Modern Wisdom - #687 - Steven Bridges - The Most Dangerous Stories From A Professional Card Counter

Episode Date: September 30, 2023

Steven Bridges is a professional gambler and mostly-legal card counter. If you've seen the movie 21, you'll know that it's possible to count cards while playing Blackjack in a casino to beat the house. But this isn't just limited to the movies, Steven is part of a team who takes on the biggest casinos in the world using hardcore maths, disguises and secret signals to win big. Expect to learn the details of how a team of players is needed to take on a casino, how Steven chooses which casinos to count at, what are the best and worst places to play Blackjack in Vegas, the most amount of money Steven has made and lost in a single session, how he deals with losing absurd amounts of money, just how difficult it actually is to count cards and much more... Sponsors: Get 20% discount on Nomatic’s amazing luggage at https://nomatic.com/modernwisdom (use code MODERNWISDOM20) Get an exclusive discount from Surfshark VPN at https://surfshark.deals/MODERNWISDOM (use code MODERNWISDOM) Get 5 Free Travel Packs, Free Liquid Vitamin D and more from AG1 at https://drinkag1.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied)  Extra Stuff: Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello friends, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Stephen Bridges, he's a professional gambler and mostly legal card counter. If you've seen the movie 21, you'll know that it's possible to count cards whilst playing Blackjack in a casino to actually beat the house. But this isn't just limited to the movies, Stephen is part of a team who takes on the biggest casinos in the world, using hardcore maths, disguises and secret signals to win big. Expect to learn the details of how a team of players is needed to take on a casino, how Steven chooses which casinos to count at, which are the best and worst places to play Black Jack in Vegas, the most money Steven has made and lost in a single session, how he deals with

losing absurd amounts of money, just how difficult it is to actually count cards without getting caught. And much more. I love Stephen's YouTube channel and the algorithm served it up to me and I full on got addicted and invested into his team's little missions that they do out all over the world to try and win hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I like the fact that we get to see behind the scenes of what it's actually like today, very different sort of episode, but this is super, super fun. So yeah, enjoy this one. This episode is brought to you by nomadic.

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supply vitamin D, 5 free travel packs plus that 90 day money back guarantee that's drinkag1.com slash modern wisdom. But now ladies and gentlemen please welcome Stephen Bridges. How do you describe what you do for work when you meet somebody? Yeah, this is something which frequently comes up and it's really tricky to explain because I think the most common thing I say is have you seen the movie 21? Because if they've seen that movie,

they already have a basic understanding of at least the theatrical version of what card counting is. And if they haven't seen that movie, I just ask if they know what card counting is. And a lot of the time people don't know and then I'm in a really tricky spot because when you try and describe professional gambling, you do sound a bit insane.

Right. Yeah, I keep track of the cards at casinos and have a complex system of friends who have money bankrolled by anonymous huge donors, and we try and rip casinos off. Yeah, essentially. It does sound like a criminal enterprise. You put it like that.

But actually, you put it really well, actually. Just keeping track of the cards is quite an accurate way of doing it. Because most people think that you're memorizing all of the cards you see, which is way harder than what we're actually doing, even though what we're doing is relatively cool. So keeping track is like a nice way of summarizing it. Because we're actually assigning each card in the deck with a different point value, separate to its point in the game of Blackjack, and then we're keeping track

of that running total which we're using to get an advantage over the house, basically. Dude, I love your YouTube. I think your vlogs that you're doing with hidden cameras as you go in and take these casinos for everything that's worth until you get found out and rumbled and then escorted off the premises. I absolutely love them. I think they're fantastic. So everybody should go and check out your vlogs. Once they finish, listen to this, but talk to me about how somebody begins their apprenticeship into the world of professional casino ripper offerer. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So Card Counting falls under the bracket of advantage play and an advantage player essentially anybody that can beat a casino game in this case legally. So there's a difference between card counting and advantage play and cheating. So cheating would be, you know, you're sneaking an extra card in or you're maybe using technology where it's illegal to use software to run a computer algorithm to crunch numbers to beat the game. So with advantage play, you're just playing the game within the rules,

with the same information that everybody else has in the casino in theory. You're just using it in a different way. So if you want to get into cardcaring, it's firstly something that I really don't recommend for most people because the actual lifestyle of it can be quite brutal. And the way that I have it is I play for a bit and then I have quite a large break. And I think the time I was most stressed in my life when I was playing six hours a day, essentially like a night, well, not quite a nine to five, but I was treating it like a nine to five job, playing six days a week. And even though you're playing with an advantage, you can just lose so much money. And even though you know you're going to win

in the long term, the psychological impact of losing the money is really, really strong. But essentially, if someone wants to learn how to card count, there's books, there's resources, there's online websites now, and you just go through it like you would any other skill. I don't think it's particularly way harder than the average skill. It's just that with card counting, you have very, very little margin for error.

So you have to master each element of card counting and get a perfect otherwise you'll just lose loads of money. Because your edge is reliant on your mind being completely correct and when the margin edge that you have is only slightly above 50%, any mess up by the brain drags that back. For sure. Which is why also we need tons of money to even do it, because we're playing with a just small edge. You can still have a losing streak that could go on, one of my teammates had a 300 hour losing streak.

And it's just insane. So if you don't have loads of money to bet the amounts that were betting, which is in the thousands per hand, well, the low thousands, like, okay, okay, and a half, if you don't have $100,000, $200, $400,000, then you could just burn through all that on a bad run. So there's a lot of stuff that needs to be taken

into consideration. That's one of the biggest mistakes that a lot of new card counters will make. They will master how to count cards, but then when it comes to the actual bank crawl management and the risk management of it, they won't pay any attention to that. They'll blow through their bankroll

in a very short amount of time and then that'll be it, that'll be bankrupt from card counting. So you've got to be super careful. Who is it, not specifically, but where is it that you're finding half a mill to fund a trip to go and travel around the US? Yeah, so the way that I actually started was incredibly reckless in that, you know, I collaborated with another YouTuber who he's a card count and he teaches people to card count called Colin Jones. And I got in touch with him mainly because I thought this would make a really – firstly, it was just like a bucket list, like I thought I really want to do this. And I also had a small YouTube channel doing magic tricks and I thought this would make

a really cool vlog series. So I got in touch with him. And I thought maybe he'll bankroll me 10k or something or maybe I didn't really have any money at the time. So I wasn't sure how he was going to sort the money thing out at the time. But then one day I was moving house and I had a friend that was just helping me move house and I was telling him what I was getting up to and I was going to go to America for a month and count cards. And then he just shot me a message later on going, hey, can I invest in you? And I was like, sure. And I think he offered to put something like 10 to 15K and I can't quite remember the exact number off top of my head.

But then as we kept chatting, he just up that and eventually just said that he'd put 200K in pounds, so more than that in USD. And that's the money that I played with. Now at the time, I misunderstood how the risk of card counting, like the actual numbers on card counting, how long it takes you to get to guaranteed profit. So I didn't realize how risky this was. And it's extra bad because he was actually, he actually gave me his mortgage. So I was playing with money that he couldn't afford to lose, which is insane by all accounts and goes against what every professional gambler would say. All professional gamblers would be like, you've got to have your bank for all, that separate,

if you lose that, you've got to be okay, but we were essentially all in and it would have probably ruined his life if I'd lost all of that money and also the crushing guilt I would have felt. So I don't really know where you get 200 grand to count cards. Have a friend that has a mortgage and then he gives you the money for a reckless a reckless friend. Yeah, but nowadays as you network with carcass carcass tend to have money and because it's like a profitable thing to do. And then you meet other people that want to invest in carcass and you build up your network that way and now it's relatively straightforward. If we're going to do a trip we can just send a couple of texts and WhatsApp and then raise 300, 400K or whatever it is that we need. And they take a cut of some kind.

Yeah, essentially. So the way that we do it, different teams do it differently and the percentage splits are different. But the way that we do it is we have, it's kind of like you're forming a company, just for one project, then you dissolve it at the end. So you've got the winnings at the end and you'll divide those. 50% will go to the investors and 50% will go to the end. So you've got the winnings at the end and you'll divide those 50% will go to the investors and 50% will go to the players. And normally with the players you'll pay them out based off playing time, not based off how much they've actually won. Because the only

thing that's within the card count control is showing up and counting cards, whether or not they actually win, provided their game is good, which we test ahead of time, is not up to them. So we could have a card count that's put in loads of hours and got the most hours, but they actually made a loss. Whereas we can have someone that played the least hours and they made a profit, but we don't judge it based off of results, we judge it based off time that goes in. So we split it proportionally like that.

Sometimes you'll have a manager and they'll take a manager cut because it's quite a complicated logistical thing to manage. So a manager might take 10% or something, but then the rest of it usually is split 50-50 with the investors and the players. Talk me through a typical team. People that have seen 21, you've got a variety of people, but like probably not a previous bank robber. I can't remember the movie, but what's the typical Avengers assembled that you take on these trips?

Well, the actual the makeup of the team is in the people. It is a complete mixed bag of people. There's maybe some card count of stereotypes, like being white and being in your 20s is a little bit more common. But in general, our team is quite a wide range of people. We've got like a core team and an extended team, and it's not always the exact same people playing on a trip. But the ways that the actual team forms for a trip is that you have two main approaches,

either what we would call solo team play, which is when all the carcassers are playing individually at individual casinos in different parts of America or wherever else it's going to be, but they're all sharing a bank role. And that can be really useful because it's one of those things where the, what's the phrase, the sum is, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, that kind of thing. Because if you have one card counter with $10,000, and another card count with $10,000,

and they were both playing, they can play with a certain level of bets, and they can make a certain hourly rate on average. But if you put those together and combine the resources, it's not the equivalent of that 20k divided by 2. It's actually like one car counter with twice the money playing twice as fast. So it's really advantageous for car counter to team up and work together because it just, it gets you to the mathematical long run quicker, you can have, you can place

bigger bets, you can win more money in theory, and that's kind of how that works. So that's solo team play, the other type of teamplay, which is like the movie 21, and the version that I find the most fun, there are very few card counting teams that do this, is what we call big player, spotter teamplay. So one of the things which makes card counters get caught is that we have to bet... We're setting a plane back like everyone else. And there's only certain moments where we have the advantage over the house. That's when the count is high.

So sometimes if I'm playing in Vegas or wherever, I might be betting $25 a hand, and then the count goes up, and I'll bet a grand a hand, and that's a huge jump. And any surveillance person that's paying attention to that will know that most people, if they're playing Blackjack and have that kind of money,

aren't betting $25 sometimes, and a grand other times, they might vary their bets a bit, a bit, but never that much. So that can be a huge red flag or we can get caught that way. So with team play what we do, he's will have different spotters, so card counters that are sat at different tables just betting the table minimum. They'll be keeping the count. And when the count gets high, they'll do a secret signal to get the attention of the big player who is also a card counter.

And his or her job is just a bet really big. So let's say I've signaled them in. I won't be as, you know, it'll be less, it'll be more subtle than just waving, but I'll just come over here. They'll come over. I will either tell them what the count is, via a code word, or I'll just use more signals

to tell them what to do, how much the bet and how to play the hands. And they'll just come over to the table, midway through the shoe, and start betting big. But they'll leave when the count drops because I'll tell them to go. So it's really cool because everybody's consistent all of the spotters are playing the minimum, close to the minimum. And the big player is only ever betting a grander hand roughly whatever it's going to be, which makes it more difficult for surveillance to catch the actual big player and the team. Saying that nowadays, because of Moves Up 21 and that system becoming more popular, who knows if it really gets you more time, but it's definitely more fun.

Yes, so what you're trying to avoid is any one player changing the amount that they bet. So the variant that they bet shouldn't be much more. Okay. So going back to the solo team play or solo play generally, how do you increase your bet when the deck is hot? Yes, you will. When you're on your own. We just do it.

You just have to do it and sort of hope. It's kind of a weird thing because surveillance aren't only looking for card counters. They've got a heck of a lot to do. They're checking to make sure that dealers don't make payout mistakes, which a high-limit room could cost a casino lot of money. They're checking to make sure that people aren't trying to steal, that that drunk guy that's walking around isn't about to punch someone or grab some chips from the tray.

So, they've got a really hard job and they're actually some of the most under-appreci- no definitely the most under-appreciated casino staff that exists. Like they get a really raw deal in general as a whole other chat. So, the main thing is that surveillance have got other things to do. So, they're not always watching me play Blackjack. So, they'd have to see me watch me, see me change my bet. And only then, if I do that a few times, maybe they'd start to run a patent, maybe they'd decide they'd have to run my game down. But in general, the way that I play, and this isn't how all car count is playing, but the way that I play is pretty aggressively.

So I'll try and bet as little as I can when the count is low, and as much as I can when the count is high, because that maximizes the amount of money that I have the potential to win per hour. And it's those little, the bets that you're betting when you don't have the advantage that cost you quite a lot over time. So we just go for it. And now I've spoken to quite a few events people just because they've reached out to me which has been really useful. And I think that in general, a relatively aggressive approach doesn't really lose you much more time than

playing really conservatively and trying to do all this, what we call cover play, where you might make a little mistake with your play so that you don't look like you know what you're doing. These things, I don't know if they help more than they harm in terms of your actual hourly, you know, expected value, the money that you are. When you're doing the big player team stuff, each different person must have, not necessarily a cover story, but they're projecting a particular type of person

when you go in there. So what sort of a person are you and then what's your ideal big player persona? Yeah, our big player is an absolute legend, but I'll get to him in a second yet. So for me, when I'm a spotter, actually, I'm more concerned with just not drawing any attention to myself, especially given that having the YouTube channel makes me, I can get recognising casinos.

So I try and just keep a relatively low profile when I'm spotting, because I don't want to be the weak link that gets the team busted. But in general, when I'm a spotter, I'll just sit there quietly and bet the minimum, and try not to really draw any attention to myself, which is very different to how I'll play when I'm not a spotter. When I'm doing solo play, like we were just playing in Vegas,

and I was playing various different characters with different elaborate disguises, and I would really lean into being an extrovert or being super obnoxious. We've done all sorts of weird stuff. We did a stag too. So what's the American Dutch party? Bachelor party. Where we were all wearing T-shirts the same and acting drunken, just going around and being incredibly loud. And signaling over the BP in those

cases was literally, hey, come here. I was a totally different strategy. So sometimes it's a case of standing out to blend in, but our big player, we've played with a couple different big players and they all have a different style. There's not really a right way, but I think one of the elements is just them looking comfortable with that amount of money. If someone's near as a big player or new to card counting, then just betting $1,000 a hand or a couple K hand can be really daunting. But our big player that we

most commonly use is called Irish AP, and that's what he goes by. And he just plays this very loud obnoxious, extravert, but kind of aggressive, angry gambler. So whenever he's losing, he's kicking off such a fuss and just being like, just cursing constantly and just complaining about the cards he's been dealt, not really taking it out at people, but taking it out at cards. So he just plays this role where he's so annoyed that people are a little bit scared of him,

which I think in a way you can buy us more time because they're not looking at him through the lens of a card count that's trying to blend in. They're looking at him like, oh, this angry gambler that we kind of want to stay away from. Right, obvious question, what's the legality of all this? They're looking at it in Mike, oh, this angry gambler that we kind of want to stay away from. Right. Obvious question.

What's the legality of all this? Yeah, it's totally legal. In general, I mean, we could get into real specifics. Team play technically could be deemed maybe illegal in certain states, and certain states, perhaps. But there's a lot of asterixers on that, just because I don't want to speak too definitely, but in general, card counting is fine, because you're just using the same But there's a lot of asterixers on that. Just because I don't want to speak too definitely. But in general, card counting is fine.

Because you're just using the same information that anybody else has. The way that I describe it is, can you imagine that you're playing high-level chess and you're like one of the best chess players in the world? And the tournament manager comes over, taps you on the shoulder and goes, excuse me, we actually have seen, well, we can tell that you're thinking four moves ahead. And in this tournament, three moves ahead is the max. It's just deemed not fair. It would just be ludicrous.

All we're doing is using our brains the same way that anyone else could. We're not cheating. We're not cheating. It doesn't legally classifies cheating. And therefore, it's legal everywhere, as far as I'm aware. The only sort of, not exactly exceptions, but the certain countries like the UK is actually weird to count cards in because you don't really have a lot of legal recourse if you get kicked out.

They can potentially just withhold the money and there's been stories from other advantage players like Phil Ivy did this whole thing with it wasn't blackjack that he was playing but he did this advantage play it went to court he didn't get paid out. I remember that correctly. So there's some weird stuff where there was a person in, I can't remember if it was Ireland or Northern Ireland that played roulette and then didn't get paid out. They weren't even, they weren't cheating or doing advantage play.

They just were playing roulette, one of load of money. And then it was deemed that they were a, oh, it's a private business so they can do what they want. So there's certain places where you might have more difficulties than others, but legally speaking, it's not cheating and it's perfectly legal. Right. So, to me, kind of, Jade, not as if I thought casinos were bastions of ethical, high-folluting

true isness, but what I did think was if somebody does manage to beat the house that they've done it fairly, and if it's not legal, the casino should take it on the chin, given that they're fleecing every other non-advantaged player in there. Yeah, it's absolutely wild because really, we don't even dent their bottom line. And most of the time they know that, I think they just have a vendetta against card counters, because we actually don't, the way that we get treated sometimes, you know, I've had police called on me, multiple security guards, just intimidation tactics, all them refusing to cash you out unless you show ID, which is not a legal requirement, all these kind of weird

things that they'll do for what essentially won't, didn't the average casino's bottom line. It's so rare that we'd make any kind of impact, especially like these big Casinos in Vegas. It's so funny the lengths that they'll go to to stop you counting when it just, sometimes they will ruin a Blackjack game to make sure it's not countable. And it's just why you're doing it.

Why would they ruin it? Well, the certain things that they can do, for example, if you've played a regular shoe game of Blackanchex, where you've got maybe six decks of cards shuffled together, they'll have a cut card that goes towards the end. So when you hit that cut card, they know, oh yeah, we've got a shuffle now. But if you move that cut card further forward, that means that you might only play, say, three of the decks before a shuffle, or two of the decks if you're going to be absolutely wild. But the further forward that gets, the fewer cards or less cards that you're

going to play before a shuffle. Now, the less cards you're going to play, that's bad for a card counter because our information gets more useful, more accurate towards the end. So they'll sometimes put the cut card more forward so that it stops card counts. But the cost of that is actually, they're losing a lot of time in rounds per hour

that other non-carcounters would be playing. And people have crunched the numbers and even just moving it a couple of cards forward costs like the average casino a ridiculous amount of money per year. So they do all sorts of things. I just describe it as they drop a nuclear bomb on a house to blow out a candle. Yeah, they'll stop carcasses, but they will cause themselves so much damage in the process. So do you see the process of this largely just being a race against the clock to be discovered, to be rumbled? What would you say is the percentage time that you actually manage to get in,

do the thing and get out, having not been recognized or noticed, and how many times do you get in there and get kicked out? I think most of the time it ends with being kicked out. Well, that's kind of the goal in a way, not that we want to be kicked out, but there's a phrasing card counting called,

don't back yourself off from a casino, back off being just a term for being asked not to play Blackjack. And if I leave a casino, because I think they might kick me out soon, then what's that achieved? I've left, I might as well have stayed and played another hour

before they'd actually kicked me out. So I normally will play until the back off. On the trip I just did, you know, in Vegas, I was trying short sessions and going from Casino to Casino, trying to leave before a back off. But then as soon as I compared my hours played with another teammate who was just playing until back off. He got way more time. And sometimes we'll feel what we call heat, which is just suspicion. We can tell when they're on to us. We'll feel that. And then we think, oh, maybe we should leave.

But if we actually just keep playing, it might take them an hour or another two hours to actually get the go ahead to back off a car counter. So in general, the approach that me and my team make usually is just to keep playing until we get back off. So in which case, the vast majority of the time will get it back off. But it depends on the casino. Sometimes I could last. The shortest was about 12 minutes and this is pre-YouTube videos, but someone just thought, he looks like a car counter, called surveillance and then

surveillance were watching me from the very first hand of played and very quickly figured out that I was counting. But then I've had nine hours in the casino in a shift and gone back the next day. And sometimes just weeks at one casino before they actually caught me. So it really varies, but we play aggressively until the back off usually. How do you choose the particular casino that you're going to go and take on? Because if it was a Hollywood movie, it would be because of a vendetta that the guy's current ex-wife is now dating the owner of that particular casino. I guess it's probably more strategic than that. Yeah, a little bit. Although there is a small element of revenge sometimes in that. I think a lot of casino staff think that if they give the card counter a really hard time and back them off and

make it really hard for them to get their money at the cage and send their photo everywhere and just be really aggressive. But the car counter will go, that was horrible. I'll tell all my car counter friends how bad this casino was and we'll all avoid it. But the exact opposite will happen. The car counter will tell other people, I had this really hard time at this casino. And then the car counter they're telling will be like, all right, where is it? I want to, because there's a sense of that's not right. So might as well prioritize that casino.

But in general, we'll play any casino that offers a good Blackjack game. Not all Blackjack is created equally. There's different subtle rule changes that can affect how much we'd win. There's certain elements of the game which might affect how risky it is or how long we'd have to play to guarantee that we're going to be up. But in general, if there's a casino with a good Blackjack game, we'll play it. Okay. Vegas is Vegas a genuine hotspot. You've mentioned it before, but surely they've got to be shit hot when it comes to security.

They've probably got the best surveillance department in the world, but also they're the most used to car cameras. So the back-offs tend to be quite chill, I say, as I'm thinking of lawsuits that are going on against Vegas casinos. But in general, they tend to be pretty chill, but they are very, very fast. So we play Vegas mainly because we really like it, and it's so casino dense. There's all these casinos that you just have this, what feels like unlimited options, and because it's so fast moving, it feels like even when the shift changes, it's like a whole new casino.

So there is a lot of opportunity in Vegas. A lot of carcass hate Vegas and they think it's really bad. And it might be compared to other places, but also Vegas has a certain kind of weird charm to it that just makes it a fun place to play. Macau, is that too dangerous to go over and get taken by the CCP? Yeah, I've not, it was on my list of places to try, but I think I spoke to a carcass friend and he said that they don't have any shoe games. I don't know if that's true, but nowadays it's becoming more and more common that there'll be this machine

that is constantly shuffling the cards. You play out a handle to pick up the cards, put them back in the machine and it constantly shuffles. And those you can't count because, I mean, there's nothing to count when they're constantly shuffling. And I've heard that Macao is just as that, which is a shame because I'd be well up for it.

There's a couple places on my list that countries that I probably won't name, but I want to go try. But yeah, I don't have Macao's playable. Is it fun or stressful? Like, talk to me about the felt sense of either being part of a team and being a spotter or doing solo play. Like, what's the actual felt sense of it? Is it aggrined? Yeah, it's a combination of things. It can be aggrined for sure,

especially on those seven hour blackjack sessions. I know I keep referencing the last trip, it's just because I just got back, but it was one time when I was just so tired and wanted a break, but I hadn't been backed off, so I just kept going. And I was sort of begging the casino internally to back me off, so I could go take a break.

But you just don't want to give up this opportunity, because who knows if the stars are going to align, there might have been a surveillance person that's written you off, not from something you did and they think, ah, he's not a cow counter, so you don't want to give that up. And that can be a real ground, playing the same card game. Because also, the thing is, is you're not making decisions in the same way that the average player is, you know the average player playing blackjack will get their 16 versus a 10 and they might think oh should I hit this time or should I not hit and they get to sort of play the game but all we're really doing is we've internalized like a decision tree that we've memorized

and that that change is depending on the count but we've just got a preset memorized formula and we're just pressing go on that formula so we're not really making any decisions, it's very much like an automatic process. So that can be a bit tedious. In general though, it's more of a thrill than it is anything else. You are still getting the same, I guess, dopamine hit from gambling, except you know that you have an advantage, which is a very satisfying thing. And the whole thing, it does feel like a massive adventure, but it's like such a weird combination of motions. It's super stressful.

It can be really stressful, especially some of the times when we've been backed off and they'll not pay out our money or being incredibly aggressive, but the overall experience is incredibly rewarding. And as soon as I come back to the UK, I'm sort of thankful that I get a bit of a break, but then I'm sort of itching to play again because of that combination of things.

Yeah, what is some of the worst back-offs that you've had in your career? I'm sort of thankful that I get a bit of a break, but then I'm sort of itching to play again because of that combination of things. Yeah, what, what are some of the worst back-offs that you've had in your career? Yeah, the worst one I had was I think, there's been a couple of contenders recently, but I think Chile, look Casino in Washington state. People have asked me, why aren't you calling these places out? So there you go, there's the exact name. Chile, look Casino Washington state give me the worst, I think? I was playing there, and in essence, I'd been backed off from their sister property. Well, they sort of forcibly IDed me and I'd left

and they chased me out of the casino. So I was playing at Tulayla, and it just hit this point where a guy came over to me, tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned around, and I knew it was a back off, and I did the thing that you probably shouldn't do, I acknowledged that the guy was backing me off. I just said, okay, I get it, no more blackjack because I was trying to alleviate any hostility before it even happened. But he said, no, no, no, I just want to see your ID. I said, well, I don't

really, I'm happy just to go. I'm good. I just want to cash out and leave. It's important for me to know here that a lot of people think that when you're in a casino, you need to show ID or you need to have an ID. Now, yeah, if you're going up to the table and you sit down and they ask you for an ID and you don't show it, they have the right to not let you play or they could ID with the door and turn you away if you don't have an ID. But if you've played Blackjack, have your chips, you then have the legal right to cash them out, and you don't need to show an ID, a couple of asterisks, if it's over 10 grand, changes things, but you don't need to show ID. However, casinos will often try and force you to show ID so that they can get your name

upload it to their little system, write their little report, maybe send it to other casinos, and there's a carcass, and you really don't want to give your ID for the most part. And presumably using fake ID would then be a federal crime. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I'm not sure if there's maybe some weird loop holes in that, but it's not something that me or anyone on my team

has ever experimented with. But yeah, there's a good phrase I think it's from Molly's game, if you've seen that movie. But I think it's the phrases, don't break the law when you're breaking the law, which is something I always think about when carcassing, what we're doing is not illegal, just. It feels like a crime, but it's not quite a crime. So don't mix in a crime like fake ID. Okay, so this guy.

Right, yeah, so he comes over and he's just immediate. He's got this, such this sort of, I don't even know how to describe it, but this, this kind of macho alpha energy where he's decided that he's getting my idea and he's immediately demanding it and I'm declining it and then he just escalates and he goes, I'm not going to play games with it. You either show me ID or you get out and I'm like, well, I just want to leave, grab your chips, get out, you can't even cash them out, which is the first time I've been in that situation where the casino was denying me a cash out. And I'd been advised by card counterfriends that if I just stand my ground, eventually they will cash me out.

So that's what I decided to do. And I just wouldn't leave this casino until they cash me out. And they immediately brought over extra security, a gaming commission person, who, once again, the gaming commissioner should be impartial, but when it's a, I mean there's a whole host of other politics regarding that stuff, often the gaming commission isn't impartial, they're a bit biased towards the casino. So there's the gaming commissioner, multiple security people, other casino staff, and there's whole big argument breaks out. Well, I'm just basically shouting that I just want my chips.

All of this is I got on hidden camera, and they just won't do it. They say that they're going to call the police, they call the police, and then they all start to kind of leave me alone. At this point, they start to just sort of leave, maybe accept one guy, and I'm a bit concerned because this casino is in sort of tribal land, so it's on an Indian reservation. So the law regarding Indian reservations is a little bit different regarding the rest of tribal land. So it's on an Indian reservation. So the law regarding Indian reservations is a little bit different regarding the rest of US law. They have like tribal sovereignty. So they can have their own laws that are a bit independent.

So in a they can have tribal court. And obviously the casino is bringing in all the revenue. So in a way, the casino is funding these things, maybe not directly. And the whole thing is just a little bit a little bit different to what I'm used to. And that goes for the police force too. I thought the police were essentially paid for by the casino. And whether or not that's true or not, that's kind of how I was reading

the situation at the time. So I was a bit worried that the police would immediately sign with the casino, and I might be in a very bad situation. So I started slowly walking towards the door, not wanting to leave, but at least if the police came in, then I could say, I was just leaving if they came with really aggressive energy. And as I'm getting to the door, the police arrive, and they immediately tell me to sit down, ask me what's going on. And they asked my ID, I gave it over, I wasn't really familiar with the laws regarding when a police officer can have your ID, but I thought they're suspecting me of a crime, which they weren't. So that was a weird thing.

But I gave it over the ID. We had this whole thing and they, in the end, just escorted me to the cash desk and got me, got my chips cashed out. And they may have given over my ID or not. They said they wouldn't, but you never know. But I was actually really relieved that the police started with me. I've had other situations where the police have just taken an immediate no we don't want you here we don't want to help you Side and also gaming commissioners that were totally useless

So but that was a kind of a scary situation because of just how aggressive the tone was and how many people there were and how early It was in my card counting journey and the fact police were cool. So that was pretty bad one But there's been so many that quite similar Yeah, that especially if you're tired and stressed and have been playing for a long time, keeping your cool as you're being pushed away from a game that you know is taking every other person sat in this casino's money

and the fact that you have managed to spend enough time to be able to learn a process that gives you a, what's the edge? What is it? Oh, it's like one or two percent. It's like tiny. It's the brand. It's really, really small.

Funny you should say that though, because there's been two instances that really banked this up one time also in Washington. It was a guy that was at my table. So drunk, he couldn't stack the chips up properly. And he was just playing and just pushing the chips in a pile. No idea what he was doing, losing hand after hand after hand.

He was tipping the dealer every hand, like 25 bucks. And I just made eye contact with the dealer and just sort of said, is he okay? And the dealer totally just fubbed it off. He's fine. And then 20 minutes later, I get backed off. And I just thought, you're letting this person play that's clearly not in, of sound mind to play,

because it benefits the casino, whereas here I am being kicked out for playing the game, honestly. And another thing that happened when I was in Vegas that isn't in a video yet, but I found out that there was a player at my table and she was, I think, a 77 year old woman. She'd been playing for over 24 hours

and she hadn't eaten or slept. And I sort of spoke to a couple of members of staff about this. I mentioned it to a dealer. I was like, hey, she's been playing for a, you know, this long, do you think, you know, like, is there something? And the dealer laughed it off. I then spoke to a pit boss, same kind of thing. At this point, I knew that they were running my game down. I knew that I was, my time was limited. So making a

bit of a spectacle wasn't really going to cost anything. And each person I spoke to, in essence, was just totally fine with this woman continuing to play. And it's just one of those things where I get that everybody makes their own decisions and has a right to do what they want. And I guess, and I get that there's higher ups in the casino that are setting these policies about how they handle people that have gambling problems.

But I also was just left thinking, isn't there like anybody that's just sort of going to go, hey, maybe take a 10 minute break, maybe go have a sandwich and just see, just not like, what point is it just a human decency thing? If you are going to casinos in the hopes of finding some ethical decency, I fear that you may be looking in the wrong place. I know, but still casinos are made up of individual people, right? When I look at them as institutions, I'm like, yeah, they're horrible.

But they're still like perfectly nice members of staff that I've met in casinos. Yeah, this kind of thing happens. I mean, recently there was a, I was just being told by someone that works in casino industry that a casino in Vegas is being sued or being sued, because somebody died at the blackjack table

and the dealer kept dealing the cards. They had a heart attack, and they only realized when the dealer switched, and it was a new dealer, and this dealer was like, are you okay? Oh my God, dude. It's wise. I was watching a story, it might have been a sunny V2 video about this Chinese millionaire, multi-millionaire

who lost in the space of 18 months, two years in Vegas, was flying back and forth and lost nearly 200 million at the same casino. And yeah, it was just propped up on a cocktail of all sorts of stuff for the entirety of the time it was, I think, it was playing Blackjack 2. Yeah, it was just propped up on a cocktail of all sorts of stuff for the entirety of the time. It was, I think, it was playing Blackjack too. Yeah, it's wild. Like, surely the whole... Because I've seen what Blackjack can be when it's fun and when people are having a good

time. There are rare occasions where the whole table is losing money, as it's going to be the case, but everyone's still having a good time. And I'm like, oh, yeah, it can exist in this space, which isn't like completely depressing, but so much of the time, there's no, there's just, it just seems like there's no actual care of the people playing, which really like, how do you deal with these sessions where you end up being lots of money down and how much can that get? And how much can that get across a team as well in a day.

Yeah, we can lose 10 and 10 and 10 and 10 to 1000. I think the biggest loss that we have on record for our team in one session. I think that was probably like three or four hours was one of my teammates called syntax. He played and lost 42k which is. I mean, he posts we have like a little results group chat and he posts in the group chat. This is a result And we all just immediately feel it Because it's it's so much money no matter what the context is outside of that no matter what you're up at one point or anything It's still 42 grand your brain automatically thinks how many years rentersters that? Well, how it's just, it's crazy. So the times that are the worst are when you're losing,

not necessarily a huge amount, but it's repeatedly session after session after session. And you're on what seems like a never ending losing streak. The first time we played in Vegas in 2020, we won, I think it was something like 97K in two or three days, which is the best thing ever. And then in the next couple of days, we proceeded to lose 110 from that point.

I just, the way down, Chris, it's not fun. Because each time you're thinking, someone's gonna have a win. And then, but maybe there's a couple of case in my wins, but then someone else loses 10, and you're just like, it has to stop. And I remember I had a session where I lost 30K on that downswing and I just went into the, into the restroom and just sort of had to splash water

on my face and just try and compose myself. And then I went out and there was a bunch of security guys waiting for me which was lovely. Oh fantastic. You're just what you need. It can be really tough and I think it, it sort of takes more than it gives in a way. I think you have to have that it's a certain kind of person to be a car counter. Just for like, I don't mean who's capable of it. I think a lot of people could learn it, but the actual lifestyle and having to go through those losses

and having to lose that money and not change what you're doing, you can't chase your losses. You just have to keep playing like a machine. There's times I really want to leave because I'm down a lot of money and I just want to break, but the count's still high. So you've just got to keep going and you're buying in, you're losing, you're buying in, you're losing, the dealer keeps getting black jacks and you're just like, this is, what

are the odds of this? But you still have to just keep going and those are some of the hardest times. That's the reason why playtime is so important then, because you need to be able to accumulate. Knowing that given a long enough amount of time, you're gonna be one or two percent up, which means across infinite time, you would win. And therefore, if you have two short of a bunch of sessions, just straight up variance allows to chip into you

and chip into you and chip into you. And despite playing the right way, even on hot tables, you can still lose or it can just, the count can just never get to where you need it to be. And you will continue to walk away, which means that's why it needs to increase. You need to have that longer time. Yeah. For sure. Yeah, it's all about getting those hours in. Quality games can also affect the amount of hours you need, but in general, yeah, it's just all about getting those hours in. because in the short term, you are just flipping coins and typing for the best.

All right, so what about good games? What have been some of the best ones that you've been a part of? Oh, if I mentioned them, they might make them worse. Yeah, I'd be actually really cautious about saying this place has got the best Black Chat game because I genuinely know, like what days, what days of you or what sessions have you done. Oh right. Oh right, which of the days where it's just like we can't lose. Yes.

I think some of the team sessions which have ended in what we've been doing team play and they've just been, you know, anything, honestly anything above like 30, win feels like fantastic, no matter what stakes we're playing at. So, yeah, 30k, 40k, wins are always really satisfying. Yeah, there's just been sessions. I think I had a 19k session in one of my, more recent trips, which maybe doesn't sound like a lot in the scheme of what we've lost at times, but there's something just so satisfying about even just winning 10 grand, 20 grand, and knowing that you're going to post that in the chat, and everyone's going to see that, that's incredibly satisfying. So yeah, we more look at it in trips as opposed to days, but we've had some very, very successful trips that have just been really, really big wins in the six-figure range,

and that that for being a couple weeks' work is pretty good, even if you're else putting it between a lot of people. Yeah. How... You've mentioned $10,000, anything above that, is difficult to get cashed out without giving your ID in. So do you purposefully know when you're at about 10 grand and then stop? Yeah, that is a strategy. So just to... I'll have to make this super clear in case it sounds like I'm promoting a legal conduct. If you have bought in or have got essentially 10Ks worth of chips generally, then there's a currency transaction report that the casino has to fill in.

And if you are caching out 5K at one cage and then going to a different cage and caching out 5K, you could dodge that report because they might not realize you have the 10K, that is actually a crime called structuring. So if we hit that 10K mark for whatever reason, then we have a hard rule where you just go and cash it out and you give out the ID.

Now maybe you don't necessarily need to cash it out there and then depending on the circumstances, but in general, you're still gonna have to show the ID. So yeah, if you're playing a session, provided you're not midway through a shoe, because you never want to leave when the count is high. That would be very, very bad, because you're throwing away money. But yeah, if you're up 9K in a session,

and it's the end of the shoe, and you realize, oh, if I win 1K more, I'm going to have to hand over my ID. It's probably not going to be worth giving over the ID, so then we'll just leave. But we'll never actually physically dodge those checks if we legally have to do them. All right, and how the fuck do you get six figures back into the UK?

Yeah, this is weirdly a question that no one really asks, which is like, no one really asks about the actual cash management, but yeah, we have like so much cash, we have to move around. Airport security is always a nod. And it's in cash, right? It's in, oh yeah, it's in cash. It's in cash, yeah.

It's in cash, yeah. It's in cash, yeah. It's in cash, yeah. It's in, oh yeah, it's in cash. Where is this $150,000 come from? It literally is that. So we just, we each have just money belts filled with money and we have to just go through. So I mean, when you go to the airport, if you're transferring more than 10 grand in US currency, you have to sort of declare it. So we just go through those checks and we fill out a form. You've got to fill out a form again, maybe when you get to the airport. Even the airport staff don't often know what you have to do. We have to really insist, we have to speak to a board of patrol officer before we go through airport security or we're in a real bad spot.

I go, okay, well, I guess if you go downstairs and knock on the door, so there's weird things like that. But yeah, we just take it. And sometimes it's just these awkward conversations that we have to have. Do you tell them where it's come from? Well, yeah, I mean, the origin is honestly gambling. It's just, it doesn't sound very probable.

And it sounds like the perfect. It's like the kind of thing you would do if you were trying to launder money or move money in there. I mean, so it's like, the of thing you would do if you were trying to laundromoney or move on in your own. So it's like the honest answer is not super reassuring. So sometimes I go through my phone and I'll be like, look, here's all these photos of us in the casinos and it's, here's me being chased out by airport by the casino security. Exactly. Yeah, but there's nothing illegal about taking cash around. The thing that we're really worried about or I'm concerned about is a law in the US

called civil forfeiture. Have you ever come across these YouTube videos, Chris, or other speedy? No, I'm not sure. It's absolutely insane. So someone will get pulled over by a cop for whatever reason. And then the cop might go, oh, do you have any firearms or currency in the car? And the person might go, well, actually, yeah, I've got some, I happened to have my life savings. This one guy doesn't trust banks. He had like, I can't remember how much it was,

but I think it was in maybe the low six figures. So we had a significant amount of money, and then the police officer has the legal right to just seize that money if they're not convinced of where it's come from and that it's legally held. They can just take it and have it. And as far as I'm aware, it can be really difficult to get that money back.

That money can be used within the police force or something weird, but just one of these laws that seems so backwards where they can just take the money from you. And that's it. You'll get a little receipt, but getting it back is a whole other thing. So I've often worried about,

oh, what if I get pulled over? Because you don't want to lie to a cop either. You don't want to say, oh, I have no courage. I know, I know, I know. Right, you're in a different set of problems then. But yeah, that's the thing I worry about the most is just being, it's honestly just police in the US regarding the cash. Of course, being mugged and stuff is still a concern.

In fact, just on the, I was playing in the, we were playing in the Bahamas recently. I was in the Bahamas. We, I went to the Bahamas. So I went to the Bahamas for two days and before I went, I was at a wedding in Norfolk, Virginia, and this is when we'd confirmed this episode and I'm watching some of your vlogs and stuff.

And I'm like, talking to this guy and this guy was a part of the Navy, this wedding. Right. He was saying, dude, the Navy, this wedding, right. He was saying, dude, do you gamble? No, no. I know a guy that does actually, well, I'm about to speak to a guy that does. And he says, dude, the SLS and Paradise Island,

the two casinos that you've got in the Bahamas, you say, they're dealers, they haven't got a clue. The airport, the casinos security, aren't that tight and blah, blah, blah. So I remember thinking at the time, I might be able to tell Stevenson who doesn't know about here, but it seems like you beat me to the punch. Yeah, that's really funny. I mean, I wonder if we were there at the same time. But yeah, I was over there and we just had a situation where

we, this is like a weird tangent story, but we were playing at this casino and it was just me and Irish that were at the casino, and we ended up leaving the casino together. Normally, we wouldn't be seen with each other, but we both got so lost in the casino, and didn't have like cell service, that we ended up just in the end walking out and hoping that the camera hadn't seen us.

So we left this casino, finally, find a bit of road. We really, we've got so lost in this massive building and the taxi pulled up and we We got into the taxi and the taxi started driving and then the I was a little bit concerned that it wasn't a real taxi But I wasn't sure and there'd been another taxi driver that told me that the taxis in Bahamas are chill So I wasn't like super worried But then the taxi driver that started offering us like prostitutes and drugs And I was like, ah, maybe this guy isn't a legit taxi driver. So we're driving and he said, oh, you're gonna need to give us directions

Because I don't have a satnav or a GPS. They have a weird flag for taxi driver, but okay, and we've got between us I don't know how much it was, but 50, 60, K, something like a lot of money. And then the taxi guy says, by the way, I'm just going to need to stop off at the strip club to pick up some food that I've ordered, like this is for in the morning or whatever. And it just sounded like the most sketchy thing. We're about to be mugged. Covered. That's going to how I felt, right?

And I saw, we were like, no, no, no, no, we'd rather you just take us home. He goes, it's on the way. This guy doesn't even know, he doesn't know the address. So it's on the way. And he says, no, no, no, no, I have to do, I've already picked it up. And I messaged Irish saying,

are you a bit worried that we're about to get mugged? Yeah, long story short, as we actually go through these quite unsafe area of the Bahamas. And Bahamas is like super chill, but there's obviously going to be crime areas in every place that you go. And then he pulls up outside of this building, which didn't look like a strict club, and there's some like heavies outside the building, and he gets out, and he goes inside, which maybe feel bit better because he left us alone. But I'd like been shoving my cash down like my trousers

to sort of just hide it, because I was like, being mugged is one thing, but being mugged and robbed of like 50, 60K is another. And then a guy, one of the heavy said, don't worry, I'm a cop. And this guy was stoned. I was mined and flashed this badge. And he goes, I've known this guy for years. Well, if you've known the guy that's, you know, proposition, like, trying to sell prostitutes and drugs, I don't know if I felt like this is a great character reference. But the whole thing in the end was just like a false alarm and the guy got back in with his takeout. And drove the strip club.

From the strip club, which, okay, and drove a story of the NB, but it was just like the first half of that story was the story where you get mugged and then we luckily didn't have the second half. But it's moments like that where you get yourself in these situations where you're in some street you don't know and you've got a lot of cash on you

and then you don't really know what to do. There's been times in the US where I've looked up afterwards where I've been and gone, oh, this is an incredibly high area place that I was staying. Should not have been there. Yeah, on the map, this is the red part for crime. And yeah, one of the most exciting things. I've already done my pants. Yeah, we left the

location of the car once in West Philadelphia. And that was done. But we just left the backpack in the car we forgot about with cash. And I just thought the next day that it was going to be gone, but it was it was there as was a ticket on the car. But I'll take that any day. You can use the cash in the backpack to pay the ticket that's on the car. Exactly right. Yeah, unfortunately, that wasn't a team experience, I had to pay that but never much. Shame. So you must be having to do more elaborate disguises and covers given the fact that you've got a YouTube channel with half a million people on it and it's not going to be any easier after you've done this episode with me either. So I guess your, the detailing of your experiences and the difficulty

of your experiences are inversely correlated to each other. Yes, it's weird. It's like I'm my own worst enemy because as my YouTube channel goes up, then my carcading gets harder. So it's like, when I started the series, I obviously knew that this could happen. But the way I looked at it was, well, either the series kind of simmers and it doesn't really do any harm, in which case, I'm card counting and it's fine, or it does really well, in which case it's like a luxury problem, which is sort of where I'm at right now. But yeah, I've had to go all in on disguises. So for the previous trip I just did, which isn't on YouTube yet, I, we designed these

different looks, you know, using beard dye and changing my beard and getting goateatee and fake tattoos that were like the ones that they use in movies so they look quite real. And I even went to a place called FANGS FX which make sort of fake teeth and change how you'll draw sits for actors in movies. And I didn't get fake teeth in the end but I got like these jaw fillers that just would push out the side of my face and upper bit of my face that changed sort of how my face that changed how my face looked. So we were just doing everything that I could pulling out all the starts. And it really worked as well. I mean, I got backed off and I got caught eventually people find out who I was.

Not because you're seeing bridges, though. Yeah, exactly. It only takes one person into their own to be like, wait a second. I'm a guy. And then that's it. But it, it absolutely brought me so much more time. And yeah, it, it got me way more time. So it was really, really helpful because I was keeping track of different looks in different casino chains. So I'd know, okay, this casino chain, I'm still clean with this look. So I'll just hammer this casino chain until I get back to off. You

know, when I was mentioning before how I had to set up a seven hour session or whatever and I just was praying they'd back me off. It's because I wanted to stop spraying my goatee with dye every day when I got up and have into like makeup, white, all the such a nut getting dye in my mouth. I was just like, please let me change this to skies, but I was keeping track of the, luckily I've got surveillance people that will send me information which is super handy. I was going to say, so you've got surveillance people that will send me information, which is super handy. I was going to say, so you've got this network of fans who work actually in the casino world. You also probably have even larger network of enemies that work in the casino world.

But there's like a FBI most wanted, do not admit under any circumstances, known advantage player list. So there's some places that you're never going to be able to go back to now. Like, are there some, are there some chains that are just completely boxed off for you? Yeah, not necessarily some chains, because in a way, it's not like every person that works in all these casinos knows who I am by look, right? But all of the casinos chains will know who I am and there'll be a description of the photo of me in their database. And there will be a case of if you see this guy, back him off, I don't let him play. However, if I go to a new region in the US that I haven't been to for ever, then there's

no, it's not like they're looking through this list of like no advantage players for every single person. There's thousands of people that are unwanted players for whatever reason. So it has to be the first, someone has to actually spot me for the first time and then that that's what goes to the top of the list and then it can become a bit of a problem. But yeah, this, maybe some casinos were I've played before and because I've done a YouTube video, they'll be extra, maybe everyone in the casino would have seen it because, hey, we're in this video. And in which case, I probably would struggle

at going back to those, but I don't think there's a chain that I wouldn't be able to play at. Apart from the UK, there's no casino I could go in the UK. Unfortunately, in the UK, you've got to be a member to go in 99% of the casino, so I get stopped at the door. Of course, of course. Are there any other games? I mean, you know, it's so funny to think about you being a professional

gambler, but you're not. You're a professional blackjack player. Yeah. It's not. It's this. Honey. Yeah, a whole panoply of different games that you could play in this wizard of odds. Charlie chocolate factory way to lose money and you just play one. Like do you do the blackjack advantage players speak to the I don't know what it like the fucking backer at advantage players or the roulette advantage players. Uh, yeah, so there's sort of this larger community of advantage players and the other forms of advantage player kept pretty lock and key. And it I basically only do carcane. Part for a few reasons, but the main one being is that I wouldn't feel comfortable doing other kinds of advantage play on YouTube. Carcane is a thing that exists in basically every casino. You could go

on account cards, whereas other forms of advantage play tend to be very select blue poles that might get patched. So if I shine a light on something that's possible in one game in Louisiana, then that would get patched. It would exist anymore. So there's a certain kind of degree of stuff that I wouldn't really wanna tackle on YouTube. So I just sort of stay in this lane and go really hard on this lane.

But there is like a, yeah, I'm not gonna go as far as saying any game could be beaten, but there's lots of different ways that you can exploit various different games that people have figured out. Right. And has it ever been the case? Have you ever been in a casino and seen some other advantage player, either playing Black Chalk or playing some other game? Have like multiple teams crossed streams at some point. Yeah, I don't think I've ever really had a situation where two teams with big player spotters, I'd be absolutely nightmare at the same casino. That's never happened, but there's been loads of times where there's been other card counters.

Not that there's loads of card counters, but I sat down at a table before, started playing, and then when I raised my bet, somebody else was raising their bet, and I'm like, wait a second, and then you're watching how they play. And you're waiting for a hand like soft 18, you know, a seven, because those are the kind of hands that that non-card count is tend to play wrong. So you wait for a hand like that and then you see, oh, they played it correctly. This person's either really lucky with their timing of their bets or their card counter. So if that happens, the etiquette is whoever got their last will lead the table. But I've also had time.

And it's just a non-verbal signal that's unwritten into the rules of the degenerates of the black jacket. Of course. Otherwise, it's like synchronized swimming, right? It just becomes really obvious when I raise my bet to a ground at the same time. Somebody else raises their bet and then we both lower it at the same time and raise it. It just looks, it can look super obvious. So that can be an issue. But I've also had times, multiple times,

where I sat down at a table and someone just gone, Stephen, good to see you. And just continue to have that. That's cool. But even with that, like if they know that you're there to count cards, like they're just gonna follow what you do. Well, I don't know if you're a lot of time encounters. Right.

Okay. So I kind of be like, do you like to play alone? That's just weird, stifled conversation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But now it can be funny. I kind of encourage, you know, if it's a non-card counter, I'll be like, take insurance when I take insurance, which is a move where you, that if the dealer's got blackjack. I'll just give you that little tip or something or, if they ask me a question, I'd be like,

well, I wouldn't. But there's also been times with the dealer where, you know, if you're playing in the dealer's got blackjack, I'll just give him a little tip or something. But if they ask me a question, I'd be like, well, I wouldn't. But there's also been times with the dealer where, you know, if you're playing in the dealer, no, is your counting. And then, let's say you're gonna tip the dealer, you go, oh, do you want me to tip it to you or do you want me to play it? So you can do this thing

where you put the chip in front of your own bet, and then they're gambling with you, right? So there'll be a time when I'll tell you. Really? Yeah, it's just a common thing, right? That's done in, um, in scenarios, uh, not countless just everybody. So you'll be like, Oh, I might say, do you want it?

Or should I bet it for you? And they'll go, what do you think? And if they know, I can't go, I think you should definitely bet it. Dude, yeah, I mean, you must have had the amount of dealers that you've spent intimate time with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours, I mean, you must have had the amount of dealers that you've spent intimate time with, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours, you know, of time with these dealers. What's the experience, I guess, that you're trying to remain under the radar, so maybe you don't speak to them so much, but like, yeah, what's your insight about the life of a typical US Blackjack dealer person?

I mean, they vary as much as regular people. Very, I think my experience with all casino staff is a complete mix bag. There's been some people and dealers that I just think, oh, these people are so fun. I want to be friends with them in real life. And then there's other people that just are very nice people. So it's hard to sort of really give a, to sort of try and paint like a brush or kind of give an idea of the typical person

that works in a casino, because they vary so much. I mean, certain security people can be a bit power trippy at times, a lot of pitbusters can be quite power trippy, but some of them are really nice. So it's kind of hard to sort of give like the archetype of a dealer. I think, yeah, I mean, I've met a lot of dealers that are really nice, a lot of dealers that have known

I'm counting and they haven't dubbed me in, so those people are nice and they have, they could have just made things really difficult. But then I've also gone into Met Dealers, I've gone and pointed me out when I've walked in the door, after driving six hours to get to the casino. So yeah, it's a real mixture, but yeah, you can have some really nice, interesting chance. And actually, the deal is being talkative.

It's one of the things that keeps me going on these trips. If it's not a team trip where I'm with the team, you're away for whatever it is, two, three weeks. You don't know anybody, and you're just driving around, and your only human interaction that you get is when you order a coffee by some food or are playing at the batch at table. And there's an extra of that.

Being able to talk with the dealers is one of the things which actually kept me, keeps me like sane on these trips. So yeah, it's really nice when you get a dealer that's up for having a bit of a chat. Dude, yeah, I didn't think about that. I didn't think about how, you know, it sounds all romantic and fantastic and cool and sexy. But the reality of it is remembering plus one D1

is zero in your mind for eight hours, and then go to bed, and then getting up and doing it all over again for a couple of weeks. Yeah, I mean, it can be such a short. I mean, often trips where the amount of time spent driving has basically one-to-one ratio the amount of time playing. So for every hour of playing, hour of driving, because there's so much just got to go to this casino next casino. And you can, it's not an exaggeration to say, you can drive six hours to the nearest casino, because you've had to leave the town where that town with the five casinos of all called each other and told them what you look like.

So you burn out that town when you just got there, you drive six hours to get to the next place and you walk in and someone in my case recognizes me or maybe you just get a quick back off and it's just those times are just Just brutal because you get back in the car and you go all right, I gotta go drive another three or four hours to the next place now And it's way more way way more about logistics than it is necessarily about mathematics Yeah, for sure. Yeah, the actual math that you're doing isn't that complicated. It's just a bunch of relatively simple components that get quite tricky to do together. The math gets about as complicated as you have to look at the discard tray where the cards are, estimate how many cards are there to the nearest half deck, and then you divide your count by that number. That's about as

complicated as it gets, but even that you're rounding down, all whilst trying to keep the conversation going or not look like you're concentrating a lot. But yeah. Stephen Bridges, ladies and gentlemen, Stephen, I love your YouTube channel. Everyone should go and check that out. Where else should people go?

Where'd you want them to go on the internet to look at your stuff? Thank you so much. Yeah, I mean, I am mainly on YouTube, but I'm also on Instagram and X and threads kind of, I guess. So yeah, you can find me. It's just Stephen Bridges wherever those places are. Oh, yeah, Stephen, good luck with whatever you're doing next. Cheers, Chris. of that