{"id":5345,"date":"2017-03-07T09:58:26","date_gmt":"2017-03-07T17:58:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamblingwithanedge.com\/?p=5345"},"modified":"2017-03-08T14:30:11","modified_gmt":"2017-03-08T22:30:11","slug":"whom-do-you-trust-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/whom-do-you-trust-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Whom Do You Trust?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m showing my age, but I remember the \u201cWho Do You Trust?\u201d television show hosted by Johnny Carson before he got the Tonight Show gig. He always said later that the first word should have been \u201cWhom\u201d rather than \u201cWho,\u201d and if you can\u2019t trust Johnny Carson, whom can you trust?<\/p>\n

Many of the people who attend my classes are quarter or dollar players. It\u2019s no secret that I play for higher stakes, at least some of the time. Usually once or twice a semester, someone says something like, \u201cAlthough I would never play for the stakes you do, I\u2019m really curious as to what games you play and where. Will you tell me?\u201d<\/p>\n

My standard answer is that I write about the places I play that I don\u2019t mind you knowing about, and don\u2019t write about the ones I would rather keep secret. So, if they don\u2019t already know about one of my plays, I\u2019m not going to tell them.<\/p>\n

The reason for this is simple. Many plays can only support one or two competent players. Telling the world about such a play would be the kiss of death to the play. No thanks.<\/p>\n

One player followed up with, \u201cBut I promise I won\u2019t tell anybody, and I certainly won\u2019t be playing those stakes myself. Don\u2019t you trust me?\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, I\u2019m not sure. I\u2019d rather not put it to the test. If I trust 20 people and 19 of them never told a soul, the secret is still out. Is this guy one of the 19, or the one who says, \u201cIt won\u2019t hurt anything if I mention this to my brother-in-law?\u201d I don\u2019t know beforehand, so it\u2019s better that I keep quiet.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not a proponent of the \u201cTwo can keep a secret only if one of them is dead\u201d philosophy. If Richard Munchkin wants to know the where and why on any of my plays, I\u2019m going to tell him. I trust him — even though he has the bankroll along with family members and close friends who could burn out any play I told him about. Among top gamblers, their word is their bond. If I told him, \u201cI\u2019ll tell you about it but you can\u2019t play because of xxxxx,\u201d I believe he\u2019d honor that.<\/p>\n

On the radio show, we\u2019ve had blackjack team captains describe teams they were on where one of the team members ripped off the others. This is rare — but it happens — and it\u2019s always a shock when it does. You can protect yourself from this by never telling anybody anything, but that\u2019s going to be a lonely life you lead.<\/p>\n

Trusting somebody has similarities with marriage. Although it ends badly some of the time (and I\u2019ve experienced my share of that), overall, I\u2019m convinced my life works better being married than being single.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d actually be more comfortable telling Richard about a play than I would be telling Bonnie! Bonnie is not a player at all and although she\u2019s definitely on my side, if I tell her I\u2019m going to be playing at the (pick a casino), it\u2019s possible that she would inadvertently tell her sister, daughter, or a girlfriend where I\u2019m playing. If I tell her over and over again, \u201cThis is a secret — you can tell no one,\u201d she\u2019ll honor my wishes. But she has no good gambling sense about what is a secret and what isn\u2019t and she\u2019s not really practiced in keeping secrets. It\u2019s better not to tell her.<\/p>\n

If I took her to a comped meal at the Wicked Spoon buffet at the Cosmopolitan, she would figure out that there was some play (now gone) that I had there, but she isn\u2019t really capable of understanding why the play there was better or worse than playing at some other casino. She\u2019s willing to listen and nod her head if I tell her, \u201cThe game pays xxx% off the top, with yyy% from the slot club, and zzz% from the mailers.\u00a0 This other promotion they\u2019re having now adds another vvv%, and there\u2019s a pretty good chance I can talk them into www% worth of comps.\u201d\u00a0 These are just numbers to her and it\u2019s all kind of gobbledygook.<\/p>\n

Richard, however, would understand each of these things and if he didn\u2019t, he\u2019d ask me to explain further. And he could put the numbers into context of other plays he knew about. That is, a 100.5% play is pretty good if the best you can find otherwise is 100.3%. But if you can find a 101% play for the same stakes, a 100.5% isn\u2019t such a good deal.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"youtube\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m showing my age, but I remember the \u201cWho Do You Trust?\u201d television show hosted by Johnny Carson before he got the Tonight Show gig. He always said later that the first word should have been \u201cWhom\u201d rather than \u201cWho,\u201d and if you can\u2019t trust Johnny Carson, whom can you trust? Many of the people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[54,624,1426,1427,255,1429,1430,196,1428,1425],"yoast_head":"\nWhom Do You Trust? - Gambling With An Edge<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/whom-do-you-trust-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Whom Do You Trust? - Gambling With An Edge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019m showing my age, but I remember the \u201cWho Do You Trust?\u201d television show hosted by Johnny Carson before he got the Tonight Show gig. He always said later that the first word should have been \u201cWhom\u201d rather than \u201cWho,\u201d and if you can\u2019t trust Johnny Carson, whom can you trust? 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