This documentary shows you a nice combination of the skills needed to become a professional blackjack player and the hard work you need to go through to be successful.
5 Reviews
Is it an adventure or just hard work?
franktanke4 August 2019
Surprisingly Good
rightkeith8 November 2019
Scrolled past this gem a few times before I finally settled down and watched. After reading the tagline about the "super top-secret hush hush inside circle" of blackjack, I was ready for the worst. But turns out this was actually an honest, insightful glimpse inside the "gray" area of card counting and advantage play vs the casinos.
The main characters are likable, we are shown the ups and the downs, and we don't get corny re-enactments but actual hidden camera footage. Well done "KC"!
If it did have one drawback, it does feel like this is a one-man passion project in a sense. After the first few minutes, we are only seeing a one-man quest to fight the establishment.
The main characters are likable, we are shown the ups and the downs, and we don't get corny re-enactments but actual hidden camera footage. Well done "KC"!
If it did have one drawback, it does feel like this is a one-man passion project in a sense. After the first few minutes, we are only seeing a one-man quest to fight the establishment.
Interesting
steviec-297538 November 2023
Fascinating view on how professional blackjack players play and how their work 'works'.
As one other reviewer noted the film does quickly narrow to a single protagonist as he travels the country. He's great but it's a slight deviation from where you think the movie's going initially.
As a non-American i found the travelogue aspect almost equally interesting. You get to see the US from an American's perspective and so can enjoy the landscapes but also the interactions with the casinos, the cops, the law etc are revealing.
Great stuff - an hour and 10mins of infotainment you won't regret.
-my review was too short so i added these words at the end-
As one other reviewer noted the film does quickly narrow to a single protagonist as he travels the country. He's great but it's a slight deviation from where you think the movie's going initially.
As a non-American i found the travelogue aspect almost equally interesting. You get to see the US from an American's perspective and so can enjoy the landscapes but also the interactions with the casinos, the cops, the law etc are revealing.
Great stuff - an hour and 10mins of infotainment you won't regret.
-my review was too short so i added these words at the end-
Entertaining
thesaltlife8 August 2019
Whether you count cards or just like the David vs Goliath mentality you will love this movie. Well done, minimal BS, real, experts interviewed, just great. Congratulations on creating a very strong piece for AP's and non AP's a like.
Those who gamble to win -- the hard way
Johntechwriter15 January 2024
Up front, I admit gambling has no attraction to me. Thank goodness. Because the casinos have rigged the rules to ensure, over the long haul, their customers will lose. And at every level of these places' staff, from cocktail waitress to pit boss, each despises what is known as the "adventure player" who openly manipulates them, as much as they despise their "legitimate customers." To those working in "the gaming industry," suckers and tourists are wannabe losers looking for a thrill, and just by playing straight with them, the casinos from Vegas on down have a virtual license to print money.
Pretty boring, right?
Not this little documentary. First off, it presents the quandary: Are "adventurer players" -- those who learn to count cards, spot a dealer's weakness, prey on less experienced other players at the same table -- are they lonely sociopaths, or are they knights to the rescue of minor gamblers, able to keep casino staff on the up-and-up? On the latter point, the casino staff are even more contemptuous toward card counters and other highly observant players who have gamed the system, than they are about their regular customers or even the out-and-out cheats. This despite the card counters using exactly the same strategy as the casinos to turn a profit: they become experts at their preferred games and that alone confers an edge that enables a tiny percentage to become wealthy without breaking the law or getting their legs broken.
I was aware of this murky subculture beforehand, and films like Scorsese's "Casino" tell it like it is about how, back in the days when the mob owned most of Vegas's casinos, card-counters and cheaters in the era of the 50s to the 70s, were aware of the consequences of being caught: depending on the offense it could be just a reprimand, or a reprimand delivered more forcefully by physical means. Back then, transgressors risked life and limb, especially limb, by cheating or card counting or anything else hurtful to the senior mobsters who owned the casinos.
This film suggests that the risk is still there, only complicated by who is up in charge of gambling in the state or tribal territory the suspect is in. If you are the at a shady-looking gambling establishment in the wrong state, you need to be confident how far you can push the owners into, once your tactics are discovered, being willing to evict you with your profits, or brutally assault you and retain your chips.
Although in most sanctioned areas, gamblers are rarely physically assaulted, nevertheless to be successful at their trade as an advantaged player requires big cojones and an extraordinary combination of skill and acumen: meaning, the ability to spot a dealer who unknowingly shows his or her hole card, and profiting from that shortcoming by going all in on bets that on their face seem to be ill advised. And later, with as much subtlety as possible, the advantaged player purposely endures losses, in the hope of discouraging a security staffer from blowing the whistle, aware that turning in the wrong customer can cost the casino a lot of money in litigation by the mis-identified player. The suckers claim they were wrongly identified in the security footage, leaving the establishment open to charges. If he has the moxie, illegally influencing other players, or using errors by dealers to gain an advantage, or simple card-counting, gives the advantaged player all the edge he needs to play an eight-hour shift and walk away with hundreds of thousands.
Rarely do the casino owners and their security people have it so easy in this era of facial recognition technology -- which gives the casinos the ability to spot a known advantage player before he can milk the house dry. This has forced a complete re-think by the advantaged player to continue their profitable ways by using different tactics.
The film contains the opinions of well-spoken peers all the participants involved in this zero-sum game. Through careful editing and real-life presentations of borderline illegal behavior by all parties, the film opens the skeptic's eyes to the far more interesting wagers placed below the table by all parties, perpetually at war in the casino battlefield, often derided by their peers for self-serving reasons, and deprived of what most of us would consider the essentials of a good life: having a well-paying career and a loving family, living modestly but by recognizing what is truly gratifying, avoiding the dark cloud of debt and nevertheless enjoying a good quality of life, for the advantaged player and his family.
What kept me with this film was the whimsical personalities of the several professional gamblers it portrays. All are genuinely likable. All have their own systems and strategies. Some, like KC, with his collegiate good looks and engaging personality, could probably be selling real estate and earning even more. The catch is, and what makes them interesting, is that these guys do not like to be managed.
We accompany KC in his high-end RV as he drives around the country, literally, seeking less-well-informed tribal casinos in the middle of nowhere, with the understanding he is less likely to be spotted as a money-losing (for the casino) advantaged player as he lays down the heavy bets. But if he is recognized, a nasty fate could befall him. Like the stereotypical gambler, advantaged players are drawn in by the risk, the uncertainty, the ability to worm out of a threatening situation by their street smarts and their knowing the inside line of every type of game.
But there's a catch. Tribal lands, and what goes on in them, are not available for investigation by real-world authorities like cops and DAs. It's in the hands of the tribe. Details about punishment meted out to miscreants are not made available to outsiders.
Even before he faces a liquidity crisis, KC does not come across to me as a happy guy. His trade is a predatory, solitary one. In his hotel room after hours he shows off his winnings by way of graphs generated by Excel spreadsheets. And his earnings are astonishing. But something is wrong with this picture. (Later on, he shows the devastating losses he has borne, and his deeply embedded loneliness.)
I must bear in mind, among the few gamblers I know, not one has ever admitted a loss. The pathological addiction to gamble, especially among the wealthy, makes the ultra-rich client, known as a 'whale,' to the casinos, sought after by all the casinos in Vegas. To the point where this customer will have a personal "escort" with him at all hours to ensure he enjoys a good time.
This transactional relationship between the two parties, gambler and casino, can be equated to paying for sex, and thus qualifies as a vice. We think of losers as the weekend visitors who fly into Vegas and drop a couple thousand - or million. And they are. But they can afford it, most of the time. The gambling addicts, and the advantaged players in this film, are both in the lonely grip of a vice that probably will destroy them the long run, but whose allure is their certainty that they are blessed and their perseverance will pay off.
For the pro gamblers depicted in this doc, you can tell there is something weighing on them. These guys are intelligent and self aware. Which, ironically, makes them the biggest suckers of all. Because we can tell that in the straight world, they could have done well at whatever profession they chose. But instead they elected to walk on the dark side, becoming master manipulators of both casino employees and fellow gamblers, and therefore hated by all when their tactics are revealed.
Even when their winning streak is hot, you get the feeling watching the pros mindlessly placing chips or collecting them, of a great interior emptiness. Compare one of these guys making $20 thousand a month to a high school teacher making little more than a tenth that amount, but winning in another way: beloved by his or her students, respected by colleagues, getting letters from former students 20 years after graduation.
That teacher has connected with fellow humans in need of a mentor's ability not to run their life, but to show them the possibilities, and let them decide. And even when they don't get back to you, you know you've reached them, and thus made them aware of the "third way" to game the system and remain respectable.
If you go to the dark side, you will be remembered in less than inspiring ways by all the dealers and pit bosses you've scammed by doing something better than they could. But to the psychologically maladapted, the dark side is tempting, even when the payoff is pretty slim, and maybe in part by knowing they have dominated what in real life would be their doppelgänger - dealer, pit boss, other players -- through their wits and artistry.
But as Peggy Lee would put it, is that all there is? Even a straight-out hustler is prone to second thoughts when robbing both the dealer and the player beside them. Will they ever truly be respected, or loved? Probably not. But their underlying pathology tells them they are worthy of neither, and that only by their wits will they be able to manipulate others, sometimes at several levels, and survive. This dismal self-knowledge forces them to conclude that only by conjury will they obtain the love and support they lost so long ago.
Pretty boring, right?
Not this little documentary. First off, it presents the quandary: Are "adventurer players" -- those who learn to count cards, spot a dealer's weakness, prey on less experienced other players at the same table -- are they lonely sociopaths, or are they knights to the rescue of minor gamblers, able to keep casino staff on the up-and-up? On the latter point, the casino staff are even more contemptuous toward card counters and other highly observant players who have gamed the system, than they are about their regular customers or even the out-and-out cheats. This despite the card counters using exactly the same strategy as the casinos to turn a profit: they become experts at their preferred games and that alone confers an edge that enables a tiny percentage to become wealthy without breaking the law or getting their legs broken.
I was aware of this murky subculture beforehand, and films like Scorsese's "Casino" tell it like it is about how, back in the days when the mob owned most of Vegas's casinos, card-counters and cheaters in the era of the 50s to the 70s, were aware of the consequences of being caught: depending on the offense it could be just a reprimand, or a reprimand delivered more forcefully by physical means. Back then, transgressors risked life and limb, especially limb, by cheating or card counting or anything else hurtful to the senior mobsters who owned the casinos.
This film suggests that the risk is still there, only complicated by who is up in charge of gambling in the state or tribal territory the suspect is in. If you are the at a shady-looking gambling establishment in the wrong state, you need to be confident how far you can push the owners into, once your tactics are discovered, being willing to evict you with your profits, or brutally assault you and retain your chips.
Although in most sanctioned areas, gamblers are rarely physically assaulted, nevertheless to be successful at their trade as an advantaged player requires big cojones and an extraordinary combination of skill and acumen: meaning, the ability to spot a dealer who unknowingly shows his or her hole card, and profiting from that shortcoming by going all in on bets that on their face seem to be ill advised. And later, with as much subtlety as possible, the advantaged player purposely endures losses, in the hope of discouraging a security staffer from blowing the whistle, aware that turning in the wrong customer can cost the casino a lot of money in litigation by the mis-identified player. The suckers claim they were wrongly identified in the security footage, leaving the establishment open to charges. If he has the moxie, illegally influencing other players, or using errors by dealers to gain an advantage, or simple card-counting, gives the advantaged player all the edge he needs to play an eight-hour shift and walk away with hundreds of thousands.
Rarely do the casino owners and their security people have it so easy in this era of facial recognition technology -- which gives the casinos the ability to spot a known advantage player before he can milk the house dry. This has forced a complete re-think by the advantaged player to continue their profitable ways by using different tactics.
The film contains the opinions of well-spoken peers all the participants involved in this zero-sum game. Through careful editing and real-life presentations of borderline illegal behavior by all parties, the film opens the skeptic's eyes to the far more interesting wagers placed below the table by all parties, perpetually at war in the casino battlefield, often derided by their peers for self-serving reasons, and deprived of what most of us would consider the essentials of a good life: having a well-paying career and a loving family, living modestly but by recognizing what is truly gratifying, avoiding the dark cloud of debt and nevertheless enjoying a good quality of life, for the advantaged player and his family.
What kept me with this film was the whimsical personalities of the several professional gamblers it portrays. All are genuinely likable. All have their own systems and strategies. Some, like KC, with his collegiate good looks and engaging personality, could probably be selling real estate and earning even more. The catch is, and what makes them interesting, is that these guys do not like to be managed.
We accompany KC in his high-end RV as he drives around the country, literally, seeking less-well-informed tribal casinos in the middle of nowhere, with the understanding he is less likely to be spotted as a money-losing (for the casino) advantaged player as he lays down the heavy bets. But if he is recognized, a nasty fate could befall him. Like the stereotypical gambler, advantaged players are drawn in by the risk, the uncertainty, the ability to worm out of a threatening situation by their street smarts and their knowing the inside line of every type of game.
But there's a catch. Tribal lands, and what goes on in them, are not available for investigation by real-world authorities like cops and DAs. It's in the hands of the tribe. Details about punishment meted out to miscreants are not made available to outsiders.
Even before he faces a liquidity crisis, KC does not come across to me as a happy guy. His trade is a predatory, solitary one. In his hotel room after hours he shows off his winnings by way of graphs generated by Excel spreadsheets. And his earnings are astonishing. But something is wrong with this picture. (Later on, he shows the devastating losses he has borne, and his deeply embedded loneliness.)
I must bear in mind, among the few gamblers I know, not one has ever admitted a loss. The pathological addiction to gamble, especially among the wealthy, makes the ultra-rich client, known as a 'whale,' to the casinos, sought after by all the casinos in Vegas. To the point where this customer will have a personal "escort" with him at all hours to ensure he enjoys a good time.
This transactional relationship between the two parties, gambler and casino, can be equated to paying for sex, and thus qualifies as a vice. We think of losers as the weekend visitors who fly into Vegas and drop a couple thousand - or million. And they are. But they can afford it, most of the time. The gambling addicts, and the advantaged players in this film, are both in the lonely grip of a vice that probably will destroy them the long run, but whose allure is their certainty that they are blessed and their perseverance will pay off.
For the pro gamblers depicted in this doc, you can tell there is something weighing on them. These guys are intelligent and self aware. Which, ironically, makes them the biggest suckers of all. Because we can tell that in the straight world, they could have done well at whatever profession they chose. But instead they elected to walk on the dark side, becoming master manipulators of both casino employees and fellow gamblers, and therefore hated by all when their tactics are revealed.
Even when their winning streak is hot, you get the feeling watching the pros mindlessly placing chips or collecting them, of a great interior emptiness. Compare one of these guys making $20 thousand a month to a high school teacher making little more than a tenth that amount, but winning in another way: beloved by his or her students, respected by colleagues, getting letters from former students 20 years after graduation.
That teacher has connected with fellow humans in need of a mentor's ability not to run their life, but to show them the possibilities, and let them decide. And even when they don't get back to you, you know you've reached them, and thus made them aware of the "third way" to game the system and remain respectable.
If you go to the dark side, you will be remembered in less than inspiring ways by all the dealers and pit bosses you've scammed by doing something better than they could. But to the psychologically maladapted, the dark side is tempting, even when the payoff is pretty slim, and maybe in part by knowing they have dominated what in real life would be their doppelgänger - dealer, pit boss, other players -- through their wits and artistry.
But as Peggy Lee would put it, is that all there is? Even a straight-out hustler is prone to second thoughts when robbing both the dealer and the player beside them. Will they ever truly be respected, or loved? Probably not. But their underlying pathology tells them they are worthy of neither, and that only by their wits will they be able to manipulate others, sometimes at several levels, and survive. This dismal self-knowledge forces them to conclude that only by conjury will they obtain the love and support they lost so long ago.
See also
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