Crazy Stories From A Professional Card Counter - Steven Bridges

Steven Bridges is a professional gambler and mostly-legal card counter. If you've seen the movie 21, you'll know that it's possible to count cards while playing Blackjack in a casino to beat the house. But this isn't just limited to the movies, Steven is part of a team who takes on the biggest casinos in the world using hardcore maths, disguises and secret signals to win big. Expect to learn the details of how a team of players is needed to take on a casino, how Steven chooses which casinos to take on, what are the best and worst places to play Blackjack in Vegas, the most amount of money Steven has made and lost in a single session, how he deals with losing absurd amounts of money, just how difficult it actually is to count cards and much more... Sponsors: Get 20% discount on Nomatic’s amazing luggage at https://nomatic.com/modernwisdom (use code MODERNWISDOM20) Get an exclusive discount from Surfshark VPN at https://surfshark.deals/MODERNWISDOM (use code MODERNWISDOM) Get 5 Free Travel Packs, Free Liquid Vitamin D and more from AG1 at https://drinkag1.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Extra Stuff: Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom #cardcounting #casino #blackjack - 00:00 What Does Steven Do For Work? 07:29 The Dynamics of a Card-Counting Team 15:30 Is Card-Counting Legal? 19:30 Getting Recognised & Kicked Out of Casinos 23:59 Is Card-Counting Fun or Stressful? 34:58 The Feeling of Losing Significant Money 38:12 Some of Steven’s Best Games Played 40:50 The Challenges of Carrying Huge Amounts of Cash Around 48:14 How to Not Be Recognised When You Are Well-Known 56:04 Building Relationships with Dealers 59:35 Where to Find Steven - Get access to every episode 10 hours before YouTube by subscribing for free on Spotify - https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn or Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Get my free Reading List of 100 life-changing books here - https://chriswillx.com/books/ - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Chris Williamson?

  How do you describe what you do for work when you meet somebody?

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is something which frequently comes up and it's really tricky to explain because I think the most common thing I say is have you seen the movie 21? Because if they've seen that movie, they already have a basic understanding of at least the theatrical version of what card counting is. And if they haven't seen that movie, I just ask them if they know what card counting is. And a lot of the time people don't know, and then I'm in a really tricky spot. Because when you try and describe professional gambling, you do sound a bit insane.

• 0:31Chris Williamson?

  Right, yeah, I keep track of the cards at casinos and have a complex system of friends who have money bankrolled by anonymous huge donors. And we try and we try and rip casinos off.

• 0:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, essentially, yeah, it does sound like a criminal enterprise, enterprise, we put it like that. But yeah, actually, you put it really well, actually, just keeping track of the cards is quite an accurate way of doing it. Because most people think that you're memorizing all of the cards you see, which is way harder than what we're actually doing, even though what we're doing is relatively cool. So keeping track is like a nice way of summarizing it, because we're actually assigning each card on the deck with a different point, point value, separate to its points in the game of blackjack, and then we're keeping track of that running total, which we're using to get an advantage over the house, basically.

• 1:15Chris Williamson?

  Dude, I love your YouTube. I think your vlogs that you're doing with hidden cameras as you go in and take these casinos for everything they're worth until you get found out and rumbled and then escorted off the premises. I absolutely love them. I think they're fantastic. So everybody should go and check out, check out your vlogs once they finish listening to this. But talk to me about how somebody begins their apprenticeship into the world of professional casino ripper offerer.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So card counting falls under the bracket of advantage play. And an advantage player is essentially anybody that can beat a casino game, in this case legally. So there's a difference between card counting and advantage play and cheating. So cheating would be, you know, you're sneaking an extra card in or you're maybe using. Technology where it's illegal to use software to run a computer algorithm to crunch numbers to beat the game. So with advantage play, you're just playing the game within the rules with the same information that everybody else has in the casino. In theory, you're just using it in a different way. So if you want to get into card counting, it's firstly something that I really don't recommend for most people because the actual lifestyle of it can be quite brutal. And the way that I have it is I play for a

• 2:26Speaker 01

  bit and then I have quite a large break. And I think the time I was most stressed in my life when I was playing six hours a day, essentially like a night, well, not quite a nine to five, but I was treating it like a nine to five job, playing six days a week. And even though you're playing with an advantage, you can just lose so much money. And even though you know you're going to win in the long term, the psychological impact of losing the money is really, really strong. Essentially, if someone wants to learn how to to card count, there's books, there's resources, there's online websites now, and you just go through it like you would any other skill. I don't think it's particularly way harder than the average skill. It's just that with card counting, you have very, very little margin for error. So you have to master each element of card

• 3:09Speaker 01

  counting and get it perfect. Otherwise, you'll just lose loads of money.

• 3:12Chris Williamson?

  Because your edge is reliant on your mind being completely correct. And when the margin edge that you have is only slightly above 50%, any mess up by the brain drags that back.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  For sure. Yeah. Which is why also we need like tons of money to even do it because we're playing with such a small edge, you can still have a losing streak that could go on. You know, one of my teammates had a 300 hour losing streak and it's just insane. So if you don't have loads of money to bet the amounts that we're betting, which is, you know, in the thousands per hand, well, the low thousands, like, you know, a K, K and a half. If you don't have 100, 200, 300, $400,000, then you could just burn through all that on a bad run. So there's a lot of stuff that needs to be taken into consideration. That's one of the biggest mistakes that a lot of new card counters will make. They will master how to count cards. But then when it comes to the actual bankroll management and the risk management of it, they won't pay any attention to that. They'll blow through their bankroll in a very short amount of time and then they'll be, that'll be it.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  They'll be bankrupt from card counting. So you've got to be super careful.

• 4:12Chris Williamson?

  Who is it, not specifically, but where is it that you're finding half a mil to fund a trip to go and travel around the US?

• 4:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the way that I actually started was incredibly reckless in that, you know, I collaborated with another YouTuber who, he's a card counter and he teaches people to card count called Colin Jones. And I got in touch with him mainly because I thought this would make a really, firstly, it was just like a bucket list item. I thought, I really want to do this. And I also had a small YouTube channel doing magic tricks. And I thought this would make a really cool vlog series. So I got in touch with him. And I thought maybe he'll bankroll me 10K or something, or maybe I, I didn't really have any money at the time. So I wasn't sure how I was going to sort the money thing out at the time. But then one day I was moving house and I had a friend that was just helping me move house. And I was telling him what I was getting up to and I was going to go to America for a month and count cards.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  And then he just shot me a message later on going, hey, can I invest in you? And I was like, sure. And I think he offered to put something like 10 to 15K. And I can't quite remember the exact number off the top of my head. But then as we kept chatting, he just upped that and eventually just said that he'd put 200K in, in pounds. So more than that in USD. And that's the money that I played with. Now, at the time, I misunderstood how the risk of card counting, like the actual numbers on card counting, how long it takes you to get to guaranteed profit. So I didn't realise how risky this was. And it's extra bad because he was actually, he actually gave me his mortgage. So I was playing with money that he couldn't afford to lose, which is insane by all accounts and goes against what every professional gambler would say.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  All professional gamblers would be like, you've got to have your bankroll, that's separate. If you lose that, you've got to be okay. But we were essentially all in. And it would have probably ruined his life if I'd lost all of that money and also the crushing guilt I would have felt. So I don't really know where you get 200 grand to count cards. Have a friend that has a mortgage and then he gives you the money.

• 6:07Chris Williamson?

  A reckless, a reckless friend.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, but nowadays, as you network with card counters, card counters tend to have money. And because it's like a profitable thing to do. And then you meet other people that want to invest in card counters and you build up your network that way. And now it's relatively straightforward. If we're going to do a trip, we can just send a couple of texts in WhatsApp and then raise 300, 400K or whatever it is that we need.

• 6:30Chris Williamson?

  And they take a cut of some kind.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, essentially. So the way that we do it, different teams do it differently and the percentage splits are different. But the way that we do it is we have, it's kind of like you're forming a company just for one project, then you dissolve it at the end. So you've got the winnings at the end and you'll divide those 50% will go to the investors and 50% will go to the players. And normally with the players, you'll pay them out based off playing time, not based off how much they've actually won. Because the only thing that's within the card counter's control is showing up and counting cards. Whether or not they actually win, provided their game is good, which we test ahead of time, is not up to them. So we could have a card counter that's put in loads of hours and got the most hours, but they actually made a loss. Whereas we can have someone that played the least hours and they made a profit, but we don't judge it based off results. We judge it based off time that goes in. So we split it proportionally like that.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  Sometimes you'll have a manager and they'll take a manager cut because it's quite a complicated logistical thing to manage. So a manager might take 10% or something, but then the rest of it usually is split 50/50 with the investors and the players.

• 7:29Chris Williamson?

  Talk me through a typical team, people that have seen 21. You've got a variety of people, but like probably not a previous bank robber. I can't remember the movie. But what's the typical Avengers assemble that you take on these trips?

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Well, the actual, the makeup of the team, as in the people, is a complete mixed bag of people. There's maybe some card counter stereotypes, like being white and being in your twenties is a little bit more common. But in general, our team is quite, is quite a wide range of people. We've got like a core team and an extended team and it's not always the exact same people playing on a trip. But the ways that the actual team forms for a trip is that you have two main approaches. Either what we would call solo team play, which is when all the card counters are playing individually at individual casinos in different parts of America or wherever else it's going to be, but they're all sharing a bankroll. And that can be really useful because it's one of those things where the, what's the phrase?

• 8:28Speaker 01

  The sum is, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, that kind of thing. Because if you have one card counter with $10,000 and another card counter with $10,000 and they were both playing, they can play with a certain level of bets and they can make a certain hourly rate on average. But if you put those together and combine the resources, it's not the equivalent of that 20K divided by two. It's actually like one card counter with twice the money playing twice as fast. So it's really advantageous for card counters to team up. And work together because it just it gets you to the mathematical long run quicker. You can have you can place bigger bets, you can win more money in theory. And that's kind of how that works. So that's solo team play. The other type of team play, which is like the movie 21 and the version that I find the most fun.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  There are very few card counting teams that do this is what we call big player spotter team play. So one of the things which makes card counters get caught is that we have to bet. We're sat we're sat playing blackjack like everyone else. And there's only certain moments where we have the advantage over the house. That's when the count is high. So sometimes if I'm playing in Vegas or wherever, I might be betting $25 a hand. And then the count goes up and I'll bet a grand a hand. And that's a huge jump. And any surveillance person that's paying attention to that will know that most people, if they're playing blackjack and have that kind of money, aren't betting $25 sometimes and a grand other times. They they might vary their bets a bit, a bit, but never that much. So that can be a huge red flag and we can get caught that way.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  So with team play, what we do is we'll have different spotters, so card counters, that are sat at different tables, just betting the table minimum. They'll be keeping the count. And when the count gets high, they'll do a secret signal to get the attention of the big player, who is also a card counter. And his or her job is just to bet really big. So let's say I signal them in, I won't be as, you know, it'll be less, it'll be more subtle than just waving. But I'll just come over here. They'll come over. I will either tell them what the count is via a code word, or I will just use more signals to tell them what to do, how much to bet and how to play the hands. And they'll just come over to the table midway through the shoe and start betting big. But they'll leave when the count drops because I'll tell them to go. So it's really cool because everybody's consistent.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  All of the spotters are playing the minimum or close to the minimum. And the big player is only ever betting a grand a hand roughly, whatever it's going to be, which makes it more difficult for surveillance to catch the actual big player and the team. Saying that nowadays, because of movies like 21 and that system becoming more popular, who knows if it really gets you more time, but it's definitely more fun.

• 11:03Chris Williamson?

  Yes. So what you're trying to avoid is any one player changing the amount that they bet. So the variant that they bet shouldn't be much more. Okay. So going back to this solo team play or solo play generally. How do you, how do you increase your bet when the deck is hot?

• 11:24Chris Williamson?

  When you're on your own.

• 11:25Speaker 01

  We just do it. You just have to do it and sort of hope. It's kind of a weird thing because surveillance aren't only looking for card counters. They've got a heck of a lot to do. They're checking to make sure that dealers don't make payout mistakes, which at, you know, high limit room could cost a casino a lot of money. They're checking to make sure that people aren't trying to steal, that that drunk guy that's walking around isn't about to punch someone or grab some chips from the tray. Surveillance have got a really hard job and they're actually some of the most underappreci- no, definitely the most underappreciated casino staff that exists. Like, they get a really raw deal in general. That's a whole other chat. So the main thing is that surveillance have got other things to do. So they're not always watching me play blackjack.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  So they'd have to see me, watch me, see me change my bet, and only then, if I do that a few times, maybe they'd start drawing a pattern. Maybe they'd decide they have to run my game down. But in general, the way that I play, and this isn't how all card counters play, but the way that I play is pretty aggressively. So I'll try and bet as little as I can when the count is low and as much as I can when the count is high, because that maximizes the amount of money that I have the potential to win per hour. And it's those little, the bets that you're betting when you don't have the advantage that cost you quite a lot over time. So we just go for it. And now I've spoken to quite a few surveillance people, just because they've reached out to me, which has been really useful. And I think that in general, a relatively aggressive approach doesn't really lose you much more time

• 12:48Speaker 01

  than playing really conservatively and trying to do all this, what we call cover play, where you might make a little mistake with your play so that you don't look like you know what you're doing. These things, I don't know if they help more than they harm in terms of your actual hourly, you know, expected value, the money that you earn.

• 13:04Chris Williamson?

  When you're doing the big player team stuff, each different person must have a, not necessarily a cover story, but they're projecting a particular type of person when they go in there. So what's, what sort of a person are you? And then what's your ideal big player persona?

• 13:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, our big player is an absolute legend, but I'll get to him in a second. Yeah, so for me, when I'm a spotter, actually, I'm more concerned with just not drawing any attention to myself, especially given that having the YouTube channel makes me, I can get recognised in casinos. So I try and just keep a relatively low profile when I'm spotting, because I don't want to be the weak link that gets the team busted. But in general, when I'm a spotter, I'll just sit there quietly and bet the minimum and try not to really draw any attention to myself, which is very different to how I'll play when I'm not a spotter. When I'm doing solo play, like we were just playing in Vegas and I was playing various different characters with different elaborate disguises and I would really lean into being an extrovert or being super obnoxious. We've done all sorts of

• 14:07Speaker 01

  weird stuff. We did a stag too. So, uh, what's the American? Bachelor party. Bachelor party, where we were all wearing t-shirts the same and acting drunk and just going around and being incredibly loud and signaling over the BP in those cases was literally, "Hey, come here." It was a totally different strategy. So sometimes it's a case of standing out to blend in. But our, our big player, we've played with a couple of different big players and they all have a different style. There's not really a right way, but I think one of the elements is just them looking comfortable with that amount of money. If someone's new as a big player or new to card counting, then just betting, you know, a thousand dollars a hand or a couple K a hand can be really daunting. But our big player that we most commonly use is called Irish AP. That's what he goes by.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  And he just plays this very loud, obnoxious, extrovert, but kind of aggressive, angry gambler. So whenever he's losing, he's kicking off such a fuss and just being like, just cursing constantly and just complaining about the cards he's been dealt, not really taking it out at people, but taking it out at cards. So he just plays this role where he's so annoyed that people are a little bit scared of him, which I think in a way can buy us more time because they're not looking at him through the lens of a card counter that's trying to blend in. They're looking at him like, "Oh, this angry gambler that we kind of want to stay away from."

• 15:27Chris Williamson?

  Right, obvious question, what's the legality of all this?

• 15:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's totally legal in general. I mean, we could get into real specifics. Team play technically could be deemed maybe illegal in certain states, perhaps. But there's a lot of asterisks on that, just because I don't want to speak too definitely. But in general, card counting is fine because you're just using the same information that anybody else has. The way that I describe it is, can you imagine that you're playing high level chess? And you're like one of the best chess players in the world and the tournament manager comes over, taps you on the shoulder and goes, "Excuse me, we actually have seen, well, we can tell that you're thinking four moves ahead. And in this tournament, three moves ahead is the max. It's just deemed not fair." It would just be ludicrous. All we're doing is using our brains the same way that anyone else could.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  We're not, yeah, we're not cheating. It doesn't legally classify as cheating and therefore it's legal everywhere, as far as I'm aware. The only sort of, not exactly exceptions, but there's certain countries like the UK is actually weird to count cards in because you don't really have a lot of legal recourse if you get kicked out. They can potentially just withhold the money and there's been stories from other advantage players like Phil Ivey did this whole thing. With, it wasn't blackjack that he was playing, but he did this advantage play. It went to court. He didn't get paid out, if I remember that correctly. So there's some weird stuff where there was a person in, I can't remember if it was Ireland or Northern Ireland that played roulette and then didn't get paid out. They weren't even, they weren't cheating or doing advantage play. They just were playing roulette, won a load of money.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  And then it was deemed that they were a, oh, it's a private business so they can do what they want. So there's certain places where you might have more difficulties than others, but legally speaking, it's not cheating and it's perfectly legal.

• 17:10Chris Williamson?

  Right, so this, this to me kind of jades, not as if I thought casinos were bastions of ethical, highfalutin truestness, but what I did think was if somebody does manage to beat the house, that they've done it fairly. And if it's not legal, the casino should take it on the chin, given that they're fleecing every other non-advantage player in there.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's absolutely wild because really we don't even dent their bottom line. And most of the time they know that. I think they just have a vendetta against card counters because we actually don't. The way that we get treated sometimes, you know, I've had police called on me, multiple security guards, just intimidation tactics, or them refusing to cash you out unless you show ID, which is not a legal requirement, all these kind of weird things that they'll do for what essentially won't dent the average casino's bottom line. It's so rare that we'd make any kind of impact, especially like these big casinos in Vegas. It's so funny the lengths that they'll go to to stop you counting, when it just, sometimes they will, they will ruin a blackjack game to make sure, so that it's not countable. And it's just, why are you doing that?

• 18:21Chris Williamson?

  What do you mean? How would they ruin it?

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Well, there's certain things that they can do. For example, if you've played a regular shoe game of blackjack, where you've got maybe six decks of cards shuffled together, they'll have a cut card that goes towards the end. So when you hit that cut card, they know, oh yeah, we've got to shuffle now. But if you move that cut card further forward, that means that you might only play, say, three of the decks before a shuffle, or two of the decks if you're going to be absolutely wild. But the further forward that gets, the fewer cards or less cards that you're going to play before a shuffle. Now, the less cards you're going to play, that's bad for a card counter, because our information gets more useful, more accurate towards the end. So they'll sometimes put the cut card more forward, so that it stops card counters. But the cost of that is actually they're losing

• 19:05Speaker 01

  a lot of time in rounds per hour that other non-card counters would be playing. And people have crunched the numbers, and even just moving it a couple cards forward costs, like the average casino, a ridiculous amount of money per year. So they'll do all sorts of things. I just describe it as they drop a nuclear bomb on a house to blow out a candle. Like, yeah, they'll stop card counters, but they will cause themselves so much damage in the process.

• 19:28Chris Williamson?

  So do you see the process of this largely just being a race against the clock to be discovered, to be rumbled? And what would you say is the percentage time that you actually managed to get in, do the thing, and get out, having not been recognised or noticed? And how many times do you get in there and get kicked out?

• 19:45Speaker 01

  I think most of the time it ends with being kicked out. Well, that's kind of the goal in a way. Not that we want to be kicked out, but there's a phrase in card counting called don't back yourself off from a casino. Back off being just the term for being asked not to play blackjack. And if I leave a casino because I think they might kick me out soon, then what's that achieved? I've left. I might as well have stayed and played another hour before they'd actually kicked me out. So I normally will play until a back off. On the trip I just did, you know, in Vegas, I was trying short sessions and going from casino to casino, trying to leave before a back off. But then as soon as I compared my hours played with another teammate who was just playing until back off, he got way more time.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  And sometimes we'll feel what we call heat, which is just suspicion. We can tell when they're on to us. We'll feel that and we think, oh, maybe we should leave. But if we actually just keep playing, it might take them an hour or another two hours to actually get the go ahead to back off a card counter. So in general, the approach that me and my teammate usually is just to keep playing until we get backed off. So which case, the vast majority of the time, we'll get a back off. But it depends on the casino. Sometimes I could last. The shortest was about 12 minutes and this is pre YouTube videos, but someone just thought he looks like a card counter. Called surveillance and then surveillance were watching me from the very first hand and played and very quickly figured out that I was counting. But then I've had nine hours in a casino in a shift and gone back the next day.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  And sometimes just weeks at one casino before they'd actually caught me. So it really varies, but we play aggressively until the back off.

• 21:16Chris Williamson?

  How do you choose the particular casino that you're going to go and take on? Because if it was a Hollywood movie, it would be because of a vendetta that the guy's current ex-wife is now dating the owner of that particular casino. I guess it's probably more strategic than that.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, a little bit. Although there is a small element of revenge sometimes in there. I think a lot of casino staff think that if they give the card counter a really hard time and back them off and make it really hard for them to get their money at the cage and send their photo everywhere and just be really aggressive, that the card counter will go. That was horrible. I'll tell all my card counter friends how bad this casino was and we'll all avoid it. But the exact opposite will happen. The card count will tell the people, I had this really hard time at this casino. And then the the card counter they're telling will be like, all right, where is it? I want to, because there's a sense of that's not right. So might as well prioritize that casino. But in general, we'll play any casino that offers a good blackjack game. Not all blackjack is created equally. There's different subtle rule changes that can affect how much we'd win.

• 22:18Speaker 01

  There's certain elements of the game which might affect how risky it is or how long we'd have to play to guarantee that we're going to be up. So, but in general, if there's a casino with a good blackjack game, we'll play it.

• 22:30Chris Williamson?

  Okay, Vegas, is Vegas a genuine hotspot? You've mentioned it before, but surely they've got to be shit hot when it comes to security.

• 22:37Speaker 01

  They've probably got the best surveillance departments in the world, but also they're the most used to card counters. So the back offs tend to be, tends to be quite chill. I say, as I'm thinking of lawsuits that are going on against Vegas casinos. But in general, they tend to be pretty, tend to be pretty chill, but they are very, very fast. So we play Vegas mainly because we really like it and it's so casino dense. There's all these casinos that you just have this, what feels like unlimited options. And because it's so fast moving, it feels like even when the shift changes, it's like a whole new casino. So there is a lot of opportunity in Vegas. A lot of card counters hate Vegas and they think it's really bad. And it might be compared to other places, but also Vegas has a certain kind of weird charm to it that just makes it a fun place to play.

• 23:20Chris Williamson?

  Macau, is that too dangerous? Go over and get taken by the CCP?

• 23:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've not, it was on my list of places to try, but I think I spoke to a card counter friend and he said that they don't have any shoe games. I don't know if that's true. But nowadays, it's becoming more and more common that there'll be this machine that is constantly shuffling the cards. So you play out a hand or two, they pick up the cards, put them back in the machine and it constantly shuffles. And those you can't count because, I mean, there's nothing to count when they're constantly shuffling. And I've heard that Macau is just does that, which is a shame because I'd be well up for it. Yeah, there's a couple of places on my list that countries that I probably won't name, but that I want to go try. But yeah, I don't know if Macau's playable.

• 23:58Chris Williamson?

  Is it fun or stressful? Like, talk to me about the felt sense of either being part of a team and being a spotter or doing solo play. Like, what's the actual felt sense of it? Is it a grind?

• 24:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a combination of things. It can be a grind for sure, especially on those seven hour blackjack sessions. I know I keep referencing the last trip, but it's just because I just got back. But there was one time when I was just so tired and wanted a break, but I hadn't been backed off, so I just kept going. And I was sort of begging the casino internally to back me off so I could go take a break. But you just don't want to give up this opportunity because who knows if the stars are going to align. There might have been a surveillance person that's written you off not from something you did and they think, ah, he's not a cow counter. So you don't want to give that up. And that can be a real grind. Playing the same card game. Because also the thing is, is you're not making decisions in the same way that the average player is. You know, the average player playing blackjack will get a 16 versus a 10 and they might think, oh, should I hit this time?

• 24:54Speaker 01

  Or should I not hit? And they get to sort of play the game. But all we're really doing is we've internalized like a decision tree that we've memorized. And that that changes depending on the count, but we've just got a preset memorized formula and we're just pressing go on that formula. So we're not really making any decisions. It's very much like an automatic process. So that can be a bit tedious. In general, though, it's more of a thrill than it is anything else. You are still getting the same, I guess, dopamine hit from gambling. Except you know that you have an advantage, which is a very satisfying, satisfying thing. And the whole thing, it does feel like a massive adventure, but it's all, it's like such a weird combination of emotions. It's super stressful. It can be really stressful, especially some of the times when we've been backed off and they'll

• 25:35Speaker 01

  not pay out our money or be incredibly aggressive, but the overall experience is incredibly rewarding. And as soon as I come back to the UK, I'm sort of thankful that I get a bit of a break, but then I'm sort of itching to play again because of that combination of things.

• 25:47Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. What, what is some of the worst back offs that you've had in your career?

• 25:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, the worst one I had was, I think, oh, there's, there's been a couple of contenders recently, but I think Tulelup Casino in Washington State. People have, people have asked me, why aren't you calling these places out? So there you go. There's the exact name. Tulelup Casino in Washington State gave me the worst, I think. I was playing there. And in essence, I'd been backed off from their sister property. Well, they, they sort of forcibly ID'd me and I'd left and they chased me out of the casino. So I was playing at Tulelup and it just hit this point where a guy came over to me, tapped me on the shoulder. And I turned around and I knew it was a back off and I did the thing that you probably shouldn't do.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  I acknowledged that the guy, you know, was backing me off. I just said, okay, I get it. No more blackjack. Cause I was trying to alleviate any hostility before it even happened. But he said, no, no, no, I just want to see your ID. I said, well, I don't really, I'm happy just to go. I'm good. I just want to cash out and leave. And it's important for me to note here that a lot of people think that when you're in a casino, you need to show ID or you need to have an ID. Now, yeah, if you're going up to the table and you sit down and they ask you for an ID and you don't show it, they have the right to not let you play, or they could ID you at the door and turn you away if you don't have an ID. But if you've played blackjack, have your chips, you then have the legal right to cash them out and you don't need to show an ID. Couple of asterisks, if it's over 10 grand, changes things, but you don't need to show ID.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  However, casinos will often try and force you to show ID so that they can get your name, upload it to their little system, write their little report, maybe send it to other casinos. And as a card counter, you really don't want to give your ID for the most part.

• 27:28Chris Williamson?

  And presumably using fake ID would then be a federal crime.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I'm not sure if there's maybe some weird loopholes in that, but it's not something that me or anyone on my team has ever experimented with. But yeah, there's a good phrase, I think it's from Molly's Game, if you've seen that movie, but I think it's, uh, the phrase is, don't break the law when you're breaking the law, which is something I always think about when, when card counting. What we're doing is not illegal, just it feels like a crime, but it's not quite a crime. So don't mix in a crime like fake ID.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:58Chris Williamson?

  Okay. So this guy.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. So he comes over and he's just immediate, he's got this such this sort of, I don't even know how to describe it, but this, this kind of macho alpha energy where he's decided that he's getting my ID and he's immediately just demanding it. And I'm declining it. And then he just escalates and he goes, I'm not going to play games with her. You either show me ID or you get out. I'm like, well, I just want to leave. Grab your chips, get out. You can't even cash them out. Which is the first time I've been in that situation where the casino was denying me a cash out. And I'd been advised by card counter friends that if I just stand my ground, eventually they will cash me out. So that's what I decided to do. And I just wouldn't leave this casino until they cash me out.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  And they immediately brought over extra security, a gaming commission person who, once again, the gaming commissioner should be impartial.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  But when it's a, I mean, there's a whole host of other politics regarding that stuff. Often the gaming commission isn't impartial, they're a bit biased towards the casino. So there's the gaming commissioner, multiple security people, other casino staff, and this whole big argument breaks out. Well, I'm just basically shouting that I just want my chips. All of this is I got on hidden camera and they just won't do it. They say that they're going to call the police, they call the police. And then they all start to kind of leave me alone at this point. They start to just sort of leave, maybe except one guy. And I'm a bit concerned because this casino is in sort of tribal land. So it's on an Indian reservation. So the law regarding Indian reservations is a little bit different regarding the rest of US law. They have like tribal sovereignty.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  So they can have their own laws that are a bit independent. So in a, they can have tribal court. And obviously the casino is bringing in all the revenue. So in a way the casino is funding these things, maybe not directly. And the whole thing is just a little bit, a little bit different to what I'm used to. And that goes for the police force too. I thought the police were essentially paid for by the casino. And whether or not that's true or not, that's kind of how I was reading the situation at the time. So I was a bit worried that the police would immediately side with the casino. And I might be in a very bad situation. So I started slowly walking towards the door, not wanting to leave, but at least if the police came in. Then I could say, I was just leaving if they came with really aggressive energy. As I'm getting to the door, the police arrive and they immediately tell me to sit down. Ask me what's going on.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  And they asked my ID, I gave it over. I wasn't really familiar with the, with the laws regarding when a police officer can have your ID. But I thought they're suspecting me of a crime, which they weren't. So that was a weird thing. But I gave over the ID, we had this whole thing and they in the end just escorted me to the cash desk and got me, got my chips cashed out. And they may have given over my ID or not, they said they wouldn't, but you never know. But I was actually really relieved that the police sided with me. I've had other situations where the police have just taken an immediate, no, we don't want you here, we don't want to help you. Uh, side and also gaming commissioners that were totally useless. So, but that was a kind of a scary situation because of just how aggressive the tone was and how many people there were. And how early it was in my card counting journey and the fact police were called.

• 31:01Speaker 01

  So that was a pretty bad one, but there's been so many that are quite similar.

• 31:06Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, that, especially if you're tired and stressed and have been playing for a long time, keeping your cool as you're being pushed away from a game that you know is taking every other person sat in this casino's money. And the fact that you have managed to spend enough time to be able to learn a process that gives you a, what's the edge? Fifty, what is it?

• 31:26Speaker 01

  Oh, it's like one or two percent. It's like tiny. It's really, really small. It's funny you should say that though, because there's been two instances that really banked this up. One time, also in Washington, there was a guy that was at my table, so drunk, he couldn't stack the chips up properly. And he was just playing and just pushing the chips in a pile, no idea what he was doing, losing hand after hand after hand. He was tipping the dealer every hand, like 25 bucks. And I just made eye contact with the dealer and just sort of said, is he okay? And the dealer totally just fobbed it off. It's like, he's fine. And then 20 minutes later, I get backed off. And I just thought, you're letting this person play that's clearly not in a sound mind to play because it benefits the casino, whereas here I am being kicked out for playing the game, honestly. And another

• 32:09Speaker 01

  thing that happened when I was in Vegas that isn't in a video yet, but I found out that there was a player at my table, and she was, I think, a 77 year old woman. She'd been playing for over 24 hours and she hadn't eaten or slept. And I sort of spoke to a couple of members of staff about this. I mentioned it to a dealer. I was like, hey, she's been playing for, you know, this long. Do you think, you know, like, is there something? And the dealer laughed it off. I then spoke to a pit boss, same kind of thing. At this point, I knew that they were running my game down. I knew that I was, my time was limited. So making a bit of a spectacle wasn't really going to cost anything. And each person I spoke to, in essence, was just totally fine with this woman continuing to play. And it's

• 32:53Speaker 01

  just one of those things where I get that everybody makes their own decisions and has a right to do what they want. And I guess, and I get that there's higher ups in the casino that are setting these policies about how they handle people that have gambling problems. But I also was just left thinking, isn't there like? Anybody that's just sort of gonna go, hey, maybe take, maybe take a 10 minute break, maybe go have a sandwich and just see, just not like, what point is it just a human decency thing?

• 33:19Chris Williamson?

  Like, Stephen, if you are, if you are going to casinos in the hopes of finding some ethical decency, I fear that you may be looking in the wrong place.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  I know, but still casinos are made up of individual people, right? When I look at them as institutions, I'm like, oh yeah, they're horrible. But they're still like perfectly nice members of staff that I've met in casinos. Yet this kind of thing happens. I mean, recently there was a, I was just being told, I was told by a, someone that works in casino industry, that a casino in Vegas is being sued or being sued because somebody died at the blackjack table and the, the dealer kept dealing the cards.

• 33:52Chris Williamson?

  My God.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  They had a heart attack and they only realised when the, when the dealer switched and it was a new dealer and this dealer was like, are you okay?

• 34:00Chris Williamson?

  Oh my God, dude.

• 34:03Speaker 01

  It's wild.

• 34:04Chris Williamson?

  I was watching a story, it might've been a Sunny V2 video about this Chinese millionaire, multimillionaire who lost in the space of 18 months, two years in Vegas, was flying back and forth and lost nearly 200 million at the same casino. And yeah, it was just propped up on a cocktail of all sorts of stuff for the entirety of the time. It was, I think he was playing blackjack too.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's wild. Like surely the whole, because I've seen what blackjack can be when it's fun and when people are having a good time. There are rare occasions where the whole table is losing money as, as is going to be the case, but everyone's still having a good time. And I'm like, oh yeah, it can exist in this space, which isn't like completely depressing, but so much of the time, there's no, there's just, it just seems like there's no actual care of the people playing, which really like.

• 34:58Chris Williamson?

  How do you deal with these sessions where you end up being lots of money down? And how, how much can that get? And how much can that get across a team as well in a day?

• 35:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, we can lose tens and tens and tens of thousands. I think the biggest loss that we have on record for our team in one session, and I think that was probably like three or four hours, was one of my teammates called Syntax. He played and lost 42K, which is.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  I mean, he posts, we have like a little results group chat and he posts in the group chat, this is the result and we all just immediately feel it because it's, it's so much money. No matter what the context is outside of that, no matter what you were up at one point or anything, it's still 42 grand. Your brain automatically thinks, how many years rent is that? Or how many, it's just, it's crazy. So the, the times that are the worst are when you're losing, not necessarily a huge amount, but it's repeatedly session after session after session. And you're on what seems like a never ending losing streak. The first time we played in Vegas in 2020, we won, I think it was something like 97K in two or three days, which is the best thing ever. And then in the next couple of days, we proceeded

• 36:10Speaker 01

  to lose 110 from that point. I just, the way down, Chris, it's not fun because each time you're thinking someone's going to have a win and then, but maybe there's a couple Ks in the wins, but then someone else loses 10 and you're just like, it has to stop. And I, I remember I had a session where I lost 30K on that downswing and I just went into the, into the restroom and just sort of had to splash water on my face and just try and compose myself. And then I went out and there was a bunch of security guards waiting for me, which was lovely.

• 36:39Chris Williamson?

  Fantastic.

• 36:40Speaker 01

  It's just what you need. It, it can be really tough. And I think it, it sort of takes more than it gives in a way. I think you have to have that. It's a certain kind of person to be a card counter. Just for like, I don't mean who's capable of it. I think a lot of people could learn it, but the actual lifestyle and having to go through those losses and having to lose that money and not change what you're doing. You can't chase your losses. You just have to keep playing like a machine. There's times I really want to leave because I'm down a lot of money and I just want to break, but the count's still high. So you've just got to keep going and you're buying in, you're losing, you're buying in, you're losing and the dealer keeps getting blackjack and you're just like, this is, what are the odds of this? But you still have to just keep going and those are some of the hardest times.

• 37:22Chris Williamson?

  That's the reason why playtime is so important then, because you need to be able to accumulate, knowing that given a long enough amount of time, you're going to be one or 2% up, which means across infinite time you would win. And therefore, if you have too short of a bunch of sessions, just straight up variance allows to chip into you and chip into you and chip into you. And despite playing the right way, even on hot tables. You can still lose or it can just, the account can just never get to where you need it to be. And you will continue to walk away, which means that's why it needs to increase. You need to have that longer time.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  For sure. Yeah, it's all about getting those hours in. Quality games can also, you know, affect the amount of hours you need, but in general, yeah, it's just all about getting those hours in. Because in the short term, you are just flipping coins and hoping for the best.

• 38:12Chris Williamson?

  All right. So what about good games? What have been some of the best ones that you've been a part of?

• 38:17Speaker 01

  Oh, if I, if I mentioned them, they might make them worse.

• 38:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'd be actually really cautious about saying this place has got the best blackjack game because I genuinely worry.

• 38:30Chris Williamson?

  Like what days, what days have you, or what sessions have you done?

• 38:33Speaker 01

  Oh, right.

• 38:36Speaker 01

  Oh, right. Which are the days where it's just like, we can't lose?

• 38:39Chris Williamson?

  Yes.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think some of, some of the team sessions which have ended in, when we've been doing team play and they've just been, you know, anything, honestly, anything above like 30K win feels like fantastic. No matter what stakes we're playing at. So yeah, 30K, 40K wins are always really satisfying.

• 38:56Speaker 01

  I, yeah, there's, there's just been sessions, I think I had a 19K session in my, one of my more recent trips, which maybe doesn't sound like a lot in the scheme of what we've lost at times, but there's something just so satisfying about even just winning 10 grand, 20 grand and knowing that you're going to post that in the chat and everyone's going to see that. That's incredibly satisfying. So yeah, we more look at it in trips as opposed to days, but we, we've had some very, very successful trips that have just been really, really big wins in the six figure range. And that, that for being a couple of weeks work is, is pretty good, even if you are splitting it between a lot of people.

• 39:30Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. How, you've mentioned $10,000, anything above that. It's difficult to get cashed out without giving your ID in. So do you purposely know when you're at about 10 grand and then stop?

• 39:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, that is a strategy. So just I'll have to make this super clear in case it sounds like I'm promoting illegal conduct. If you have bought in or have got essentially 10 K's worth of chips generally, then there's a currency transaction report that the casino has to fill it in. And if you are cashing out 5K at one cage and then going to a different cage and cashing out 5K, you could dodge that that report because they might not realise you have the 10K. That is actually a crime called structuring. So if we hit that 10K mark for whatever reason, then we have a hard rule where you just go and cash it out and you give over the ID. Now, maybe you don't necessarily need to cash it out there and then, depending on the circumstances, but in general, you're still going to have to show show the ID. So yeah, if you're playing a session, provided you're not midway through

• 40:27Speaker 01

  a shoe, because you never want to leave when the count is high, that would be very, very bad because you're throwing away money. But yeah, if you're up 9K in a session and it's the end of the shoe and you realise, oh, if I win 1K more, I'm going to have to hand over my ID, it's probably not going to be worth giving over the ID. So then we'll just leave. But we'll never actually physically dodge those checks if we legally have to do them.

• 40:47Chris Williamson?

  All right. And how the fuck do you get six figures back into the UK?

• 40:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is weirdly a question that no one really asks, which is like, no one really asks about the actual cash management. But yeah, we have like so much cash we have to move around. Airport security is always a nightmare.

• 41:04Chris Williamson?

  And it's in cash, right?

• 41:05Speaker 01

  It's in, oh, yeah, it's in cash.

• 41:07Chris Williamson?

  Witches of hello, sir, where is this $150,000 come from?

• 41:11Speaker 01

  It literally is that. So we just, we each have just money belts filled with money and we have to just go through. So I mean, when you go to the airport, if you're transferring more than 10 grand in US currency, you have to sort of declare it. So we just go through those checks and, you know, we fill out a form. You've got to fill out a form again, maybe when you get to the get to the airport. Even the airport staff don't often know what you have to do. And we have to really insist, no, no, we have to speak to a border patrol officer before we go through airport security or we're in a real bad spot. And they go, oh, okay. Well, um, I guess if you go downstairs and knock on the door. So there's weird things like that. But yeah, we just take it. And sometimes it's just these awkward conversations that we have to have.

• 41:53Chris Williamson?

  Do you tell them where it's come from?

• 41:55Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, I mean, the the origin is honestly gambling. It's just it doesn't sound very probable. And it sounds like the perfect, it's like the kind of thing you would do if you were trying to launder money or move money around. So it's like, the the honest answer is not super reassuring. So sometimes I go through my phone and I'll be like, look, here's all these photos of us in casinos and here's this.

• 42:15Chris Williamson?

  Here's me being chased out by airport by casino security.

• 42:20Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah, but there's nothing illegal about taking cash around. The thing that we're really worried about, or I'm concerned about, is a law in the U.S. called civil forfeiture. Have you ever come across these YouTube videos, Chris?

• 42:30Chris Williamson?

  No, what's that?

• 42:32Speaker 01

  It's absolutely, it's insane. So someone will get pulled over by a cop for whatever reason. And then the cop might go, oh, do you have any firearms or currency in the car? And the person might go, well, actually, yeah, I've got some, I happen to have my life savings. This one guy doesn't didn't trust banks. He had like, I can't remember how much it was, but I think it was in maybe the low six figures. So we had a significant amount of money. And then the police officer has the legal right to just seize that money if they're not convinced of where it's come from and that it's legally held. They can just take it and have it. And as far as I'm aware, it can be really difficult to get that money back. That money can be used within the police force or something weird. But just one of these laws that that seems so backwards,

• 43:17Speaker 01

  where they can just take the money from you. And that's it. You'll get a little receipt, but getting it back is a whole other thing. So I've often worried about, oh, what if I get pulled over? Because you don't want to lie to a cop either. You don't want to say, oh, I have no currency. Right. It's a totally, you're in a different set of problems then. But yeah, there's, that's the thing I worry about the most is just being, it's honestly just police in the U.S. regarding regarding the cash. Of course, being mugged and stuff is still a concern. In fact, just on the I was playing in the, we were playing in the Bahamas recently.

• 43:50Chris Williamson?

  I was in the Bahamas.

• 43:51Speaker 01

  Were you?

• 43:52Chris Williamson?

  I went to the, so I went, I went to the Bahamas for two days and before I went, I was at a wedding in Norfolk, Virginia. And this is when we'd confirmed this episode and I'm watching some of your vlogs and stuff. And I'm like, uh, talking to this guy and this guy was a part of the Navy at this wedding.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 44:07Chris Williamson?

  And he was saying, dude, do you gamble? Like, no, I know a guy that does, actually. Uh, well, I'm about to speak to a guy that does. And he says, dude, the SLS and Paradise Island, the two casinos that you've got in the Bahamas. He's like, they're dealers, uh, they haven't got a clue. The airport, uh, the, um, casino security aren't that tight and a blah, blah, blah. So I remember thinking at the time, I might be able to tell Stevenson, he doesn't know about here, but it seems like you've beaten me to the punch.

• 44:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's really funny. I mean, I wonder if we were there at the same time. But yeah, I was, I was over there and we just had a situation where we, this is like a weird tangent story, but we were playing at this casino and it was just me and Irish that were at the casino. And we ended up leaving the casino together. Normally we wouldn't be seen with each other, but we both got so lost in the casino and didn't have like cell service that we ended up just in the end, walking out and hoping that the cameras hadn't seen us. So we left this casino, finally find a bit of road. We were really, we'd got so lost in this massive building and a taxi pulled up and we, we got into the taxi and the taxi started driving. And then the, uh, I was a little bit concerned that it wasn't a real taxi.

• 45:18Speaker 01

  But I wasn't sure. And there'd been another taxi driver that told me that taxis in Bahamas are chill. So I wasn't like super worried. But then the taxi driver started offering us like prostitutes and drugs. And I was like, ah, maybe this guy isn't a legit taxi driver. So we're driving and he said, oh, you're going to need to give us directions because I don't have a sat nav or a GPS. Bit of a weird flag for a taxi driver, but okay. And we've got between us, I don't know how much it was, but 50, 60 K, something like, a lot of money. And then the taxi guy says, by the way, I'm just going to need to stop off at the strip club to pick up some food that I've ordered. At like, this is four in the morning or whatever. And it just sounded like the most sketchy thing.

• 46:02Chris Williamson?

  We're about to be mugged.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  That's kind of how I felt, right? And I, I saw, we were like, no, no, no, we'd rather you just take us home. He goes, it's on the way. This guy doesn't even know, he doesn't know the address, so it's on the way. And he says, no, no, no, I have to do. I've already, I've already picked it up. And I messaged Irish saying, are you a bit worried that we're about to get mugged? Yeah. Long story short is we actually go through these quite unsafe area of the Bahamas. And Bahamas is like super chill, but there's obviously going to be crime areas in every place that you go. And, uh, and then he pulls up outside this building, which didn't look like a strip club. And there's some like heavies outside the building. And he gets out and he goes inside, which made me feel a bit better because he left us alone. But I'd like been shoving my, my cash down like my trousers to sort of just hide it. Cause I was like,

• 46:48Speaker 01

  being mugged is one thing, but being mugged and robbed of like 50, 60 K is another. And, and then a guy, one of the heavies said, don't worry, I'm a cop. And this guy was stoned out of his mind and flashed this badge. And he goes, I've known this guy for years. Well, if you've known the guy that's, you know, propositionally like trying to sell prostitutes and drugs, I don't know. I feel like this is a great character reference, but the whole thing in the end was just like a false alarm. And the guy got back in with his takeout.

• 47:12Chris Williamson?

  From the strip club.

• 47:14Speaker 01

  From the strip club, which, okay, and drove us to Ivy and B. But it was just like the first half of that story was the story where you get mugged. And then we luckily didn't have the second half, but it's moments like that where you get yourself in these situations where you're in some street you don't know, and you've got a lot of cash on you. And then you don't really know what to do. There's been times in the, in the U S where I've looked up afterwards where I've been and gone, oh, this is an incredibly high area place that I was staying.

• 47:39Chris Williamson?

  Not, should not have been there.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. On the map, this is the red part for crime. And yeah.

• 47:46Chris Williamson?

  Wondering about the 30 grand down my pants.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. We like, we left a load of cash in the car once in, in, um, West Philadelphia. And, uh, that was dumb, but we just left a backpack in the car. We forgot about with cash. And I just thought the next day that it was going to be gone, but it was, it was there as was a ticket on the car, but I'll take that any day.

• 48:03Chris Williamson?

  You can use the cash in the backpack to pay the ticket that's on the car.

• 48:07Speaker 01

  Exactly right. Yeah. Unfortunately, that wasn't a team expense. I had to pay that, but nevermind.

• 48:11Chris Williamson?

  Shame. Um, so you must be having to do more elaborate disguises and covers, given the fact that you've got a YouTube channel with half a million people on it and it's not going to be any easier after you've done this episode with me either. So I guess you're, uh, the detailing of your experiences and the difficulty of your experiences are inversely correlated to each other.

• 48:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's weird. It's like I'm my own worst enemy because as my YouTube channel goes up, then my card counting gets harder. So it's like when I started the series, I obviously knew that this could happen. But the way I looked at it was, well, either the series kind of simmers and it doesn't really do any harm. In which case I'm card counting and it's fine. Or it does really well. In which case it's like a luxury problem, which is sort of where I'm at right now. But yeah, I've had to go all in on disguises. So for the previous trip I just did, which isn't on YouTube yet, I we designed these different looks, you know, using beard dye and changing my beard and getting a goatee and fake tattoos that were like the ones that they use in movies. So they look quite real. And I even went to a place called Fang's FX, which make sort of fake teeth and change how your jaw

• 49:19Speaker 01

  sits for actors in movies. And I didn't get fake teeth in the end, but I got like these jaw fillers that just would push out the side of my face and the upper bit of my face that changed sort of how my face looked. So we were just doing everything that I could, pulling out all the stops. And it really worked as well. I mean, I got backed off and I got caught. Eventually people found out who I was.

• 49:39Chris Williamson?

  Not because you're Steven Bridges, though.

• 49:41Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, exactly. It only takes one person in surveillance to be like, wait a second, that guy. And then and that's it. But it absolutely bought me so much more time. And yeah, it got me way more time. So it was really, really helpful because I was keeping track of different looks in different casino chains. So I'd know, okay, at this casino chain, I'm still clean with this look. So I'll just hammer this casino chain until I get backed off. You know, when I was mentioning before how I had this seven hour session or whatever, and I just was praying they'd back me off. It's because I wanted to stop spraying my goatee with dye every day when I got up and having to like make up wipe all the such a not getting dye in my mouth. I was just like, please let me change this disguise. But I was keeping track of the luckily I've got surveillance

• 50:25Speaker 01

  people that will send me information, which is super handy. So I knew which casinos knew.

• 50:29Chris Williamson?

  I was gonna say, so you've got this network of fans who work actually in the casino world. You also probably have a even larger network of enemies that work in the casino world. But um, you there's like an FBI most wanted, do not admit under any circumstances, known advantage player list. So there's some places that you're never going to be able to go back to now. Like there's some there's some chains that are just completely boxed off for you.

• 50:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, not necessarily some chains, because in a way, it's not like every person that works in all these casinos knows who I am by look, right? But all of the casino chains will know who I am, and there'll be a description and a photo of me in their database. And there will be a case of if you see this guy, back him off or don't let him play. However, if I go to a new region in the US that I haven't been to for ever, then there's no... It's not like they're looking through this list of like known advantage players for every single person. There's thousands of people that are unwanted players for whatever reason. So it has to be the first, you know, someone has to actually spot me for the first time. And then that's what goes to the top of the list, and then it can become a bit of a problem.

• 51:39Speaker 01

  But yeah, there's maybe some casinos where I've played before, and because I've done a YouTube video, there'll be extra... Maybe everyone in the casino would have seen it because, hey, we're in this in this video. And which case I probably would struggle going back to those, but I don't think there's a chain that I wouldn't be able to play at. Apart from the UK, there's no casino I could go in the UK, unfortunately. In the UK, you've got to be a member to go in 99% of the casinos, so I get stopped at the door.

• 52:05Chris Williamson?

  Of course, of course. Are there any other games? I mean, you know, it's so funny to think about you being a professional gambler, but you're not. You're a professional blackjack player.

• 52:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 52:15Chris Williamson?

  It's this, yeah, a whole panoply of different games that you could play in this Wizard of Oz, Charlie Chocolate Factory way to lose money, and you just play one. Like, are you, do the blackjack advantage players speak to the... I don't know what, like the fucking baccarat advantage players or the roulette advantage players?

• 52:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, so there's sort of this larger community of advantage players, and the other forms of advantage play are kept pretty lock and key. And I basically only do card counting, partly for a few reasons, but the main one being is that I wouldn't feel comfortable doing other kinds of advantage play on YouTube. Card counting is a thing that exists in basically every casino. You could go and count cards, whereas other forms of advantage play tend to be very select loopholes that might get patched. So if I shine a light on something that's possible in one game in Louisiana, then that would get patched and it wouldn't exist anymore. So there's a certain kind of degree of stuff that I wouldn't really want to tackle on YouTube. So I just sort of stay in this lane and go really hard on this lane.

• 53:20Speaker 01

  But there is like a... I'm not going to go as far as saying any game could be beaten. But there's, there's lots of different ways that you can exploit various different games that people have figured out.

• 53:31Chris Williamson?

  Right. And has it ever been the case, have you ever been in a casino and seen some other advantage player, either playing blackjack or playing some other game? Have, have like multiple teams crossed streams at some point?

• 53:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't think I've ever really had a situation where two teams of big player spotters, that'd be absolute nightmare at the same casino. That's never happened, but there's been loads of times where there's been other card counters, not that there's loads of card counters, but I've sat down at a table before, started playing. And then when I raise my bet, somebody else is raising their bet. And I'm like, wait a second. And then you're watching how they play and you're waiting for a hand like soft 18, you know, A7. Because those are the kind of hands that, that non-card counters tend to play wrong. So you wait for a hand like that and then you see, oh, they played it correctly. This person's either really lucky with their timing of their bets or they're a card counter. So if that happens, the etiquette is whoever got there last will leave the table.

• 54:26Chris Williamson?

  Oh, really? And it's just a, a non-verbal signal that's unwritten into the rules of the degenerates of the blackjack world?

• 54:34Speaker 01

  Otherwise, it's like synchronized swimming, right? It just becomes really obvious. When I raise my bet to a ground at the same time, somebody else raises their bet. And then we both lower it at the same time and raise it. It, it just looks, um, it can look super obvious. So that, that can be an issue. I've also had times, multiple times where I've sat down at a table and someone's just gone, Stephen, good to see you. And just continued playing.

• 54:59Chris Williamson?

  Well, even with that, like if they know that you're there to count cards, like they're just going to follow what you do.

• 55:05Speaker 01

  Well, sometimes a lot of the time the counters.

• 55:07Chris Williamson?

  Right. Okay.

• 55:09Speaker 01

  So I kind of be like, do you like to play alone? That's this weird stifled conversation.

• 55:15Speaker 01

  Well, no, it can be funny. I kind of encourage, you know, if it's a non-card counter, I'll be like, take insurance when I take insurance, which, which is a move where you bet if the dealer's got blackjack. I'll just give them that little tip or something. Or if they ask me a question, I'd be like, well, I wouldn't. But there's also been times with the dealer where, you know, if you're playing and the dealer knows you're counting. And then let's say you're going to tip the dealer. You go, oh, do you want me to tip it to you or do you want me to play it? So you can do this thing where you put the chip in front of your, your, your own bet and then they're gambling with you. Right? So there'll be a time where it's like, oh.

• 55:44Chris Williamson?

  No way.

• 55:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's just a common thing, right? That, that, that's done in casinos, uh, not counters, just everybody. So you'll be like, oh, I, I might say, do you want it or should I bet it for you? And they'll go, what do you think? And if they know I'm counting, I go, I think you should definitely bet it.

• 56:02Chris Williamson?

  Dude, yeah, I mean, you must have had the amount of dealers that you've spent intimate time with, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours, you know, of time with these dealers. What's the experience? I guess that you're trying to remain under the radar, so maybe you don't speak to them so much, but like, yeah, what's your insight about the life of a typical US blackjack dealer person?

• 56:26Speaker 01

  I mean, they vary as much as regular people vary. I think my experience with all casino staff is a complete mixed bag. There's been some people and dealers that I just think, oh, these people are so fun. I want to be friends with them in real life. And then there's other people that just aren't very nice people. So it's hard to sort of really give a, to sort of try and paint like a brush or kind of give an idea of the typical person that works in a casino, because they vary so much. I mean, certain security people can be a bit power trippy at times. A lot of pit bosses can be quite power trippy, but some of them are really nice. So it's kind of hard to sort of give like the archetype of a dealer. I think, yeah, I mean, I've met a lot of dealers that are really nice. A lot of dealers I've known I'm counting and they haven't dobbed me in.

• 57:08Speaker 01

  So those people are nice and they have, they could have just made things really difficult. But then I've also gone in and met dealers that have gone and pointed me out when I walked in the door after driving six hours to get to the casino. So yeah, it's a real mixture, but yeah, you can have some really nice, interesting chats. And actually, the dealers being talkative is one of the things that keeps me going on these trips. If it's not a team trip where I'm with the team, you're away for whatever it is, two, three weeks, you don't know anybody and you're just driving around and your only human interaction that you get is when you order a coffee, buy some food or are playing at the blackjack table. And as an extrovert, being able to talk with the dealers is one of the things which actually kept me, keeps me like sane on these trips. So yeah, it's really nice when you get a dealer that's up for having a bit of a chat.

• 57:53Chris Williamson?

  Dude, yeah, I didn't think about that. I didn't think about how, you know, it sounds all romantic and fantastic and cool and sexy, but the reality of it is. Remembering plus one D1 or zero in your mind for eight hours and then go to bed and then getting up and doing it all over again for a couple of weeks.

• 58:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it can be such a chore. I mean, I've done trips where the amount of time spent driving has basically one to one ratio, the amount of time playing. So for every hour of play, hour of driving, because there's so much, just got to go to this casino, next casino. And you can, you can, it's not an exaggeration to say you can drive six hours to the nearest casino, because you had to leave the town where that town with the five casinos have all called each other and told them what you looked like. So you burnt out that town when you just got there. You drive six hours to get to the next place and you walk in and someone in my case recognizes me, or maybe you just get a quick back off. And it's just those times are just, it's just brutal because you get back in the car and you go, all right, I've got to go drive another three or four hours to the next place now.

• 58:57Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, so it's way more, way, way more about logistics than it is necessarily about mathematics.

• 59:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. Yeah. The actual math that you're doing isn't that complicated. It's just a bunch of relatively simple components that get quite tricky to do together. But the math gets about as complicated as you have to look at the discard tray where the cards are, estimate how many cards are there to the nearest half deck, and then you divide your count by that number. That's about as complicated as it gets. But even that, you're rounding down, whilst, you know, trying to keep the conversation going or not look like you're concentrating a lot. But yeah.

• 59:34Chris Williamson?

  Steven Bridges, ladies and gentlemen. Steven, I love your YouTube channel. Everyone should go and check that out. Where else should people go? Where do you want them to go on the internet to look at your stuff?

• 59:43Speaker 01

  Thank you so much. Yeah, I mean, I am mainly on YouTube, but I'm also on Instagram and X and Threads, kind of, I guess. So yeah, you can find me. It's just Steven Bridges, wherever those places are.

• 59:54Chris Williamson?

  Oh, yeah. Steven, good luck with whatever you're doing next.

• 59:57Speaker 01

  Cheers, Chris.