Our guest today is Micky Crimm. Mickey is a low stakes machine player that lived for years for free in casinos. He now makes his living grinding away in Montana of all places.
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Show Notes
[01:15] How long has Mickey been in Montana, and what kind of AP things are there?
[03:25] Keno games in Montana
[06:58] Getting around the betting limits
[12:42] Games that Mickey used to play
[13:31] What kind of games is Mickey looking for now?
[14:19] Mickey’s train hopping adventures
[17:58] 5 years of living in McLaughlin for free
[20:20] Do casinos recognize Mickey?
[21:50] Quitting alcohol
[27:04] How Video Poker changed Mickey’s life
[34:22] Gambling has been a steady source of income since 1996.
[36:37] Mickey’s math education
[39:56] A future book on Mickey’s adventures
John Scarne’s book: John Scarne’s New Complete Guide to Gambling
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Awesome episode
Mickey Crimm is one of my favorite video poker personalities. I was really glad to see that you guys interviewed him again. It’d be cool to see if he’d be interested in a listener Q&A type session for a future episode (similar to what’s been done with Bob Nersesian or Bob and Richard themselves when they do the “mailbag” shows). Mickey’s gambling and traveling stories are incredibly intriguing to me.
Thanks for putting out another great episode. I thoroughly enjoy listening every week, and I have extracted value from episodes more than a few times. You guys are great.
Mickey Crimm is best known for AP fiction, especially how he makes stuff up. I lost all and any respects for the guy when he made up stories about “exploitable” chips on full-pay IGT video Blackjack that paid 5 for 2 — based on the rules on the screen, the game had a payback of 99.7% (using computer perfect play that I confirmed after a programmer that I met via bj21.com had written a program to cycle through every possible hand combination). On one version of the game, if you catch a face card on split aces, it paid 5 for 2 like a normal Blackjack.
If you search VPfree’s Reno’s message board, you will read how Mickey was making stuff up and couldn’t answer basic questions about that particular game.
The reason AP’s were playing the IGT video BJ was due to huge cash back offers (aka mailers or bounce backs) and this was being shared by Green Chippers on Wong’s BJ21.com site at that time.
Here’s the irony — since the games were under 100% payback, it was still a profitable game for the casinos. Due to Mickey Crimm’s bogus claims, the Reno’s casinos started to neuter the paybacks such that Blackjacks now pay 2 for 1. Like I said earlier, Mickey’s posts are still on VP free’s Reno’s message board if anyone wants to do the research.
People who studied logic are warned about the ” Post hoc ergo propter hoc” fallacy, but it was no accident that Mickey’s bogus claim was the causation of these great games getting watered down. People on the message board were asking others not to talk about the game. A few short weeks later, these games disappeared from so many casinos AT THE SAME TIME!! Hmm.
I have more example’s of Mickey’s AP fiction but that message board contains several classics.
Mr. Slot Hustler, you are a pretty good writer of fiction yourself. Here are the rules that were listed on the rules screen:
Single Deck first hand off the top
H17
LS
Double 10-11 only
Blackjack Pays 5 for 2
Six Card Charlie
There were two rules in effect in the game that were not listed on the rules screen:
You could double after the split
Split Aces that received a ten payed blackjack.
All of these rules can be run on the Wizard’s Blackjack House Edge Calculator except for six card charlie and split aces receiving ten pays blackjack. The calculator shows a 99.7% return. According to the Wizard’s rules variations chart the six card charlie adds .16 and the split aces receiving a ten adds .19%. I do believer that puts the game at 100%. This was not only my conclusion but everyone I knew who played the game in the time frame I did put it on the same number.
The full pay video blackjack was pulled from Western Village a year ago. I’m very sorry that what I wrote about the game in 2007 caused the game to last only 9 more years at WV. LOL! Mr. Slot Hustler, you guys need to take some responsibility here. I’m not the one that caused the game to be pulled at various locations. That responsibility belongs to those that pounded the hell out of the game.