Casinos ban guy who wins 15M off them in blackjack...

[Anonemous]

Nice good to know they will ban you if you win too much $$$ from them and about negotiating perks for the high rollers. I'm surprised the guy is still alive to talk about it.


http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...ho-broke-atlantic-city/8900/?single_page=true

 

[Zeze]

Holy crap long article.

Is there a cliff version? Article says he didn't count cards, but just played perfect. That makes zero sense, wtf does that mean?

Playing 'perfect' means you keep tally of all cards, which is counting cards.

OP- Of course he's still alive. This isn't vegas in 80s. Gone are mafias and thugs. The casinos are owned by board members and such stupid thuggery will face rape their reputation worldwide.

 

[Glitchny]

Casinos have banned players who win lots of money since they started. Like people who count cards, while not illegal, if they think you're doing it they will ask/escort you out.

I'm not saying he was counting cards, but casinos are designed to make their owners money, not their patrons. You start winning too much, you get removed.

Also getting a 4-way split of 8's in blackjack is pretty damn awesome.

 

[brainhulk]

this guy is my hero! I think the most i ever bet was $800 and I was totally wasted with buddies. what a dumbass move that was...

 

[WaTaGuMp]

If he was counting cards his betting pattern would give him away.

 

[Glitchny]

If he was counting cards his betting pattern would give him away.

Article mentions he was being watched and they determined he wasn't counting cards.

 

[zanemoseley]

Probably mean he was playing perfect blackjack strategy. If you are playing blackjack correctly then there is no guessing, you play each hand a certain way due to what the dealer is showing. This is why blackjack has the best player advantage, the house advantage is always lower than 1%. All that said if you play long enough you will lose money, no way around it.

 

[brainhulk]

If he was counting cards his betting pattern would give him away.

are high stakes games single or dual deck? or from a shoe?

 

[Anonemous]

Holy crap long article.

Is there a cliff version? Article says he didn't count cards, but just played perfect. That makes zero sense, wtf does that mean?

Playing 'perfect' means you keep tally of all cards, which is counting cards.

OP- Of course he's still alive. This isn't vegas in 80s. Gone are mafias and thugs. The casinos are owned by board members and such stupid thuggery will face rape their reputation worldwide.

Cliffs: Guy wins by not counting cards (which is not really a cheat). Guy/Casino explains that he got perks for playing there (such as 20% discount for losses and able to double down/split/etc.). Guy wins money from 3 different casinos, all three kicked him out but one will continue doing business with him just with less perks.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

I'll be sure to shed a tear for the guy who won 15M. If the casino was running a table where you could get an edge by counting cards then they were stupid. Most places account for it either with multiple decks or reduced BJ payoff. That he won big is most likely largely luck and a little bit of skill.

 

[Anonemous]

I'll be sure to shed a tear for the guy who won 15M. If the casino was running a table where you could get an edge by counting cards then they were stupid. Most places account for it either with multiple decks or reduced BJ payoff. That he won big is most likely largely luck and a little bit of skill.

Well he did it at 3 separate casinos. Granted the high rollers get to negotiate perks.

 

[Glitchny]

I'll be sure to shed a tear for the guy who won 15M. If the casino was running a table where you could get an edge by counting cards then they were stupid. Most places account for it either with multiple decks or reduced BJ payoff. That he won big is most likely largely luck and a little bit of skill.

Read the article, it was all skill. He didn't win 15mill from one casino it was from the casinos combined. He essentially plays perfect blackjack and used his status as a high roller to get the casinos to give him massive perks. Also this isn't a random dude off the street, he knows what he is doing.

For example, at the Trop, he was willing to play with a 20 percent discount after his losses hit $500,000, but only if the casino structured the rules of the game to shave away some of the house advantage. Johnson could calculate exactly how much of an advantage he would gain with each small adjustment in the rules of play. He won’t say what all the adjustments were in the final e-mailed agreement with the Trop, but they included playing with a hand-shuffled six-deck shoe; the right to split and double down on up to four hands at once; and a “soft 17” (the player can draw another card on a hand totaling six plus an ace, counting the ace as either a one or an 11, while the dealer must stand, counting the ace as an 11). When Johnson and the Trop finally agreed, he had whittled the house edge down to one-fourth of 1 percent, by his figuring.

In effect, he was playing a 50-50 game against the house, and with the discount, he was risking only 80 cents of every dollar he played

 

[WaTaGuMp]

are high stakes games single or dual deck? or from a shoe?

It could be any of them. If a whale decided he wanted a single deck the casino would give it to them. Of course if they kept winning the same thing would happen as this guy. Shoes came out to make more hands played and increase casino revenue, they also make it harder to count.

 

[WaTaGuMp]

Article mentions he was being watched and they determined he wasn't counting cards.

I heard about this guy a while ago, my point was just card counters are spotted in general by betting patterns.

 

[Anubis]

Also getting a 4-way split of 8's in blackjack is pretty damn awesome.

yea thats pretty insane

 

[Q]

Great read!

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

David Blaine and all those guys are banned world wide

 

[xBiffx]

are high stakes games single or dual deck? or from a shoe?

The majority are single or sometimes dual deck but not very often.

It's easy to play perfect blackjack. Its the fucking tourist that ruin the skill game for those that know what they are doing. The casino counts on this and loves it when newbs sit down. I don't sit at anything less than a $25 table for that reason. Let the dipshits lose $5 at a time.

About five years ago was back home in Reno with my brother for new years. We went to the $100 table with three bets a piece. Walked out two hours latter both over $4k up. We were just pwning dealers left and right and the pit boss finally got tired of it and booted us to the steakhouse. Was fucking hilarious to see them try and disrupt our game with all their antics. We knew what we were doing and what to expect, being natives.

Mad props to the guy in the story.

 

[Lifted]

I'll be sure to shed a tear for the guy who won 15M. If the casino was running a table where you could get an edge by counting cards then they were stupid. Most places account for it either with multiple decks or reduced BJ payoff. That he won big is most likely largely luck and a little bit of skill.

Or you could read the article. Tough, but it won't kill you.

I promise. ()

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Read the article, it was all skill. He didn't win 15mill from one casino it was from the casinos combined. He essentially plays perfect blackjack and used his status as a high roller to get the casinos to give him massive perks. Also this isn't a random dude off the street, he knows what he is doing.

Ah, I see he had the clout to get them to change the rules. That's a pretty cool way to go about things.

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

Yeah but still chance of losing 80 percent of your money

 

[OverVolt]

Private business, you are not entitled to their services. I don't see how this is a big deal at all.

 

[Ns1]

Read the article, it was all skill. He didn't win 15mill from one casino it was from the casinos combined. He essentially plays perfect blackjack and used his status as a high roller to get the casinos to give him massive perks. Also this isn't a random dude off the street, he knows what he is doing.

wow what a boss.

50/50 game while only risking 80% of every dollar.

When casinos started getting desperate, Johnson was perfectly poised to take advantage of them. He had the money to wager big, he had the skill to win, and he did not have enough of a reputation for the casinos to be wary of him. He was also, as the Trop’s Tony Rodio puts it, “a cheap date.” He wasn’t interested in the high-end perks; he was interested in maximizing his odds of winning. For Johnson, the game began before he ever set foot in the casino.

In theory, this shouldn’t happen. The casinos use computer models that calculate the odds down to the last penny so they can craft terms to entice high rollers without forfeiting the house advantage. “We have a very elaborate model,” Rodio says. “Once a customer comes in, regardless of the game they may play, we plug them into the model so that we know what the house advantage is, based upon the game that they are playing and the way they play the game. And then from that, we can make a determination of what is the appropriate [discount] we can make for the person, based on their skill level. I can’t speak for how other properties do it, but that is how we do it.”

jesus O_O

He says he learned later that someone at the casino had called the manager, who was in London, and told him that Don Johnson was ahead of them “by four.”

“Four hundred thousand?” the manager asked.

“No, 4 million.”

So Caesars, too, pulled the plug

LIKE A BOSS

 

[JEDIYoda]

David Blaine and all those guys are banned world wide

I can see where that could be true...but there no formal documentation proving that it is true...other than David himself joking about it.....

 

[chusteczka]

are high stakes games single or dual deck? or from a shoe?

Johnson did not miss the math. For example, at the Trop, he was willing to play with a 20 percent discount after his losses hit $500,000, but only if the casino structured the rules of the game to shave away some of the house advantage. Johnson could calculate exactly how much of an advantage he would gain with each small adjustment in the rules of play. He won’t say what all the adjustments were in the final e-mailed agreement with the Trop, but they included playing with a hand-shuffled six-deck shoe; the right to split and double down on up to four hands at once; and a “soft 17” (the player can draw another card on a hand totaling six plus an ace, counting the ace as either a one or an 11, while the dealer must stand, counting the ace as an 11). When Johnson and the Trop finally agreed, he had whittled the house edge down to one-fourth of 1 percent, by his figuring. In effect, he was playing a 50-50 game against the house, and with the discount, he was risking only 80 cents of every dollar he played. He had to pony up $1 million of his own money to start, but, as he would say later: “You’d never lose the million. If you got to [$500,000 in losses], you would stop and take your 20 percent discount. You’d owe them only $400,000.”

... in the past year, he has hung out with Jon Bon Jovi and Charlie Sheen, sprayed the world’s most expensive bottle of champagne on a crowd of clubgoers in London, and hosted a Las Vegas birthday bash for Pamela Anderson.

The celebrities are using him for his money.