Click here to watch the video!

After you watch the video, do us a favor and leave a comment on it. If you think it’s valuable, terrible, or boring let us know and help spread the word!

In our next article, we’ll tell you guys some things we learned at this year’s Blackjack Ball. It was awesome!

P.S. We’ve just created a new Blackjack House Edge Calculator for the site. Use it to see how the rules of the casino affect their house edge (and in return, your EV). Enjoy!

P.P.S There’s still a couple spots left in the March 24th Vegas Bootcamp. If you want the best card counting training available, this is it! We’ve got a few guest speakers lined up who will be there to give some insider tips. So it should be an awesome time!

P.P.P.S. I almost forgot! The documentary, Holy Rollers, about the blackjack team we ran is set to release through Warner Brothers on March 6th! We’ll have it available through the site for those interested. It won several awards for best documentary, and gives people an inside glimpse at a multi-million dollar blackjack team. We’ll post more when it gets closer to the release date.

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So just for fun, I thought I’d give my top 5 misconceptions I encounter (By the way, feel free to add to this in the comments section!)

5. You need to buy a James Bond suit if you want to play professionally. Both Ben and I considered wardrobe upgrades when we first started playing with real money, then quickly changed our minds. Next time you’re in Vegas, walk through some high limits rooms and pay attention to what the people around you are wearing. Rich dudes seem more inclined to wear sweatsuits or Ed Hardy shirts than Versace. There may be a few people wearing suits but if you look like me, you’ll probably stand out more rather than blending in. And there are probably 50 things you could do to appear less like a card counter that have nothing to do with the clothes you’re wearing.

4. You need a photographic memory to count cards. I have a terrible memory. Seriously. My 3 year old kicks my butt at the game “Memory” every time. Fortunately, with card counting, you simply need to drill the charts into your brain (which is doable with repetition) and be able to remember the running count for a few seconds, until it changes again. What you DO need is great focus, which I have. It has more to do with practice and repetition than being able to remember stuff like your room number or parking spot (thank God!).

 3. A card counter can turn $100 into $1,000,000 in a few hours. You can blame Rain Man for this one. But as any pro card counter can tell you, your chips don’t simply double every couple hours. It involves large wins and large losses, winning streaks and losing streaks, and ups and downs. In “Burning the Tables in Las Vegas,” Ian Andersen discribes a losing streak so bad, he had a friend verify that he was playing correctly. And unfortunately, any pro card counter who plays long enough, will have one of these streaks. It’s not a get rich quick scheme. However, this brings me to my next misconception…

2. Card counting doesn’t work. There are 3 groups of people that say this: people who don’t know any better, people who have tried and failed, or people who have done it successfully, but assume it can’t be done anymore. To all 3 groups, I’d say that I disagree. In his book, “The Big Book of Blackjack,” Arnold “The Bishop” Snyder makes the argument that there’s no better time in history than now for card counting. Sure the games aren’t as easy to beat as they were decades ago, but there are more casinos than ever. And smart APs are figuring out new ways to beat the games. The cat and mouse game continues. Again, I’m not saying it’s easy, but nothing worth doing ever is! We even made a little youtube video entitled, “Does Card Counting Work,” to get the word out there on the interweb.

1. Card counting is illegal. This is the most common, and frustrating, misconceptions out there. And I’m sure the casinos love that people still think it’s illegal to use your brain. I’ve been told by everyone from pastors to neighbors to police officers… all of whom I’ve had to gently correct. I don’t even have the energy to explain it again, and obviously you know this, or else you wouldn’t be on our website. But for a more detailed writeup about it, click here.

If you made it this far and think I missed a good one, add it to the comments section!

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P.S. If you want to get in on our next Bootcamp, it’s going to be on March 24th! There are still spots available so sign up or set up a phone call for more info!

1. Website improvements- If you’ve been to the site recently, you’ll see we’ve made some major changes. The homepage, forum, and navigation have all been improved. And for those wanting premium content, the premium membership process should be easier and better than ever. We’ve added some more content like a card counting comparison chart and European No Hole Card charts. Video now works on all devices (including mobile). We’ve also got some more exciting free software in development, but I can’t announce it quite yet. Let us know what you think of the new forum and homepage, as well as what features you’d like to see added to the site!
2. Improved iPhone App- We set out to have the best card counting training app available for iPhone and iPad and we’ve gotten great reviews for the latest version! We hope to continue to add even more to it as we have time, but it’s a great way to practice basic strategy, counting, deviations, and betting. If you didn’t get it when we gave it away for free last week, shoot us an email and I’ll give you a promo copy!
3. Documentary Release- The feature length documentary about the team we ran will be available on DVD, Hulu, Netflix, and Video On-Demand in over 100 Million homes on March 6th. It’s also playing a limited theatrical release in SF, Portland, and Seattle. A lot of people have been asking how they can see it, and we finally have permission to share the news. We’ll let you know more when we get closer to the release date.
4. Vegas Bootcamp- We will be holding our next bootcamp in Las Vegas on March 24th! This may be our only training in 2012, so if you’d like hands on card counting training, this is your chance! You can sign up here, as well as set up a phone call from Ben or Colin to see if the bootcamp is right for you, or email me back to get your questions answered. We wouldn’t want you to miss it!
5. The 29-Minute Card Counting Book- We launched our latest eBook a few weeks ago and have appreciated the great reviews we’ve received. The book is designed to give someone an overview of the how, what, and why of card counting in less than 30 minutes. If you’ve read it already, we’d love to hear your feedback!

We’ve always been very careful about what personal information we disclose on this website. We have alluded to our Blackjack exploits and the fact that we ran a Blackjack team, but were cautious to not mention specifics. But that is all about to come to an end.

When we started this website, we were still running possibly the largest, most feared Blackjack Teams in the world. Ben and I had a huge responsibility to protect the identity of both the team itself, as well as the individuals on the team. We were passionate about passing on to others our expertise in card counting, but we didn’t want casinos to know about us and we needed to protect the anonymity of the players. But the days of secrecy are over!

5 years ago, in the height of our blackjack team, a good friend, Bryan Storkel, asked me if he could make a documentary about us and the team. We agreed, as long as he promised to not release the documentary until we gave him permission. Well, a few months ago that day came. The end result, Holy Rollers, is currently making the Film Festival circuit and picking up awards along the way (it won “Best Documentary” at Arclight Film Festival in Los Angeles, “Best Documentary” at New Hampshire Film Festival, and several other awards). The film follows a couple years of the team, the ups and downs of running a multi-million dollar blackjack team, as well as the common faith that a lot of the members of the team hold. Yup, Ben and I are Card Countin’ Christians (we’ll explain in a future blogpost why we believe Christianity and Card Counting aren’t mutually exclusive). We are incredibly proud of the job Bryan did with this movie and we hope both the blackjack community and the general public enjoy it!

So what does this mean?

1. Since the cat is out of the bag, we will be free to talk more about our own story. Whether it’s some of the crazy stories behind our blackjack team or our personal convictions, we don’t have to be as tight lipped as we were when we had a blackjack team to protect.
2. We’re going to start a several part series of blogposts covering that stuff (ourselves, the team we ran, our beliefs, the philosophy behind what and why we do what we do, why we made a documentary, etc).
3. We’ll keep you guys updated on if/when the documentary is available on DVD or whatever.
4. Hopefully this will help you guys learn from our successes and failures, both in counting cards for a living and in life.

Just like each of you, we’re not just card counters, we’re people. So there has been massive amounts of overlap between card counting and the rest of life (family, time, career, identity, relationships, money, etc). There’s no longer a concern to keep the blackjack part of life isolated, so now we are free to start the conversation about being people who count cards for a living, and all the interesting things that entails. We are as committed as ever to creating an army of card counters primed to beat the casino at their own game! We don’t see this shift as taking away from the site, but making it deeper. So there it is. Keep your eyes out for upcoming blogposts that dig deeper into all this stuff.

Thanks for being a part of the Army at BlackjackApprenticeship!

P.S. We are about a month away from the launch of our first eBook in over 2 years! It’s called “The 29-Minute Card Counting Book” and we think it will be an awesome resource for people wanting to learn card counting or who are currently card counting for money! We’ll let you know more about it as we get our act together.

P.P.S.  We are getting a lot of interest from people wanting to do a bootcamp in the next few months. If you’re interested in getting on the waiting list, send an email: info@blackjackapprenticeship.com

15 minutes away from the casino it hits me: I’ve got $200 in slot vouchers in my wallet. They’d given me several hundred dollars worth of free slot play (another perk of high limit card counting), and I had won about $200 with it, but I never cashed it out. I was cursing myself and trying to figure out if I knew someone else that might be able to cash it out for me. But like I said: this was out in the middle of nowhere and in the middle of the night. So I sucked it up, and called the head of the casino…

Hi. This is Colin. You just kicked me out, but I realized I have $200 in slot vouchers. Would it be okay if I came back and cash it out without getting arrested? I’d really appreciate it!

I couldn’t believe it, but after putting me on hold for a few minutes, the head of the casino said that security guards would be waiting for me to escort me to the cage to cash out my slot winnings! I’d just made $200 by politely asserting myself to a place that had just made it abundantly clear I was not welcome there.

Here’s the takeaway: Being an a-hole is not going to get what you want. BUT, being a passive pushover won’t get you very far either. It took me a few years to figure out the balance, but I call it graceful assertiveness, AKA Don’t Be a Jerk. It’s how I choose to act every time a dealer makes a mistake. “Mr. Pitboss, I’m sorry to bother you. I was just about to buy insurance but the dealer accidentally checked their hand before I got an opportunity. I hate to be difficult, but I’m sure if you reviewed the tapes, you’d see that I didn’t have enough time to get my insurance bet out there.” It’s also how I act when I get kicked out (I’ve tried the yell-at-them-as-they-escort-you-out-the-door approach, and it doesn’t get you anywhere. Now I kill them with kindness).

This balance is incredibly valuable in Blackjack, as well as life in general. Being aggressive puts others on the defensive, and they are not very likely to cooperate. Being passive means you’re not going to get your dilemma taken seriously. But if you can be a nice guy, but make your situation known, there’s a good chance they’ll oblige you… people generally want to please others. It’s human nature.

So now I’m going to graciously assert the fact that we would LOVE it if you’d spread the word of www.BlackjackApprenticeship.com with others on Facebook and Twitter!

Not everyone is fortunate enough to start their card counting careers with a large bankroll.A small bankroll is one of the most common factors holding people back from taking their card counting career seriously. Ben and I can relate… I started with $2,000 and Ben started with only $400. But, we were able to quickly grow our funds into a large enough bankroll to begin card counting for a living, and there was no looking back. Here are seven ways you can grow your bankroll

1. Freebies (Matchplays/Free slot play/Promo Chips, etc) - Casinos are constantly giving out freebies to get you in the door. The EV might not be phenomenal for a $10 matchplay (worth about 40-80% of face value), but the risk is REALLY low. I once knew a guy who got into card counting because a local casino sent out a $25 matchplay in a local newspaper every day. He (and his girlfriend) would go twice a day and each use the matchplay. Within a couple months, they had generated enough EV to buy an inexpensive car and start their first blackjack bankroll (they went on to win enough money counting cards to retire to Europe). If you’ve read Ben’s e-book, you know that we won $10,000 off of $5 swimsuit calendars... each calendar had loads of matchplays and “free Ace” coupons on the back.
2. Tournaments – This isn’t the most exciting way to build a bankroll. But if you have more time than money, lots of casinos offer Blackjack, Slot, and Poker tournaments with free entry. The tournament takes forever, so the casino assumes it will get people to gamble in-between rounds. But if you DON’T waste money you don’t have between rounds and only play the FREE tournaments, you might get fortunate enough to make some money at one of these tourneys. (I know a guy that got his entry into a Blackjack tournament comped, so he thought it would be fun to try. He ended up winning the 1st Place $15,000 prize, and instantly had a sizable bankroll!)
3. Only WONG In - On the average blackjack game, everything below a true 1 is negative EV. If you don’t have much money to play with, avoid negative EV all together by back-counting and wonging in at a true 1. This will lower your risk and variance and increase your EV. It’s tedious, but it’s one of the smartest ways to keep your risk low on a small bankroll… let the suckers play when the casino has the advantage.
4. DON’T TIP- I shouldn’t even have to say this, it’s so obvious. But I’ve known many a card counter who tips away his advantage. You just won $100, so what’s a $10 tip? Possibly your entire EV for the last hour! Who really worked harder during the last hour, you or the dealer? I don’t mean to sound harsh and this probably pisses a lot of people off, but you’re there for business. So make smart business decisions. Let the players who are there to spend money take care of the dealer. If you have a large enough bankroll can afford to tip the dealer $5 here or there, go for it. But you don’t want to shoot your career in the foot by flippantly giving away your hard earned bankroll money.
5. Don’t Play at all until you can beat the game- I know it’s tempting to test your skills at a real blackjack table. But it’s wasted money if you don’t have everything perfected. And when you DO start playing at a real game, start small. Your goal isn’t to win money yet. Your goal is to get awesome at blackjack. Many casinos have $2 or $3 tables during the daytime. And don’t focus on the size of your chips, but in making every playing decision correctly, counting every card correctly, and making proper bets and deviation decisions.
6. Save up for it! – Ok, this option is really boring but it’s important. Don’t be the guy who’s perpetually “building his bankroll” to start counting cards professionally. Save your money, and when you’ve got enough saved up and your skills are sharp, go for it! It’s basically universal that card counters are cheapskates. We don’t waste money, and we use the money that we’ve saved to make us more money. My wife and I lived off of her meager income for the first 6 months of my card counting career. But that allowed us to grow my $2,000 bankroll into a $50,000 bankroll in 6 months. Consider passing on the new toys and eat out less so you can put aside a few hundred bucks each month towards a serious bankroll.
7. Team up with another card counter- I admit this one is risky. If you team up with someone who is more skilled or less skilled than you at card counting, it’s going to be a bad team. But if you have a friend who you trust 100%, and you are 100% trustworthy, consider training together, pooling your resources, and making a go of it! When I put my $4,000 bankroll together with Ben’s $7,000, we were each able to bet off of a $11K bankroll! That meant we could each bet more, generating more EV/hour. As we both won, our bankroll grew twice as fast! Again, it’s more important to team up with the RIGHT person. But I’ve always benefitted financially and relationally by playing off a joint bankroll with close friends.

There you go! There’s probably another half dozen ideas that I’m not thinking of right now, but the idea is, think outside the box, take advantage of ways to leverage the casino’s money, and DON’T Waste yours! Actually, I don’t care if you want to waste your money. Just don’t complain that you don’t have enough money to take card counting seriously. Because if there’s a will, here’s seven ways!

For tons of premium content, videos, and the professional card counting forum, sign up below for our Premium Membership. We’re committed to helping our premium members take down the house, so let us know in the member’s forum how we can help you in your Blackjack career!

But somehow, this is the most common misconceptions I encounter. My neighbor of 6 years finally got up the courage to ask me (whispering), “So, IS card counting illegal?”

Well, there’s 2 reasons why people think card counting at blackjack is illegal.

1. Casinos will not let you keep playing if you’re good enough at it. Hey, I know an extreme shopper who has gotten “backed off” by a grocery store because she were so good at couponing that it cost the grocery store money. Did she enter the dangerous territory of criminal shopping? No. She just uses the grocery store’s coupons to her advantage. Why not?!?
2. The Media continually lumps card counters in with “cheaters, crooks, money skimmers, swindlers, and child molesters.” Well, not child molesters, but almost. Here’s part of an article from a Delaware news article:

“Beyond accounting for all the extra cash from table games as well as sports betting, the state must be prepared to thwart criminal elements likely to be attracted by the new streams of money at Delaware Park, Dover Downs and Harrington Raceway and Casino, and perhaps new casinos envisioned by politicians and developers.

They can expect to encounter card counters. Roving teams of blackjack and poker cheats. Dealers on the take and crooked pit bosses. Cash skimmers and loan sharks.

Preventing such organized crime by gamblers and employees will be a “huge” regulatory undertaking, said state police Sgt. Joe Ferrera, one of just a handful of state officials who now oversee the state’s so-called racinos.”

I hope the Police Sergeant didn’t REALLY mean “people who play blackjack to the best of their mental abilities” when talking about “organized crime by gamblers.” I think reporters should do a little more research before calling card counters “roving teams of blackjack cheats.”

I have a friend who really enjoys chess. He enjoys it so much that he’s read books on chess, studied the game, and plays a lot so that he gets better. He’ll even enter chess tournaments at times, and wins more money than he loses. I’m not sure when, but according to casinos and the media, at some point in his research and training, he apparently crossed the line from your average civilian chess player into a cheater! I mean, if he has taken the time to learn how to beat his opponent at the game, he must be doing something illegal!

I’m just about finished with my rant, but here’s my 3 reasons why Card Counters are more like Casinos than casinos want you to think:

1. We have used statistics to set up a way to have the advantage against our customer (the Casino is a card counter’s customer)
2. We gladly allow the customer to play the game against us, as long as we know we will win in the long run.
3. We are there for your money! (Casinos say, “Win Big!” and are set up like Disneyland for grownups. But they are there for 1 reason: to empty your bank account. Similarly, I don’t mind if the casino thinks I’m there just to have a good time. If I want a good time, I’ll watch Monday Night Football with my wife and some friends. If you find me in a casino, it’s because I’m there to beat them out of their money, fair and square!). It’s just business.*

So, Casinos, next time you get bent out of shape when I start winning and you realize I’m a professional at what I do, don’t treat me like a criminal. You are welcome to ask me to stop playing. But treat me with the same respect you deserve. Because, when it boils down to it, I’m a lot like you!

Now there was one poorly run casino that I loved playing at more than almost any other. For a while, I was completely anonymous as far as they were concerned. But when I had my first 5-digit win, I figured I was no longer a nobody to them. I don’t know if it was the adrenaline from making more in one night than my car was worth, but for some stupid reason, on my way out of the casino, I walked straight up to the Head of Casino Operations and thanked him for running such a fine establishment. Hey, I figured he knew who I was, so I might as well introduce myself. He kind of muttered something under his breath, and I headed out to my car. I got about halfway through the parking lot and two security guards came running after me yelling. NI thought, “oh no, the gig is up. But why are they chasing me to my car? Oh $#@%!”

My heart was pounding as the security guards, who each outweighed me by about 100 pounds (and carried guns), asked me my name said they needed my ID. Crap! Are they going to take it and flyer me to other casinos?!? They look at it, hand it back, and say, “Ok. We just needed to make sure you were over 21.” Apparently I wasn’t as infamous at that casino as I thought… they just thought it was odd at a kid who looked 17 just won nearly a year’s wages.

Here is the moral of the story… Actually. I don’t think there is one. Just be smart, don’t lose your cool, and remember you are playing their game by their rules.

Now get back out there and make some of your own great Blackjack Stories!!!

It was on some message board about video games or something…

Q: Why is Card Counting Illegal?

A: Its simply because you a defying how the game is naturally supposed to be played and if done right, you cannot lose so there is no longer “chance” involved in the game and therefore the house can no longer win from you. It’s potentially stealing. To put it in simpler terms. It would be like someone saying I’ll give you $100 if you roll a 6 with a dice, and you use a dice with all 6′s.

Ahhhh. Where do I begin? Here’s my top 5 thoughts:

1. I probably get asked once a week, “isn’t card counting illegal?” Although I’m tempted to use the response from The Hangover, I refrain, and say, “No. How can using your brain be illegal?”
2. I love that the logic of this argument is, “it’s not fair to be better than someone else, so it’s illegal.” By that argument, Kobe Bryant should be in jail, because it’s not fair that I can’t guard him at basketball. But instead, Kobe Bryant makes gazillions of dollars at basketball because he has developed this skills to be great at it. Smart investors don’t go to jail by using their minds and mathematics rather than chance. Similarly, we aren’t breaking the law by being better at blackjack than gamblers. Instead, we have taken millions of dollars from casinos.
3. Dear whoever wrote the above answer: Don’t you realize that this is exactly what casinos do? They don’t leave the games to chance… they are carefully mathematically calculated so that the gambler CANNOT win (over the long haul). So by your own language, what casinos do is potentially stealing. They created the set rules of the games that they offer. And only ONE game has even a chance of the casino losing money (Blackjack). Even then, it takes someone smart enough and dedicated enough to learn how to beat the game. And for this reason, I say let’s plunder the plunderers! Let’s outsmart and out-swindle the swindlers!
4. If your logical capacities are strong enough to see that Card Counting is more noble than gambling, and well worthy of the financial reward it offers, then join me in taking money from casinos! But don’t run out there with no practice or experience. We are here to train you to do what we have done. And we are GOOD at training people. We have an upcoming bootcamp in Vegas on May 21st. If you want to learn how to take casinos for thousands upon thousands of dollars, get the proper training! I hope to see you there.
5. If you think that learning how to master a trade or skill should be illegal, then please don’t bother doing anything with your life. You sure wouldn’t want to go to jail for being successful!

I was watching one of the episodes of “The Pacific” last night, and the soldiers in bootcamp started talking about how eager they were to get out there and kill the enemy. Their Platoon Sergeant, John Basilone,  in return proceeds tear them a new one… The underprepared soldiers wanted to get out there and start fighting before they were ready. But Basilone had been through enough combat to know that only the fully trained, 100% prepared soldier who is strong physically, mentally, and emotionally has a chance of beating the enemy.

This is the same for card counters. Casinos make gazillions of dollars off of people who know enough to get themselves in trouble, but not enough to beat the casino. If you want to learn 25 %, 50%, or even 90% of what it takes to be a winning card counter, you’re still letting the Casino win. But if you want to win, you need to be better trained, better prepared, and more skilled than the enemy.

Our goal with this website is to give people all the resources they need to implement the same winning blackjack strategy we have used for years to win millions. But we can’t train for you, we can’t practice for you, we can’t place the bets for you, and we can’t build the bankroll for you. But if you want to be the elite who master the skills, then you can enjoy joining the growing community of Blackjack Apprenticeship card counters who are turning the tables on the Casinos!

To start your training now, start watching the FREE Video Training Course or sign up for a Premium Membership with access to loads of more videos, the forum, and additional resources.