Frank Kneeland starting a new radio show?

[Alan Mendelson]

I read on VP Free that Frank -- a former contributor here -- is going to join another radio host (presumably one who already has a regular gig) to start a new radio show about gambling and casinos and the lifestyle of gambling.

Frank described the show in a post as covering all types of gambling and anything
gambling related like best shows and restaurants and trip packages and assorted deals.

Frank has been asking for help to pick a name for the show. That's actually a very good marketing technique to get your product (show) some advance publicity and to help building a link (identity) with your possible future audience.

Anyway, I have an idea for Frank for a name that might "tell the story" about what his show is all about.

First, though, a couple of names he can't use: "Vegas Best Buys." That's the name of my Vegas TV Show which I ran a couple of years ago and with the help of an ad agency owner in LV we might be bringing back to life soon. The other name is "More Deals in Vegas" because I have the website www.moredealsvegas.com.

The real reason I was in LV this past weekend (not to pick up that promotion) was to meet with the ad agency owner about this new deal. Look for an announcement soon on my other website www.VegasBestBuys.com.

But here's a name Frank might want to use: "Your Best Bets." Or simply, "Best Bets."

Frank says he is just offering bragging rights to the "winner" of his friendly competition. I'll take the bragging rights. I've been giving people ideas for businesses and for marketing for years getting nothing more in return than bragging rights. But bragging rights are a good thing to parlay into the next paying gig.

[Rob.Singer]

I don't understand. Hasn't Frank been going out of his way to tell everyone how he is simply still in LV because he's desperately trying to find a way out of the rathole? He has also been both prying information from others and preaching about gambling addiction, which when it's all added up tells me he's trying to tell us he has a serious problem himself.

Some people don't leave LV until it's too late. People like arci, who waited too long and now has to pay big time for the delay, and I've chronicled others who also allowed the poker machines to ruin their lives. It doesn't have to be that way, people!

[Alan Mendelson]

I don't see the connection between your comments and a radio show? It seems to me that it makes perfect sense that a broadcasting franchise makes use of his knowledge of gambling for a radio show. More power to him. I hope it's a good gig.

[Rob.Singer]

You don't? Does "I HAVE to leave this town and make a change to my life" mean anything to you? All starting a new broadcast does is give another excuse to be near the poker machines. Yes he has a talent doing shows, but it seems to be a self-destructive path if he's not leaving town to pursue it. He's the one who's been harping on how he needs to leave--not me.

[redietz]

I missed him saying that. Did he say he had to leave on this forum or elsewhere?

[Alan Mendelson]

I don't recall him ever saying anything about "leaving Las Vegas."

[Rob.Singer]

He said it multiple times on LVA threads since he began that thread on me. He's also told me that in person. I looked at it as a positive for him so he could do something with his time and his talent instead of sitting at vp machines for hours on end.

[Alan Mendelson]

My understanding is that he doesn't sit at VP machines for hours on end. In fact, earlier today he sent me an email that said in the last EIGHT YEARS he has NOT gambled with his own money, and played ONLY with the money provided by the financier of a VP progressive team. He says he has also discussed this on his radio show with Bob Dancer. I found this surprising -- that here's a guy giving advice and info about playing VP but never had his own money at risk for the past eight years. In fact, he says he has not gambled any way at all over the last eight years -- and when he played VP it was because, I believe, that he had to fill a slot on the VP progressive teams that he was managing.

Yes, his job was at "risk" because he was managing the team, but his own money in the bank was not at risk playing video poker. Am I the only one surprised by this?

Frank told me I missed this part of the discussion about him and not only was it on the Dancer radio show but was also mentioned on the LVA forum. Yes, I missed it. All along I thought he was not only a team manager but also a player.

[Rob.Singer]

Depends on which day of the week I guess, Alan. He kept telling me in person and in e-mails that he had to, as he called it, "pull 12 hour shifts at the machines" at the M when those progressives were there. Must have been a manager-player....like Bill Russell used to do with the Celtics

The only thing that surprises me that there's someone out there who hands out his money to a collection of video poker junkies to chase royals, is that someone can be so dumb. Help how hard is that? I could organize a group of a dozen jobless, probably homeless video poker-playingpeople, give them $10,000 each, and tell them to "go to work" once I found the worthy +EV "opportunities". And I'm sure none of these trustworthy souls would EVER slip any of that cash into their pockets and say they "lost it"--being the gold standard citizens of the community that they are. Then, take a guess how long it would take for me to be out a hundred grand....

It's all hokey and it makes no sense. And it all combines to give meaning to why these guys live in theory rather than reality: it's all one big wet dream. I think I told you of one of these "team players" who called into Gaming Today after ranting & screaming his head off complaining about my column that week, when he read that I hit a $25 royal by tossing 3 Q's to hold three-to-the-royal in BP. He (Elliott Shapiro) just couldn't't get over how GT could allow their most read & popular columnist of all time to be published, after--and these are his famous words--"not winning anything on a play that cost Singer over $400!".

Can you imagine how conflicted this poor soul's messed up mind had to be to be able to talk like that? His rationale was that if I made this play a million times, I'd end up a sure loser. Forget that I had amassed a $94,000+ profit for the session and was on my way home with the cash! I guess to such confused individuals they can't figure out how rare a hand that is. I've only see it three times in my life, and one of those times did not require I go for the royal since I was on ddbp.

So you know how misleading, confused, and out of touch these people can be, which is probably why you're getting an inexplicable & different understanding of Frank etc. now.

[Alan Mendelson]

I wonder if I am the only one who missed on the LVA forum Frank's comment that he hasn't played with his own money in 8 years??

[Rob.Singer]

I've read probably close to everything and have never seen that. But does he or any of those "team members" actually have any money to play with anyways?

[redietz]

If Frank hasn't played with his own money in eight years, I think it helps explain his intense interest in gambling addiction "professionals." He may be feeling intensely guilty for exposing others to the travails of gambling eight hours or more a day, and many of them probably have done so to their own detriment. So Frank writes his book, doesn't play with his own money, and hitches up with some folks with doctorates (my late wife had a couple, so I'm not necessarily knocking them) to do penance for his involving others in gambling. The thing is -- the gambling addiction "professionals" are all hired hands, anyway. Their research is funded via them convincing the NIH or other granting agencies that they are working on cures for societal problems. They are doing "useful and sanctioned" work. It's a shame the same resources aren't devoted to people buying cars they don't need, houses that are too expensive, and eating McDonald's food. These "addictions" cost society more than gambling, but we live in a rampaging consumer culture, so they are not defined as problems.

Frank's a smart man -- but researching gambling addiction isn't really penance for being part of a milieu that creates "problem gamblers."

[Alan Mendelson]

Redietz it is interesting that you wrote Frank had a "part of a milieu that creates 'problem gamblers.'"

He sent me some emails over the last couple of days asking me to look at some "math" which would show how video poker progressives are profitable. I told him they can be IF you hit the progressives. If you don't you will lose. And I also said to him that spreading those kinds of math formulas around could suck in more people into being addicted gamblers.

Then Frank tells me it's another of his anti gambling addiction projects. I told him I was not interested in answering his questions personally or through direct email, but he is welcome to post his questions and comments here.

But let me say this about all of the so-called gambling experts: I think they should all be held to a certain level of accountability, similar to stockbrokers, financial planners, accountants, lawyers and even doctors. For a start they should all be required to preface all of their "works" with warnings that despite all of the math, the card counting skills, the dice throwing skills, the ability to detect tells in poker, etc., that all gambling has an element of chance, luck, and the unknown which can hit you like a runaway truck when you have the green light at an intersection.

[Rob.Singer]

You missed it because he never said that--anywhere. Can you just IMAGINE the ribbing he and his reputation would take by the LVA crowd if they discovered one of their "gurus" used other people's money to play video poker with? The first thing they SHOULD say is: "And this is a pro"?

But there something about Frank that's refreshing: at least he eventually gets around to the entire truth. Those others....they're all smoke, mirrors, and complete BS, and they need it to be that way in order to get the attention & money they crave.

[Alan Mendelson]

A gambler going by the "math" without his own money at stake is a real problem. It is only when your own money IS at stake that you can see that the "math" doesn't deliver as the math promises. In a theoretical world -- and when you play with other people's money -- the theory is always right.

It's been a couple days now and NO one on the LVA forum has caught the post that Frank hasn't played with his own money in 8 years. Where are those guys who would jump on every comment you made here Rob? They're gone now?

[Rob.Singer]

100% correct. All the playing with other people's money does is embolden the theory of it all because NONE of it is for real. These people call themselves pros, which is also a travesty of the biggest order. In reality, they're simple street slugs with unimpressive "jobs" that pay pathetic cash wages with no benefits of any kind - unless you call the opportunity to pocket cash you're suppose to be playing with, a benefit.

And you know the worse part? These people are probably giddy over all the points and slot club status they accumulate doing this, while in the process of being forced to sit at the machines for long periods of time, the chance of becoming addicted to the game goes up a million per cent. So is it any wonder Frank is deeply engulfed in a project exploring the horrors of addictive gambling?

[Rob.Singer]

I just peeked at the LVA forum for the first time in a few weeks. Frank started a thread what looks like a few days ago, about an interview he did with some Dr. about problem gambling. It says something about how the details aren't being released right now without the secret handshake, but after the BJ21 site gets it (you know, the Wong forum that gives him the income he can't get from intelligent gambling....) it'll apparently all be released by Frank to the forums.

BTW, there were seven posts in that now 2nd page thread--five of them by Frank. Just think of how many replies there'd be if it were ME who started that "discussion".....

[Alan Mendelson]

The LVA forum is dead. Rob, even if you posted there now no one would care or respond.

In fact, there was an interesting thread started on OpenVegas about how a small clique on LVA killed off all the discussion there.

[Rob.Singer]

I didn't realize that. How will AC make any money?

But why is Frank still trying to sell his book and pretend the masses there are all interested in his interview with what's his face? I really believe he's addressing his own problem under cover of some kind of investigative celebrity. What I've seen is no one cares about his latest whatever he's doing, and I don't see any of the BJ21 crowd interested either because who in that bunch would ever be able to even STAND or handle a topic that digs into their worlds of secrecy?

Maybe he should hook up with arci and spend an enjoyable evening theorizing about how wonderful it's all suppose to be.

[Alan Mendelson]

Rob, I think you are going off on an anti-Frank tangent here. I don't know why, either.

As far as no one being interested in his problem gambling crusade -- I think the answer is obvious. He is writing about his crusade on message boards filled with gamblers. I think the last thing they want to see is someone telling them or warning them that they have a problem.

If he were publishing this on sites concerned with problem gambling, I am sure there would be much interest in everything he says and does.

But I don't know what to believe? Frank has been on record saying he and the other "APs" would never reveal their true incomes because they don't want the competition. Is his anti gambling crusade part of his plan to stop competition? At the same time he says it is difficult to earn a living playing video poker these days. Well why doesn't he just come out and give us the facts about how tough it is?

If you want to discourage problem gambling, tell the problem gamblers that they don't stand a chance.

But to talk about problem gambling, without showing proof that gambling is not a short cut to riches and fortune, is just wasting your breath. His anti compulsive gambling strategy just doesn't make sense -- as he continues with his radio programs, consulting about gambling, and still being part of the gambling community.

by the way, I keep inviting him to comment here, but he says he doesn't want to face or be a part of the controversy. Doesn't want to be a part of the controversy? Then why does he bother to take any position?

If the Internet has done anything, it has opened the door to comment so wide that any position on anything will find its critics and become controversial.