Fifteen years ago, when most of the AP discussion was consolidated on Stanford Wong’s Green Chip page, there was a recurring conjecture, posed by naïvely optimistic card counters: When a butterfly flaps its wings in China, penetration increases in Vegas. For example, one person would make a post saying that the US had just signed […]
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The Green Chip War
In a Gambling with an Edge podcast, two card counters—“Joe” and “Semi-Pro”—tell the story of a chop disagreement. I am only a listener to the podcast, with no inside knowledge, so my comments will undoubtedly misstate their positions. Pretend this discussion is based on a fictional incident. My points still apply. Part of the difficulty […]
Coronavirus II: The Congressman, the Scorer, an...
At 6:30 a.m. on September 11, 2001 (“9/11”), I was just walking into my room at the Main Street Inn (now the Bridger Inn) in downtown Las Vegas after an all-nighter playing and scouting. I turned on the TV and saw the fire at the World Trade Center, which had been hit by a small […]
Coronavirus I: Lockdown
RIP, Futurist Twenty years ago, I spent Easter locked down in a concrete holding cell at CCDC—Clark County Detention Center—after being jailed on trumped-up charges by Caesars Palace, who couldn’t handle that my teammate and I had won a few thousand bucks playing Three Card Poker. From the jailhouse phone, I called Arnold Snyder, my […]
Build A Wall!
Mr. B, a highly successful AP who doesn’t play casino table games, said to me over lunch in a casino coffee shop, “Why don’t they fix everything? If I ran the casino, I would just make it so that no game is beatable!” I’m sure you would try, B! It’s a fair question, but the […]
Are Women the Dutch Book?
Last week, as part of the celebration for International Women’s Day (March 8), a statue of a defiant girl staring down the Wall Street bull appeared. Count me among those who love the statue and hope it will stay. It is no secret that women are under-represented in many fields, including the AP world, as I discussed […]
Sydney Phillips, Come Play Blackjack!
Sydney Phillips, a 7th-grader at St. Theresa’s private Catholic school in New Jersey, wanted to play on the boys basketball team after the girls team was discontinued. After the school said no, Sydney’s dad sued. So the school just expelled Sydney, and her sister, too, via a snotty letter! Unfair! Am I the only one […]
Legal Musings: “Making a Bet After the Ou...
With all the casino cheating going on these days (see my previous two-part post), casinos have stepped up their game. Not only do they cheat you by not paying when you win, but they strengthen the move by enlisting the local district attorney to extort you. The way it works is that the casino doesn’t […]
Six-and-a-Half Little Words
I was having my morning bagel at the coffee shop when I saw two boys sitting at a table waiting on their parents, who were in line. The older boy was 7 or 8 years old, and he was teaching some card game to his little brother, who looked 4 years old, 5 max.
“That Place is a Dump!”
A friend recently asked me what casinos in the US would be worth visiting, given her desire to gamble and discover new places. I often get that question when people hear that I’m a card player. What’s the best casino you’ve been to? Where should I stay when I go to Vegas? Do you like […]
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