The Bloomberg Channel

[JIMDUECE`SWILD]

The Bloomberg channel is airing on the TV show " The Players " an interview with Don Johnson on how he won millions of dollars playing blackjack at the casinos.  

[DaBurglar]

thanks for the info JIm....I remember back when that guy won all that cash playing in AC, he took the lions share from the Tropicana, but also took a healthy sum from 2 or 3 other casinos in AC......i never heard of someone being on the roll this guy was in Blackjack, but I do know that, at the time he was winning all this money, my main AC casino was the Trop and the marketing director for the tropicana at the time was the guy who started Don Johnson on his million dollar run by approving a table limit of 250K for him when he was winning......the Trop guy was promptly fired the Monday after Don Johnson won the Millions he did from the Tropicana.   Tony Rodio, the Tropicana CEO, then had a special "Black Jack Tournament and Party" a month later where Don Johnson was the Guest of honor and the winner of the Blackjack Tournament would play heads up with Don Johnson for a massive 250k prize!      I have never heard the full story on how exactly this guy did what he did.....it was not counting because they were watching for that right from the get go......anyone out there know how he took all this money from all these casinos?    Dumb Luck???   Anyone?  Anyone?  Bueller?

[Tedlark]

  I remember, this one time at band camp...
 
  Since you're on movie quotes DaBurglar.

[Tedlark]

The Bloomberg channel is airing on the TV show " The Players " an interview with Don Johnson on how he won millions of dollars playing blackjack at the casinos.  

  Its being broadcast at 8:00 pm Central Time on Bloomberg tonight.

[BillyJoe]

  I have never heard the full story on how exactly this guy did what he did.....it was not counting because they were watching for that right from the get go......anyone out there know how he took all this money from all these casinos?    Dumb Luck???   Anyone?  Anyone?  Bueller?
Winning at BlackJack is actually quite easy. You bet high on winning hands and low on losing hands. The trick, of course, is knowing when those hands are occurring.
My suspicion would be (A) marked cards, (B) Dealers "peaking" the next card, (C) card counting, or (D) a combination of all three.

[Tedlark]

  Very good show, I just watched it at 1:00 pm Central and I'll watch it again later tonight. Thanks for the heads up Jim.

[DaBurglar]

  Winning at BlackJack is actually quite easy. You bet high on winning hands and low on losing hands. The trick, of course, is knowing when those hands are occurring.
My suspicion would be (A) marked cards, (B) Dealers "peaking" the next card, (C) card counting, or (D) a combination of all three.
  I have not played much blackjack during my 5 years going to AC, from February 2009 to today (01/25/14), but I do remember things changing very rapidly on the tables at all AC casinos right after this dude smoked the casinos out of the money he won!    It was obviously a huge story at the time, the AC press jumped all over it and it made national, and then world wide headlines soon after he completed his unbelievable run of success....does anyone remember exactly which casinos Johnson clobbered besides the Trop???   wasnt there a casino OUTSIDE of Atlantic City that he also won a sizable amount from during this same time period??? Anyway, right after he completed his clobbering of the AC casinos, and right after the Tropicana fired its Vice President of Marketing, almost all the Blackjack tables in all of the AC casinos instituted shuffling protocols and procedures whereby the tables with Double deck games shuffled basically after every round, and the multideck shoes were randomly aborted well before the plastic cut card was reached, the whole idea being to throw off anyone on one of those "rolls", or hot streaks Billyjoe alludes to in his post.....but essentially, what this guy Johnson seems to have done is simply ride one big huge immensely improbably wave of LUCK no one has the right to even expect, let alone experience in this lifetime, unless they were the victim of some HORRIBLE bad luck prior to this!     But it was weird watching blackjack tables at Ballys where a shoe of 6 decks with 3 players sitting there betting 25 bucks a hand dispenses two or three hands to the three players, and then the dealer abruptly yells "SHUFFLE!!!" and the decks are spilled onto the felt and the shuffling begins all over again......I wonder how many casinos seriously considered shutting down their blackjack tables after this guy did his damage......"Hurricane Don" was worth a chuckle at most Blackjack tables until Sandy blew into town in 2012 and did the damage it did......

[Anuenue]

Nothing much to this show, other than the good looking reporter.

[Minn. Fatz]

Caught it this afternoon on a repeat. I thought it had some good insights into the state of casinos in general and of AC casinos in particular after the start of the Great Recession.

What I gathered about Johnson's coup was that he enlisted the help of some blackjack math whizzes after being offered some nice terms from his regular casinos but before going to play there. With the help of this team he then negotiated higher table limits, better rules and other "perks" that, along with some angle shooting, turned the advantage his way. It didn't hurt that he had been labeled a mediocre player, which he was before he got smart. He managed to score so big because he had a lot in play. I'd guess there was some small but nonzero probability that he would've busted out anyway.

Like the man says, before you attempt to beat the odds, make sure you can survive the odds beating you.

I didn't quite follow what he meant by "free bets" he said he got when the dealer made a mistake tho.

[DaBurglar]

Nothing much to this show, other than the good looking reporter.

  lol   thanks for the heads up Anuenue and your opinion......who was the reporter I might ask???  This is interesting, one person says this is a great show and is planning to watch it again when it repeats a few hours later, while Anuenue says it is not very worthwhile save the female reporter (I assume it is a female reporter....????) maybe now I will wait and see what jimdeuces and/or billyjoe, or any other poster, says  about the program before I invest the 60 minutes in watching..... Just shows to go ya, how opinions and perspectives are like dna, everyone's is unique and has something to share, good or bad, with the rest of the world!