Time, efforts, lifestyle...value system and dumpster diving.

Yipes. I had such trouble deciding where to place this thread that I thought I might be better off on the DT site, but please bear with me for awhile and let us see not just the time value of money but the monetary value of time as well.

I've often wondered about the term Professional Gambler. It sounds adventurous, sexy and very James Bondish, but its a bit like claiming to be a Professional Boxer when all you do is watch a boxing match. That makes you a spectator not a boxer.

We all have read articles from time to time about wives who get jobs outside the home and then add up the daycare, office attire, second vehicle expenses and effects of exhaustion to find that they are "working" for a negative sum. They lose money each month but they gain freedom from being yoked to the kids all the darned time and they get to speak to adults from time to time so perhaps they value their lifestyle enough to enjoy the "negative gain" in salary.

We look at "professional gambler" and think well IRS and Math Professors be damned, its nothing more than sitting there playing blackjack and being pretty darn close to "the edge" at all times as well as putting up with various degrees of heat and hostility in return for an exotic sounding but by no means guaranteed income.

But look also at some of these modern adventurer stories of late:

The young girl living in her car in Florida who decides to leave car and beloved surfboard behind an embark on a sail boat bound for the Ireland and the Internet. She is sailing into an adventure she hopes to transform into money via the internet, but knows she will only be guaranteed the time, not the cash. The reality: weather was bad approaching Ireland so they wound up in Spain and spend the last ten days of their 43 day crossing eating nothing but beans and rice three times a day. Is her video and book selling? I don't know, but she had her adventure.

Or perhaps think of the young German girl who flew to Panama bought a steel hulled 30 foot yacht, restored it and filmed herself covered in paint and dirt and sweat and at times tears. Her YouTube log and video diary seems to be doing well enough that irrespective of the money, she will always have had a great adventure restoring an old boat.

Or think of these annoying reality shows wherein people present their "real lives" to those couch-potato viewers who think its actually "real lives". Go all the way back to The Louds of San Francisco and PBS-TV, or to the Real World teeny boppers of MTV and you get people experiencing loss of privacy for money and getting 'something' in return for it.

Some early Real Worlders will be the but of jokes and contempt well into the twentieth airing. Some found spouses on the show, some took the money and fled to obscurity, but they all had the adventure and made the best of it.

I know of one young woman who when dumpster diving with fellow poverty stricken friends encountered a bountiful bonus of cabbage and turned the incident into a study of food fermentation, food history and cooking. She wound up with a man, a cow, twenty acres and a reputation for expertise in self sufficiency and food related blogs.

Some of the reality shows can get down right illogical. Naked and Afraid is filmed with the "real world people" naked but all images are expensively pixilated to conceal any nudity. Strange to spend money filming tits and then pixilating them out but that is what makes money. The Real Bitchy Rich Wives of All-Over-The-Place don't always fight 24 hours a day but they sure make money selling hype.

Why is it that people are allowed to ask professional gamblers how much they make, and not the other way around?

I had a conversation with a nice lady at the DMV who was extremely skeptical when I told her I was a professional gambler. I don't go around spouting it off to people, but I felt since she was an educated (Masters) teacher and she was talking about how the house always wins, no matter what. She goes to tell me that she knows many people who are professional gamblers, who's spouses support them.

I explained that there are ways to gain an advantage on the house and it is mathematically proven. She assumed I was talking about counting cards, and said you won't last long doing that. Then I said ok go to the Palms or a Stations casino and check out the signs touting, "over 100% payback!". She still stuttered the house always wins and that those machines are rigged. I said well the sum of all payouts on the machine makes the game over 100%, so what are you talking about?

Then she asked me how long I've been doing this. I told her a year, then she smirked and looked like me like I was going to burn out, then I also explained that there are gamblers who have been pro for many years (Axel, and some others he knows) but of course she wasn't going to believe me.

It's fine that way. I prefer people not know you can make money gambling. I knew the conversation was going to go extremely south but I was killing time at the DMV and was bored.

So let us return to the concept of professional gambler and house edge:

Are the people who choose to play roulette, blackjack, Keno or War professional gamblers? I don't know. We know they are trading time and lifestyle against mathematics and "the breaks". Women who play roulette could be home with a stack of wet diapers instead. Men who play blackjack and seek shelter from "heat" could be out in the hot sun laying laying bricks or in an office, a theater or perhaps on The Real World.

All gambling does is provide a more precise measure than other adventurers have. Danielle Wright tipped the scales at 105 and sailed off from New Zealand to Newcastle hoping to continue her fledgeling career as a highly paid professional photographer's model and university student. Instead she became a resident in Davy Jones locker. She risked youth, beauty and adventure and the little white ball landed on green.

Some flee the drudgery of office work for an adventuresome lifestyle at sea and wind up drowning. Others put up with the drudgery. Others flee the drudgery and are successful in doing it.

The "stats" on wet diapers versus happiness are not scientific. No one can precisely value a "kaffe Klatch"... but we can precisely value drawing a dead man's hand in poker.


One who battles the waves or the weather, or the competing reality shows does so in the world of "soft statistics" one who battles Lady Luck in the smokey flourescent world of a casino does so in the world of "hard statistics". All those digital camera and all those digital tables of Advanced Super Duper Strategy provide great yard sticks.

So what is to be? A short term roll of the dice, a long term roll of the dice? Enroll in a reality show? Produce a reality show? Be a science writer who travels the world with her dogs and never grosses more than twenty grand a year but has a lifestyle that people envy? Be a hippie who grows rich after going back to the land? Be a hippie who goes back to the land and starves to death?

Its really a choice between rolling the dice in the middle of the ocean or rolling the dice at the craps table. One is done under scrutiny and scads of statistics. One is done under less scrutiny and less certain outcomes.

But it is all "being a professional gambler"... for that is what life is.

Great points, Flea. In my work I happen to meet many unhappy people. Generally, the cause of their unhappiness is their job - at least in large part. And usually, they are working (or have worked) a job which offered very little stimulation or room for creativity.

Consider all those lovely young women in Salt Lake City.. They grow up in a Mormon household, there are no playing cards in the house. They have never held a deck of cards in their hands or swilled whiskey or chewed tobacco .......... yet they show up in Vegas and become Blackjack Dealers in the Cleavage Pits. Life progresses people change people deal with conflicts.

Some of those who are self identified as Anarchists make the best sailors. They are intelligent enough to defy conventional wisdom but smart enough to be a team player and do things on command when otherwise the boat will sink. They may be highly individualistic anarchists but on dark and stormy night they go out as a team of sail changers and each does their role in a proper manner.

Some of those women in Vegas stand there in less clothing than their husband first saw them wear on their wedding night. People adapt to change and risk. Card counters cope with heat, both real and imagined. People learn to eat steak if its comped because it just might be their last comp at that casino.

No one can minutely measure "wet diapers" or minutely measure the liberating effect of a young mother's ten o'clock coffee session with all the other young mothers. It is possible to measure hitting on 16 though the measurements may not be too pleasing.

That young German girl filming herself scrubbing paint in Panama will always have the memories of her trip around the world even if her Internet Show does not make her rich and famous. The greatest risk in a casino is losing your money and getting drunk; the greatest risk in mid ocean is a chance encounter with a whale, a freighter or a semi submerged shipping container. Does it take more or less courage to raise an anchor or to plunk down an ante bet.

You can measure the return on a five dollar ante bet, but what is the return on spending ten years on a party boat in the tropics? How is that return altered if during that tenth year you spring a leak in the middle of nowhere or encounter pirates?

Any gambler who believes in a system is like the person following a religious system looking for the afterlife.

Quote: FleaStiff

I've often wondered about the term Professional Gambler. It sounds adventurous, sexy and very James Bondish, but its a bit like claiming to be a Professional Boxer when all you do is watch a boxing match. That makes you a spectator not a boxer.

Personally, I don't like the term "professional gambler". While "professional" implys that you are doing something for some form of compensation, which applies, I also think of "professional" as carrying a secondary meaning of level of expertise, which I don't feel as though I have reached. I prefer to think of myself as playing blackjack for a living (although I do some supplemental AP activity, blackjack is my bread and butter and still my passion).

Quote: FleaStiff

We look at "professional gambler" and think its nothing more than sitting there playing blackjack and being pretty darn close to "the edge" at all times as well as putting up with various degrees of heat and hostility in return for an exotic sounding but by no means guaranteed income.

Guaranteed income!....lol. Yikes. I am so far away from that right now, with the blackjack portion of my income for the year sitting below 6 grand after 7 months (a far cry from the 80k, and 120k, I have made from BJ in the last 2 years). At my current pay scale, not only is the French fry guy at McDonald's laughing at me, but the street performers and homeless sign people here in Vegas have joined in.

Quote: djatc

I had a conversation with a nice lady at the DMV who was extremely skeptical when I told her I was a professional gambler. I don't go around spouting it off to people, but

I explained that there are ways to gain an advantage on the house and it is mathematically proven.

I knew the conversation was going to go extremely south but I was killing time at the DMV and was bored.

Don't do this, djatc. No good can come from it and you will just frustrate yourself. Plus, Vegas is really a small town atmosphere, in that everyone, works in the industry or their spouse, brother, neighbor, cousin does. Last fall after moving into my new house, we invited a few neighbors over for a Sunday cookout. I invited the lady 2 door down who I had only met a couple times. She showed up with her husband who works the pit in a casino on my regular rotation. Awkward! We has since become casual friends.

Quote: FleaStiff

So let us return to the concept of professional gambler and house edge:
But it is all "being a professional gambler"... for that is what life is.

Well said.

This is interesting but to me, all it is is another telling of the "quality of life" conundrum. Not that it's not interesting, it's just not new. What defines "quality of life" is so intensely individual that it doesn't make sense for even a wife/husband to define it for the husband/wife, much less policy. The value of that quality is also intensely individual; i.e., trade-off between working v. stay-at-home mom.

Straying, but this is why "quality of life = providing for the general welfare" when used in the context of public policy, always makes me cringe. We all think that certain things make a decent quality of life (being lucid, sane, not on life support, etc.), but we live in a society where having a large TV, car, plenty of food, and a nice, cheap apartment in a nice, safe neighborhood is frequently considered a poor "quality of life." If public policy stopped at lucidity, sanity, etc., I'd be fine. But it doesn't.

PROVIDE for the common defense. PROMOTE the general welfare. When public policy gets into providing the general welfare in the same way it provides national defense, not only is it a clear overreach, but you end up with a society where ... well ... large TVs, cars, plenty of food, and nice, cheap apartments in nice neighborhoods are not enough.

"Professional gambler" is an oxymoron.

Feeling philosophical? Your theme and sentiment remind me of Henry David Thoreau's Waldon. I haven't read it in a long time, but it is worth revisiting now and then.
"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."

Quote: mickeycrimm

"Professional gambler" is an oxymoron.

Depends which side if the gamble you are on MIckey. I have know a lot of professional bookies. One I worked for, Henry Gordon, made as much gambling as,he did booking. Was called before Kefauver committee and still never spent a day in jail.

But I also known over 100 guys who said they were professional gamblers, betting sports, ponies, playing poker, etc. In truth they were pissing away the clothing store daddy left them or the wife,s money.

Maybe we should specify honest professional gambler. Mickey, you and I have both know successful cheats. And if course guys that had an in. Like. the guy I know who had a big old farm house near Laurel trotting track. Rent 6 rooms really cheap to drivers for the meet.

Or the guy who tapped the phone lines of the 3 biggest trainers in Maryland.

Quote: Buzzard

But I also known over 100 guys who said they were professional gamblers, betting sports, ponies, playing poker, etc. In truth they were pissing away the clothing store daddy left them or the wife,s money..

And when daddy's clothing store or the wife's inheritance is gone, the casino is no longer interested in them and they transition from "professional gambler" to "degenerate gambler".

Little Danielle Wright may have died clutching her Bible that meant so much to her or she may have died manning the pumps or trying to climb the mast to cut away rigging. We do not call one so young and beautiful a degenerate adventurer we call them youthful adventurers whose courage will inspire us all. Add up all those internet movies about restoring a boat and sailing off into the sunset to a life of "Achi Rice, Salt Fish Is Nice and the Rum Is Good Anytime of Year" and the sailors may or may not make enough money to defray their expenses. They will always have memories of sunsets but also memories of skinned nuckles, mosquitoes, low larders, foul fresh water casks and close calls with errant freighters.

Gambling is short term... whether one looks at it as five dollars on a roulette wheel or as twenty-six cents on a roulette wheel. House Edge, EV, or whatever. All those zillions of "bluies" living in Vegas at plus one percent house edge in the Bingo Rooms lead a better life than those sitting in a trailer somewhere sucking carcinogens and beer and waiting on death.

Those who opt for a tall ship and a start to steer her by gamble in the "long trick" and take measures in softer fields than gambling math. The woman who trades wet diapers for a party boat lifestyle doesn't measure house edge or see twenty six cents being at risk. The German girl may not raise enough on the internet to pay for her paint or her mosquitto repellant. The Hippie Farmer may now be rich or may now be dead.

We have the tomb of the unknown soldier but no tomb of the unknown adventurer or unknown hippie... we certainly don't have a tomb of the unknown reality show contestant. We do have the tomb of the unknown gambler: its either in the trailer park or its the casino itself.

Yes, DJATC...but your conversation was with a civil servant at the DMV. Although certain facets of it might have been the same if you were meeting some sweet young thing at a cocktail party. Let us face it though... "over 100 percent" translates to a "smidgen" do the young and brave and adventuresome ever calibrate a tool or think in terms of a smidgen?

Gamblers measure the short term: the turn of a card, the spin of the wheel, the vice in the back room.
Adventurers measure a longer term: the voyage, the summer, the year. Twenty six cents is the source of life on a roulette wheel to the guy wearing a green eye shade but an insignificant sum on a gourmet party boat.

>Gambling is a metaphor for life. Hang around long enough and it's all gone.
Oh no. Not at all. Gambling is usually a metaphor for a short life. The spin of the wheel, the sip of absinthe, the busted flush.
However, the Bluies at one percent are indeed gamblers I will grant you that.

Perhaps we should say that pool excellence can mean simply playing great pool while trying to become someone, the way an actor may want to achieve fame and fortune but only becomes a good character actor doing capable work at his craft but never becoming somebody.

Well thanks for bearing with me during all that drunken confusion.

Quote:

Yikes. I am so far away from that right now, with the blackjack portion of my income for the year sitting below 6 grand after 7 months (a far cry from the 80k, and 120k, I have made from BJ in the last 2 years).

80K and 120K in a year? That's a lot. I have a few questions, if you don't mind: What is your approximate betting spread? How regularly do you play? How have you avoided heat? What kind of counting system do you use? And do you report of any of your winnings to the IRS?

Quote: Wanderer

80K and 120K in a year? That's a lot.

Yes. And the six k for the third year is quite a change.
We can all hear that lady in the DMV cackling "I told you", but in fact it is clear that this is indeed a professional gambler. A lucky one perhaps? Or lucky so far? He clearly risks it on the turn of the card which is a short term activity with great information about strategy and odds and all that stuff.

The young teenage girl who sails off for Ireland but instead reaches Spain is a gambler (and not much of a navigator or dietician) but she deals with long term financial rewards: IF her videos draw advertising revenue she can buy more beans or something and a better sextant. A youthful winsome gambler who may wind up wherever the wind blows her. She has only long term expectations and not much in the way of proven strategy cards or precise statistics, but she too is clearly a professional gambler.

I prefer craps and poker variants since it offers a fairly prompt decision and the ability to take a break and guzzle a drink for awhile.
Its short term "turn of the card" gambling for recreation. I'm not eating beans in the middle of the ocean though. Thats an adventure of another sort and not quite so appealing to me.

Quote: Wanderer

80K and 120K in a year? That's a lot. I have a few questions, if you don't mind: What is your approximate betting spread? How regularly do you play? How have you avoided heat? What kind of counting system do you use? And do you report of any of your winnings to the IRS?

I am not going to get into specific betting spreads and ramps. I have done too much of that recently. But, I am a mid-level, green to mid black player. Exact spreads are dependent on specific games, conditions and maybe most important individual casino (and pit folks) tolerance and comfort levels.

I play in the neighborhood of 80,000 rounds a year. I play some almost every day.

I have 'limited' heat by tailoring my game to playing within what I determine are individual casino's and pit personnel's tolerance and comfort levels. With longevity being my top priority (I want to be able to play for another 10 years), I have sort of made this my specialty.

Of course, I report my earnings to the IRS. It is illegal not to. :) And if I didn't, I wouldn't admit it here or anywhere in public anyway. But really, earning a living this way draws extra scrutiny. I have bought 2 properties in the last 15 months, bought and sold 4 properties in the last 5 years. You think the IRS doesn't want to know how that happens? :) I am a person that like to pay my fair share and do my fair share. I also sleep better knowing I have.

Quote: FleaStiff

Yes. And the six k for the third year is quite a change.

Just to update, I am solidly (for the moment) in the black for the year now, just over 20K, up from being in the red for the year back in July. This amount is far below expectation for my amount of play (63k), an approaching the 3/4 mark of the year, looking more likely, that I will come in SIGNIFICANTLY below expectation and the amounts of the last 2 years. BUT, with 3 months left...anything can happen (including a fall back into the red).

Quote: kewlj

....

Just to update, I am solidly (for the moment) in the black for the year now, just over 20K, up from being in the red for the year back in July. This amount is far below expectation for my amount of play (63k), an approaching the 3/4 mark of the year, looking more likely, that I will come in SIGNIFICANTLY below expectation and the amounts of the last 2 years. BUT, with 3 months left...anything can happen (including a fall back into the red).

Excellent. Really glad to hear it. Keep goin'!