October, 2020

Now to conclude this series, I want to answer a couple of questions that sent me into some deep thinking:  What were the main secrets of your success?  Do you think luck played a big part in this success?

On that first question, my answer to anyone wanting me to give them my “secret” to be a winning gambler would be, “There is no one secret – no silver bullet of 25 words or less.  I gave thousands and thousands of secrets in the 5 books I wrote.”

But perhaps what many people may want are basic personal characteristics, not specific techniques.  So here are some of the general fundamentals that I think contributed to Brad’s and my successful casino gambling.

First, we had the passion.  Although we always enjoyed the recreational aspect of gambling, our long-term goal was not to lose money doing it.

Then, we learned that if we worked hard, we wouldn’t just not lose, but we could make money while we were having fun. I’ve said this over and over – successful gambling is NEVER easy.  This meant continuous study and constant research.  Most of the 35 years we played, I spent almost as much time looking for helpful information than we actually spent at a VP machine.   I also spent a lot of time communicating with other players. We never belonged to a formal information- exchange group, but I was always consulting with old friends and happy to make new ones with whom to share helpful casino details.

Then I was an organized detail person, reading every word of every casino mailing we ever received.   I spent hours making a calendar schedule that would allow us to make the best use of our time with the best plays.

Next, we were very disciplined. Yes, sometimes we wanted to play a favorite game, but another one was a much better play. Yes, we went through many painful losing sessions, but we never went on tilt and change to a lower-EV game.  If there was no good play at a particular time, we would choose another activity – a movie perhaps  or back home to watch TV;  we never played just to be playing.

Now for the question of luck.  Yes, we were lucky that we were able to do our early casino life during that wonderful golden period when gambling opportunities were abundant.  We were lucky that our health held out to let us continue until a ripe old age.

But perhaps the luckiest thing was that Brad and I found each other 36 years ago and found he and I were on the same page of life.  We have very different personalities and strengths, but that worked to our benefit.  I was the “secretary” who liked to stay at home a lot and do paperwork preparation and the organization, and Brad loved being in a casino as much as possible.  Brad always said I was the “general” who made up the war plan and he was the faithful “soldier” who went out to fight on the battlefield.

Back many years ago when he had his heart attack, the doctor suggested he drink a glass of wine every day.  So, on a morning when I was staying home in our office to work on my computer, I would give him his instructions for the day: Go to Casino A and pick up free play, go to Casino B and play 10,000 points on xxx machine and don’t forget to order a glass of wine from the cocktail waitress, and then stop at Casino C and use a food coupon to bring home our dinner.  Brad would laugh as he went out the door, “I bet I’m the only husband in the world that a wife sends him out in the morning to drink and gamble!”