The Adventures of MDawg

Quote: Mission146

I saw the report of a losing session happening if a meetup was set in stone. I just thought the meet up would be sooner. The recipient of that PM has my permission to confirm it was sent on 4/3 and said that MDawg would report a losing session within a week.

Quote: sabre

So you have a roughly 20% single session loss rebate deal on baccarat at a major strip casino and the casino has no issue awarding it on a single losing day after 21 consecutive winning days.

Well that's a lie.

Quote: coachbelly

I can't find where MDawg made the highlighted claim above.

Is it a lie whether he actually made the claim or not?

Quote: Mission146

Another thing is that he should be much more aggressive with his daily win goals if he has a 500k bankroll and is getting a 20% loss rebate.

Quote: OnceDear

I'll confirm that it was so obvious that it was coming that several PMs were exchanged making light of the likelihood. I'll further confirm that there is some speculation as to what the next few episode will feature.
Will someone jump the shark?

Quote: darkoz

I'm certain you and Mission did NOT see my throwing the gauntlet into the game.

:))

Quote: Mission146

I couldn't have predicted that. I certainly wouldn't have thrown $2,500 at this and I barely care about money.

Quote: Mission146

no mention of getting his loss rebate from the first casino when he lost a bunch and recouped it all at the second and went back and paid his markers...

Quote: sabre

So you have a roughly 20% single session loss rebate deal on baccarat at a major strip casino and the casino has no issue awarding it on a single losing day after 21 consecutive winning days.

Well that's a lie.

Quote: coachbelly

I don't understand how the reporting sequence could have any relevance to my question.

Did MDawg make the claim below, attributed to him by sabre?

Quote: sabre

So you have a roughly 20% single session loss rebate deal on baccarat at a major strip casino and the casino has no issue awarding it on a single losing day after 21 consecutive winning days.

Well that's a lie.

Is the claim a lie, whether MDawg made it or not?

Quote: darkoz

I've had ten fun years on WOV. I don't mind helping Wizard to $500.

The rest is just tickets to the MDawg show. I wanted the challenge to happen and apparently I was the only one to make it happen.

Quote: unJon

Mission I hope you choose not to participate in a Coachbelly law school class on this topic. Stay strong.

Quote: darkoz

apparently I was the only one to make it happen.

Quote: Mission146

Must....resist....counterargument.

Quote: OnceDear

That would make him an advantage player! He already turned down that claim to fame.

Quote: darkoz

My theory is he is an advantage player.

If you claim he isn't truthful then lying about being an advantage player is just as likely as being a ploppie and making winning claims.

I'm not certain what MDawg does but there are clues.

His fear of being recognized by anyone on this forum (with finally an acceptance by Wizard) most certainly means he is scared of the golden goose getting ruined. If he was a ploppie no casino would kick him out.

I think he makes it look like he is a ploppie to Casinos so his winning is hidden.

He has often stated he will take a marker at a second casino and then pay off the first. When I hear about borrowing from Peter to pay Paul I think Ponzi.

A complicated scheme where Ponzi payments are smoothed over with a combination of loss rebates and streak wins would not surprise me.

Quote: darkoz

He has often stated he will take a marker at a second casino and then pay off the first. When I hear about borrowing from Peter to pay Paul I think Ponzi.

Quote: MDawg

No casino would allow its chips to be cashed or applied against payment elsewhere if any markers were owing.

Quote: darkoz

My theory is he is an advantage player.

Quote: Mission146

My theory is, if one accepts all of his reports as fundamentally somewhat true,...

Quote:

All that said, he's really nickel and diming the loss rebate given his bankroll.

Quote: coachbelly

I believe this is another mischaracterization of what MDawg has reported.

Didn't he debunk your theory earlier today?

Quote: OnceDear

I don't buy it.
That you believe he wins at all, amazes me.

Quote: darkoz

The whole concept of advantage play is to get away with things the casinos DON'T allow

Quote: DRich

I disagree, it is getting away with what they don't understand as much as it is getting away with what they don't allow.

Quote: DRich

I disagree, it is getting away with what they don't understand as much as it is getting away with what they don't allow.

Quote: darkoz

We are in agreement.

Quote: OnceDear

I don't buy it.
That you believe he wins at all, amazes me.

Quote: darkoz

My theory is he is an advantage player.

Quote: AxelWolf

If you are an advantage player with some really good high-end Baccarat play or whatever, it's best just to keep your trap shut and just go do it. Why piss a bunch of people off and potentially have someone rat you out? We have already seen this kind of crap happen.

The time and location won't be disclosed, but since Mike rarely goes to the strip, How easy would it be for someone to track Mike, thus leading them to the casino, then to MDawg, and so on? If he is an AP, then I would have to give him a big fat F.

Quote: MDawg

There is some imprecision, implied or otherwise, in comments that have been posted by people here. Three years ago I wrote here that my lines were 50K at each resort. A year ago I wrote about how I doubled them. Recently I may have increased them again. I don't want people to know what they are exactly. The casinos I deal with all know that the dollar amount of my lines, as high as they may be, are nothing compared to my ability to pay them off and keep playing even in event of a blowout.

As far as whatever arrangements I have made with the casinos, they go back many years and all I did was reactivate or modify what I had going back then. I would just as soon people here claim that what I am doing cannot be. That's fine with me!

Also, no one knows more about how to squeeze comps from these guys, and I will even get cash in my pocket based on overlapping comps across multiple resorts in ways that most players could not even dream about, because to dream about something, one must have an inkling that it exists. Let's just say that when it comes to working the Vegas machine I have never met anyone who even begins to know how to work it as well as I, let alone actually works it as well as I.

Quote: MDawg

I think it all comes down to what kind of loss rebate agreement Johnson had with the casino.
People are saying things like:
etc. etc.
Let's start with what we know:
So, the guy played in three casinos, won in three casinos. He did not lose in any casino. And he had this loss rebate agreement in place at all three casinos.
So, again, what it comes down to is: WHAT EXACTLY WAS THIS LOSS REBATE AGREEMENT? or more specifically, WHEN DID IT KICK IN?

Now in this article https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/04/the-man-who-broke-atlantic-city/308900/ Johnson writes that he already had a lifetime 20% "lifetime discount" in place, meaning that "you have to lose a certain amount to capitalize on it." which he went on to say that "If you had a lifetime discount of, say, 20 percent on $500,000, you would have to lose whatever money you’d made on previous trips plus another $500,000 before the discount kicked in."

So in other words, Johnson already had a 20% loss rebate in place, but he needed something that kicked in more often, which is why, according to the article, he accepted when the casinos told him, "What if we put you on a trip-to-trip discount basis?” SO, the rebate agreement that was put into place, was that Johnson would get a 20% rebate, calculated trip to trip, when he hit that $500K loss.

But, what's a trip? When would this 20% rebate have kicked in? It depends obviously, on what the definition of a "trip" is.

Well, let's talk about what would clearly NOT be a trip...a few hours of play, followed after a short break, with a few more hours of play. Two such sessions would not be separate trips. I can't see how anyone could argue possibly that they were, and certainly no casino would accept multiple sessions on the same day to be separate trips. Nor would, for example, a single session one day, followed by another session the next day, be considered two separate trips.
Bottom line: I don't think Johnson could have played a few hours, lost $500K, collected his 20% rebate of 100K, and then come back a few hours later and started playing again with a "restarted trip clock" ready to collect another 20% if he lost again. I am certain that the casinos would have balked at that.

I am pretty familiar with what this "trip clock" is - I recall one trip years ago at one Vegas casino where I ended up some sixty grand in the hole. I had won over a hundred at other casinos, so from my perspective I was a winner, but from the perspective of the sixty grand loss casino, I was a loser. I checked out of the casino where I lost some sixty grand, EVERYTHING was comp'ed (and the comps were really high too, something like over fifteen grand worth of RFB and spa charges (one dinner alone that someone who shall go unnamed, a family member, charged to my room was five grand), anyway I checked out of that casino where I lost the sixty K, and checked into a different casino in Vegas. The very next day, while still in town, I came back to the casino where I had lost the sixty K, and won 80K. I didn't play again at that casino that trip, and eventually left town. When I called a few weeks later to book my next incoming trip to that casino, my host gave me sh*t, he said that they had me down as winning twenty K and getting comp'ed almost twenty K. I tried to explain how it had gone down, that I had lost then come back and won, but he said that on their computer it all showed as one continuous trip.

Point being, with someone that was being watched as closely as Johnson, there is just no way that he could have played a session, lost $500K, collected his 20% and showed up anytime soon afterwards to claim that this was a "new trip" and therefore that a restarted clock should newly calculate his eligibility for the 20% rebate against a new $500K of losses. I just don't see any casino allowing him to do that. I barely got away with it, and in fact, I didn't - that casino held back my comps for a while until my average bet play justified more comps.

In Johnson's case, what is FAR and away what must have happened, is that each of the three wins - the Tropicana $6M (which incidentally, the article refers to as a 12 hour long session - not days, not weeks, just 12 hours), Borgata $5M, Caesar's $4M were each considered a trip. Three trips. Three casinos. So, assuming Johnson DID hit that $500K loss at each casino, he could have, at most, collected $100K for his losses at each casino. How could $100K even times three make any difference whatsoever towards his end reported winnings of $15.1M?

Also, I doubt that the agreement would have allowed Johnson to collect his 20% rebate unless he stopped his play and...left (that's the definition of a trip isn't it? Come into town, play, leave.). So it's conceivable that Johnson never collected a dime against this loss rebate because, HE DIDN'T NEED TO - HE WON BEFORE HE ENDED THE TRIP. Sum and substance, if someone has some other way to look at this, please offer it up - because, I just don't see how Johnson's negotiation of a "per trip" rebate of 20% against $500K of losses would have made any difference here.

I mean, let's look just at the Tropicana. Acording to the article, 12 hours of play...left ahead $6M. How does the "per trip" rebate figure into this in any way? Is someone saying that Johnson played a few hours, lost $500K, collected $100K. Then the casino told him, okay Don, go have a cup of coffee and come back in and we'll call this trip #2 and restart the loss rebate trip clock. So then he won some, then lost some, then ended up $500K down, collected another 100K. And now they told him to go eat lunch, come back, and they'd consider it a third trip now? And then he kept playing until, all within 12 hours, he was up $6M after collecting multiple $100K against $500K loss rebates? Makes no sense. No casino would allow such a thing to go on.

To summarize:
1. Johnson's 20% loss rebate agreement allowed him a PER TRIP rebate of 20% once his losses hit $500K.
2. Johnson had three separate trips - (1) Tropicana, (2) Borgata, (3) Caesar's. According to the article, the play at the Tropicana lasted all of 12 hours. The play at Caesar's, also, seems to be have been a single marathon session, because after they pulled the plug on him when he was up over $4M, the article states that "Johnson went upstairs and fell asleep."
3. I seriously doubt that the casino would have handed him a penny against losses unless he left the property, ended the trip. There is no indication that he was "handed rebate checks" "mid-trip" nor would such a policy make any kind of sense. What would make even LESS sense is that he was handed MULTIPLE rebate checks, mid-session and allowed to keep playing with a re-started "trip clock" without even leaving the resort.
4. Johnson ended up some $15.1M up between the three casinos. Tropicana $6M, Borgata $5M, Caesar's $4M

Considering the above, I invite anyone to fashion some kind of play rundown that would have allowed Johnson to collect multiple loss rebate checks (or even ONE rebate check), AND keep playing, NOT leave the property, AND wind up ahead $15.1M. I just can't fathom a scenario that would allow for such a sequence of events.

P.S. According to the article "(playing by the same rules he had negotiated earlier, according to Johnson, but without a discount—he managed to win another $2 million from the Tropicana in October [2012].)" --- so much for the importance of the loss rebate.

Quote: ChumpChange

Just saw a roulette player online who claims to never lose a session of Roulette. Tries to win $100 on $10 bets on even money bets. Cashes out 4 figures a week from single zero online casinos. He likes to bet on the trends. Like a dealer can spin more blacks than reds and make it worth his time.

Quote: Wellbush

Do we only hear about Don Johnson’s wins, but not his losses?

Quote: MDawg

I went into my reasoning in detail here as to why I don't think he had occasion or need to collect on any loss rebate at all - basically that he (1) won the $15.1M across the three casinos so quickly, playing continuously and then stopping once up massively, that he wouldn't have had time to claim even a lost "session," and (2) it is indisputable that without any loss rebate in place, in Oct 2012, he won another $2M at the Tropicana.

Anyway, over all, a loss rebate relates to a loss. No one disputes that he cleared over $17M - that's a win. No loss rebate could explain that magnitude of a win.

Yes, in paid speaking engagements Don Johnson loved to talk about all the advantages he negotiated on his behalf, but the plain simple truth is that he won very quickly and immediately ended the sessions. That story isn't as good as crowing about all the advantages negotiated, so he played up what got him paid for speaking.
Eventually Johnson got booted from the Palms - because he was playing Blackjack. The sort of thing a high end player is able to negotiate for Baccarat is a whole different story, because the casinos don't consider Baccarat as the same kind of threat to them.

Quote: MDawg

His wins are documented. As are all of mine. One may always speculate that there is more to the story, but how many even get to the point of being able to document their wins in the first place?

Quote: MDawg

It gets to a point where it's not even worth bothering to corroborate, because some of the ones who appear to care the most are mean spirited types who are just looking to cause trouble or rob someone. So, I start deliberately speaking in vague terms and leaving out details and no more pictures.

Quote: MDawg

No, not referring to you!

Quote: MDawg

Well he won a ton in one trip and was banned from the MGM Grand. Then later, MGM bought the Bellagio and invited Packer back, where in I believe it was two trips (one of which I witnessed), he dumped more than he had won in the trip that got him banned!

Quote: MDawg

There are a lot of Asian billionaires who gamble far more than Packer. I actually met once the gambler who reputedly had lost more in casinos than anyone else (as of that time, in the very early 2000s). I believe that his record has been surpassed since then.

If you read about some of these uber whales they get mad at dealers, they insist that dealers be changed, they get upset when they lose, and yet the other day just because I got loud while winning some forty grand one pit boss had the gall to ask me to quiet down. On the list of things I had to do yesterday I took care of all of them except for dealing with that pit boss. I'll get around to it.