First of the Month Activities (which I don’t miss)

- going through the mailers

- going through e-mail offers

- going through promo’s

- researching casino websites in case I don’t get mailers

- reading the fine print

- sizing up free play offers & ranking the promo’s

- which casino is getting DESPERATE and giving away the store

- marking & circling dates on the calendar, e.g. making a plan

The weather was always a wild card in these plans. Competition is another wild card. Whether the game(s) gets burnt out is another. Heat is another. Are there new machines or games? What are gas prices going to be this month?

Every month has a big Holiday and this month is Luck of the Irish day, which falls on a Tuesday. March Maddness promo’s galore!! If you are a scavenger, you have to be there when the casino is crowded.

Day light savings time starts this month.

Then there’s the coronavirus ...

The nice thing about a busy month, is it goes by quickly ... I’m not big on free play so I don’t have monthly coin-in commitments. Room offers and free food are nice but I hate to dine and dash.

The nice thing about retirement is I don’t really have a calendar ... or the pressure to make money each time I am in a casino.

When I was a card counter, I practiced 3 hours for every 1 hour of table time. Included in that 3 hours were practicing my “character” or casino persona. My style of blackjack was hit and run. Play a few shoes, take a break, play a few more shoes and then call it a night. I will mention I also spent a lot of time shopping for the best games & sloppy dealers. A lot of card counters like female Asian dealers because they had “small hands.”

I quit blackjack as I got older as my eyesight wasn’t as good as it used to be. I also wasn’t as sharp as before. I still play carny games because they play slower and the casinos offer less game protection.

The same discipline applied to me being a scavenger. The rule is highest and best use: best opportunity, best games, etc. Prime time for hustlers was limited to Friday, Saturday, major holiday & days with great promotions.

I would scavenge in a casino for 4 to 6 hours that day. I might go to 2 casinos in a day but my limit was 6 hours in any one casino, win or lose. I rotated casinos to avoid patterns. I understand some scavengers live 10 to 16 hours a day, 5+ days a week in a casino. Others come almost everyday after work and on days off. However, my goal was longevity long before Don S. spelled it out in Chapter 1 of “BJ Attack”.

As a scavenger, you are at the mercy of the casino: they can remove the games at any time or change them to make them unplayable. You are also at the mercy of Ploppies who leave you equity that makes the opportunity +EV. As someone who played during the Golden Age of bonus slots, e.g. IGT Vision Series, Silicon Gaming Odyssey, etc, I know these games go in cycle. Golden Egypt was ridiculously easy to make money. Scarab was ridiculously easy to learn about the mechanics of bonus slots. However, I still believe games go in cycles.

I will end this by saying the hustlers who make money consistently make it look easy. But, it is not easy behind the scenes. There is a lot of math (analyses), someone has to update the database, find and learn new games, keep up with market intel, lots of driving, lots of researching promo’s, lots of reconnoiter like getting sensitive information on heat (barring’s or 86’s), finding changes in Player reward club benefits, trading information (and networking), etc. All of this is to get an edge over the competition, the casino, etc.

Again, the successful hustler spends a lot of time committed outside the casino to create an environment to succeed so that his or her limited time in a casino to make money is maximized. It was a grind. I don’t miss it at all.

Do your homework. Practice, practice & practice. Then get ready for showtime. The secret to success is: Highest and best use (or in math, maximize the Present Value of Casino earnings). Folks, IT ONE LONG RUN.