden death playoff.  They came to the front of the room and had to "name a casino in California that deals the game of blackjack."  If you named a casino that had already been named, or if you blanked, you were eliminated.  One by one they checked about 30 casinos off the list before they started getting eliminated.  Poker player Blair Rodman got sort of a bad call from the ref when he named Trump 29 and was eliminated because the real name is Spotlight 29. Eventually WRX grabbed the 5th spot at the final table.

The first competition was card counting.  Each of the 5 players at the final table was given a single deck with 5 cards removed.  Because people use different counts the question was, "How many black cards are missing from your deck?"  I don't remember if he had the slowest time or if he made a mistake in the count, but WRX was the first eliminated.

As you can see, some of the rounds are serious blackjack skills, like ace sequencing, and some are just silly, like arm wrestling.  The biggest upset of the night came when Mr Yuk defeated Anthony Curtis in the arm wrestling competition.  Anthony has competed in this event many times and this is the first time he has ever lost the arm wrestling competition.

Place your bets.  How many cards in the discard rack?

I called it 42.  James Grosjean was standing next to me and said he wasn't very good at card estimation but he'd call it 45.  Correct answer - 44.

For the memorizing cards section a deck was spread for 30 seconds giving the players time to memorize as long a string as possible.  They then took turns naming what card would come next as Max dealt.  When you named the wrong card you were out.  Mr Yuk won again and seemed to be on  a roll.  Wahoo was the 2nd man eliminated from the final table.  Then came shuffling chips.

Mr. Yuk - epic Fail!

Mr. Yuk apparently no experience with this essential blackjack skill, whereas Big Tony got his name from the size of his hands.

Even with this win Big Tony was low man at the chip count.

Then there were 2.  Anthony Curtis, seasoned veteran, and Mr. Yuk a young newcomer, his first time at the Blackjack Ball.  The final test - a 5 hand blackjack tournament.  They each start with $1000, and Anthony Curtis has the button.  This is a big disadvantage. Blackjack tournaments are the opposite of poker tournaments.  The button acts first.  That means that on the crucial last hand Anthony Curtis will have to bet first, and act first.  Will Mr Yuk be intimidated by the fact that for years Anthony Curtis was considered the best blackjack tournament player in the world?  Or is Anthony intimidated by the fact that Mr. Yuk is the first guy to ever put his arm down?

At this point Joe Pane says to me he'll take Anthony Curtis and lay me $15 to $10.  I quietly say to Yuk, you play many tournaments?  He says, a lot.  I tell Joe we have a bet.

Hand 1.  Anthony bets $100 and Yuk bets the same.  They both win.
Hand 2.  Yuk bets $100 and Anthony realizes he need to take the lead.  He bets $300.  Yuk gets 18, Anthony gets 11, and the dealer has a 7 up.  Anthony chooses to just hit which seems to clearly be the right play when the bankrolls are only $1100 and he has 300 bet.  Anthony makes 20, and the dealer makes 18 pushing Yuk.  Anthony is now up by $300
Hands 3&4.  I don't remember exactly what happens but between the 2 hands Anthony has some very bad luck, gets swung and going into hand 5 Yuk has $1,350 and Anthony has $900.
My bet is looking really good at this point, but then Max announces that the final hand is a secret bet!  Oh no. This means that if Mr. Yuk is not an experienced tournament player he could very easily blow this.
Hand 5.  Mr Yuk gets dealt 20, and Anthony is dealt hard 6.  Anthony is drawing dead.  Anthony doubles down - his secret bet was 450.  Turns out Mr. Yuk bet $500 which is an excellent bet.  This bet means that if Anthony were to bet his 900 and get to 1800, if Yuk also wins his 1350 goes to 1850 beating him.  If Anthony had bet 900 and Yuk sees he has a blackjack (taking him to 2,250) then Yuk can double down with whatever 2 cards he has and if he wins he gets to 2350.  Yuk only loses if he gets swung - Anthony wins while Yuk loses.  I think that only happens about 8% of the time.  

Congratulations to Mr. Yuk, a victory for the new generation of blackjack players.

Gambling With an Edge - guest Laurie C.

Our guest this week is Laurie C. long-time member of the MIT Blackjack team, and wife of Johnny C. who ran the MIT team.  We talk about counting cards, the movie 21, and the advantages of being a
Chinese woman in the casinos.

Laurie C. podcast

Click to listen - Alt click to download

Gambling With an Edge - guest Daniel Negreanu

Our guest this week is Daniel Negreanu aka "Kid Poker" although he has now been playing so long he may have to change his moniker to "Middle-Aged-Man Poker."  Daniel is the author of  Power Hold'em Strategy which outlines his "small ball" tournament strategy.  He says this is the strategy that most of the tournament pros have adapted. We talk poker on TV, poker on the internet, poker tournaments, and whether he had the right side of the great poker-kickboxing match of 2011.

Daniel Negeanu Podcast

Click to listen - Alt click to download

Gambling With an Edge - guest Don Johnson

Our guest this week is Don Johnson.  At his day job Don works at Computer Assisted Wagering for one of the largest horse bettors in the world.  As a sideline he won $15 million playing blackjack in Atlantic City with the help of a 20% rebate on his losses.  Bob and I also discuss the importance of scouting both games and promotions.

Don Johnson podcast

Click to listen - Alt click to download

Gambling With an Edge - guest Mike Shakleford

Our guest this week is Mike Shakleford aka "The Wizard of Odds." We talk about proposition bets for the upcoming Super Bowl, and The Oscars. Learn why you should bet the under and the dog. Mike will be taking over for me on the show starting in February so we also talk some about the new direction the show will take.

Mike Shackleford podcast

Click to listen - Alt click to download

Repeat Until Rich by Josh Axelrad

I recently finished Repeat Until Rich by Josh Axelrad. I should start by saying that I am a big fan of this type of book. I devoured Ken Uston's books before playing on big teams myself; not for the “how to” but for the stories of what it is like to be a professional player. I thoroughly enjoyed Blackjack Autumn by Barry Meadow, and thought Kevin Blackwood's, Play Blackjack Like the Pros was reasonable even though I disagree with many of his conclusions. I'm sorry to say I couldn't make it through more than a couple pages of Stuart Perry's Las Vegas Blackjack Diary. It read like my old tax records, and really shows the difference between writing and record keeping.

Josh does a good job of capturing the excitement, fear, and insanity that go with high-stakes blackjack. Unlike Ken Uston, he does not think he is the world's greatest blackjack player, and actually admits to being a bad one. He struggles with simple things like keeping the count, and has a really hard time with things like adjusting for true count, and sizing bets. One of the team leaders says, “anyone who can calculate an 18% tip in a restaurant can count cards.” The team, called Mossad in the book, quickly hands him thousands of dollars, and throws him into the shark tank with very little instruction. To non-players this will seem insane, but it is very much my experience with big teams. They may argue for hours over what the proper bet is with a running 17, 3 ½ decks to go, and a $450 unit, but then throw 2 or 3 ten-packs at a guy in the car, and as they're getting out start yelling rapid fire, “Oh, this signal means 'come into game,' this is 'end of play,' this means 'bet more...'” all the while the poor newbie is pleading, “Wait, wait, where do I go? How much do I bet? How do I know when to quit?”

Josh starts as a spotter, and it seems within weeks he has major heat all over Vegas. Pros will want to scream at the book, “Dude! Cut off your freaking dreadlocks!” You're the only white guy in the casino with dreadlocks and you can't figure out why you are getting barred the minute you walk in the door.
But Mossad had a policy that no one would be dropped from the team for getting heated up. They may throw you in the fryer, but they wouldn't abandon you when you got extra crispy. I find this loyalty admirable.

Josh now goes from a spotter with heat all over Vegas, to BP. Say what?! While everyone in town knew the guy with dreadlocks, they didn't have his name. Maybe he cut his hair, or hid it somehow, but he was reborn as a BP and was clean... for a while. Now to me this is the most interesting part of the book. Every professional has to deal with issues like, carrying cash, CTRs (cash transaction reports), ID, and heat. Mossad's approach was this: No fake ID ever. CTRs, file them with your real name. Heat – ignore it. Go right into the furnace and keep firing until they threw you out. This approach was unique in my experience. Mossad encouraged all players to invest and had a very large bankroll. This allowed them to bet up to 2 or 3 hands of $10,000. They won millions (I remember one New Years week where the rumor was they won 2 million) but it fried BPs, and eventually burned out the “big player call in” completely in many venues. To this day if a player in Las Vegas, with no players card enters a blackjack game in progress and bets the table maximum he will probably be barred before the shoe is over.

The book flies along with crazy blackjack stories, and Josh doing even crazier things. He goes into his bank in New York and deposits $18,000 in cash. Two weeks later he withdraws it in cash to take back to Vegas. It sounds like he did these kinds of transactions dozens of times. Dude, didn't anyone tell you they have bank branches in Vegas, and safe deposit boxes there too? They have the usual run in with cops in Louisiana, and by some miracle the cops don't confiscate their $120,000 in cash, although they do get taken out of the car at gunpoint.

Then the book takes a hard left turn. Josh gets out of blackjack and becomes a degenerate poker player. What had started as a breezy, fun read now becomes bleak and depressing as he blows all his money, and wallows in his addiction. He should have made this a second book which we all could skip.

Gambling With an Edge - guest Darryl Purpose

Our guest this week is Darryl Purpose.  I did a print interview with Darryl back in 2003 which you can read here DP Interview.  Now he came on the radio show to talk about Ken Uston, how blackjack has changed, and his career as a singer/songwriter.

Darryl Purpose podcast

Click to listen - Alt click to download

Gambling With an Edge - no guest this week

This week on Gambling With an Edge Bob and I discuss some of the differences between video poker players and blackjack players.

GWAE Podcast

Click to listen - Alt click to download

Darryl Purpose interview

This interview originally appeared in Blackjack Forum in 2003.

The Performer

            Darryl Purpose is a battle-scarred veteran of the Blackjack Wars.  He moved to Las Vegas at 19, and learned just enough about counting cards to lose all his money.  He says, “I was the kind of counter that made Las Vegas.”  He went from sleeping in his car to a job in a boiler room selling pens.  He fell into a familiar pattern in Las Vegas—working a job, and blowing his paycheck.  At the same time he must have been learning something about blackjack.  A year later he was one of the best players on the Ken Uston team, driving down the Las Vegas Strip in a Rolls Royce with thousands of dollars in his pocket.  “Isn’t that why we came?” he says with a smile.
            The last bet Darryl made as part of a Ken Uston team was in December of 1979, yet he says that reputation haunts him to this day.  In Million Dollar Blackjack, Ken named Darryl as one of the four best blackjack players in the world, but playing with Ken, “was not a badge of honor,” says Darryl.  “Still, the reason you want to interview me is because I was part of the Ken Uston team.”
            It’s true.  That is why I wanted to interview Darryl.  But then I heard the stories of what happened after 1979.  Stories that will take you from Moscow to Sri Lanka.  Blackjack tales of the Sicilian Mafia, the Russian Mob, the Japanese Yakuza, and the Tamil Tigers who invented suicide bombing.  Matter-of-fact stories of running over to Caesars Palace to play a hole card because he needed a down payment on a house, or winning a million dollars with Thor, a shuffle-tracking computer.  For Darryl it was just his job.  “My job was to play until they didn’t allow me, and then take the money home.  I really didn’t consider whether it was dangerous.”
            Now Darryl is retired from blackjack.  He hasn’t played a hand in four years.  You wouldn’t know that from the Griffin fliers that continue to pop up claiming a Darryl sighting in Reno, or St. Louis, or New Orleans.  Darryl now does 150 concerts a year as a touring singer/songwriter.  I’ve seen him in concert, and his audience is mesmerized by his tales of traveling the world playing his guitar, and yes, blackjack.  He’s quite funny in concert, and the songs are excellent.  US Air in-flight magazine, Attache, featured Darryl in the August 2003 issue.   They said, “Take Darryl Purpose for example—he has the voice of James Taylor, the brains of Bob Dylan, and the soul of Willie Nelson.” 

You can purchase his CDs or check out his concert calendar at darrylpurpose.com. 

Happy Holidays to all

My longtime partner Darryl Purpose has given up the gambling life again to take a much bigger gamble.  He's back out on the road as a singer/songwriter. Here is one of his Christmas songs.

>

I did an extensive interview with Darryl some time back, and will post that here soon.  He'll be a guest on Gambling With an Edge in January.  To learn more his website is darrylpurpose.com  Here is his Holiday CD which I highly recommend.

Gambling With an Edge - guest K.C.

Our guest this week is known simply as K.C., and was one of the most fascinating guests we have had.  K.C. started as a professional blackjack player, and when he started getting barred he turned to craps.  He read Wong on Dice and decided that this was the game for him.  He won $1.5 million dollars at craps before the dice started to turn.  After losing almost all of that money back he now thinks that he never had an edge.  Yet many casinos barred him from playing dice!  We also talked about a documentary film he has been working on about his blackjack adventures.  Here is the trailer for Inside The Edge.

K.C. podcast

Click to listen - Alt click to download

Dice Control - Not

A few weeks ago we had Stanford Wong on the show talking about his book Wong on Dice.  The thesis of this book is that players can control the dice when they throw them and have 7 show up less than 1 in 6 times.  If a player could do this it would be worth a fortune.  Wong mentioned a player that had won $1.5 million using what he thought was dice control, and then lost all the money back.  That player is a man named KC, and he will be our guest this week.

When I read Wong's book he had some quotes from Bryce Carlson that lead me to believe that Bryce was a believer in dice control.  Bryce is the author of Blackjack For Blood, and very well respected in the advantage play community.  Since that time I have had an email exchange with Bryce, and found that Bryce is firmly on the other side.  In fact, he sent me the following essay on dice control, and gave me permission to post it here.

Why Casino Craps Can’t Be Beaten

If only Isaac Newton had been right, if only he'd been right, then maybe, just maybe, there might really be such a thing as AP casino craps. But he wasn't, and there isn't. And therein lies a fascinating tale that is worth a little trip down history lane.

You see, at its core, the potential to beat craps comes down to the nature of kinetic energy. But Newton didn't believe in energy, kinetic or otherwise. For him there was no such thing! For Newton, there was mass and there was motion. And that was it. Newton knew that unless acted upon by an outside force bodies in motion stayed in motion, and bodies at rest stayed at rest. So, Newton reasoned that when an outside force acted on a body at rest to create motion it had to
impart an "impetus" to the body which overcame the body's inherent inertia. This force imparted an impetus, P, sufficient to move a mass, m, to a velocity, v. Hence, the impetus (now called "momentum") must be equal to the product of the mass times the velocity, or P = mv. And that was all there was to it. But Newton, perhaps the greatest genius of all time, had a bitter rival of almost equal genius. His name was Gottfried Leibniz. And Leibniz had a different idea. He thought there was more to motion than momentum. He said there was also a "vis viva" or "life force," proportional to the square of the velocity, that a mass acquires when it's accelerated to a given velocity with respect to another inertial frame. Newton countered by mocking the whole idea of a putative so-called "life force" as superstitious nonsense, and sarcastically asked Leibniz if perhaps the laying on of hands were necessary to impart this special force to masses, and, if so, did it come by the power of God or perhaps Beelzebub. Leibniz replied that,
like everything else, it came by the power of God, and if Newton doubted that perhaps he should take it up with the Pope, or maybe the Archbishop of Canterbury. Oops. Touché Leibniz. And so back and forth it went, year after year, such that during their lifetimes this bitter little tête-à-tête remained unabated, undecided and unresolved -- just one more schlong slam in a long list of schlong slams by two of the greatest minds and brittlest egos in the entire history of great minds and brittle egos.

And then, in 1738, several years after both Newton and Leibniz had died, along came a rather comely young minx by the name of Mme Gabrielle Émilie du Châtelet. Now, Mme Châtelet, who happened to be the wife of the Marquis du Châtelet, was not only a libertine deluxe of impressive imagination, but she was also the mistress of Voltaire, several of his friends, and a gifted young woman who somehow amid all the frolicking found time to be an accomplished natural philosopher, as well. This was definitely not your everyday wench, royalty or not. Now, Mme du Châtelet was a keen student of both Leibniz and Newton (in fact her French translation of Newton's Principia is still the standard), and she marveled that this dispute regarding the
fundamental nature of masses in motion had gone on for decades without a resolution. So, she decided to set up an experiment to settle the matter once and for all. She reasoned that in an inelastic collision of a rigid undeformable mass with a non-rigid deformable one all of
Newton's momentum or Leibniz's vis viva would be absorbed by the deformable mass, and the degree of deformation would determine who was right. So she set up a simple but elegant experiment in which a small steel cannonball was dropped from a height of several feet into a bucket of potter’s clay and the depth of the depression left by the ball was measured. Then, using Newton's gravity equations, she dropped the ball from a greater height, such that the velocity at impact was calculated to be exactly twice the velocity of the first drop, and, again, measured the depth of the depression left by the ball. She then reasoned that since Newton's "impetus" was linear (mv) and Leibniz's "vis viva" was exponential (mv^2), if the second depression were twice as deep as the first one, then Newton was right. But, if the second
depression were four times as deep as the first one, then Leibniz would be right. So, she performed the experiment and measured the results: And, voilà, the second depression was, indeed, four times as deep as the first one. Leibniz had been right all along. Poor Leibniz,
he had waited a lifetime to beat Newton at something important, and when he finally did he wasn't alive to enjoy it. Sometimes, the Gods really do have a twisted sense of humor. Anyway, today we call Leibniz’s vis viva "kinetic energy," and we describe it by the equation E = (1/2)mv^2. Leibniz would be proud.

Okay, so why is it so important that Newton was wrong and Leibniz was right? It's important because it says that a small change in velocity results in a large change in kinetic energy, which means that when, say, two dice are thrown simultaneously with only a small difference
in initial velocity, the differences in their behavior at impact will be large. Very large. Processes in nature tend to either damp or amp as they propagate through space and time. In those that damp, small differences in initial conditions become even smaller over time. But
in those that amp, small differences in initial conditions grow large over time. And because kinetic energy is an exponential function of the square of velocity, tossing dice at craps is an amping process, whereby small differences in initial conditions result in large differences in the final results.

Now, over the last five years a number of serious, legitimate researchers, including Stanford Wong, myself and others, have sought to determine the truth about so-called AP craps. Some of these researchers have hoped to show that craps could be beaten, and some have just been intellectually curious. But, regardless of motive, all of them have diligently searched for the truth. Now, because simulations of precision shooting at casino craps are not feasible, these researchers have generally utilized carefully monitored casino sessions of statistically significant duration with recognized "professional" p-shooters, as well as slow-motion videos of such experts throwing the dice on regulation craps tables, to obtain valid useful data. The results of such studies have been telling. Virtually without exception, with the monitored "professional" p-shooters the larger the number of trials the more random the results appear (with each die face converging on a random frequency of 1 in 6). And with the slow-motion videos, it is obvious to everyone viewing them that, no matter how good the throw might look at normal speed, in slow motion it is apparent that a huge amount of uncontrollable randomizing
occurs. In fact, in February, 2009, Wong stated in a post on the bj21.com craps page, in referring to the results of slow-motion video studies of skillful throws, "The truth is, there is much bouncing around, even in dice tosses that look great at real-time speed. Watching slo-mo video of dice tosses can be discouraging, and can be harmful to sales of dice books and to sales of dice-tossing instruction." No one viewing such videos would ever disagree with that. So, while it is true that no one study is ever completely conclusive, over a five-year period the evidence has piled up as study after study by capable researchers has consistently pointed to only one conclusion: Real-world casino craps cannot be legitimately beaten -- by anyone, anywhere, at any time. And the exponential, amping nature of kinetic energy is the fundamental reason why.

To see this more clearly consider this analogy: Suppose a world-class MLB pitcher were told to throw curve balls one after another such that each successive pair of curve balls must be thrown at the same speed to within a small fraction of a mile per hour, and have the same curving trajectory within a small fraction of an inch. No pitcher could ever do this, or would ever even want to, for that matter. It's not humanly possible. But that is exactly the kind of control a
p-shooter would have to have to have any chance of influencing the dice at all. And even if it were possible, which it isn't, it STILL wouldn't be enough! Why? Consider this: The theory of so-called AP craps is built on two plausible-sounding conjectures. The first one, promoted by Frank Scoblete and Golden Touch Craps, says that if the dice are set properly, thrown on axis with synchronicity, and don't hit the pyramid-studded back wall (or at most just "kiss" it lightly with a dead-cat bounce), it is possible to exert a sufficient degree of control of the dice to achieve a positive ev. We'll call this the GTC conjecture. The second one, promoted by Wong, says that if the dice are set properly, and initially thrown on axis with synchronicity, even if they do hit the pyramid-studded back wall hard, a degree of "correlation" between the two dice can survive that is sufficient to achieve a positive ev. We'll call this the Wong
conjecture.

Let's consider the GTC conjecture first. On the face of it, it sounds reasonable. It's definitely a plausible-sounding conjecture. If the dice are set properly, and stay on axis with synchronicity right to the end, there is no question that sufficient control to achieve a
positive ev would result. That's why it's so seductive. It sounds doable, if difficult. It sounds like all it takes is practice. But, as it turns out, it takes a hell of a lot more than that. Slow-motion studies of expert throws have repeatedly shown that even if the dice apparently remain on axis with synchronicity right down to the landing (something extraordinarily difficult to do), if the dice differ by even 0.25" in their rotational synchronicity at landing then, because of the exponential amping nature of kinetic energy, the combination of elastic (rebounding) and inelastic (skidding) collisions with the table will impart a huge amount of different rotations across the x, y, and z axes (pitch, roll, and yaw) between the two dice. Such tosses look great at normal speed, but in slow motion their true random nature can be seen and measured. As with a pitcher trying to throw successive pairs of identical curve balls, the precision necessary to do it with dice is beyond human capability. Period. And that's not even counting the pyramid-studded back wall! When you factor in the
pyramids, the whole concept becomes laughable.

Now, let's take a look at the last best hope for AP casino craps, namely, the Wong conjecture. Wong is a bright fellow, and he recognized from his early dice studies that maintaining on-axis
synchronicity was a pipe dream. So, still hopeful that craps could be beaten, he developed a more sophisticated theory that posits that, although the dice do not remain on axis with synchronicity after contact with the table and back-wall pyramids, there is a surviving
correlation between the two dice's rotations that can potentially reduce double-pitch 7s resulting in a positive ev for the player. Specifically, Wong asserted that although the pyramids scramble pitch, roll and yaw such that the axis that each die finally assumes will be
effectively randomized, a surviving correlation between the two dice may still remain because, (1) due to the law of conservation of energy, (2) the assertion that both dice start off with the same initial kinetic energy, and (3) the assertion that translational kinetic energy is not preferentially converted into rotational kinetic energy, the number of rotations that the two dice undergo across their x, y, z axes will remain closely correlated. In Wong’s own words:
“Ideally, the dice are still on axis and have equal speed and equal rotation when they hit the pyramids. The pyramids then randomize the axis of rotation of each die, and reduce the energy of each die approximately equally. As they leave the wall the dice have random and independent axes of rotation, but will rotate approximately the same number of times before coming to rest. Being approximately identical in position and motion when they hit the pyramids, and then rotating
approximately the same number of times after hitting the pyramids, (the end result should be) a scarcity of double pitches.”

Unfortunately, however, there are two fatal flaws to this conjecture. The first one is the fallacy that both dice start off with the same initial kinetic energy. They don't. Numerous empirical studies have shown that there is always a slight difference in the initial velocities and axial alignments of the two dice and, as previously discussed, because of the exponential amping nature of kinetic energy, these small differences result in big differences in the final
results. And, secondly, and just as important, the assertion that a rotational correlation between to two dice is maintained during the toss because translational kinetic energy is either not converted into rotational kinetic energy, or, if it is, it is converted to the same degree in both dice, is manifestly false. This is easily verified when slow-motion videos of expert tosses on regulation craps tables are examined and analyzed. For example, one die, say, bounces up from the table and squarely hits the base of one of the pyramids and rebounds back with little to no conversion of translational kinetic energy into rotational kinetic energy; the other die, however, bounces up and hits another pyramid, say, a little off center or a little higher up from its base and a significant amount of translational kinetic energy gets converted into (primarily roll and yaw) rotational kinetic energy. Anyone watching slow-motion videos of expert throws knows that this kind of scenario occurs on virtually every toss, and when it does any surviving rotational correlation is lost to randomness because one die ends up with significantly less translational kinetic energy than the other die, which results in less rotation than the other die when it lands and rolls to a final result.

So, with pitch, roll, yaw and rotation randomized by the table and the pyramids, the assumptions underpinning Wong's correlation conjecture, just as with the GTC on-axis conjecture, do not stand up to either theoretical analysis or the empirical evidence, and, consequently, no surviving correlation between the two dice can be assumed to survive a legal toss in real-world casino craps. And, again, extensive empirical studies over a five-year period back this conclusion up.

And finally, in April 2011, in a tacit admission that he had been wrong in believing casino craps could be legitimately beaten, Wong removed craps from the list of “Beatable Casino Games” on his popular BJ21.com website, and also removed the “Craps” discussion page from his site, as well. In addition, a few months later, in October 2011, in an interview on Bob Dancer’s popular KLAV radio program, “Gambling With an Edge,” Wong admitted that for players “who want to get serious about making money in casinos, craps is not the game to play.” That pretty much says it all.

So, blame it on Leibniz, blame it on God, or blame it on the exponential amping nature of kinetic energy, but real-world casino craps cannot be beaten. Period. But, hey, cheer up, maybe in another universe, far, far away Newton was actually right ;-).

Now, compare this modern casino game to the primitive WWII-era "blanket-roll" game, where the consensus is that a highly-skilled virtuoso p-shooter could, indeed, potentially gain a winning edge. What is apparent in such a comparison is that the two things that prevent beating the modern casino game -- namely, the exponential amping nature of kinetic energy, and the randomizing power of the back-wall pyramids -- were absent or neutralized in the blanket-roll
game. In the blanket-roll game there were no back-wall pyramids, and the soft, relatively high-friction army-style blanket was perfect for burning off kinetic energy very rapidly, thus effectively neutralizing kinetic energy’s amping nature. This makes for two very different
games, one potentially beatable, and the other not. They say casinos are born at night, but clearly not last night, as they have very effectively eliminated the exploitable weaknesses in the primitive blanket-roll game.

Now, even though all this means that so-called AP casino craps is left without any credible operational theory or supporting evidence, whatsoever, justifying a belief in its validity, I know none of it is going to have the slightest effect on the so-called AP craps gurus.
They'll just keep on beatin' the drums, pounding out that voodoo vibe for their faithful fans who are all too happy for a rationalization, any rationalization, to justify their inveterate gambling habits. And does any of it prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that casino craps
can't be beaten? No, it doesn't. We'll probably never have that kind of proof. But it does prove beyond a reasonable doubt that casino craps is unbeatable, and in an existential world that is enough for reasonable men. Are you reasonable? Well, are you?

Gambling With an Edge - guest Bob Loeb

Our guest on the show this week is attorney Bob Loeb.  Bob is based in Chicago, and is the coauthor of Blackjack and the Law.  On this show we talk about the disturbing trend of casinos confiscating player's chips, and about the case of a tribal court in Michigan that convicted two players of cheating for playing a hole card.

Bob Loeb podcast

Click to listen.  Alt click to download

Gambling With an Edge - guest Anthony Curtis

Our guest this week is Anthony Curtis, owner of The Las Vegas Advisor and Huntington Press publishing.  We discuss what new books are coming out, as well as what is new in the world of "couponomy."  How to make money from casino coupons.

Anthony Curtis podcast

Click to listen.  Alt click to download