Gambling With an Edge - guest Mike Shackleford

Our guest this week is Mike Shackleford on to talk about football parlay cards.

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Gambling With an Edge - guest Royal Cat

Our guest this week is long time professional video poker player who goes by the name Royal Cat.

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Gambling With an Edge - guest Scott Bell aka ElevenGrover

Our guest this week is Scott Bell aka ElevenGrover in the poker world. Scott has produced a new documentary called Ultimate Beat about the cheating scandal at Ultimate Bet poker.

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Gambling With an Edge - guest Rich Muny of the PPA

The guest this week is Rich Muny of The Poker Players Alliance. The PPA lobbies for legal regulated poker in the US.

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No Work and All Play - Book Review

No Work and All Play: Audacious Chronicles of a Casino Boss

When I was a teenager I was obsessed with gambling. I was reading any book I could find, mostly about backgammon and poker, but also general gambling books. There was a pit boss from Las Vegas named Mike Goodman who wrote a book in the 60s called How to Win, and another in the 70s called Your Best Bet. You can pick these up for a penny now if you like - Mike Goodman books. These books were filled with a lot of nonsense about how to gamble, and about gamblers who were "sharp" or "tough" because they knew to bet more when they got on a streak. But what I liked about the books were the stories form the pits in Las Vegas. Superstitious bosses, or players. People who did crazy things in the casinos. High rollers and dames. It just made Vegas sound like the coolest place in the world. Then in the 80s another pit boss, this one named Barney Vinson wrote a couple books called Las Vegas Behind the Tables 1 & 2. Again, the advice on how to play was mostly voodoo and nonsense, but he had some great stories about the characters you find in Las Vegas on both sides of the tables. Now you know what I was expecting when I picked up this book. Unfortunately the book should be titled Chronicles of a Hotel Boss and Corporate Suit.

Roger Wagner went to UNLV, and graduated in 1969. He started working at the Dunes as at the front desk of the hotel. He bounced back and forth between the Sands and the Dunes during the 70s, working his way up the corporate ladder, but always working on the hotel side of these organizations. I found this mildly interesting only because I have a soft spot in my heart for the Sands. I spent my honeymoon there, and spent a lot of time there counting cards when I first started playing blackjack. Anyway, we get a step by step of Roger working in Reno, and Laughlin, and then Atlantic City, (He worked for Trump which provided a few interesting stories) and ultimately COO of the Horseshoe casinos under Jack Binion.

Anyone who has ever had a job has had a supervisor, or boss who was a complete moron, and/or grossly incompetent. Not Roger. Everyone he worked for is a "role model" or a "mentor". The harshest thing he has to say is he doesn't care for Harrahs. His favorite quote, which he mentions several times in the book is, "The boss aint always right, but the boss is always the boss." You can see why he ended up at the top of the corporate ladder.

I will recommend the final section of this book to anyone who works in casino management. The difference in the way Jack Binion ran his casinos is something most casinos could learn from. When Caesar's was in negotiations to buy Horseshoe they asked how many Harvard MBAs Jack had in the organization. (Caesar's is apparently very high on Harvard MBAs.) Jack said there might be one or two, but he had 60 CPAs at Horseshoe Hammond alone. They asked why he would have so many accountants. He said, not accountants, Car Parking Attendants. You know, people who actually have value to the customers.

I have to relate one story from the book about Jack's father, Benny Binion. There are hundreds of stories about the late Benny Binion, but this is the only one in the book. Benny was running a craps game in a hotel room in Dallas. Benny had a lookout in the hallway, and the guy tells Benny that the game is pretty noisy, and people coming down the hallway might hear it and know what was going on. Benny sends the guy across the street to buy a radio so he can play music in the hall, and cover the sound of the game. The guy does, comes back, but the radio doesn't work. He takes it back across the street, and the guy has a sign, "No Returns." They argue, but the guy refuses to take the radio back. The guy goes back across the street, and tells Benny the store won't take the radio back. Benny grabs the radio, and heads back across the street. The store owner points at the sign, and tells him, "I told your flunky i have a policy, no returns." Benny winds up and throws the radio into the shelf of radios behind the counter. He then whips out his pistol and puts a bullet into 6 more radios, and yells at the owner, "And I also have a policy. Don't ever let anyone screw me. That's my policy. Period." He then grabbed a working radio, and stormed out.

Roger tells this story as, "The funniest story about Benny Binion." All I could think when I read it was, "Why was this sociopath allowed to roam the streets?" Sorry Roger, I guess we just have very different senses of humor.

No Work and All Play: Audacious Chronicles of a Casino Boss  I give it...

1 1/2  ACES

Gambling With an Edge - guest Bob Nersesian #8

The guest this week is Bob Nersesian.  Bob is a frequent guest to the show, and always entertaining.  Bob is the lawyer who advocates for the players against the casinos, and has successfully sued many Vegas casinos on the behalf of players.  He is also the author of Beat the Players.

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Gambling With an Edge - No guest this week

We have no guest this week, so Bob and I discuss various promotions and other gambling stories from our pasts.

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Advantage Play of the Day

Here is a free shot. The government just released a new $100 bill. See the article here. New $100.

I visited 3 banks today. Two had not received the bills yet, and one had 17 which I bought. The idea is if you are lucky enough to find bills with very low numbers, like 000000001, well that bill is going to be worth more than $100. Any unusual number could score. 314159... or 123456789. all it takes is a few minutes of your time.

Back in 2007 the government started releasing $1 coins with the faces of presidents. The first coin was of course George Washington. What makes these coins unique is they have printing around the edge of the coin.

Some of the first batch were printed in error, and this printing on the edge was missing. I bought all the rolls I could find at my local bank, and was lucky enough to score 24 of these. This netted me over $2,000 for about 15 minutes of my time. so give it a shot. Stop by your local bank, and try to hit your lucky number. It's like the lotto, except the ticket costs you nothing. Good luck, and good hunting.

Gambling With an Edge - guest Ed Miller

This week's guest is Ed Miller, author of Playing the Player, as well as 4 or 5 other books on poker. We talk about the new online poker, and the upcoming World Series November 9. We also discuss Poker Plays You Can Use by Doug Hull which Ed edited.

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Enemy Number One: The Secrets of the UK's Most Feared Professional Punter

Enemy Number One, by Peter Veitch is a chronicle of the life of a professional horse bettor in the UK. The first section is devoted to an eight year stretch, beginning in 1999, where he won ten million GBP. Ten million is nothing to sneeze at, but since the top horse bettors make many times that every year I hardly would call him "Enemy One." This first section is page after page of, I bet this horse, at that track, and won X amount, or lost Y amount. It very much reminded me of Stuart Perry's Las Vegas Blackjack Diary, which will teach you two important things. Record keeping is not the same as writing, and trying to make a living counting cards in Las Vegas is truly awful, tedious, and boring.

The book then takes an odd turn. Veitch gets extorted by a mobster who threatens to kill him. It appears he is just a rich guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. The police take this threat very seriously, and Veitch spends quite some time hiding out, and under police protection before this guy eventually goes to prison for killing a policeman. This does pick up the pace of the book some, but it has absolutely nothing to do with gambling.

Veitch eventually branches out into horse owner, as well as bettor. He flies around England in his private helicopter, which must be pretty cool, but it is still a lot of - I bet this horse - or this is how my horse won this race. We do hear about the frustrations of being a professional gambler. Much like sports bettors he gets barred from some books, uses beards to bet for him, throws the bookmakers off track by betting the opposite of what he wants, and then sending the real money in after they adjust the odds the wrong way. UK apparently does not use a parimutuel system for their racing which seems odd and old fashioned. There is one good chapter near the end of the book where he describes how a winning bettor thinks, and how he goes about finding an edge. Is this book worth reading for that one little nugget? I'll leave that to you. On my 4 Ace scale I give it.

Gambling With an Edge - guest Mike Shackleford G2E edition

The guest this week is Mike Shackleford . This week is the largest gaming conference of the year, G2E. Mike and Bob attended, and will discuss the new games they saw.

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Gambling With an Edge - guest Mark Dace

The guest this week is Mark Dace. Mark travels the world playing blackjack, betting sports, and doing whatever other advantage plays he can find.

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Gambling With an Edge - guest I. Nelson Rose

The guest this week is professor I. Nelson Rose, author of, Gaming Law in a Nutshell.

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Ship It Holla Ballas - book review

Ship It Holla Ballas!: How a Bunch of 19-Year-Old College Dropouts Used the Internet to Become Poker's Loudest, Craziest, and Richest Crew

We've all seen the movies about what happens when guys go off to college.  Think Animal House, American Pie 2, or Van Wilder. There is usually a central party house, and guys who suddenly have no restrictions tend to go a bit overboard with sex, drugs, and crazy amounts of alcohol. Now imagine what would happen if every one of those guys was making five or ten thousand dollars PER WEEK playing online poker. If you are imagining complete partying insanity you would be exactly right.

The book follows a group of teenagers, starting in about 2004.  Online poker is exploding, and this group of high schoolers starts putting in a lot of hours playing. And they find they have an aptitude for the game. This is not just luck, they start reading books, and when not playing they find each other in the twoplustwo poker forums. They start improving, and raising their stakes, and start making serious money. Now it is time to go off to college, but seriously, if you had a choice between a boring poli sci lecture, or playing some online poker and making $500 an hour which would you do? These guys, with names like Good2cu, Raptor, and Apathy start becoming online friends. One is in Texas, another in Michigan, but they immediately bond. They are failing college but making gobs of money. Someone gets the idea to rent a mansion in Vegas, and all go out there for the summer, and the World Series of Poker. It turns into a frat house, with a giant table in the dining room filled with computers and laptops. Cases of Dom, and Cristal, many nights at the strip clubs that result in 5-figure tabs. Someone gets the bright idea to buy a bunch of fireworks, and a bottle rocket fight breaks out INSIDE THE HOUSE. Yes, this is Animal House on steroids.

If you're going to form a posse you have to have a name right? One of my first blackjack teams called itself the A Team. (Okay, so we weren't very creative.) Jman suggests they come up with a "gay" name so it will be funny every time an ESPN announcers has to talk about them. He suggests the Pushbotting Panthers, but it is Good2cu who comes up with the Ship It Holla Ballas. If nothing else these guys are media savvy. They know there is money in being a name player, and they already know they are going to rule the poker world. I mean who else would ESPN want to talk about? (Ah to be 19 again.) But when the WSOP rolls around there is just one problem. NONE OF THEM IS OLD ENOUGH TO PLAY! Sure they can sneak in and play some cash games, but the events require ID and a social security number, and none of these guys is 21 yet.

One day Good2cu wakes up about noon, and it is about 100 degrees in his bedroom. He heads downstairs, and everyone awake has already gone to the Rio. He tries to fire up his laptop, and it won't come on. The XBox is out, and the refrigerator light is off. He walks over to the neighbor's house to ask if their power is out, but their power is working fine. A few house guests are waking up, and convince him to call the power company, which he does. When the guy comes it turns out to be just be a circuit breaker. He turns the power back on, and explains that if it happens again just unplug a few things, and flip the breaker. They fire up their laptops, and the bong, and sit down to play poker. About an hour later the power blows again. Good2cu wonders - where is this circuit breaker thing the guy talked about? Someone suggests it's in the basement. This is Vegas, there is no basement. Screw it, let's go to the Rio where there is air conditioning. A few hours later Good2cu gets a call from Jman, telling him to come home. Good2cu says he already knows the power is off. No man, we've been robbed. when the cop arrives he sees the house full of beer cans, spent bottle rockets, and garbage.

"Whoever did it really trashed the place," he says. "Terrible," Good2cu replies, "Just terrible."
"So what exactly got stolen?"
Everybody starts talking at once. Fourteen laptops. A couple desktop computers, and flat screen monitors. A few digital cameras and iPods. Bonaphone's video camera - considered priceless because it contained footage of Good2cu chucking the pool ball through the neighbors window. Around $10,000 in cash and casino chips.
The cop puts down his pen. These kids are clearly shitting him. "You know insurance fraud is a serious crime."
"It can't be insurance fraud," Raptor assures him, "when you don't have insurance."

The kids learn some life lessons.
If you plug in 27 computers, laptops, XBoxes, and Playstations you might blow a circuit.
Strippers don't make the best girlfriends.
Not everyone you allow to owe you $50,000 is going to pay it back.

As I read this book I would alternate from laughing out loud, to cringing, thinking, "This is not going to end well." But you know what? They grew up, and most of them have not crashed and burned. Some realized that sitting in front of a computer screen for 16 hours a day was an empty life, and did things to change that. Some went back to school, but some are today's top pros. Andrew Robl (Good2cu) has over $3 million in winnings, as does David Benefield (Raptor) and Tom Dwan (Durrr) is considered one of the best players in the world. Check it out, I think you'll enjoy it.

Ship It Holla Ballas!: How a Bunch of 19-Year-Old College Dropouts Used the Internet to Become Poker's Loudest, Craziest, and Richest Crew

Gambling With an Edge - guest Bill Robertie

Our guest this week was Bill Robertie. Bill has written many of the best backgammon and poker books on the market. You can see his author page here. Bill Robertie His website is The Gammon Press.

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Gambling With an Edge - guest Arnold Snyder

This week's guest is Arnold Snyder talking about blackjack, and answering listener questions.

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Gambling With an Edge - guest Steve Cyr 2

Our guest this week was Steve Cyr, Super host. He is the subject of the book, Whale Hunt in the Desert which contains many of his crazier exploits. 

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Gambling With an Edge - guest "Old-Timer"

"Old-Timer" is a current video poker player whose been playing for more than 25 years. O-T and Bob will share some stories of video poker from the good old days.

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Gambling With an Edge - guest Frank B. on dice control

The guest this week is Frank B. on to talk about his experience with dice control..

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Gambling With an edge - guest Ray Kondler CPA

The guest this week is Ray Kondler. Ray is a CPA in Las Vegas and handles the taxes for many professional gamblers. If you have gambling income you should listen to this show.

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