How Advantage Players keep winning in the casino and in life while always playing high stakes
Many casino gamblers expect to lose money.And they are rarely disappointed.But advantage players do the opposite.
As detailed in my new book, “Advantage Players” (Huntington Press), casino winners meticulously study the games, devise strategies, put up their money, play accurately, and go home with wallets fattened.The book takes a deep dive into the world of advantage players — people who play games advantageously.“Advantage Players” delves into a secret society of professional gamblers who always aim to find an edge.They do it through legal techniques that include card counting (tracking the dealt cards in a blackjack game to gauge the cards that remain), hole-carding (capitalizing on sloppy dealers who unwittingly reveal their hole cards) and shuffle tracking (following specific clumps of cards through shuffles, thereby knowing when they will be dealt).The most talented advantage players combine all three moves — or more.As one source, a veteran winner, gushingly told me, “We out-house the house.”Because casinos hate to lose and can kick out anyone for any reason, sometimes advantage players (or APs, as they like to be called) take extreme measures to stay in action.John Chang, a founding member of the famous MIT blackjack team, which was the subject of the movie “21,” told me about going far to keep from getting picked off by casino surveillance.He dressed up as a woman to hide his identity.
Team members saw it as the only way to play without getting booted.“Cross-dressing worked in the Bahamas and Illinois,” Chang said.
“But in Atlantic City, they looked at my hands.An Asian host whispered in my ear, ‘We know who you are.’ ”Security loomed and, as Chang rose to leave, a guard said, “Lose the pearls, Esmeralda.” As Chang remembers it, “I had to run around the casino in high heels and make sure they weren’t following me.” More successful was his portrayal of the mega-rolling nephew of a Chinese computer mogul.
Staff...