Hey, Rob, Get the Ball Rolling

Boz suggested we start up a series of retro Las Vegas threads with stories from the 70's. 80's, and 90's.

Since the following info made it into print in a book a short while back, I don't think I'm breaking any formal rules or regs by mentioning it.

The guy who "hired" Rob for his often-front-page Gaming Today column, with Rob having no gambling credentials or track record or reputation, was Chuck Di Rocco, whose wife, Eileen took over after Chuck's death. Chuck Di Rocco was one of the original "wire guys" in Las Vegas. He provided numbers to illegal books based around the country, doing something similar (although on a smaller scale) to what the Di Nero Lefty Rosenthal character does in the movie, Casino before he becomes a big deal running the "Tangiers." Di Rocco and his compadres pretty much had carte blanche in Las Vegas to hire whomever they wanted for various jobs and projects.

I figure since Rob was hired out of the proverbial blue for Gaming Today, he could share how he was recruited for Gaming Today or what led him to be offered the position. Since the folks hanging with Di Rocco at the time were quite a colorful cast, Rob likely has some good 80's and 90's stories to share, and not about the CIA. Di Rocco evidently started with a modest storefront business that fronted other things and expanded from there.

Care to share, Rob?

This could be a damn good thread....

... if we can keep kewl one from being triggered ..

I think Di Rocco liked the controversy. Controversy sells. At the time there probably wasn't 100 video pokers pros in the United States. Di Rocco didn't give a rats ass about them. The masses of recreational gamblers were the market. They don't want to know how to grind out a profit. They want to know how to strike it rich.

I read Gaming Today religiously in those days. The rag came out every Tuesday. I found a lot of plays just by reading the casino news. I remember one morning walking into the Vegas Club, picking up a copy of Gaming Today, grabbing a seat, then reading "Detroit Motor City installs Anchor Gaming's Double Time System."

I immediately booked the next flight to Detroit. I was in Detroit before sundown. I had made a lot of money on that double time system when they first installed it at the Pioneer/Laughlin.

First of all, Chuck sought me out by contacting my publisher; I never inquired about doing a column for GT.

He was a slick operator who had what I thought was a GIANT office for that style of paper, and he brought his French Bulldogs in with him every day. Being someone who has always believed dogs are this planet's most angelic living creatures, I saw he and I would get along right away. He was direct and bold and he wanted no BS when discussing business. I was told he had had it with the stale writings of Bob Dancer and Skip Hughes, and he wanted what he called "sensible controversy" in his video poker columnist's weekly articles. Naturally, that was me.

He took me to dinner at the steakhouse at Circus Circus and that's where he offered me $$ for a weekly column. I accepted the offer to write but refused to be paid for it, since I wanted him to understand that I only made money on VP from playing the machines. Yes I profited from my books, but how do you get around that? I gave that money to my kids anyway. But before the handshake Chuck wanted to go with me to a casino of my choice and witness me playing what hopefully would be a successful complete session using my Play Strategy--"successful" meaning winning at least $2500 in the session. He was blunt: do what I said I would do about having an 85% chance of winning and I'm his new writer; lose and we part ways.

I chose Terrible's because of their $1/$2/$5/$10/$25 machines, and I brought the required $57,200 session bankroll. I said if I needed to go to the $100 machine then I'd do that at MGM. I was concerned he'd get bored watching me play but that was short-lived as I hit a dollar royal less than an hour into what was a very complex strategy for a newbie to have to sit thru.

As time went on Chuck loved my work, and The Undeniable Truth became GT's most popular column ever. Compared to what it was back then, it's almost like a pamphlet today. I quit due to disagreements with Chuck's widow Eileen after nearly 8 years, and I never missed a week during my time there. But that was easy compared to how I felt masking my years of double-up glitch play while sometimes making up Play Strategy results in my columns. I have training for situations such as this so I plodded thru it all flawlessly. I did finally admit this to GT last year but they really didn't care about something over a decade old.

Other than that, I met and chatted with Frank Sinatra in the mid-'90's at the Tower of Pizza. His interest in talking to me was in my 100% wop ancestry, and the fact that my uncle ran the Hialeah track in Florida.

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Originally Posted by Rob.Singer

First of all, Chuck sought me out by contacting my publisher; I never inquired about doing a column for GT.

He was a slick operator who had what I thought was a GIANT office for that style of paper, and he brought his French Bulldogs in with him every day. Being someone who has always believed dogs are this planet's most angelic living creatures, I saw he and I would get along right away. He was direct and bold and he wanted no BS when discussing business. I was told he had had it with the stale writings of Bob Dancer and Skip Hughes, and he wanted what he called "sensible controversy" in his video poker columnist's weekly articles. Naturally, that was me.

He took me to dinner at the steakhouse at Circus Circus and that's where he offered me $$ for a weekly column. I accepted the offer to write but refused to be paid for it, since I wanted him to understand that I only made money on VP from playing the machines. Yes I profited from my books, but how do you get around that? I gave that money to my kids anyway. But before the handshake Chuck wanted to go with me to a casino of my choice and witness me playing what hopefully would be a successful complete session using my Play Strategy--"successful" meaning winning at least $2500 in the session. He was blunt: do what I said I would do about having an 85% chance of winning and I'm his new writer; lose and we part ways.

I chose Terrible's because of their $1/$2/$5/$10/$25 machines, and I brought the required $57,200 session bankroll. I said if I needed to go to the $100 machine then I'd do that at MGM. I was concerned he'd get bored watching me play but that was short-lived as I hit a dollar royal less than an hour into what was a very complex strategy for a newbie to have to sit thru.

As time went on Chuck loved my work, and The Undeniable Truth became GT's most popular column ever. Compared to what it was back then, it's almost like a pamphlet today. I quit due to disagreements with Chuck's widow Eileen after nearly 8 years, and I never missed a week during my time there. But that was easy compared to how I felt masking my years of double-up glitch play while sometimes making up Play Strategy results in my columns. I have training for situations such as this so I plodded thru it all flawlessly. I did finally admit this to GT last year but they really didn't care about something over a decade old.

Other than that, I met and chatted with Frank Sinatra in the mid-'90's at the Tower of Pizza. His interest in talking to me was in my 100% wop ancestry, and the fact that my uncle ran the Hialeah track in Florida.

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I didn't read that publication very much(once in a while when eating a meal alone), I only have an idea of what you wrote about from what others have said here and there. Whatever the case/ content, even if it's in direct contradiction to my own beliefs regarding VP I have to give you props on getting a gig with such a well-known publication and making your articles popular with many readers. You are a skilled writer (somthing I envy in a way) and wrote for a major publication, no one can take that away from you.

Aside from that, we AP's should be happy with the content you were writing about. Guys like Bob and Skip(especially skip) took money out of our/MY pocket by giving out information for "free" by teaching and encouraging others to get involved in AP.

There are many guys that won't fault guys like that since that kind of stuff is what helped them learn and encouraged them down the path of Advantage Play.

I had been bitter towards that kind of stuff since I never got my knowledge, information, or motivation from any of that stuff, I figured stuff out as I went(I'm no longer bitter, I have learned to accept what I can not change). To this day, I have yet to read any AP books. Various things published did confirm what I suspected, or already knew, and software helped me dial exact numbers and strategies.

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Originally Posted by mickeycrimm

I think Di Rocco liked the controversy. Controversy sells. At the time there probably wasn't 100 video pokers pros in the United States. Di Rocco didn't give a rats ass about them. The masses of recreational gamblers were the market. They don't want to know how to grind out a profit. They want to know how to strike it rich.

I read Gaming Today religiously in those days. The rag came out every Tuesday. I found a lot of plays just by reading the casino news. I remember one morning walking into the Vegas Club, picking up a copy of Gaming Today, grabbing a seat, then reading "Detroit Motor City installs Anchor Gaming's Double Time System."

I immediately booked the next flight to Detroit. I was in Detroit before sundown. I had made a lot of money on that double time system when they first installed it at the Pioneer/Laughlin.

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I didn't know they had that system in Detroit. How soon after the Pioneer, do you remember what year? My GF(Wife now) and I did really well at the Pioneer and it was really fun. That play lead me to other things in Laughlin that were super lucrative and we had it to ourselves. Randys guys kept trying to figure out what we were doing, but they never did. I asked Randy if he could tell his guys to back off and that was the last I had to deal with them.

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Originally Posted by AxelWolf

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Originally Posted by Rob.Singer

First of all, Chuck sought me out by contacting my publisher; I never inquired about doing a column for GT.

He was a slick operator who had what I thought was a GIANT office for that style of paper, and he brought his French Bulldogs in with him every day. Being someone who has always believed dogs are this planet's most angelic living creatures, I saw he and I would get along right away. He was direct and bold and he wanted no BS when discussing business. I was told he had had it with the stale writings of Bob Dancer and Skip Hughes, and he wanted what he called "sensible controversy" in his video poker columnist's weekly articles. Naturally, that was me.

He took me to dinner at the steakhouse at Circus Circus and that's where he offered me $$ for a weekly column. I accepted the offer to write but refused to be paid for it, since I wanted him to understand that I only made money on VP from playing the machines. Yes I profited from my books, but how do you get around that? I gave that money to my kids anyway. But before the handshake Chuck wanted to go with me to a casino of my choice and witness me playing what hopefully would be a successful complete session using my Play Strategy--"successful" meaning winning at least $2500 in the session. He was blunt: do what I said I would do about having an 85% chance of winning and I'm his new writer; lose and we part ways.

I chose Terrible's because of their $1/$2/$5/$10/$25 machines, and I brought the required $57,200 session bankroll. I said if I needed to go to the $100 machine then I'd do that at MGM. I was concerned he'd get bored watching me play but that was short-lived as I hit a dollar royal less than an hour into what was a very complex strategy for a newbie to have to sit thru.

As time went on Chuck loved my work, and The Undeniable Truth became GT's most popular column ever. Compared to what it was back then, it's almost like a pamphlet today. I quit due to disagreements with Chuck's widow Eileen after nearly 8 years, and I never missed a week during my time there. But that was easy compared to how I felt masking my years of double-up glitch play while sometimes making up Play Strategy results in my columns. I have training for situations such as this so I plodded thru it all flawlessly. I did finally admit this to GT last year but they really didn't care about something over a decade old.

Other than that, I met and chatted with Frank Sinatra in the mid-'90's at the Tower of Pizza. His interest in talking to me was in my 100% wop ancestry, and the fact that my uncle ran the Hialeah track in Florida.

---

I didn't read that publication very much(once in a while when eating a meal alone), I only have an idea of what you wrote about from what others have said here and there. Whatever the case/ content, even if it's in direct contradiction to my own beliefs regarding VP I have to give you props on getting a gig with such a well-known publication and making your articles popular with many readers. You are a skilled writer (somthing I envy in a way) and wrote for a major publication, no one can take that away from you.

Aside from that, we AP's should be happy with the content you were writing about. Guys like Bob and Skip(especially skip) took money out of our/MY pocket by giving out information for "free" by teaching and encouraging others to get involved in AP.

There are many guys that won't fault guys like that since that kind of stuff is what helped them learn and encouraged them down the path of Advantage Play.

I had been bitter towards that kind of stuff since I never got my knowledge, information, or motivation from any of that stuff, I figured stuff out as I went(I'm no longer bitter, I have learned to accept what I can not change). To this day, I have yet to read any AP books. Various things published did confirm what I suspected, or already knew, and software helped me dial exact numbers and strategies.

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Rob is a good writer (when he wants to be). My degree is in writing from Penn State. But I believe Rob's "wop ancestry " had more to do with his Gaming Today gig than he modestly reports.

I knew DiRocco's personal history and have sat on it for 30 years because it's really inappropriate (and a terrible idea -- LOL) to tell anybody that stuff until the cats are out of the bag.

We old sports bettors were plugged into some things.

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Originally Posted by AxelWolf

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Originally Posted by mickeycrimm

I think Di Rocco liked the controversy. Controversy sells. At the time there probably wasn't 100 video pokers pros in the United States. Di Rocco didn't give a rats ass about them. The masses of recreational gamblers were the market. They don't want to know how to grind out a profit. They want to know how to strike it rich.

I read Gaming Today religiously in those days. The rag came out every Tuesday. I found a lot of plays just by reading the casino news. I remember one morning walking into the Vegas Club, picking up a copy of Gaming Today, grabbing a seat, then reading "Detroit Motor City installs Anchor Gaming's Double Time System."

I immediately booked the next flight to Detroit. I was in Detroit before sundown. I had made a lot of money on that double time system when they first installed it at the Pioneer/Laughlin.

---

I didn't know they had that system in Detroit. How soon after the Pioneer, do you remember what year? My GF(Wife now) and I did really well at the Pioneer and it was really fun. That play lead me to other things in Laughlin that were super lucrative and we had it to ourselves. Randys guys kept trying to figure out what we were doing, but they never did. I asked Randy if he could tell his guys to back off and that was the last I had to deal with them.

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I just caught myself remembering things a little wrong. I think my cognitives these days ain't much better than Joe Biden's It wasn't the double time system. Anchor had another system called the Lucky Coin Bonus System which you might remember was installed for the opening of Mandalay Bay. Another spot I made some money.

Detroit Motor City had been open for only 3 weeks when I got there. The Lucky Coin System was billed as MOTOR CITY MILLIONAIRE. All the machines in the house were linked together. Sometime during each month whoever bet the lucky coin received 50K a year for 20 years. So it wasn't really exploitable.

But, luckily, they had about 20 of the $5 Visions, $1 X-Factors, quarter Blue Screen Bingo's, and quarter Vacation U.S.A's. So I got to make some money but I had to pull out after a week. First of all I didn't like Detroit. 2nd, I was drawing heat. Surveillance came down twice and warned me about vulturing. One of them said "You play Visions for a living." 3rd, more and more Chinese were arriving. So I pulled the plug. Went back to Nevada.

BTW, I'm in contact with Randy. He visited me in Montana about a year ago when he was passing thru. He lives in North Dakota where he is from. He's still heavily into sports handicapping and is currently working all the new promotions in the newly legal sportsbetting states. He's holed up in one state in particular this football season because they have lucrative promotions.

He also makes appearances of the Mitch Moss Radio Show. I'll see if I can find the video of him telling the story of the $1 Full Pay Deuces Progressive with 1% meter in Ruidoso, New Mexico. Randy and Ali told me about after it ended.

I think that was about 2002 which was the year of the Pioneer Double Time System. Ali was still working blackjack promotions at Ruidoso at the time but came over for the Pioneer play. They kept delaying the installation and Ali's ole lady got into some kind of trouble back in Ruidoso. He had to go back and take care of it so he missed the Pioneer play.

After the Pioneer play I went north and played Draw Till U Win and other games around northern Nevada for the next 5 years before discovering Montana.

Az. is one of those new online sportsbetting states, and since just before NFL season began the tv and radio ads here have been relentless. After seeing there were multiple sites practically begging for our business, I got interested and took advantage of every offer I could for the max amount allowed both in my name and my wife's. Some of these opportunities were in the thousands. I won't say how much our profit was because it'll just cause distress for some. But I'm not really an interested sports bettor and I quit (us) when the initial promos were used. There's still some that pop up in my email but I got my piece of the pie. I can see how it would be well worth it for someone to chase the new states where this opened up. And more will come along.

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Originally Posted by mickeycrimm

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Originally Posted by AxelWolf

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Originally Posted by mickeycrimm

I think Di Rocco liked the controversy. Controversy sells. At the time there probably wasn't 100 video pokers pros in the United States. Di Rocco didn't give a rats ass about them. The masses of recreational gamblers were the market. They don't want to know how to grind out a profit. They want to know how to strike it rich.

I read Gaming Today religiously in those days. The rag came out every Tuesday. I found a lot of plays just by reading the casino news. I remember one morning walking into the Vegas Club, picking up a copy of Gaming Today, grabbing a seat, then reading "Detroit Motor City installs Anchor Gaming's Double Time System."

I immediately booked the next flight to Detroit. I was in Detroit before sundown. I had made a lot of money on that double time system when they first installed it at the Pioneer/Laughlin.

---

I didn't know they had that system in Detroit. How soon after the Pioneer, do you remember what year? My GF(Wife now) and I did really well at the Pioneer and it was really fun. That play lead me to other things in Laughlin that were super lucrative and we had it to ourselves. Randys guys kept trying to figure out what we were doing, but they never did. I asked Randy if he could tell his guys to back off and that was the last I had to deal with them.

---

I just caught myself remembering things a little wrong. I think my cognitives these days ain't much better than Joe Biden's It wasn't the double time system. Anchor had another system called the Lucky Coin Bonus System which you might remember was installed for the opening of Mandalay Bay. Another spot I made some money.

Detroit Motor City had been open for only 3 weeks when I got there. The Lucky Coin System was billed as MOTOR CITY MILLIONAIRE. All the machines in the house were linked together. Sometime during each month whoever bet the lucky coin received 50K a year for 20 years. So it wasn't really exploitable.

But, luckily, they had about 20 of the $5 Visions, $1 X-Factors, quarter Blue Screen Bingo's, and quarter Vacation U.S.A's. So I got to make some money but I had to pull out after a week. First of all I didn't like Detroit. 2nd, I was drawing heat. Surveillance came down twice and warned me about vulturing. One of them said "You play Visions for a living." 3rd, more and more Chinese were arriving. So I pulled the plug. Went back to Nevada.

BTW, I'm in contact with Randy. He visited me in Montana about a year ago when he was passing thru. He lives in North Dakota where he is from. He's still heavily into sports handicapping and is currently working all the new promotions in the newly legal sportsbetting states. He's holed up in one state in particular this football season because they have lucrative promotions.

He also makes appearances of the Mitch Moss Radio Show. I'll see if I can find the video of him telling the story of the $1 Full Pay Deuces Progressive with 1% meter in Ruidoso, New Mexico. Randy and Ali told me about after it ended.

I think that was about 2002 which was the year of the Pioneer Double Time System. Ali was still working blackjack promotions at Ruidoso at the time but came over for the Pioneer play. They kept delaying the installation and Ali's ole lady got into some kind of trouble back in Ruidoso. He had to go back and take care of it so he missed the Pioneer play.

After the Pioneer play I went north and played Draw Till U Win and other games around northern Nevada for the next 5 years before discovering Montana.

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Yeah, I knew he was in North Dakota and was doing sports betting. We have also been chasing the sports bonuses, that cat is out of the bag and it's now dancing and singing loud from the rooftops. Draw till you win was a very fun game, but I never found it above .25 It was a great machine to play during certain promotions. I don't remember what the meter move was, but they had $1 FPDW with a Royal promotion at the Orleans lounge bar. One of the most aggravating plays I have ever been on, I could only handle about 8 hours a day because that washboard band was SOOO FUCKING LOUD AND ANNOYING.

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Originally Posted by AxelWolf

SOOO FUCKING LOUD AND ANNOYING.

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Just like you, little fella.

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Originally Posted by coach belly

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Originally Posted by AxelWolf

SOOO FUCKING LOUD AND ANNOYING.

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Just like you, little fella.

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Said the troll.

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Originally Posted by coach belly

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Originally Posted by AxelWolf

SOOO FUCKING LOUD AND ANNOYING.

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Just like you, little fella.

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Is this the first post you've ever made where you didn't ask a cunty question? If so, congratulations, you cunt.

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Originally Posted by jdaewoo

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Originally Posted by coach belly

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Originally Posted by AxelWolf

SOOO FUCKING LOUD AND ANNOYING.

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Just like you, little fella.

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Is this the first post you've ever made where you didn't ask a cunty question? If so, congratulations, you cunt.

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Well, I do know it was the first retard derail in an otherwise fine thread.

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Originally Posted by jdaewoo

Is this the first post you've ever made where you didn't ask a cunty question?

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That's a cunty question right there, you cunt.

I don't ask cunty questions, but you do. Cunt.

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Originally Posted by accountinquestion

the first retard derail

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And you're the third retard to reply.

First Mo, then Larry, so that makes you Curly...your mom's pet name for your crotch.

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Originally Posted by coach belly

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Originally Posted by accountinquestion

the first retard derail

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And you're the third retard to reply.

First Mo, then Larry, so that makes you Curly...your mom's pet name for your crotch.

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If you were near as funny as creepy and awful you'd have some marketable skill.

Credit where it's due, I enjoyed Rob's story. Further, he's a good writer.

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Originally Posted by Mission146

Credit where it's due, I enjoyed Rob's story. Further, he's a good writer.

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Very humble of you. It's always rare to see positive comments here, especially towards guys like Rob. There are many members( your not one of them) where its equivalent of pulling teeth, to see any kind of positivity dished out. Writing approved by the Marathon Man.

Thanks. Emphasis on, "Quality of writing," approved. I obviously don't agree with his VP system itself.

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Originally Posted by Mission146

Thanks. Emphasis on, "Quality of writing," approved. I obviously don't agree with his VP system itself.

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That's very obvious, his VP system is farcical. If someone can pull it off in writing, it's old comedic Robbie himself.

A must see classic for anybody wanting to see an A+ entertaining interview(only 11 minutes, well worth it) Rob & Alan at their finest !. I can't post it, I'm currently on old back up iPad(8 year old casino gift). It's a video on YouTube with surprisingly only 4.8k views( deserves 100k). It's the very first video that pops up on YouTube with Rob+ Alan. 2 forum gambling legends that don't disappoint ! If someone can post it to the forum, that would be great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DF2GuWa72A


Is this the one? These old videos were what got me interested in the Singer/Mendelson duo 10 years ago. It reminded me of when Uri Geller bamboozled the Stanford Research Institute using some impromptu and fairly obvious "magic tricks." The SRI and Geller wound up tied together forever.

Ten years ago, my first impression of the interview had to do with, "Why the hell is Rob wearing that shirt for a serious interview?" The rule of thumb for lectures or interviews is that if what you have to say is worthwhile and you know what you're talking about, you don't wear a distraction. Alan maybe should have coached him into different sartorial choices, but it's also possible Alan didn't want to be doing any kinds of coaching for an interview.

Looking at the videos now, I have no idea why Rob makes an occasional crack about my weight (I'm maybe 15 pounds overweight). Rob looks way worse in other sessions than I do weight-wise.

As for Rob's hair, as I say about myself, "It is what it ain't." After the first three months of pandemic, I finally took off my baseball cap, and my hair had that similar Larry Fine look to it. I immediately had my girlfriend shave it all off.

Red you know what it means when you turn to making fun of what someone looks like whenever you disagree with them. The cancel culture ideology doesn't work. BTW if you're still lost in your past, if you ever meet me you'll see I'm still the 200 pound guy I was in 1995 who was and is in near perfect shape. You don't see many fat slobs at the gun range every week.That takes work within that age range. And if you're worried about your hair or lack thereof then you're uncomfortable with who you are.

I wore that Tommy Bahama shirt in honor of my interviewer. It was a freebie at a Harrah's LV giveaway and since Alan was a regular investor in the Harrah's Corporation, I thought I'd show him what appreciation I had.

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The only ones that won't admit it are the math people that don't want it to be true, because then their whole world would go upside down.

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You wish. Why wouldn't I want it to be true? I DO want it to be true, but that doesn't change the fact that it's not true. If it were true, then it would be exploitable, and if it were exploitable, then I could figure out how to exploit it.

Being good at pattern recognition is a necessary biological trait that we wouldn't have survived without. In the wild, we would make cause-and-effect decisions based on our observations (or accounts) of previous situations in which the same set of conditions (causes) to some extent, were in place. That doesn't mean that there is a cause-and-effect in what we perceive as patterns in video poker hands or on slot machine games...though with variable-state slot machines, that's actually sometimes true. In Video Poker, there is only one cause---and that cause is randomness. When it comes to long-term results, it's randomness accompanied by how strong your strategy is compared to optimal.

But, no, I would love nothing more than for VP machines to NOT be random as long as they were not random in a way that is exploitable.

Truth or falsity, however, do not tend to bend to my personal wishes.

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There's been a few people that call me out on that and we sit down at a machine for ten minutes, or five minutes, or whatever...and it comes out to 4%, 5%, but it's really too short.

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Damn...you realize that's one of the favorite go to arguments of us, "Math Guys," for explaining why someone could be ahead after what seems (to them) to be a significant number of hands at a negative expectation game, right?

Paraphrase: A combination over a ten or fifteen minute cycle where nothing is coming (meaning lots of total throwaways or not converting 2P into FH), then you know the machine is cold.

Let's take the high side of that and go fifteen minutes. If I play 800HPH, then I play an average of 200 hands in fifteen minutes. My probability of a dealt Two Pair is 4.7539% (per hand), so I should see about 9.5078....but we will call it ten...dealt Two Pairs in this period of time. The probability of my NOT converting that to a Full House on any given dealt two pair is (44/48), so the probability of it not happening ten consecutive times is (44/48)^10 = 0.41890388788.

So, what you're telling me is that if I get the expected number of Two Pairs within a fifteen minute period and do NOT convert any of them, that tells me that the, "Machine is cold?"

Bullshit. First of all, you were just talking about small v. large samples two minutes prior to that. Secondly, that just means I'm cold on that particular draw...you could have the same thing happen, but probably wouldn't notice, if you hit a quad or two within that same fifteen minute period.

Although, you're combining missing that particular draw with getting more than expected, "No holds." If you accept, as you should, that a, "No Hold," is the worst case scenario from an EV-standpoint...then what you are calling a, "Cold machine," is no different from me saying, "I haven't been running well the last few minutes." It's not indicative of anything.

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How many times have you seen a hot cycle?

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It depends. What's a hot cycle? If you're talking about ringing quads up within ten hands of one another, not often. If you're talking about getting several consecutive wins on the lower end of the paytable...then I would say plenty of times. People tend not to notice when they're hitting a bunch of consecutive 2P + 3OaK with a JoB result here and there though.

Paraphrase: How do you know they're legit?

It would only take one disgruntled employee of the device manufacturer.

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"They make believe they have an advantage over the casino.

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It's kind of funny how we see Video Poker downgraded more and more frequently, isn't it? You'd think they could have more 100%+ machines if they were gaffed. You'd also think the newer jurisdictions would open their casinos with 100%+ since you maintain that the games are not random and, consequently, don't pay that with Optimal Strategy anyway.

All that said, I'm just opening a dialogue. I'm happy to keep it civil. Despite a few of the things you've said on the forums, you're well-spoken (more so than I expected) and fundamentally seem like a reasonable, and dare I say likable, guy.

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Originally Posted by redietz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DF2GuWa72A


Is this the one? These old videos were what got me interested in the Singer/Mendelson duo 10 years ago. It reminded me of when Uri Geller bamboozled the Stanford Research Institute using some impromptu and fairly obvious "magic tricks." The SRI and Geller wound up tied together forever.

Ten years ago, my first impression of the interview had to do with, "Why the hell is Rob wearing that shirt for a serious interview?" The rule of thumb for lectures or interviews is that if what you have to say is worthwhile and you know what you're talking about, you don't wear a distraction. Alan maybe should have coached him into different sartorial choices, but it's also possible Alan didn't want to be doing any kinds of coaching for an interview.

Looking at the videos now, I have no idea why Rob makes an occasional crack about my weight (I'm maybe 15 pounds overweight). Rob looks way worse in other sessions than I do weight-wise.

As for Rob's hair, as I say about myself, "It is what it ain't." After the first three months of pandemic, I finally took off my baseball cap, and my hair had that similar Larry Fine look to it. I immediately had my girlfriend shave it all off.

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Yes it is, Tks Comrade.

Look, well-spoken or not, good story teller or not (which applies to Singer and Mdawg) is irrelevant to me. I don't care about any of that. What I care about is the intentional misleading of players.

In the interview Rob says he made "almost a million dollars over 10 years". Of course THAT was yester-year's Rob Singer claim. He has changed that dramatically to make room for another more outrageous claim, the double up bug. His amended claim from these "beliefs" is now 4 years, 375k. That is quite an amend. That amended claim is not true either, but quite an amend and begs the question, why would anyone entertain anything said after that ever again?

Hot cycles, cold cycles, progression wagering, win and loss goal. These are all voodoo gambling concepts. Rob is stacking multiple voodoo concepts on top of each other and claiming any or all can overcome negative expectation, which is just utter nonsense. Utter nonsense disproven a million times.

If you take one thing away from this interview it should be this: "The machine telepaths hot cycles to you, if you know what you are doing".


Nothing more need be said. ;):D

Extremely underrated video with only 4.8k views and ONLY 2 COMMENTS ROFLMFAO ! Puts BLOAT Mitchell's views/comments ratio to shame ! For some reason "Peter Griffins" comment got deleted a few years back, along with MANY others obviously :)

Only 14 measly likes, what a shame for this masterpiece ! I contributed by being number 14 !

Those who've paid attention comprehend exactly how and why I took that public stand on "hot & cold cycles", "5th card flipovers", "non-random randomness" etc. Nuff said.

Mission, the reason I had a decent career prior to vp as well as being happily married for 43 years and hopefully counting, is because yes, I am VERY different in person than I've been on the forums over the years. I have a huge amount of life experience that goes almost from A to Z, and anyone I meet who thinks they hated me discovers I'm good at putting on whatever face I choose to from behind a computer screen. Even kew, with all his foolish vitriol and BS about my life because he doesn't want a nasty critic like myself to have a successful and comfortable life, would instantly get along with me. I came into my VP career ready for battle, and my direction got all helter-skelter when I came upon the DU play. It's been a ride.

Red, I do have a major flaw you might take notice of: my broken foot that's had two operations in the past 3 years, has not 100% healed and it acts up from time to time. It won't get any better since I'm so old. I no longer can run either. But, in-between posts I just finished shoveling and hauling 9 ton of rock to re-do our back yard. It took 5 days on and off, and I didn't hire our Mexican yard guys because I wanted to see if I still had it. Plus it's a full body workout. The lady across the street came out twice to see how I was doing. She knows I'm 72 and thought I might have a heart attack or something. That's not me....at least not yet. She even brought me several Powerades.

Rob, in the video you said "I have an engineering background". Would you care to elaborate?

Also that ramblin gamblin book is not available on Amazon. You can find it, just no one selling it. I'd have actually bought it.

I don’t know when that video was shot, but it there’s less than 30 years between that and the Newell pics time has not been good to Rob.

I had to stop listening at about 4 minutes in when Rob started to say something about the machine telepathing to him .. lol,,

Props for doing it with a straight face though. :D

Damn Chinese prison machines. Can't win shit on them if it's a holiday weekend...lmao

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MaxPen

I had to stop listening at about 4 minutes in when Rob started to say something about the machine telepathing to him .. lol,,

Props for doing it with a straight face though. :D

Damn Chinese prison machines. Can't win shit on them if it's a holiday weekend...lmao

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Being a semi-anonymous person myself I can't take shots at a guy who puts himself out there like that but I can't help to comment on the little layer of smoke rising above the top of Rob's head. Could it be from thinking so hard about the patterns of the machines and such? Basically his dome overheated?

Rob's the best. I really would have bought his book had it been available.

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Originally Posted by mcap

I don’t know when that video was shot, but it there’s less than 30 years between that and the Newell pics time has not been good to Rob.

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In other words, you couldn't find anything else to criticize about me so you went straight to looks. But other than that, time has been VERY good to me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by accountinquestion

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MaxPen

I had to stop listening at about 4 minutes in when Rob started to say something about the machine telepathing to him .. lol,,

Props for doing it with a straight face though. :D

Damn Chinese prison machines. Can't win shit on them if it's a holiday weekend...lmao

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Being a semi-anonymous person myself I can't take shots at a guy who puts himself out there like that but I can't help to comment on the little layer of smoke rising above the top of Rob's head. Could it be from thinking so hard about the patterns of the machines and such? Basically his dome overheated?

Rob's the best. I really would have bought his book had it been available.

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I saw it in a library on East Flamingo like a decade ago. It’s probably floating around there somewhere, any gambling related book of little value is in the LV public library system somewhere.

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Originally Posted by Rob.Singer

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mcap

I don’t know when that video was shot, but it there’s less than 30 years between that and the Newell pics time has not been good to Rob.

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In other words, you couldn't find anything else to criticize about me so you went straight to looks. But other than that, time has been VERY good to me.

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I only made it maybe two minutes into the video.

I should have done 43/47 in my one post, don't know what I was thinking about. Just typing and continuing to listen while also in a hurry...doesn't really change the point.

KewlJ Says:

Quote:

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Look, well-spoken or not, good story teller or not (which applies to Singer and Mdawg) is irrelevant to me. I don't care about any of that. What I care about is the intentional misleading of players.

In the interview Rob says he made "almost a million dollars over 10 years". Of course THAT was yester-year's Rob Singer claim. He has changed that dramatically to make room for another more outrageous claim, the double up bug. His amended claim from these "beliefs" is now 4 years, 375k. That is quite an amend. That amended claim is not true either, but quite an amend and begs the question, why would anyone entertain anything said after that ever again?

Hot cycles, cold cycles, progression wagering, win and loss goal. These are all voodoo gambling concepts. Rob is stacking multiple voodoo concepts on top of each other and claiming any or all can overcome negative expectation, which is just utter nonsense. Utter nonsense disproven a million times.

If you take one thing away from this interview it should be this: "The machine telepaths hot cycles to you, if you know what you are doing".

Nothing more need be said.

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I'm not giving Rob a pass on the misinformation, but at least it was free misinformation. Apparently, Singer didn't even get paid for writing his column, though he says he was offered. The books would have cost money, of course, but Singer wouldn't have had much of a choice but to charge for the books. Could always just not write them, of course.

If you want to blame anyone for anything, then blame Gaming Today more than anyone. Unlike someone posting on a message board, they're the ones featuring the bullshit as a column. Further, assuming Rob didn't get paid, I would think Gaming Today was the entity making money on this by one means or another.

You can also go ahead and blame whoever read the system and believed it. If they want to be right there with Christians in their capacity to believe in myths, then that's their lookout.

Here's the thing: Gaming Today probably figured it would be popular because it's optimistic and people want to believe in betting systems. Think about it: According to Rob's account, this guy either knew that the system doesn't change the math or is a complete fucking moron...and I'm thinking it's the former. So, basically, you have the head GT guy publishing deliberate misinformation for profit. He probably just wanted to see the system in action because he figured (with a high enough success rate) you wouldn't have a high percentage of readers royally pissed off if they went out and tried it. Besides, if they do get pissed off, then he could make a very public production out of dismissing Singer from his column, followed by an apology to readers, so it's kind of win-win for that guy.

Anyway, people want to believe they are going to win and lies are going to be more popular than the truth. System writers are in the business of creating dreams.

If someone is a negative expectation player, I'm in the business of taking peoples' dreams, ripping them to shreds, throwing them on the ground, stomping on them, grinding them under my foot and then spitting on whatever is left...at least, when it comes to thinking they can beat a -EV game in the long run or beat -EV with Betting Systems. It's either me and their feelings get slightly hurt, or the casinos and their wallets get perhaps seriously hurt. Of the two options, I think I'm the poison they should pick. It's not the easiest road, I guess, but it's more fun and you also get to tell the truth about the math.

I mean, no free pass for Singer, but cui bono? The guy who owned the publication benefits.

Besides, it's however many years later and this is a small message board tucked in the middle of Internet nowhere. Reading some of the political threads, I'm going to say we're probably in the Internet's version of the Deep South.

Mission is a true Yankee, going out of his way to shit on the south, America’s punching bag for 160 years. Well done.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rob.Singer

Red you know what it means when you turn to making fun of what someone looks like whenever you disagree with them. The cancel culture ideology doesn't work. BTW if you're still lost in your past, if you ever meet me you'll see I'm still the 200 pound guy I was in 1995 who was and is in near perfect shape. You don't see many fat slobs at the gun range every week.That takes work within that age range. And if you're worried about your hair or lack thereof then you're uncomfortable with who you are.

I wore that Tommy Bahama shirt in honor of my interviewer. It was a freebie at a Harrah's LV giveaway and since Alan was a regular investor in the Harrah's Corporation, I thought I'd show him what appreciation I had.

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No, Rob, you got me wrong on this. I'm not making fun of you. I just think it's weird that Alan, who has oodles of television experience, wouldn't have suggested some wardrobe. I think it was a weird dynamic with him NOT suggesting wardrobe choices. Tommy Bahama is a higher end brand (I have one shirt and a pair of pants from Belk on big-time sale), but some of their stuff is a little attention-diverting. I stick to tans. You look a bit like one of those retired Italian entrepreneurs, many of whom stayed at the Convention Center Lodge with me back in the 80's. While it's true that dons don't wear shorts, many others do.

Sports bettors are notorious for looking like shit all the time (kind of like poker players). As I said previously, I probably looked better for pics and interviews than most sports bettors, but banging around town, my rule of thumb was the more I was carrying, the worse I appeared.

Before I switched to writing at Penn State, I spent two years as a journalism major, and it is true that wearing a distraction serves little purpose when on camera, unless there's a specific reason, like a theme. For example, I have a collection of gear I'll be wearing on camera that looks worse than what you're wearing from a distraction standpoint, but it serves a theme purpose -- namely Las Vegas retro.

Performance over appearance, Rob. I was just surprised that Alan didn't play wardrobe consultant.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MaxPen

I had to stop listening at about 4 minutes in when Rob started to say something about the machine telepathing to him .. lol,,

Props for doing it with a straight face though. :D

Damn Chinese prison machines. Can't win shit on them if it's a holiday weekend...lmao

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The machine telepathy line is a winner.

I've run into this in sports on occasion. The paranormal abilities that enable people to circumvent established math. Boz may remember these:

If you go way back to the first Sports Illustrated back page feature on Danny Sheridan (aka Schachter) circa 1972 or thereabouts (I have it here somewhere), he claims to go walking around football fields at night the evening before games, when his selections "come to him." Sheridan claimed, in that article, to have hit 80-some percent for an entire season. He managed to fool SI by getting a local reporter to say it was true. But then the details of the alleged verification came to light, and it was all a bit of a trick. Anyway, there was that, and then there was a mailer from Mike Warren's relative who said he "had the gift." That must not have gone over well, as "the gift" was never mentioned in any ads I saw after that one time.

All of the paranormal abilities tend to vanish when spotlights are shone. There's even a name for this, the "shyness effect." Pro-psi guys trot out "the shyness effect" as some kind of explanation rather than the clear "He or she can't do this shit" evidence.

Rob, of course, has constructed a narrative wherein every off-the-wall idiotic line he ever uttered is covered by his "hiding the double up bug." Basically, it's a free pass on 20 years of internet bullshit.

I am working on the same kind of thing to explain all my losses over 40 years. It goes something like this:

I have many losing weeks and the occasional losing year to hide the fact that I'm precognitive. So any time I lost a contest or had a bad year, it's all in service of keeping my genius and abilities under wraps. All you poor saps who have criticized my occasional terrible, awful plays have actually been the idiots because all this time, I've known every result in advance.