{"id":121720,"date":"2021-07-02T04:00:21","date_gmt":"2021-07-02T11:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/?p=121720"},"modified":"2021-07-02T04:00:21","modified_gmt":"2021-07-02T11:00:21","slug":"colin-jones-s1-e4-in-the-beginning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/blog\/colin-jones-s1-e4-in-the-beginning\/","title":{"rendered":"Colin Jones (S1 E4): In the Beginning \u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In The 21st<\/sup>-Century Card Counter<\/em>, Colin\nJones describes how he started out: [p. 6] \u201cI convinced Grace to let me take a\nthird of everything we had in the bank\u2014$2000\u2014to the casino. If I lost it, I\u2019d\nbe done.\u201d Those two sentences sum up two of the biggest challenges facing a new\ncounter or AP. Achieving social acceptance or support from family, friends, and\nsquare work colleagues, and starting with a minuscule bankroll make success\nincredibly difficult. What business would you dare to start with only $2000?\nWould you open a yogurt shop with that? Could you set up a B2B online\nmarketplace with that? A high-end driving\/limo service?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With only $2000, what would happen if you go to Vegas to\nbecome a card counter? You\u2019d be better off getting yourself castrated, going\ndown to Fremont Street, and collecting $10 from every tourist who wants to kick\nyou in the crotch. But fools rush in where angels dare to tread, so CJ took the\ncrazy path of trying to become a card counter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

I like that he mentions that his girlfriend couldn\u2019t\naccompany him because she wasn\u2019t yet 21. These real-world nuisances crop up all\nthe time, and by including them in the stories, the book thoroughly connects to\nAP readers who have navigated the same casino jungle. (We baptized a teammate\u2019s\nson into the fold on his 21st<\/sup> birthday by letting him bet a game for\nus at Mandalay Bay.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CJ admits getting lucky in his first outing despite inept\nplay, doubling his $2000 to $4000. On top of that, he admits that having a\ncounting friend who made a fortuitous connection with a competent counter\nallowed them both to receive proper training with accountability. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My casual observation is that like CJ, most successful APs\nhad some early break that made them continue down the AP path. They could have\nsucceeded anyway if forced down the path, but without that early lucky break,\nthey would have chosen to go in a different direction. For me, it was seeing a\nhole card on October 31, 1997. That game allowed me to pay off my student loans\nand credit card debt. For the great Zeljko, it was a juicy sidebet at a casino\nthat stubbornly denied it was beatable. For the great Mr. B, it was a sportsbook\nso inept that they allowed bets after a game was already over. For many others,\nthe lucky break was meeting the right teammate or mentor. Many attendees of\nCJ\u2019s boot camps cite social\/professional networking as the greatest benefit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I read CJ\u2019s origin story, I felt that he was stealing my\nthoughts. On page 9 [at this rate, we\u2019re going to be blogging for the rest of\nthe year about this book]: \u201cAnd it wasn\u2019t only the money that was intoxicating;\nI was also in complete control of my own destiny.\u201d I\u2019ve tried to tell people\nthis many times. A competent person who wants to make the most money possible\nshould probably go into the traditional business world: a high-powered law\nfirm, a plastic-surgery practice in Hollywood, an investment bank, a startup\ncompany, a hedge fund\u2014Wolf of Wall Street<\/em> kinda stuff, minus the crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being a card counter or AP pays okay, but not obscene money.\nBut the freedom of the AP meritocracy is its greatest appeal. An AP doesn\u2019t\nhave to deal with the off-putting political drama that infests government, academia,\nand big business. If you\u2019ve got the skill and work ethic to beat the game,\nyou\u2019ll make money, regardless of your religion, gender, or the color of your\nskin. An AP who wants to take a month to travel in Europe can do so, and\nprobably get some work done on the trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But freedom can be elusive. The AP lives in a gilded cage,\nwhich CJ ominously warns about on page 9: \u201cIf I didn\u2019t want to work, I hung out\nwith Grace. But if I wanted to put in extra hours to see my nest egg grow even\nfaster, I did. I\u2019d been bitten by the investment bug and, as I later learned,\nthere was no cure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lazy players might think AP offers the freedom to work as few hours as desired, on whatever schedule desired. There is that, sort of. But for the hard-working AP, escaping traditional employment’s 9-to-5 rat race is not so\u00a0liberating. The obtuse corporate boss (so epically portrayed in the Dilbert<\/em> comic world) has been replaced with a new taskmaster: the successful AP becomes a slave to the game<\/em><\/strong>. It\u2019s 5 o\u2019clock somewhere, but for you that means you\u2019ve got to scout the tail end of day shift and get ready for swing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The game. At 4 a.m., there might be a dealer who deals 150\nrounds per hour and cuts off only a half deck on a shoe. On Tuesday, the\ndangerous boss might be off. On Thursday from 8 a.m. until noon, you might have\nsome use-it-or-lose-it free play. On July 16, you\u2019ve got a coupon for a free\nnight in the hotel and two buffets. You\u2019ve got to make money when the cards\nshine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Twenty years ago, my teammate and I were at the Palms Casino\n& Movie Theatre (a Maloof resort!), scouting a known target, but a poster\nfor a new movie caught our eye. My teammate asked \u201cBut what if that game is on?\nThat could be a $600 movie!\u201d I told my teammate that if our condition to see a\nmovie is that there be no game on, then we\u2019ll never again see a movie in our\nlives, because there\u2019s always a game on. Naturally we checked the pit to verify\nthat the immediate target was absent before going to see the movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So it will be for you, dear AP. The day will come when you\nwill go to check on a game. A fabulous game. A $500\/hour (or more) game. A game\nthat dreams are made of. And you\u2019ll be begging for the game to not be on. And you\u2019ll\nfind a unicorn casino that you\u2019ll play dozens or hundreds of times, and you\u2019ll\nbe begging for them to back you off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In The 21st-Century Card Counter, Colin Jones describes how he started out: [p. 6] \u201cI convinced Grace to let me take a third of everything we had in the bank\u2014$2000\u2014to the casino. If I lost it, I\u2019d be done.\u201d Those two sentences sum up two of the biggest challenges facing a new counter or AP. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[558],"tags":[1332,1371],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121720"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121720\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}