Cover story

Hi! I'm a full time professional gambler and am looking for advice about a cover story. After going to the casinos for a while you get to know some of the workers a bit. When they ask what you do for a living I usually say I'm unemployed. I know I can figure out something better to say but I'm interested what others say too. The type of job that would fit best would be one where you make your own hours due to showing up at the casino all the time. But I need to have some knowledge of the job if they have questions. Of course you want to come across as not hard up for money and doing fine. Any suggestions?

Garbage Man? Author? Silly suggestions welcome too.

Tell them you sell stuff on Amazon or Ebay. Anything at all will do !

I always told people I sold my business last year
and I don't do anything. If they ask what business,
I say either animal feed or sports drink. They never
ask more.

Quote: EvenBob

I always told people I sold my business last year
and I don't do anything. If they ask what business,
I say either animal feed or sports drink. They never
ask more.

I usually tell people I am EvenBob's personal assistant...the questions immediately cease!

Quote: Mooseton

Hi! I'm a full time professional gambler and am looking for advice about a cover story. After going to the casinos for a while you get to know some of the workers a bit. When they ask what you do for a living I usually say I'm unemployed. I know I can figure out something better to say but I'm interested what others say too. The type of job that would fit best would be one where you make your own hours due to showing up at the casino all the time. But I need to have some knowledge of the job if they have questions. Of course you want to come across as not hard up for money and doing fine. Any suggestions?

Garbage Man? Author? Silly suggestions welcome too.

Self employed... Insurance broker, attorney, engineer, appraiser...

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Tell them you are a card counter using a level 3 count with side counts of Aces, suicide kings, red 7's and one-eyed jacks.

I would just say I am a consultant. If they ask in what field, just answer something you know a fair amount about.

I tell people in Vegas I'm a porn slapper.

In Croupier, the replies were: Arms dealer in Shanghai and funeral undertaker.

If you say lawyer, you will get questions about divorce work.

Best is to say something such as import export they may assume drugs but otherwise its a perfect cover since you can travel or not etc.

Inherited money.

Settled a commercial lawsuit.

Sold real estate in Jakarta.

Inherited money was the one I was leaning towards, since I've already spoken of dead family. All really good suggestions everyone. Might have to learn that 3 level count first though :)

Employees you make these talks to and employees that will be calling you out on your play are rarely the same ones.

That said, futures, stocks or commodity trading is something most serious APs should already have real knowledge about (being so close to gambling, and giving similar opportunities), and it's believed to be boring as hell, unless you run into an actual trader.

I would use the excuse that you are a day trader. And here's my story that might help.

You are a very impulsive day trader who has gotten lucky. You got the the point where you are worth $10,000,000 or more, and you started to get overconfident and lost $3,000,000.

After losing the $3,000,000, a good friend who is a financial advisor suggested that you might have just gotten lucky and that maybe you have a gambling problem.

Since you value your friend's advice, you decided to seek counseling and stop trading for three months.

At the end of your sessions with therapists, they suggested that you move to Las Vegas to continue your adventures. You now bet what are totally insignificant amounts of money at the table, and only perform well-researched trades.

Your therapist gave you a technique to determine when you are gambling on the stock market to seek thrills, and you no longer seek thrills on the stock market, but instead head to the casino to remind yourself that gambling is just for fun and that you expect to lose. But the money just doesn't matter to you.

If you sell this story to the casino, they will never kick you out.

Have a story loaded up for a position that you closed THAT DAY with ACTUAL FACTUAL DATA by checking yahoo finance before you leave the house.

You want a story like "I just sold some puts on a company that had some downward action and I got a nice return this morning. I'm just having fun!" right at the time the count is good or whatever you're doing.

If you are an expert at tracking the market to create stories of where your money came from, this is about as good as you can hope to do.

You can also deposit $2,000 to $10,000 in an Ameritrade account and do it all for real on a scaled down basis to cover all your details, and just pay for a real story that you inflate. This will dot all the i's and cross all the t's just add a zero or two when you tell every story and you're done.

I hope this helps.

No offense to Ahigh, but that story sounds like a lot of work. Checking Yahoo Finance before you go to the casino?...bleck...if you're going to do that you might as well become a real day trader. I'd just stick with "sold my business" or "inherited a great gob of cash"...punch up the details if you need to have fun with it. Like "my uncle left me a fortune he made running booze during the war" or some horseshit like that. It doesn't matter much in the end; if you told them you were a pro gambler they wouldn't believe you anyway.

No offense taken. You're absolutely right about the points that you make.

I just tell anybody the truth about anything, and playing craps anyway, I have not been turned away from anywhere.

The closest I ever got to any serious heat was winning $50 at Binions. LOL.

I have no experience with actually needing some story for being able to be a professional gambler.

So that should be considered with my "advice" that I am not exactly a good person to tell you how to be a pro gambler since I'm not one myself.

Tell them you work in a 'shade factory' and that you 'pull down 200 a day'.

I know someone who tells people that he was just released from prison or a mental institution. He likes to play blackjack heads up.

Quote: Mooseton

Hi! I'm a full time professional gambler and am looking for advice about a cover story. After going to the casinos for a while you get to know some of the workers a bit. When they ask what you do for a living I usually say I'm unemployed. I know I can figure out something better to say but I'm interested what others say too. The type of job that would fit best would be one where you make your own hours due to showing up at the casino all the time. But I need to have some knowledge of the job if they have questions. Of course you want to come across as not hard up for money and doing fine. Any suggestions?

I am lucky -- I am a game inventor, and I love showing people my gaming patent. I tell the casino personnel that I like showing up at graveyard or some other hours so I can check out the games. What I do best is reverse engineer the slots, slot clubs and look for ideas to copy -- you add a novel twist, and voila, it becomes patentable. Therefore, my standard answer is that I looking for "new ideas".

The slot personnels always ask me these annoying questions -- so I have to explain to them about the basics of slot design (btw, I don't design slots, I reverse engineer them). Then they ask ME about the loosest machines since I always carry my notebook and record things (I tell them I have to keep records for the IRS). Then they ask me about this stupid feature or that stupid feature, etc. should I take 10 free games at 3X or 8 free games at 5X (I tell them that since it is a bonus round, logic dictates it doesn't matter which option you choose).

In some of the smaller casinos, the entire management staff knows me since I help them when they have crappy promotions, promotions that are too generous or they are going to get hit by (teams of) cold-blooded money-sucking AP's. What I try to do is point out how the promotions needs to be changed so they can make it better. For example, one casino was giving away a free scratcher worth at least $10 in free play with one lucky scratcher worth $1,000 in cash. I told it was a bad promotion because every bum on the street will show up for the $10 in free play, run it through the machines and then leave. And, it forced their VIPs to stand in line for up to 30 mins waiting for the scratcher to be processed. I told them if we are waiting in line, we are NOT playing slots, and YOU are not making money. They told me I was crazy. Next week, a fight breaks out because there wasn't enough scratchers and the promotion got cancelled. Or the casino designed a promo that punishes the slot player. After a few times of being right, they listen and they are doing better and making more money and giving their customers a better promotion so it's a win-win situation. If I have to, I will get games removed and they will listen. From my experience, once a casino gets burned, they are reluctant to have good promotions and it hurts the casino in the long run.

I also share my mailers with certain casinos on a "confi" basis -- these casinos have NO EFFENING clue what the other casinos are sending out as mailers. Since I am a VIP (I am very good as reverse engineering slot clubs), I get the good stuff.

In summary, I am in the same boat as Mooseton but I choose to be open about my situation and I want casinos to make money so they continue to offer good promotions and I have no problem playing one casino against another casino to get better treatment. We are all big boys and no one is being misled (they know I have an agenda). I do not pound casinos and I am on my best behavior on promos. By the way, I don't take advantage of the comps if anyone is curious.

As mentioned above, just say you are a consultant. If they ask what kind, say you work with software. I guarantee their eyes will glaze over and they will quickly lose interest. Works for me.

I am a software consultant, and my eyes are usually glazed over by the time I start to explain what it is I do.

Saying you sold a consultant business is a very good
thing to say. Most people don't know what a consultant
is, and they don't care. Tell them you were an animal
feed consultant, and they'll faint from boredom..

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Quote: Ibeatyouraces

Here is another good one. Tell them its NONE OF THEIR DAMN BUSINESS!

Yeah, that is really a bad idea. You want to blend in,
not be remembered as a jerk.

If I'm playing poker at a location in which nobody knows me and there is a lot of table chatter going on I always participate because someone who is too quiet is often seen as a tight player. I generally lie about half of the details in my life just because, with bluffing v. playing your hand or playing for pot odds, I like to get in the habit of mixing truth with falsity and everything in between. That being said, I like to tell people that I am with the IRS because I want the maniacs to play even more maniacally in the hopes of taking down the IRS guy. If anyone asks for anything more specific, I just tell them that we're not really allowed to talk about it in any detail.

Quote: boymimbo

I am a software consultant, and my eyes are usually glazed over by the time I start to explain what it is I do.

God, this is so true.

You could try saying you're a salesman or sales exec. But somebody will inevitably want your card.

You could say you're an account exec at some big company like BofA, 3M, etc. Yep, sooner or later a dealer will say, "Hey my brother is also an account exec there! Which office are you out of?" Scratch that.

How about saying you are a civilian contractor at Area 51. No need to talk about it since it's "secret." You don't even need to produce clearances or government ID for the likes of them either.

You could also base your cover story on some place you used to work at. Easier to make up consistent stuff on the fly if you have to.