I didn't, but it's like I grew up in the Casino.
Went to Tahoe all the time as a kid, my Dad was always maintaining his player’s club membership.
Back then, you wore a little pin on your shirt and that’s how the pit boss tracked playing time and bets. He walked around looking for the pin. There were no cards, except to open certain doors (like the pool) and no computers. This isn’t that long ago, I turned 43 this year.
The pins changed all the time and I had so many tie clips from them. My favorite was the white $100 chip, it has about ¾ of an inch wide. I loved it. I wore it on ties to school functions.
He was a blackjack player and card counter at the time, now he concentrates and gets tracked on almost exclusively video poker, with some specific slots thrown in: he’s a seasoned veteran at this point.
He went to Vegas then Laughlin all this past month and we are heading to Tahoe the first week of May. In fact, my Dad just went up the hill to an Indian Casino; neither of us have done that in like 4 years. I couldn’t go, had something with the kids but I ‘m not really a gambler like that, I don’t do all those slots…anymore.
Anyway, back to the story, bio, or whatever. Then my dad bought a slot machine. It wasn’t like the machines you see today. This thing is a mechanical nightmare. It’s a nickel machine that takes the coins. One at a time they drop into the machine and you have to pull the lever. He signed papers when he brought it into California that he wouldn’t use it for gambling.
So the machine was set up in the party bar room, on a locked glass case, where the extra nickels could fall below into a bowl that everyone could see. If anyone, while risking their own nickel, hit one of the three jackpots that had to be hand paid and wouldn’t drop nickels to pay, then it would be honored. Sometimes it would jam. I can only imagine a typical night on a casino floor with hundreds of these going…a maintenance nightmare. Now it’s all computers with no coins at all. They just pull out the little boxed money and voucher reader and replace it if there’s a jam or problem.
I’ve seen so many changes on the casino floor, that’s just one.
Fast forward a few years and my best friend and I were having “Casino Night” at my house. We had it all. A real slot machine, a real nice poker table with vinyl (the cards just slid across to the player, it was fun to deal), a blackjack felt; we even had a real homemade craps table, complete with felt and diamond bumper wall.
They were regular parties (even more regular if the parents left town, especially with drinking) but it was Casino Night.
Some nights we took hits.
I remember a fine Swedish exchange student. I think she had a thing for me. She was so fun and everyone loved her. The damn bitch hit the three Genies for $50, the $15.00 jackpot twice and the $7.50 jackpot a couple more times…all in one fukking night risking 1 nickel a play. She about broke us that night. We even considered a rake at the poker table to offset the losses, but we never did dip into their pot; it just didn’t seem right.
Then one night we were clowning a friend of ours because he was literally playing the opposite of any basic blackjack strategy. Remember, by this point I knew 3 different ways to count cards at a blackjack table, I was immersed. He was doing all the wrong things, listening to nobody and we couldn’t believe it.
He went on a huge win streak and really exposed us.
When I got to college I started to realize why all the seasoned pro and semi pro gamblers ended up in the race and sportsbook, with some poker, including video, on the side. It all made sense. My Dad, the card counter who now grinds the video poker, was never in the book, he always thought I was crazy because the “odds will always be against you.”
I went the route of the book. I helped market online internet Casinos in Los Angeles before there were online internet casinos. We were some of the first and had celebrity backing immediately. There investors, things got really big. We were actually maintaining customer service for several different books we were running. The two of us were the call and chat center for a bunch of books. We would answer “sportsbook” because we had no idea which website the caller had posted up money. I had three different names to use myself so that we looked like a bigger customer service center than we actually were. This, by the way, was 24 hours, 7 days a week. It was relentless, right out of Brentwood, California.
We were it, we were the industry. I could have moved to Antigua or Costa Rica and led huge show. We could have started a management company and handled everyone. It was in the infancy and we had it. The feds were always an issue, a real issue, and after seeing what happened a few years later with WSEX, I’m glad I didn’t commit; but that’s how close we were.
That’s when I learned lessons about the backside of the sportsbook. That’s when I learned that there are only so many types of bettors, and they can all be profiled.
To be able to see every pending parlay in all these books at that start of a college basketball Saturday and watch them get peeled off, one by one, until only some remain at the end of the night. To watch them play out, to see how a small risk for some groups (and only a small potential reward for the book) can turn into one late game having a huge risk or liability for the system as whole in the form of pending parlays, was eye opening to say the least.
Oh, to watch them play out. From learning just what drives the results of games I developed concepts of pressure on teams, streak riding and streak breaking bettors, money flow and so many more. I had been on both sides of the counter and had seen things people could only imagine; and some things people can’t imagine.
It’s not what they bring; it’s how they bring it. When you can accept what’s being brought, then you can finally appreciate how it’s being brought. The truth is the average sports fan and bettor has no clue what they are betting into, that’s why they lose.
The next few years I grew as a bettor as well. Eventually through connections, I read some esoteric writings by some of the greatest sportsbook minds the world has ever known; form both sides of the counter. These guys did it before the age of computers, they were pioneers.
As I was reading, I realized I wasn’t learning much. I figured all of it out, on my own, and felt like I could have written those pieces. I was reaffirming my own core knowledge. That was some time ago and I’ve been combining the different theories based on what is clearly not public knowledge, even still.
What makes things endure is that if it were public knowledge, the public would reject it anyway. They always have.
I’m stopping here for now, I’ve said enough truths for one day.
Went to Tahoe all the time as a kid, my Dad was always maintaining his player’s club membership.
Back then, you wore a little pin on your shirt and that’s how the pit boss tracked playing time and bets. He walked around looking for the pin. There were no cards, except to open certain doors (like the pool) and no computers. This isn’t that long ago, I turned 43 this year.
The pins changed all the time and I had so many tie clips from them. My favorite was the white $100 chip, it has about ¾ of an inch wide. I loved it. I wore it on ties to school functions.
He was a blackjack player and card counter at the time, now he concentrates and gets tracked on almost exclusively video poker, with some specific slots thrown in: he’s a seasoned veteran at this point.
He went to Vegas then Laughlin all this past month and we are heading to Tahoe the first week of May. In fact, my Dad just went up the hill to an Indian Casino; neither of us have done that in like 4 years. I couldn’t go, had something with the kids but I ‘m not really a gambler like that, I don’t do all those slots…anymore.
Anyway, back to the story, bio, or whatever. Then my dad bought a slot machine. It wasn’t like the machines you see today. This thing is a mechanical nightmare. It’s a nickel machine that takes the coins. One at a time they drop into the machine and you have to pull the lever. He signed papers when he brought it into California that he wouldn’t use it for gambling.
So the machine was set up in the party bar room, on a locked glass case, where the extra nickels could fall below into a bowl that everyone could see. If anyone, while risking their own nickel, hit one of the three jackpots that had to be hand paid and wouldn’t drop nickels to pay, then it would be honored. Sometimes it would jam. I can only imagine a typical night on a casino floor with hundreds of these going…a maintenance nightmare. Now it’s all computers with no coins at all. They just pull out the little boxed money and voucher reader and replace it if there’s a jam or problem.
I’ve seen so many changes on the casino floor, that’s just one.
Fast forward a few years and my best friend and I were having “Casino Night” at my house. We had it all. A real slot machine, a real nice poker table with vinyl (the cards just slid across to the player, it was fun to deal), a blackjack felt; we even had a real homemade craps table, complete with felt and diamond bumper wall.
They were regular parties (even more regular if the parents left town, especially with drinking) but it was Casino Night.
Some nights we took hits.
I remember a fine Swedish exchange student. I think she had a thing for me. She was so fun and everyone loved her. The damn bitch hit the three Genies for $50, the $15.00 jackpot twice and the $7.50 jackpot a couple more times…all in one fukking night risking 1 nickel a play. She about broke us that night. We even considered a rake at the poker table to offset the losses, but we never did dip into their pot; it just didn’t seem right.
Then one night we were clowning a friend of ours because he was literally playing the opposite of any basic blackjack strategy. Remember, by this point I knew 3 different ways to count cards at a blackjack table, I was immersed. He was doing all the wrong things, listening to nobody and we couldn’t believe it.
He went on a huge win streak and really exposed us.
When I got to college I started to realize why all the seasoned pro and semi pro gamblers ended up in the race and sportsbook, with some poker, including video, on the side. It all made sense. My Dad, the card counter who now grinds the video poker, was never in the book, he always thought I was crazy because the “odds will always be against you.”
I went the route of the book. I helped market online internet Casinos in Los Angeles before there were online internet casinos. We were some of the first and had celebrity backing immediately. There investors, things got really big. We were actually maintaining customer service for several different books we were running. The two of us were the call and chat center for a bunch of books. We would answer “sportsbook” because we had no idea which website the caller had posted up money. I had three different names to use myself so that we looked like a bigger customer service center than we actually were. This, by the way, was 24 hours, 7 days a week. It was relentless, right out of Brentwood, California.
We were it, we were the industry. I could have moved to Antigua or Costa Rica and led huge show. We could have started a management company and handled everyone. It was in the infancy and we had it. The feds were always an issue, a real issue, and after seeing what happened a few years later with WSEX, I’m glad I didn’t commit; but that’s how close we were.
That’s when I learned lessons about the backside of the sportsbook. That’s when I learned that there are only so many types of bettors, and they can all be profiled.
To be able to see every pending parlay in all these books at that start of a college basketball Saturday and watch them get peeled off, one by one, until only some remain at the end of the night. To watch them play out, to see how a small risk for some groups (and only a small potential reward for the book) can turn into one late game having a huge risk or liability for the system as whole in the form of pending parlays, was eye opening to say the least.
Oh, to watch them play out. From learning just what drives the results of games I developed concepts of pressure on teams, streak riding and streak breaking bettors, money flow and so many more. I had been on both sides of the counter and had seen things people could only imagine; and some things people can’t imagine.
It’s not what they bring; it’s how they bring it. When you can accept what’s being brought, then you can finally appreciate how it’s being brought. The truth is the average sports fan and bettor has no clue what they are betting into, that’s why they lose.
The next few years I grew as a bettor as well. Eventually through connections, I read some esoteric writings by some of the greatest sportsbook minds the world has ever known; form both sides of the counter. These guys did it before the age of computers, they were pioneers.
As I was reading, I realized I wasn’t learning much. I figured all of it out, on my own, and felt like I could have written those pieces. I was reaffirming my own core knowledge. That was some time ago and I’ve been combining the different theories based on what is clearly not public knowledge, even still.
What makes things endure is that if it were public knowledge, the public would reject it anyway. They always have.
I’m stopping here for now, I’ve said enough truths for one day.
