There are a number of fantastic success stories you read about when you look at professional blackjack players. One of the most iconic is the story of Don Johnson. Winners and Losers: True Tales From the Blackjack Trenches By Tobaksa, Tommy Hyland, Taylor James, Dan Paymar, Pro21, Dustin D. Marks, One More Shoe, Bob Loeb, Abbot Avarissa, Bill Haywood, Anthony Curtis, JC, Cizef, Max Rubin, James Grosjean, John Brahms, Moe Cash (From Blackjack Forum XXI #3, Fall 2001) © Blackjack Forum 2001. Blackjack Success If you want a blackjack success story of your own the one thing that you need to do, day in and day out, is practice. Any game of strategy has the potential to work in your favour, but only if you know the game like the back of your hand and for that you simply have to practice relentlessly. It’s a bit funny that Ken Uston was known to say he doesn’t regularly use this system because of the difficulty. He admits there are far easier systems available, including his Uston APM and Uston SS that are quite effective, despite the simplicity. The statistical increased advantage of the APC is not big enough to justify the increased effort necessary to use this method.
A Card Counter's Story
By One More Shoe(From Blackjack Forum XXI #2, Summer 2001)
© Blackjack Forum 2001
Other than a very brief introduction to casino gambling during a Caribbean vacation over twenty years ago, I caught the blackjack bug during the summer of 1993, more than a year after the area’s first Indian casino opened its doors. Initially, my wife and I would make an occasional visit and play the slot machines, until one day an associate at the office described his inaugural day at the blackjack tables. I purchased my initial blackjack book that very day and I have been hooked on card counting ever since.
I learned basic strategy stone cold before I ever played my first hand of casino blackjack. We made our first sojourn to a casino to play blackjack during a 3-day mini-vacation to Atlantic City during the summer of 1994. Employing basic strategy and adhering to a strict loss-limit per session, I managed to escape the three days with a minimal loss of $76.50 at mostly $5 minimum tables. The blackjack juices were flowing. This was MY GAME!
Since then, I have purchased just about every blackjack and card counting book still in publication and I am always on the lookout for new ones. Additionally, I have some of the latest blackjack software on the market, including John Auston’s Blackjack Risk Manager and Karel Janecek’s Statistical Blackjack Analyzer.
I learned basic strategy stone cold before I ever played my first hand of casino blackjack. We made our first sojourn to a casino to play blackjack during a 3-day mini-vacation to Atlantic City during the summer of 1994. Employing basic strategy and adhering to a strict loss-limit per session, I managed to escape the three days with a minimal loss of $76.50 at mostly $5 minimum tables. The blackjack juices were flowing. This was MY GAME!
Since then, I have purchased just about every blackjack and card counting book still in publication and I am always on the lookout for new ones. Additionally, I have some of the latest blackjack software on the market, including John Auston’s Blackjack Risk Manager and Karel Janecek’s Statistical Blackjack Analyzer.
Finally, in order to create real life casino conditions, I purchased a felt blackjack layout, complete with a 6-deck shoe, discard tray, chip tray and chips. I glued the felt onto a hollow door, inserting a cutout for the chip tray. It now frequently resides on top of my dining room table where I often deal myself several shoes and to really practice casino conditions, my wife deals to me while we converse and I keep the count making the bets and plays.
Having played basic strategy for over a year, I realized that although it was much fun and provided wonderful entertainment, it was clearly a losing proposition. Not an admirer of relinquishing my hard earned cash to the casinos, I proceeded to learn the Hi-Lo count. I started with 18 index numbers and slowly added plays until I reached about 50 plays.
Not having a set bankroll with which to finance my blackjack play, I was relegated to attacking the tables with whatever cash I had assembled for any given visit (usually $100 or $200). Because I had no money behind me, I had to truncate many losing sessions that could easily have turned into winners. Therefore, this style of play, although far superior to basic strategy, was still nothing more in practical effect than break-even play.
Now it was time to move from the minor leagues into the big leagues. I wanted to make some money! Having just paid for my daughter’s college education and her wedding and my son attending a private university, I really couldn’t afford to put together a bank, yet I felt I desperately needed one.
Having played basic strategy for over a year, I realized that although it was much fun and provided wonderful entertainment, it was clearly a losing proposition. Not an admirer of relinquishing my hard earned cash to the casinos, I proceeded to learn the Hi-Lo count. I started with 18 index numbers and slowly added plays until I reached about 50 plays.
Not having a set bankroll with which to finance my blackjack play, I was relegated to attacking the tables with whatever cash I had assembled for any given visit (usually $100 or $200). Because I had no money behind me, I had to truncate many losing sessions that could easily have turned into winners. Therefore, this style of play, although far superior to basic strategy, was still nothing more in practical effect than break-even play.
Now it was time to move from the minor leagues into the big leagues. I wanted to make some money! Having just paid for my daughter’s college education and her wedding and my son attending a private university, I really couldn’t afford to put together a bank, yet I felt I desperately needed one.
So, one day with a Father’s Day gift of $100 and another $100 from our family budget, I started a bank (hour 25). I vowed to add all blackjack winnings to that bank and to supplement the bank with small cash infusions whenever I could, all without endangering the family budget in any way.
Clearly, there was a rather large chance of losing this money, in fact for the very first trip of about 200 hands of play, the risk of losing the entire $200 was 48% for the $5 game I was playing. There also was about a 52% chance of breaking even or better if I didn’t lose it all.
Clearly, there was a rather large chance of losing this money, in fact for the very first trip of about 200 hands of play, the risk of losing the entire $200 was 48% for the $5 game I was playing. There also was about a 52% chance of breaking even or better if I didn’t lose it all.
My plan was to hope to win and if not, visit the casino only when I had another $200 with which to try again. My reasoning was that sooner or later I would have a winning session to add to my bank such that the chance of losing the next session was less. For the same 200 hands played, doubling the trip bank from $200 to $400 reduced the chance of ruin from 48% to nearly 16%. For this reason it was of the utmost importance to increase the bank.
Fortunately, I ventured on an immediate winning streak (hours 25-40) that increased the bank enough to weather the first run of bad luck I encountered (hours 40-52). In fact, I won enough money such that I have withstood several streaks of poor luck and I am still going strong.
Also, in addition to winnings, I have supplemented the bank by continually adding any cash gifts for Christmas, birthdays, anniversaries or Father’s Day and about twice a year I would cash in any loose change saved in a large bottle. On occasions, to bring the bank to an “even” significant dollar amount, I would add a small amount of cash from the family budget.
Fortunately, I ventured on an immediate winning streak (hours 25-40) that increased the bank enough to weather the first run of bad luck I encountered (hours 40-52). In fact, I won enough money such that I have withstood several streaks of poor luck and I am still going strong.
Also, in addition to winnings, I have supplemented the bank by continually adding any cash gifts for Christmas, birthdays, anniversaries or Father’s Day and about twice a year I would cash in any loose change saved in a large bottle. On occasions, to bring the bank to an “even” significant dollar amount, I would add a small amount of cash from the family budget.
For example if after a session, my current bank were $2975, I would add $25 to bring it to an even $3000. Fortunately for me, supplementing the bank provided enough cash infusion to prevent near ruin a couple of times (hours 53 & 103).
The above chart depicts cumulative winnings. My actual bankroll is considerably larger.
Even though I was off to a very fine start, I was not satisfied with the way my blackjack card-counting career was going. I didn’t seem to be winning enough. I was playing the lowest limit games I could find with no regard to the quality of the game. In short, I was really up against it and was barely posting a profit.
The above chart depicts cumulative winnings. My actual bankroll is considerably larger.
Even though I was off to a very fine start, I was not satisfied with the way my blackjack card-counting career was going. I didn’t seem to be winning enough. I was playing the lowest limit games I could find with no regard to the quality of the game. In short, I was really up against it and was barely posting a profit.
Finally, a decent game opened up in my area (no longer available) and I decided to up the ante to take advantage of it. Insufficient bank or not, I increased the risk and commenced playing higher limit games, mostly $10 and $15 minimums, up from the typical $5 game I had been playing. Also by this time, all of my major family financial responsibilities had been satisfied so that some investment accounts were beginning to grow again.
I decided that I could tap into some of these funds should the need arise, so that I I could play at a risk far greater than could be justified with the liquid bank I had on hand. This was an acceptable risk to me because if I were to tap out and go broke, I could always make a decision to make a withdrawal from an investment account or stop playing completely. Therefore, I started hitting this good game hard and was spreading $10 to $125 and $15 to $200 continuing quite an extended winning streak.
Even so, during this period, I still hadn’t learned how to bet big. Many times after losing just one maximum bet, I would call it quits. Also, if I had a good run and made a decent profit on my first shoe or two, I would also end the session.
I decided that I could tap into some of these funds should the need arise, so that I I could play at a risk far greater than could be justified with the liquid bank I had on hand. This was an acceptable risk to me because if I were to tap out and go broke, I could always make a decision to make a withdrawal from an investment account or stop playing completely. Therefore, I started hitting this good game hard and was spreading $10 to $125 and $15 to $200 continuing quite an extended winning streak.
Even so, during this period, I still hadn’t learned how to bet big. Many times after losing just one maximum bet, I would call it quits. Also, if I had a good run and made a decent profit on my first shoe or two, I would also end the session.
On one visit, I sat at a $10 table and was able to spread to $125, winning $600 by the culmination of the shoe. I colored up and did not play another hand of blackjack. Instead of quitting, I clearly should have continued play at another table, perhaps in another pit to avoid detection. Soon, it happened! I hit the longest losing streak of my entire career (hours 39-53). At one point, my card counting bankroll was down to a little more than $800 in total. The great game had gotten the better of me! I still posted a win for the year, but I saw for the first time the devastating effects of negative fluctuation.
I started the new year doing fairly well, then it happened again! I hit yet another spell of negative fluctuation in my blackjack betting, dipping my total blackjack bankroll under the $1,000 mark yet again (hours 96-103). By this time, the good game was gone and I had to complete a self-analysis. I determined that I had been complacent and was settling for poor games and of all things, I was playing “all” far too often! I certainly stopped playing all and developed a strategy to scout for the very best game available. Also, once and for all, I decided not to be wimpy about my betting and I vowed to bet big when appropriate.
Even though a casino has a standard house cut, often, for many different reasons, a dealer differs from the norm in either a harmful or beneficial manner. With the shoe games I play, there is a notch on the shoe for a 1,2 or 3 deck cut. Although the house cut is 2 decks, even with the notch the dealer often misses the target and places the cut at 2.5 or 1.5 decks. I have learned to exploit the beneficial cut and avoid the harmful cut.
Executing my new strategy, even though I was betting big appropriately, I began to find myself truncating some wins be quitting early and exacerbating my losses by staying far too long in an attempt to recoup losses. This asymmetry in session lengths was making it extraordinarily difficult to make my EV and maintain a steadily increasing blackjack bankroll. It was very clear that truncating wins had to stop and I needed to be more careful of how long I played in a losing cause.
Since recognizing this and taking remedial action, I have gone on an extended winning streak with my card counting such that my current liquid blackjack bankroll is in excess of $10,000, allowing me to play $25 minimum blackjack tables spreading $25 to $300 with a very modest and acceptable risk of ruin. It has been a long road with spectacular wins and devastating losses! I haven’t been fortunate enough to play the best blackjack games in the world, yet I have been extremely successful in the casinos available to me. It can be done. Go do it! ♠
I started the new year doing fairly well, then it happened again! I hit yet another spell of negative fluctuation in my blackjack betting, dipping my total blackjack bankroll under the $1,000 mark yet again (hours 96-103). By this time, the good game was gone and I had to complete a self-analysis. I determined that I had been complacent and was settling for poor games and of all things, I was playing “all” far too often! I certainly stopped playing all and developed a strategy to scout for the very best game available. Also, once and for all, I decided not to be wimpy about my betting and I vowed to bet big when appropriate.
Even though a casino has a standard house cut, often, for many different reasons, a dealer differs from the norm in either a harmful or beneficial manner. With the shoe games I play, there is a notch on the shoe for a 1,2 or 3 deck cut. Although the house cut is 2 decks, even with the notch the dealer often misses the target and places the cut at 2.5 or 1.5 decks. I have learned to exploit the beneficial cut and avoid the harmful cut.
Executing my new strategy, even though I was betting big appropriately, I began to find myself truncating some wins be quitting early and exacerbating my losses by staying far too long in an attempt to recoup losses. This asymmetry in session lengths was making it extraordinarily difficult to make my EV and maintain a steadily increasing blackjack bankroll. It was very clear that truncating wins had to stop and I needed to be more careful of how long I played in a losing cause.
Since recognizing this and taking remedial action, I have gone on an extended winning streak with my card counting such that my current liquid blackjack bankroll is in excess of $10,000, allowing me to play $25 minimum blackjack tables spreading $25 to $300 with a very modest and acceptable risk of ruin. It has been a long road with spectacular wins and devastating losses! I haven’t been fortunate enough to play the best blackjack games in the world, yet I have been extremely successful in the casinos available to me. It can be done. Go do it! ♠
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Can you imagine how many gamblers have won and lost money throughout history? We’re not just talking about hundreds or even thousands of people. Hundreds of millions of people, probably even billions, have gambled something to try to win.
Almost all of these gamblers have failed. With so many to choose from, making a list of the 10 most successful gamblers in history might sound like a herculean task.
As it turns out, there are fewer success stories than you might think. Here are my picks for the 10 most successful gamblers in history.
1 – Edward Thorp
Edward Thorp is a math professor who literally wrote the book on card counting. Beat the Dealer was the first book about card counting that mathematically demonstrated that you could beat the house edge in blackjack by tracking the ratio of high cards to low cards left in the deck.
He personally used his card counting techniques in Lake Tahoe, Las Vegas, and Reno, starting with a bankroll of $10,000 provided by his friend Manny Kimmel. Their first weekend at the tables, they won $11,000.
Thorp was also one of the first card counters to use disguises to prevent casinos from backing him off.
Keep in mind that he developed these card counting techniques in 1966, when a computer less powerful than your cell phone took up an entire room in a university somewhere. There were no personal computers to rely on.
He’s also known to have won at baccarat, backgammon, and roulette, using various other advantage techniques, some of which are now illegal.
2 – Billy Walters
Most people think of Billy Walters as the most successful sports bettor in the history of sports betting in all the popular Las Vegas casinos. He’s been winning sports bets consistently for 30+ years, which is certainly enough of a winning streak that it can’t be accounted for by a “lucky streak.”
His has a true rags-to-riches story, too. He grew up poor in Kentucky, and he was (more or less) orphaned before he was two years old. His grandmother had to raise him, as his father died and his mother ran off.
But he’s not just a famous sports bettor. Walters also owns multiple businesses, including car dealerships, a golf course, and a car rental franchise.
Not everything about his story is rosy, though. He was also convicted of insider trading and is serving five years in prison.
3 – Phil Ivey
When you’ve won 10 World Series of Poker bracelets, like Phil Ivey has, you can start to stake your claim at being the best poker player in the world. According to the Wikipedia page about Ivey, multiple sources have called him the best.
I don’t even have the time to list all of his poker tournament wins. There are just too many of them.
More interesting to my readers, probably, is the tale of how Phil Ivey got involved in an edge sorting scheme to make money. In 2012, Ivey won over $11 million playing baccarat in London.
But Crockfords, the casino where he was playing, refused to pay him because they caught him using an advantage play technique called “edge sorting.” The casino called it cheating, but Ivey claims that he was just making intelligent use of an imperfection in the playing cards in use.
Ivey had a similar experience with the Borgata, too. Litigation ensued. The courts ruled in favor of the casinos, agreeing that edge sorting constitutes cheating.
Who knows what Ivey will get into next?
4 – Chris Moneymaker
You gotta love someone with the last name of Moneymaker who goes on to win the Main Event in the World Series of Poker, which is what Chris Moneymaker did in 2003. It was a huge cultural event, because he won his entry into the WSOP on the internet. This resulted in a huge influx of players to online poker sites during the so-called “poker boom.”
You can read more about Chris Moneymaker in his autobiography, Moneymaker: How an Amateur Poker Player Turned $40 into $2.5 Million at the World Series of Poker.
One interesting note about the title of his autobiography, though. Moneymaker actually bought into the satellite tournament for $86, not $40. He just misremembered the details.
Moneymaker still plays poker and has continued to rack up winnings. He’s won over $3.5 million in his career, which includes the $2.5 million from his win at the WSOP.
5 – Don Johnson
Poker Success Stories
Please don’t confuse this Don Johnson with the actor, who I love, but who isn’t a gambler (at least as far as I know).
The Don Johnson I’m referring to here is a businessman and a gambler who won over $15 million playing blackjack, and he did it WITHOUT using the counting cards technique in blackjack.
His run against the three Atlantic City casinos in 2011 and 2012 is historic now. It’s important to note that even though he wasn’t counting cards, Johnson was thinking like an advantage player. He insisted on blackjack rules that gave the house a small edge of only 0.26%.
He then negotiated a loss rebate deal with the casino that turned that small edge for the casino into an edge for the player. His losses were limited, which means that he didn’t risk much money compared to his potential win. Such a move is called a “positive expectation bet.”
It would be hard to duplicate Johnson’s success, as casinos are probably more sophisticated now, thanks to his large win.
6 – The MIT Blackjack Team
While I’m on the subject of blackjack, let’s include this group of students from MIT who counted cards as a team and took the casinos for millions. The MIT Blackjack Team isn’t a new organization either. They’ve been winning money from the casinos since 1979.
They recruited new players with flyers they posted at colleges throughout the United States, but they were selective about who they admitted to the team.
Prospective teammates had to pass a test, then they were thoroughly trained. Before being allowed to play with the team’s money, they had to demonstrate perfect play for the management of the team.
Besides traditional card counting techniques, the MIT Blackjack Team uses shuffle tracking and ace tracking techniques. It’s estimated that the techniques used by the team give them an edge over the casino in the 2% to 4% range.
They did not, however, invent the concept of team play in blackjack. Ken Uston is known for starting one of the first blackjack teams.
They even made a movie about the MIT Blackjack Team. It’s called 21 and stars Kevin Spacey. It’s an extremely loose adaptation of actual events, though.
7 – Doyle Brunson
Texas Dolly, which is Doyle Brunson’s nickname, retired in 2018, but his poker exploits are legendary. I’ve read that he invented Texas hold’em, although I don’t believe that’s actually true. He’s won the World Series of Poker twice, and he’s written multiple poker books, the most famous being Super/System.
Like Phil Ivey, who’s profiled earlier on this page, Brunson has a total of 10 WSOP bracelets.
The number of people who’ve actually won the Main Event at the World Series of Poker is breathtakingly small, by the way.
Brunson is a member of a club that only includes four people.
If you’ve never read it, Super/System is definitely worth checking out, even though much of the language is dated.
8 – Stanford Wong
You’d be hard-pressed to find a better book about getting an edge at blackjack than Wong’s tome, Professional Blackjack. He owns his own publishing company, Pi Yee Press, and he’s a well-known gambling expert. Wong isn’t his real name, though, his real name is John Ferguson. He uses a pseudonym to stay one step ahead of casino security.
His last name has become a verb in the advantage play community. “Wonging” is when you count cards as an observer and don’t place a bet until you have an edge over the casino because of the count. It’s easy to understand why someone whose very name has become a verb used to describe a gambling technique would make a list of most successful gamblers in history.
9 – Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon was (obviously) a highly-flawed individual, but it’s hard to imagine leaving him off a list of most successful gamblers.
Even though he never won the World Series of Poker or any major poker tournaments, he’s a huge success story because he used his poker winnings to fund his political campaigns.
In the United States, becoming president is probably the pinnacle of success.
Blackjack Success Stories
10 – Phil Hellmuth
My favorite poker player is Phil Hellmuth who has won 15 WSOP bracelets. His nickname is “the Poker Brat.” The first poker strategy book I ever read, in fact, was called Play Poker Like the Pros.
It wasn’t the best poker strategy book I’ve ever read, just the first, and I still credit it with giving me a fundamental understanding of starting hands in Texas hold’em and the different types of players.
He’s also made several instructional poker videos.
My favorite thing about watching Hellmuth play is how emotional he gets. I read somewhere that he claims that he externalizes those emotions so they don’t come out in play. In other words, it only looks like he’s on tilt.
Conclusion
That’s my list of the 10 most successful gamblers in history, but you might have some gamblers you like better for your own reasons. If that’s the case, please feel free to pony up a name or two for consideration in the comments below.