Question of the Day - 02 April 2021

"A couple of hundred an hour" is a distortion. That's active playing time--but for every such hour, there are at least a dozen hours spent preparing, studying, scouting, traveling from one casino to another, etc. etc. And then there's the opportunity cost of gathering an adequate bankroll and NOT investing it in something else. When the dust settles, you're not really making very much on a total hourly basis. And that's if you play perfectly and don't have any leaks.

In reality, it's about as lucrative as operating an ice cream truck. You can make a modest living, but that's about it. It's yet another "hard way to make an easy living" that characterizes trying to squeeze money out of a casino. It's like taking candy from a lion.

THAT IS DA TWUTH

Gamblers are bigger liars than fisherman and this includes all these professionals who got rich on vp. The MIT group made a lot of money but they had spotters who found tables who were rich in high cards. The casinos bragged they had caught them  they did not. They cheated casinos out of another 4-5 mil. Making a living playing blackjack. No not without cheating. The dealer and pit bosses count cards plus now you have auto card counters with no decks to count. My answer it no. Statistics all ways catch up with you. 

Kevin has brought up some interesting truths. He cuts through the hype and shows the "hidden costs" of "professional" BJ play. Actually the answer (and question) seem more like a commercial, touting books and services and a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

The only control the punter has over the game is how much they bet.
You bet the table minimum until the count becomes favourable and you flip to betting table max.
I can afford to lose 50 hands @ $10 to win 3 @ $1000 but you really need to believe in the stats as you are going to lose some of those $1000 bets. Just cause you have an advantage doesn’t mean your going to win.  You also need to throw some fundemenyals of basic strategy out the window. Such as staying on 16 when faced with a dealer 10. Basic strategy says hit, but when the deck is full of 10s you need to stay. 

The crux is that the dealers, pit bosses and AI powered cameras watch the cards and follow the player. Even if your flipping from $10 to $50 randomly  might get you backed off if the cameras feel you are increasing the bet and following the count even if your not. 
The other challenge is that the lower limit tables all have continuous shufflers making it impossible to count, pushing min bets to $25 (expensive)

Starbucks? Cheating? Commercial? This was a good honest answer. And I can support it in saying I know many who've made livings, if not fortunes, from playing blackjack. Be careful about bashing things just because you don't, or don't know how, to do it, especially when it's being explained by an expert who has.

somehow I don't think I'd announce it to the world.

But there are other concerns not mentioned so far. If Blackjack is your only source of income, you can take a vacation whenever you want; but there's no sick leave, no medical benefits, and no retirement program. The capital required is not trivial, and even at a 95% Element-of-Ruin (as the late Ken Uston would say) there's always the possibility of a long run of bad luck wiping you out. With parking fees nowadays, it's more expensive to cruise the area looking for a good game. And don't forget a little something for your silent partner--the IRS. All these things affect the bottom line. 
If you're already retired with benefits and maybe a pension from a previous career, the idea becomes more practical: but even then, poker might be a more attractive option. I know a few folks who supplement their retirement playing poker in Las Vegas and Laughlin; but none who do it playing Blackjack. Or at least none who admit it.

Love it. An expert has spoken, and people still want to try and ding his credibility. Some of you need to get a life.

I counted cards part-time back in the 80s and 90s--maybe 20-25 hours a week. It was a hard grind and the money wasn't that wonderful. I made a living doing that and other AP stuff. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone--especially not now.

I think we do need a bit of so-called "negativity" (I call it realism) when discussing any beat-the-casinos-make-gazillions-retire-at-age-25 scheme. I knew a number of successful counters back in the day. I also knew about ten times as many unsuccessful ones. Most people don't do everything perfectly, but even if they do, good old variance can still kill you.

But hey, hop on a plane, Lawrence Revere in hand, and give it a try if you wish! You have nothing to lose but uh, a shitload of money.

For me, the question isn't *can* a gambler earn a living playing blackjack or VP but *why* someone would do that.

There are so many ways to make money if you are intelligent, have math skills, social skills, self-discipline. etc that it boggles the mind that someone like "Bob Dancer" would spend his life skulking in Dotty's and casinos using a fake name as a requirement of his "profession," constantly risking humiliation or worse, and contributing NOTHING to anyone's welfare but his own.

What do you put on the tombstone of someone like that?

"Here lies a man who caught more royal flushes than anyone else in the history of video games and taught a generation of like-minded unproductive narcissists how they too could enrich themselves while successfully avoiding adding a scintilla of value to the lives of their fellow human beings?"

This is starting to bug me. How does anyone not close to his situation know what Dancer has or hasn't contributed or what his mission is? Since when has someone being the best at what they do in a legal endeavor been a reason for consternation?

I normally don't start or participate in an ongoing discussion in the QoD comments, but I just wanted to respond to Bud:

1. No one has any obligation to "contribute to society," nor should anyone be criticized for perceived failure to do so. Personally, no one ever presented the social contract to me for my signature.
2. Bud mentions social skills. It might not have occurred to him that the AP life may be perfect for people who are intelligent and diligent but lack social skills. It's a solo endeavor, and you have no boss, no underlings, no colleagues, and no partners. For some people, the lack of social interaction while earning a living is pure nirvana.
3. IMHO the net contribution of most APs, Dancer included, to the gambling climate has been negative, in large part because the "tragedy of the commons" applies. But who am I to tell the guy with the axe to not chop down the last tree in the forest? If he doesn't, someone else will. Lighten up, in other words.

The question was "Has anyone ever successfully earned a living playing blackjack?"

Answer:  Yes, most definitely!
However it's always someone who won a lot before the casinos got wise and developed counter measures.

So, Anthony I challenge you to take your buddies Jones and Dancer to any casino of their choice and prove to you that they can win more than they bet.
Don't be too disappointed when they can't because that is why they teach instead of play.  A lot more money to be had teaching than playing especially when the casinos are wise to you.

I'm not gonna continue this except to say that you're woefully uninformed. You need to read Radical Blackjack by Arnold Snyder, which we're publishing soon. If you do and still stick to these opinions, then there's not much more I can do for you.

As Jackie pointed out, the question was if someone could make a living at BJ. As she said, the answer is yes. 

But the detailed answer was either "buy my book" or "join my team".  

This leads one to believe it wasn't really an answer but an ad. It makes one believe it was a made-up question by the staff in order to promote Colin Jones and your publication of his book.

Wow, nobody will read this as I'm posting a day late but I can't help myself.  

What did anyone expect for a concise and authoritative answer to this (or any) QoD?

A QoD is handed off to whomever LVA deems the best available to answer it, in this case to Colin Jones, with a snippet of his credentials which sound solid to me.  I have no dog in the fight, I've never heard of Colin Jones.  I've enjoyed so many other books sold here at fire sale prices (BTW "Joe's Dash" is a must read, IMHO.)  No, I'm not paid to say that.  Just appreciative of the many topical books available here in one place.  I don't look at this as shameless advertising in any form or fashion, just another interesting piece of info for an ordinary player like me.  I'll likely buy the book, too.  So there. LOL.

Candy

"No one has any obligation to 'contribute to society,' nor should anyone be criticized for perceived failure to do so."

Huh? Who knew you were a disciple of Ayn Rand? Is this really Kevin Lewis, or one of your nemeses from the "Sink" hijacking your identity to make you sound like, God help us, a Republican? This QoD isn't the place for this, but I'll debate "objectivism" in the "Sink" if you want, although I never thought in a million years that I'd have to.

"[t]he AP life may be perfect for people who ... lack social skills. It's a solo endeavor ..."

Dancer, Munchkin & their AP guests say otherwise: The AP life requires social skills -- at least in BJ -- to keep what one is up to secret & finesse inevitable sticky situations.

VP also requires social interaction with other APs to learn about a casino in Poland with a paytable error, for example, or finagling favors from employees or dealing with casino patrons when issues with them arise. Casinos aren't Walden Pond.

How do I know? By Dancer's own description of how he spends his life, how he spends his days. If he does anything that advances the general welfare, he has kept it as secret as his true identity.
 
Maybe he reads for talking books for the blind, so I *could* be wrong, but if he did anything that added value to the lives of persons other than himself, I think he would have mentioned it by now. He does talk and write about his non-AP activities, but the only ones I recall are going on cruises and square dancing.

Being the best at an enterprise -- even if it's a legal one -- that benefits no one other than oneself is not deserving of a medal, imo. It's deserving the derision I've given it here.

P.S. This is not a criticism of LVA or Anthony Curtis who provide a valuable service, or of gambling as an avocation. It's criticism of those who subvert games intended by casinos for occasional entertainment and then devote their entire lives to making money for themselves from that subversion.

You’re making a lot of assumptions about how a person lives their life while only looking at it through a tiny window.  Bob may volunteer every week at his local food shelf or a crisis center, or he may not.  He may give thousands of dollars to causes he thinks worthy, or he may not. I certainly don’t know and you probably don’t either.  Some people don’t feel the need to share every part of their lives even when they do live part of it in the public eye.

I do know he spends a lot of time and effort teaching people how to improve themselves particularly in the field of VP.  I certainly enjoy many of his columns and the mental exercise that comes with many of them.