As a journalist, I’ve spent the last couple decades writing about people who beat casino games that are meticulously designed to be unbeatable. Those story subjects comprise an elite sector of math geniuses, casino hustlers and sharp-eyed phenoms. Ideally, the best of this breed possesses all three attributes. Collectively, they are known as advantage players (or APs). My new book, Advantage Players: Inside the Winning World of Casino Virtuosos, Master Strategists, and Mathematical Wizards, is a deep dive into the advantage play universe, which goes way beyond the casino nemeses who crush games for a living.
While Advantage Players includes the likes of Kelly Sun, who devised a scheme for winning tens of millions in baccarat over eight months (my story on her is optioned by the people who did Crazy Rich Asians; Awkwafina is attached to star), it also chronicles the advantage playing Safdie brothers, David Blaine, Heidi Fleiss, and the cancer researchers who solved a rare, incurable lymphoma with which I had been diagnosed (don’t feel bad for me; I’m great, health wise, thanks to an advantage play pulled on cancer). For now, though, here are five outrageous gambling exploits from the pages of Advantage Players.
The Laotian Grandma Exploit
Crack advantage-player Eddie Teems came across a slot machine promotion that had the potential to yield six-figures in profits. But there was just one problem: He needed hundreds of players cards – casinos issue the cards to identify gamblers and provide them with comps and promotions – from people with different names in order to pull off the exploit. “My girlfriend is from Laos and she seemed to know every Laotian grandmother in New York,” says Teems. “We rented a van, brought them to the casino, paid them $300 each for getting players cards. Then we played on the cards and cashed in for the promotions.”
The Crossdressing Exploit
John Chang, a founder of the famous MIT blackjack team and the inspiration for Kevin Spacey’s character in the movie 21, was all too recognizable by casino surveillance workers. Dressing as a woman seemed like the only way for him to play blackjack without getting booted. It was a good idea – until it wasn’t. “Cross-dressing worked at casinos in the Bahamas and Illinois,” says Chang. “But at Taj Mahal in Atlantic City [then owned by a pre-presidential Donald Trump], they were looking at my hands.” A host ID-ed him and a security guard advised to Chang, “Lose the pearls, Esmeralda.” As Chang remembers it, “I ran around the casino in high heels to make sure they weren’t following me.” Adding insult to injury, surveillance photos of Chang in drag circulated through casinos around the world.”
The Don Johnson Exploit
Don Johnson (not the actor but the blackjack wizard who took $15 million out of Atlantic City) was playing at the Venetian in Las Vegas. The table was loaded with hard-partying types – there to distract casino personnel – and a handful of advantage-play savants spotting various edges for Johnson to capitalize on. Playing for $50,000 a hand, Johnson says, he was dealt a 17. One of his collaborators signaled him to hit. He had to make it look like a wildcard of a gamble. “I announced that I would do a shot of cognac before making my decision on the hand,” says Johnson, who played at being inebriated. “Of course I hit. And, of course, the card was a 4. I knew it had to be a 3 or a 4. Or else I would not have gotten the signal. Surveillance probably called downstairs to ask what the hell was going. The staff probably told them that I was fucking blitzed. That’s what was going on.”
The ‘Clean-The-Floor’ Exploit
A Harvard grad who’s notorious for creating sophisticated computer programs that find holes in so-called carnival games – Deuces Wild Xtreme and the like – James Grosjean was in an Oklahoma casino taking on a version of craps played with cards instead of dice. Coming off as the ultimate nice-guy low roller, he positioned himself at one end of the table, making minimum bets, appearing to be half asleep, and engaging in small talk with the dealers. Unbeknownst to them, he had figured out the game and was surreptitiously signaling a so-called big player at the other end of the table. Discrete hand-gestures communicated profitable plays for the guy to make at the game’s highest limits. As one night wound down, Grosjean, who told the game crew that his name was the innocuous sounding AJ (“It stands for Ace Jack,” he smirkingly revealed to me), got down on his hands and knees to clean up garbage scattered below the table. A woman working the game gushed to a colleague, “That AJ, he’s so nice.” She had no clue, of course, that he was engineering a six-figure run on the vulnerable casino game and would do anything to deflect suspicions that he was, in fact, a brilliant advantage player.
The Billy Baxter Exploit
Major marijuana smuggler Jimmy Chagra (believed to be the model for Javier Bardem’s psychotic Anton Chigurh character in No Country for Old Men and suspected of hiring Woody Harrelson’s father to murder a federal judge) owed $365,000 in golf losses to super AP Billy Baxter. Baxter, who won his first million while still a teenager, went to Chagra’s home to collect his dough. Once there, he encountered a fleet of guards wielding carbine rifles—and a pool table in the living room. Chagra suggested that Baxter give him a chance to get even via games of 9 ball. “I thought I died and went heaven,” says Baxter, who got his start as a pool hustler. “He wanted to play for $20,000 a game and couldn’t make a single shot. I got him to 10 bets loser.” Frustrated, Chagra said, “If I don’t start winning soon, I don’t know what will happen.” Getting the point, Baxter proceeded to dump games and made it clear that his wife knew where he was. Finally, recalls Baxter, “Chagra said, ‘Okay. Get this guy his fucking money.’ A guard came by with two shopping bags of cash. I took the money and headed home.”
