Here we go again. A brash young pit boss with an itchy trigger finger just backed me off. It’s déjà vu all over again. Listen—no one can know you are a good card counter in the first hour. It’s impossible. Maybe after 500 hours of play YOU still aren’t sure. That is par for the course when you are playing a game with wild variance. It just takes time to assess.
No doubt my tosser-outer du jour is patting himself on the back for “pegging me.” I feel an open letter coming on.
Dear Casino Owners, Managers, and Pit Personnel:
If you like your money, you have reason to fear me. But fear is the beginning of love—see—and if you like your money, you have reason to clear out the smallest corner of your bleak black heart for me. After all, I keep you in business.
See, it is because of people like me that you are able to prey upon the people who are 99% like me. I play perfect blackjack. They play almost perfect blackjack. I win money. They lose money. It is because blackjack is a “beatable” game that so many millions of under-informed, under-prepared patrons try their hand at the tables. They eagerly spread their wallets for the glimmer of a chance of a hope that they will win big.
“It’s a beatable game,” the large man told me at the tables last night. He proceeded to double down on a hard thirteen. “Not anymore,” I replied.
For every dollar you lose to me, you get hundred back from the bleating sheep crowding the sea of blackjack tables day in and day out, when I am here and when I am not.
You should celebrate me. You should hang my picture on the wall and say, “Win big like this guy!” Pat me on the back. Buy me a drink. I am doing more for you than your billboard on the interstate. More than your sad promotional mailers. More than your drink specials. I am what every player wants to become. I am the Real Deal.
Now, be assured, It will be our little secret. Nobody needs to know that perfect blackjack takes time, dedication, hard work and plenty of risk to actually make it pay off. This is America. By god they Want It Now, and you’ve always been ready to give it to them—at 98 cents on the dollar. So why would you squash those quick-fix dreams by denying them a hero to emulate? Put me on a pedestal and the dollar bills the people throw will land at your feet.
–Loudon Ofton
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