There are some timeless verities or truths that have held to be correct over the years. Being a child of the late ’50’s and ALL of the ’60’s, I’m more attuned to Pop Culture than the timeless axioms of the ancient philosophers.
Instead of quoting Plato, I am more familiar with Pluto the cartoon dog. Rather than reading Clauswitz’ legendary battle tome “On War“, I read “Children of the Corn“. Instead of perusing the teachings of Socrates, I listen to the music of Shock the Monkey.
This all leads me to a couple of popular sayings that I have more than a passing acquaintance with.
As a teenager I re-built ’60’s Muscle Cars. Today, I collect cars, but I no longer have the time or inclination to re-build them, so I pay a premium to obtain the only the fastest and the best. That leads me to the phrase:
Speed costs money. How fast do you want to go?
I grew up very poor. What we lacked in material things, my family made up for by instilling character. As my income grew over the years, I was able to acquire nice things. It’s gotten to the point where people will compliment me on some of my possessions. Some will go so far as to ask what this particular property or that particular vehicle costs. I’m a generally polite person, but I also have some degree of modesty and also a requirement for privacy. That leads me to the phrase that my character has always disliked, but it occasionally seems appropriate:
If you have to ask how much it costs, you can’t afford it.
When people see me in the casino over a couple of sessions, they develop a sense of camaraderie and friendliness towards me. That’s a good thing, especially if we are all making money, and it adds to the general level of enjoyment of the game. When they see me on subsequent days or trips, they sometimes come to the realization that my income stream is quite good and steady because of my Precision-Shooting and somewhat conservative betting methods. They then decide that they want to learn to do the same thing as I am doing. That leads them to ask:
How much money do I need in my pocket to make the kind of money you make?
I always smile, because to my mind, it has little to do with money, and almost everything to do with commitment.
Back in the mid-70’s, I used to think that the best way to leave a casino with $1,000 in your pocket was to enter the casino with $10,000. I thought, quite correctly, that gambling and subsequent losing, was a perverse form of entertainment that the casinos had somehow re-invented. Little did I know at the time, that someday it would provide a lucrative income and a really enjoyable career. It was never my intent to turn professional. In fact, I had a great career with seemingly boundless opportunities for growth and enrichment. Unfortunately, I reached the pinnacle of that industry at quite a young age. It didn’t provide me with the gratification that I hoped it would. Subsequent independence was found as an advisor on some highly-specialized projects, which fulfilled my money and gratification needs quite nicely.
It was during that period that I was introduced to casino gaming. My first forays into that industry was as a consultant to a then small, but aggressive casino operator who then made profitable use of some of that advice, and is now a huge and even more aggressive casino mega-corporation. Along the way I picked up and developed a skill that some people call Precision-Shooting. I worked on my dice-rolling techniques, along with several money-management approaches, and combined that with a Playbook full of wagering methods. It took a tremendous amount of time, and an even greater level of commitment to achieve even partial success.
There were some heart-wrenching times along the way, where I was convinced that I was the worst shooter on the face of this planet. My average hand lasted three rolls! I’m not talking about the infrequent Point-Seven Out’s. I’m talking about weeks upon weeks of never getting beyond three rolls! Through perseverance, dogged determination and persistence, I prevailed. For the first two years of my casino success, I only used the money it generated to augment my consulting income. It was only after I was completely sure that I wasn’t just on a two year “lucky streak”, that I decided that playing craps would be my new career. I made that decision seven years ago, and I still have a hard time even thinking about it in terms of a “career”. To me it’s more of a lifestyle that includes gaming, travel and a lot of leisure activities, all on my own totally flexible timetable.
So when people ask me, ” How much money do I need in my pocket to make the kind of money you make?” I reply,
“It’s not the amount of money, it’s the amount of COMMITMENT! How much of that are YOU willing to spend?”
Good Luck & Good Skill at the Table…and in Life.
By: The Mad Professor
