 hard to it. Both of which are not very easy to master. But if you can master them it can be very fun. Second disclaimer, am I teaching you anything illegal? Contrary to what the casinos would like for you to believe, card counting in the form that I'm presenting it is not illegal. We'll get into some of the legalities a little bit later. But in its purest form, card counting is not illegal. It is not a form of cheating. It is frowned upon by casinos and casinos. Like any other private enterprise can ask you to leave. But again, it's not illegal to count cards in a casino or use other forms of legitimate advantage play. And finally, if you decide to explore this, I think you should have some sort of motivation of why do this. Are you doing this for money? Are you doing it for excitement? Are you doing it for a new job? All three of those are pretty good motivations and all three of them can't happen. There are many people who make a lot of money at this and there are many people who do this professionally. So let's jump right into what I'm going to cover. Just a really brief outline of what we're going to go over here. If it doesn't look like something you want to invest time in, feel free to leave. I won't be offended. We're going to make a distinction, first of all, between the casino games that you can be and the casino games you simply cannot be. And obviously, you won't be investing any time in the games you can't be. We won't be focusing on games that you can be. And these will include Blackjack with card counting and also the signs of casino cover. We're going to look at sports and horse betting, some forms of poker, and other games where you can gain an advantage over the long run. We'll also look at comps as a form of advantage play. There's some art and science to that too. And finally, I'll present you with some additional resources that you can use to build your hobby or build your career as an advantage player. There's a plethora of information out there and some of it I will share with you today. So let's jump right in and look at the casino games. Let's start with the games that you simply cannot be. These include slots, craps, and roulette. Anyone who tells you that they have a system for any one of these is lying to you. There are ways to definitely minimize your losses, but in the long run, the casino gets all your money. Sure, it's possible you can walk into a casino, drop a dollar in a slot machine, and win a $20,000 jackpot. Happens every day. But that's nothing but a stroke of luck. In the end, if you sit down and you do the math on it, you simply cannot be slot, craps, or roulette, or really any of the other jokey games like Caribbean Stud or things like that. There's no such thing as a professional craps player, no such thing as professional roulette player. You simply cannot make money in the long run of these games. So the games that you can be include blackjack, sports, and horse betting and poker. And that's what we'll focus on, because really, if you want to make money at this, that's what you should focus on. Otherwise, you're really just wasting your time. So let's jump right in and look at blackjack. So why can blackjack be? The answer to that, the simple answer is that there's a flaw in the game. There's the law of independent trials and statistics that you may be familiar with. And basically what that says is that past events have no bearing on current probabilities. If you look at roulette, the most basic that roulette is whether the ball's going to land on red or black. If you walk into a casino and look at one of the tote boards and you see that black has hit six times in a row, your initial thinking might be well, red's overdue. There's no such thing as being overdue. So on the next spin, because each event is independent, the odds of it hitting red or black are about 50-50. Blackjack doesn't fully understand the law of independent trials in the sense that blackjack is played from either one deck or up to eight decks. And as cards are laid out, as you see different cards and different hands being played, you can form an idea of the cards that are yet to come. And by varying your bets based on whether the cards to come are favorable to you or unfavorable to you, you can gain an advantage in the long run. For example, let's say you walk into a casino, you watch one hand of blackjack and you notice that there's nothing but two, threes or fours being dealt. Now a law of independent trials would tell you that the next card being drawn, the odds of that being a two, three or four are the same as any other card. And it's obviously not true because you've just seen the two, three and four being played out. So the odds of a two, three and four coming out are much lower than the odds of a ten-jack queen king and race coming out. So again, the fact of the law of independent trials doesn't fully apply to blackjack is what creates a loophole in the game. So the second part that you need to understand about card counting and why blackjack can be beat is basic strategy. And basic strategy basically involves one of these cards. You can find these in any casino gift shop. And basically what this is, it's a mathematically computed way of playing every combination of hands. You can see here this lists your hand and this lists the dealer's hand. And this tells you what the optimal play is in every situation, where you should hit, stand, double down or what not, depending on the rules. So basic strategy, and by the way, you can buy this for like $2 in any gift shop, just any gift shop on the strip. Basic strategy basically lets you know the optimal play for each hand. So by combining card counting and optimal play, you can gain a small but significant advantage over the casinos in the long run. So let's jump into what card counting is. And basically, card counting is maintaining a ratio. So maintaining a ratio of the small cards that have been played versus the high cards that have been played. So as I mentioned earlier in the earlier example, if you saw nothing but two, three or fours, then you know the ratio of low cards played is pretty high. And the ratio of 10 cards or face cards that have been played is fairly low. And by knowing the balance of that ratio, you can create an idea of what's to come. You can have what's called a 10 rich deck, which means that there's a lot more 10s than any other card. Or you can have a low rich deck, which means that there's two through sixes more than any other card in deck. And again, by bearing your bets on that, is how you can gain an advantage. Now, is it legal? In 1994, the Nevada Supreme Court basically created what's known as the outside devices measurement. And what they determined was that as long as you're walking into a casino, without any other form of outside device, like a computer, a mirror, a camera, whatnot, you don't have any significant advantage over any other player. So why shouldn't you be able to use the most skills that you can to play a game? And that's basically what legalized, or quote unquote legalized card counting. As long as you're sitting there using your mind and nothing else, again, because there are other forms of card counting that are illegal, it's perfectly legal for you to sit there. And the advantage that card counting gives you is it allows you to manage your bets. And that's really how you make your money in the long run. When you know that you have the advantage, that's when you want to bet high. When you know that maybe you don't have the advantage and the casino has the advantage, that's when you want to bet low. And by varying your bets over time, is how you gain an advantage and can make money at playing back. So let's look at a basic card counting system. Again, keeping in mind that you're maintaining the ratio of cards. The more low cards that are yet to come is favorable for the dealer. The two threes and fours all are turns, you know, 13, 14, 15s into winning hands. That's what you don't want. What you want are the high cards, because the high cards are what gives you the 20s, the Black Jacks, 19s, the 18s, those are, those are, you're better off with those hands. So what you're doing is you're maintaining how many cards in the high-low system, the two through sixes are being played versus the 10 Jack, Queen, King or Ace. As you can see here, whenever you see a two through six, you would add a one. Whenever you see a 10 through an ace, you would subtract a one. You start from zero up after the initial deal. So the more two through sixes that are played, the higher your account goes. Your account can go to two, four, six, 20 and upwards. That's when you want to bet high, because your odds of getting a 20 on the next hand are much better than they otherwise would be. On the other hand, if you've seen a lot of face cards already played, the odds of you getting a 13, 14, 15, all those hands you hate to see is pretty high. That's what you want to bet low. Keep in mind that there's other systems out there. The high-low system is probably just one of the most basic systems, but it doesn't make it not worthwhile to learn, mind you. But there are other systems there that assign values to every card. If you notice here, we're basically ignoring the seven, eight and nine. We just don't assign a value to it. So there's other systems out there that you can learn and best time in, and some are more complex to learn than others. Some group cards in different ways. Others give individual values to every single card, so it causes more headaches as far as what you're trying to track. But the high-low system is perhaps one of the most popular counting systems. It's what I use and a lot of other players use. And again, the whole point is to maintain a ratio in your mind. When a deck, when the count is positive, again, a lot of low cards have been played. That's a pretty good time to bet high. When the count is negative, a lot of base cards have been played. That's probably when you want to sit out a couple hands or bet low. Now, basically the card counting system, whichever system you choose, that's just the science of card counting. Anybody can sit there and learn it. One of the best ways to learn a counting system is to carry a deck of cards with you. I carry a deck of cards with a greater part of a year, and any time you have a free 10 minutes, 15 minutes, you sit in practice. So that's fairly easy. But doing it in a casino is a whole other monster. There's more distractions going on. You have to deal with your chips. The waitress is asking you for a drink and all these other things. So there's definitely an art form to card counting also. And one of the things you have to deal with is casino heat, because eventually varying your bets from one chip to maybe eight chips or 10 chips or six chips, whatever it may be, that raises some eyebrows sometimes, either from the dealer or from the pit bosses or from surveillance or whatnot. So you have to be aware about what's going on around you. There's a certain science to casino comportment as far as how you handle yourself in a casino and whatnot and the excuses you are running to bet eight chips instead of one chip. So part of it is really getting to know who you play with, getting to know the dealers and getting to know the floor staff. Nobody wants to suspect that their friend is cheating them, right? So the more the friendlier you become with your dealers, the better off you are in the long run. Another part that kind of ties into it is casino cover in general. As far as what casinos you choose to play in, how you choose to dress, how much you choose to bet? If you're a middle-aged man in a business suit but you're playing in some potent casino in the backwoods of Arizona, that looks pretty suspicious. If you're a young guy in a strip playing $500 chips, that looks pretty suspicious too. So again, this is all the art part of card counting as far as taking into account how you carry yourself in a casino, which casinos you choose to play in and whatnot. And as far as what's the worst that can happen with card counting, again, presuming that it's illegal, is there's a company called Griffin Investigations based here in Las Vegas. And they basically have a subscriber list of casinos around the world. And you can end up in this Griffin book with a nice picture of you in a profile of what you like to play. And that profile gets included in the book in facts to crop into casinos in the area, just to warn them that you're in the area. And it basically bars you from most casinos in the country and in greater parts of the world. I've heard stories of people who were in the book and a couple years later they're in some remote casino in France. And within 10 minutes they get barred, all because their picture is in the Griffin book. So again, casino heat, casino cover is the art form of it, but it's also very important because as a card counter you don't want to get barred. Being barred is the same as being broke, you're out of action. So what's the point of that? So that ends the blackjack portion and I want to talk a little bit more about sports betting in horses. Sports betting in horses can be beat because it's what's known as a zero anti game. You don't have to participate if you don't want to. If you don't feel that you have an advantage in a situation, don't bet. Contrary to popular belief, most professional sports gamblers don't bet every single day and they don't bet 10, 12 games across the board. They would rather focus on individual games where they think that they have an advantage. And by only playing in those games where you think you have an advantage over time in the long run, you should gain an overall advantage that allows you to see a profit at the end of the year. So a lot of professional sports betters, they specialize. They specialize in individual sports, like someone will only do football, someone will only do baseball, someone will only do college basketball. There might be some cross over between doing both professional basketball and college basketball, but most of them decide to specialize in a particular sport and only focus on that one season. Some will even focus on particular conferences or particular divisions, even particular teams in some cases. And what they also do is they shop around. Basically each sports betting can determine their own line for each game, their own price for the bet if you will. And different casinos, both online and brick and mortar, will have different prices for each game. Most of them will be within a point of each other, some will be within two points, and some will be within three points. And by shopping around for the best price that they can get over a season, they can make the difference between the winning season and the losing season. And again, that's what professional sports betters do. They try to get the best price. They don't just call whoever's available or whoever's close by. Another way to focus on professional sports betting is through propositions. Proposition bets are basically bets that have to do with a particular game but aren't necessarily based on the outcome of the score. One of the most popular forms of proposition betting is in the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl has propositions for basically anything you can think of. You know, for the first person who scores, no matter which team, will they have an even number of jersey or an odd number of jersey? What will be the longest pint? A couple of years ago when U2 was playing the halftime show, there was even a sports book taken on the bets of which song they would start with. So there's different bets and different propositions that you can focus on where if you feel that there's an advantage, there's some information that you have, some handicapped information you have, you think where a particular bet is mispriced. That's where you can take advantage of it and make money. The second proposition I saw recently was regarding the Tour de France. Prior to July 4th, you could have bet on the entire field against Lance Armstrong. And they would pay you one odd if that bet came through, which obviously it didn't. Now, 180 bicyclists start the Tour de France every year. So you were basically getting 179 people against one, and there was a three to one payout on it. So I'll leave that to you as a puzzle to see if that's a worthwhile bet or not. Obviously, we have hindsight on that. But it's through that type of valuation that you would have to go through as a sports bet or to realize whether a bet is good or not. Finally, one of the advantages of sports betting is really in sports betting, the sky's the limit. There's no need to worry about casino cover or who you're placing your bets with and what not. You're really only limited by the size of your bank role and really your own skills. It's not uncommon to make into the six figures as a successful professional sports better. There's really nothing to stop you from making more money over the long term. Again, assuming that you are playing an advantage game and you're focusing on those particular games. It's jumping the poker. Now, poker is not what you may think as far as when it comes to a casino game. In casino poker, there's no such thing as night baseball and between the sheets and all those other games you might have played as a kid in the kitchen table. There's really only three games you just focus on in casino poker. That's Texas Hold'em, Omaha with the high-low version, and Seven-Cards Stud. This is also a high-low version for Seven-Cards Stud. Texas Hold'em being the most popular, those three are really the only card games you can find consistently in casinos across the country. And when playing poker, you should consider two different things. Would you specialize in ring games or tournaments? Ring games are basically your everyday money games. You can walk into any card room in the country and jump into a ring game. It's basically the live money games. Tournaments are based on number of injuries and everybody pays an entry fee and the tournament may pay the top three spots or the top 50 spots. It depends. The reason why they have distinctions important is because there are very few poker players that can succeed at both ring games and tournaments, most decide to specialize in one or the other. There are a few professionals that can do well in both, but really, tournaments have disadvantages and ring games have disadvantages. So which one you specialize in is kind of important. With poker, there is definitely no lack of information out there. If you go to any of the gambling book shops, or maybe even your local book shop, there are dozens and dozens of books written on basically every variation of worthwhile poker that there is. So really, it pays to invest a little bit of money, a little bit of time and read the information on those books. There's no lack of information and that's why this section is so brief because there's nothing here I could teach you that you couldn't learn in one of many, many books. The only thing I'll leave you with regarding poker is that your opponents are everything in poker. The reason why poker can be beat is because you're playing against other people. You're not playing against the house. The house doesn't have an interest in how you do. They just take a small collection from every pot to pay the dealer and for the tables and for the overhead. But you're basically pitting your skills against the skills of other players. If you sit down every day versus the top 10 players in the world, you will lose. If you sit down and play with your drunk friends, you might win. So really your opponents are everything in poker. Let's also look at other plays because really sports betting, blackjack, and poker are the most popular ways of advantage play but there are other ways to capitalize on casino games. First one takes a little more time but it's basically hunting for dealers. You know, dealers are human, they make mistakes too. They have to start somewhere and some casinos are known for having new dealers. So dealers can make errors and they can make errors in your favor. One of the common examples is in three-card poker. If you have seen this game three-card poker is dealt from an automatic shuffling machine. The cards are laid out in the tray and the dealer takes the cards and gives them to each player. The problem with three-card poker is that when reaching for the tray, there is a tendency that some people have to flash the bottom card. Knowing what the bottom card is knowing what the bottom card is can create an advantage over the long run as high as five, six percent. But again, there's something that takes time and takes a lot of footwork and a lot of research into finding that one dealer on that one shift or that one casino where you can get an advantage. There's also casino promotions. One of the most common casino promotions is that they'll pay two to one on a blackjack from Monday afternoon from five to six. Paying two to one on a blackjack can make blackjack a winning game depending on how well you play. In some cases, casinos may offer variations or variations on existing games or they may offer new games. Some casinos sometimes offer variations on craps which can make craps an advantage game. Sometimes looking at new games and doing the math yourself can find you a loophole. It takes a little more knowledge of statistics and a good knowledge of the game but they can be found. Another advantage is coupons and I'm not talking about the fake coupons, I'm talking about the match play coupons. Match play coupons can create quite an advantage, especially the ones where they're matching your bet. They're giving you a hundred percent payout on basically a two to one shot or however you choose to gamble with it. That's a pretty good deal. You can collect enough of these coupons and play enough of these coupons over the long run. You can come out ahead. And finally, there are other games you can choose to focus on for advantage play. One of them, just as an example is California PyGaO. The way that PyGaO is played in California allows you to be the banker and create an advantage for yourself in the long term. There are companies in California that specialize in only playing California PyGaO or California Blackjack. And again, there are books that you can find on these topics. I just want to present that as an example because there are other niches that you can find for yourself that you can specialize in. So last topic is comps, which is basically short for complimentaries. Complimentaries are basically what casinos give away to you in order to keep you coming back or basically for being a good customer. One of the most basic complimentaries I'm sure most of you experience is the free drinks at tables. They want you sitting there comfortable, gambling and drinking. Drinks are free. So that's one of the most basic levels of comps. If you can recognize the value in the comps that you're getting, comps can make losing worthwhile. If you've been comped to sweet for the weekend plus free meals and you bring one or two of your friends that can easily be a weekend worth over $1,500. Probably more depending on where you're staying. So what's a $500 loss? Again, these aren't real gains, but if you sit down at the end of the year and look at the trips you've done and the value you've gained, it can make losing worthwhile. Now with comps, it pays to shop around. You'll find that some casinos have extremely strict formulas of what you've played and how long you've been there and how many times you've been there. And this mathematical formula is all you can get, whereas other places have a lot more leeway with their, give a lot more leeway to their employees and allow you to take advantage of the comps that they're offering. Other times you may just for being a member and being on their mailing list, you'll get offers for promotions in the mail, just out of the blue. As far as required levels, required levels for foods, rooms and tickets and other things, they vary quite a bit. They may vary from casino to casino, but they definitely vary from the strip to downtown Las Vegas. So I want to give you an idea of what the required levels are for both the strip and downtown. For food, casinos make a distinction between the buffet, the cafe, and their gourmet restaurants. Downtown, playing $5 or $10 average bat will get you a buffet coupon, no problem. On the strip, you're looking at closer to $25 a hand. A little higher at places like Bellagio or Mandalay Bay, maybe closer to $50 a hand. For free rooms, downtown, anywhere from $25 to $50 a hand will definitely get you a room. On the strip, it's definitely at least double that, around $100 a hand. At a place like Mandalay Bay I know, they're at least $150 a hand average. And then of course there's other complementaries like fight tickets and big concert tickets and what not. And those you're looking at upwards of $200 to $250 a hand. Now obviously you need a significant bankroll to play at those levels. But again if you do reach those levels and you have a weekend where you come out and you see a heavyweight fight and they give you $200 tickets and what not, it can make a weekend trip worthwhile. If you're interested in comps, there's definitely a book you have to read called Comp City. It's basically considered the Bible of comps. It's written by Max Rubin who is a next casino owner and he basically walks you through how you can use Blackjack in combination with other players to maximize your comp dollar. And the key to comps is really that you have to know how much you've earned and what you're entitled to and you have to ask for it. It pays to be greedy when you're working for comps. You know you deserve fight tickets and you got to call however many times it takes for them to get you that. That's not something for everyone but if you can't work the system it's something that can be profitable. So finally I want to leave you some additional resources. First site I recommend to you and everybody needs to write this down is www.dj21.com I really don't think there are any serious Blackjack players or card counters out there that don't know of this website. It's definitely the premier site for card counters and Blackjack in general. Definitely worthwhile to take a look at that. Even if you're not interested in Blackjack and want to read about a professional gambler Ian Anderson is the real deal. This is what he does for a living. He does this full time as far as advantage play and particularly Blackjack. So Burning the Tables in Las Vegas is a great read. There's not a whole lot of really good information on sports betting and really most people like to keep their systems private or what not. But there is a book called Sharp Sports Betting by Stanford Wong that's worth looking at. You may recognize the name Stanford Wong because he has written a couple of other books on Blackjack so his Blackjack collection might also be worthwhile to look at. And again Com City by Max Rubin worthwhile book to understand Com's how the system works and how to get the most of it and get the most of it for your dollar. And finally leaving my email address I'm happy to answer questions via email. I usually reply within a day. I'll also be here after the conference and I'll be taking questions in a minute. I'll also be here outside in the conference. I won't take any questions. I'll stay as long as it takes. But I want to ask one favor of all of you. Again I'm more than happy to answer questions via email and in person. But if tonight or this weekend or in the future if you spot me in the casino please don't approach me in the casino. Understand this is part of my livelihood. So I'll leave you with that but I thank you all for coming. Thank you. These are all the cards. All the cards have been played. That's right. Is it standard practice? Right. And that's also assuming a face up game. Some games will deal it to you when you handle the cards. So it depends on the type of game that's being played also. Exactly. It's a little quicker to count, a little easier to count. Please. There's no doubt that middling works. The problem nowadays is that with the internet and whatnot you can find the lines as an owner. You can find the lines for any casino you want. So middling opportunities have become less and less common. Ten years ago that's a great way to make money. It's become a lot harder. But obviously there's no fight here. The maths of middling will work. If you find one now you have to jump on it right away otherwise it disappears. Please. Usually it's to your advantage to play by yourself. That's the ideal. Some people max it out at two other players but really by yourself is the ideal. I think that's irrelevant. Not so much as in dollars but think of it in units as far as your bank roll. So if you decide that you have 5,000 to play with then you might want to make your base unit maybe like a $25 table. Or if you have 10,000 you might want to double that. So it all depends. You've got to break it down in units. You've got to give yourself at least 500 units to give it a good try. So if you want to play a $5 table you want to maybe have 2,500. I agree with that depending on location. In California because there is a higher drop