Blackjack Ball 2014

In 1997 Max Rubin decided to throw a party for all his professional gambler friends. All the blackjack teams, big and small, would be in Las Vegas for New Years Eve, so after new years it would be time to kick back, count the money, and have a party. Rather than a boring party where people stand around with drinks in their hand, he decided to have a competition. Gamblers are competitive by nature, and love to play games. He designed the game in two parts. First a written test to narrow the field. Second, a skills portion. Both sections had some things that were silly, (How many chips can you shuffle?) and some that were serious. (See some sample questions below.) The party was a huge success, and has been held every year since. Here is my recap of the 2014 Blackjack Ball.

Gambling With an Edge - guest Mike Shackleford - Super Bowl 2014 edition

The guest this week is Mike Shackleford. We talk about Super Bowl prop bets, and current gambling news. Shak has also developed a new simplified basic strategy for the game Ultimate Texas Hold'Em which we discuss.

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Gambling With an Edge - guest Anthony Curtis

Our guest this week is Anthony Curtis, owner of The Las Vegas Advisor and Huntington Press publishing.  

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Gambling With an Edge - guest Geoff Freeman of the AGA.

Our guest tonight is Geoff Freeman, President and CEO of the American Gaming Association. 

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Gambling With an Edge - Video Poker for beginners

This week our show is about how to go about learning video poker. We cover books, software, what games to play, and more..

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Gambling With an Edge - guest Ken Smith

This week's guest is Ken Smith. Ken has written 2 books, How to Win More Blackjack Tournaments, and How to Win Even More Blackjack Tournaments. In addition he recently came out with some new strategy cards, and has one of the best blackjack websites on the net.  blackjackinfo.com. He has a special landing page for listeners of the show at GWAE.

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Gambling With an Edge - guest Brian McAllister

This week's guest is Brian McAllister, a long-time options trader.  He has been on the show before to talk about his video poker exploits, but tonight we will talk about what options trading can teach you about gambling.

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Do you trust your partner?

I received an email recently in which a player asked about his partner. He said the partner had lost $220 scouting a hole card game with a $5 minimum. He said that he could usually tell in one or two hands if a dealer was good or not, and didn't I think this completely unreasonable for his partner to have lost so much.

First, can you scout a dealer in one or two hands? Usually no. I guess if you look at two hands and see absolutely nothing you can move on, but usually it takes longer than that. What if you sit down, and on the first hand you see the hole card clear as day. Then you play three more hands and get nothing. The fifth hand you see it pretty good, and then four more hands of nothing. You could easily play 10 hands before abandoning this game, and on some carnival games with multiple bets you can end up betting 10 times your initial wager. Is it unusual to lose $220 scouting a $5 carnival game? Absolutely not.

But this brings up a much more important question? Do you trust your partner? Did he lose $220 scouting? Or did he lose $20 and tell you it was $220 and put $200 in his pocket? If you are asking yourself these questions then you should really think long and hard about why he is your partner.

Secondly - Do you trust your partner's judgement? If my partner came back to the hotel room, and said he lost $1,000 because he also had to scout the craps, and roulette tables I wouldn't give it a second thought. Why? Because I trust his judgement. I know that he would not be on those games just because he likes to gamble. (Although I would ask what he had seen that would make him want to scout a craps or roulette game?)

Third, write this down and remember it: Every person is peculiar about money in their own way. We all have things we don't mind spending money on, and other things we don't like to spend money on. And mine are different than yours. Mine are different than anyone else, and yours are different than your partner's, or your wife's. So don't try to micromanage everything your partner does. Why were you betting $10 instead of $5? What difference does it make? If he is playing at -3% it costs him an extra 15 cents a hand to bet $10 instead of $5.

Partnerships are like marriages. Your partner may do things that drive you crazy, but like marriage, when it is good it is really, really good. So if you trust him, and you trust his judgement, then don't sweat the small stuff.

Gambling With an Edge - guest Moo the Cash Cow (and accountant)

Our guest this week is  Moo the Cash Cow. He is on to talk about what gamblers should be aware of tax-wise before the end of the year. In addition to being an accountant he is also a blackjack player so we are hiding his identity.

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Gambling With an Edge - guests Tommy Hyland & John C.

Our guests this week are Tommy Hyland, and John Chang, on to talk about blackjack teams. Tommy runs the Hyland team, one of the longest running and most successful teams of all time. You can read about him in Gambling Wizards. (Shameless plug) John ran the MIT team and you can read more about him here. Interview.

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Show Notes

[1:00, ]: show introduction (questions for guests)

[2:03, ]: introduce guests

[2:15, ]: How do you recruit new members?

[4:05, ]: What percent of players that expressed interest actually followed through?

[5:13, ]: How do you evaluate member skill?

[6:21, ]: What was the testing process for new counters?

[9:35, ]: Accuracy of the movie 21- checkout process.

[10:58, ]: how do you split profits in a team (managers, investors, scouts, players, etc),

AND… how did that evolve over time?

[18:21, ]: what did management end up with?

[18:40, ]: how were comps treated w/r/t team compensation?

[24:30, ]: how did you deal with barrings?

[27:30, ]: [how] has the game, esp w/r/t barrings/backoffs, changed for teams since the advent of player lawyers such as BobN?

[30:58, ]: how do you detect and handle dishonest players when managing a team? did you use polygraphs ever?

[37:59, ]: do you require that everybody on the team have investment in the bankroll?

[40:41, ]: how do you deal with players that play sub-par games because they’re afraid of heat?

~42:00 VARIANCE ANALYSIS METHOD

[46:35, ]: do you two (Tommy, John) still play yourself?

[48:50, ]: do you allow players to play games on the side (such as poker) while on team trips?

[51:45, ]: in the event that a player is robbed, how would you handle that?

Gambling With an Edge - guest David Schwartz

Our guest this week is  Professor David Schwartz. He is on to talk about his book Grandissimo.

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Grandissimo

James Grosjean's new blog

For those who haven't heard James Grosjean has a new blog.  I wanted to get the link out there since any serious player should put this in their RSS feed. Here it is, enjoy.

http://beyondnumbers.lvablog.com/

Gambling With an Edge - guest Joe Pane

Our guest this week is  blackjack and poker player, Joe Pane.

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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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