Poll: Anyone relying on this to pay the mortgage?

[dweezel7]

There must be many people here making a living from gambling. Please share your story about how you can count on wagering to make a living and what it took to get there. Thanks.

[Guest]

Well here is a copy of an email I just sent to a player with similar concerns:

"I started with BJ and then also took up Baccarat as a filler because BJ has only a certain time window where the game is beatable. Baccarat was easier then because it was far less random.

My wife was extremely supportive and I always gave her half the money. Although she never went with me except for our Bahamas BJ event.

I usually try to discourage people from going full time because I know first hand how hard a life it makes. For non smokers it is even harder.

Today Baccarat is also best played in a certain time window - in the morning right after the card prep.

Here is how I worked it. I knew what the morning BJ card prep produced at several AC casinos. IN BJ, new cards are the best cards you are going to see all day. Different BJ pits at different casinos open at different times - so you get more than one chance. I nearly always won my morning session because I knew exactly what to expect at each casino. Those winnings became my strict bankroll for the day. I soon learned never to play Friday nights or weekends or Mondays of long weekends. On the very few occassions I lost the early morning session I played a second session at a pit opening later in the day. I avoided old cards and low stakes altogether. Low stakes tables get too much play and it is play that clumps the cards making them casino favorable. I nearly always played head to head or with just one or two other players. Now you know how I won every day for 3 years.

But I ended up in the hospital with Diverticulites from straight restaurant food. Nearly died. I was expert at getting comped to the finest restaurants but that turned out to be a mistake.

I always spent several hours a day outside on the boardwalk or on the beach in good weather. Walked several miles each day and had a morning exercise program each day. Casinos are a bad environment and back then even worse than today.

My point is that a full time player must schedule his life around his profession. Scheduling is everything. I spent as much time studying card preps and shuffle effects as I spent playing. 16 hour days were common.

If I were going to play Bac full time today I would ONLY play new cards and only at casinos where I had studied what their card prep produced and only where the card prep produced consistent results. That is a lot of onlys.

You have to look at it as a profession and give it the same concern and study as any other profession. It is no longer a game. It's a way of life. It becomes your life and decides your life and consumes your life. Going full time pro takes serious reflection. Is that what you really want?"

There you have it.

Yeah, yeah, I know I'm going to get slammed by the marketing heads for making such a self destructive post.

Like golf, gambling is about truth. You must be true to yourself. So lets start there.

Edited August 8, 2011 by Guest

[Guest]

It was not long before the casinos would no longer comp my room. They aren't stupid. So I had a room at the Madison House for two years. It's right in the thick of things and the huge bar downstairs was the biggest dealer hangout in AC. I bought a dealer shirt and mingled with the dealers most nights for two years. I learned all their tricks. Anyone who tries to tell you casinos don't cheat is smoking some really good shit. Buy some!

[Guest]

So did the dealer's ever figure out who I was and that I wasn't a dealer? Yep, probably sometime during the first night the word got out to everyone. But you buy a couple pitchers and nobody cares anymore. They thought my shirt was pretty funny. I quit bothering with it. Among the dealers I was the most popular player in the casinos. Of course the tips helped.

This one dealer, every time I sat at her table she immediately burst out crying. So I always said, "Don't worry, I'll lose !"

But she knew I was lying. And I was!

Edited August 8, 2011 by Guest

[KIDDO]

I know a lot of self made professional bac players and teams where this is all they do. As mentioned before it is true if you want to make a living out of this, like any other business you absolutely cannot focus on anything else but baccarat. Self discipline is the hardest part of this. Its two different stores when you think about going professional and you actually have to do it. But the best piece of advice is to start part time, I would say if you could turn a $500 bankroll into $50,000 part time. then and only then should you even consider it because you've proven to yourself that you can do it. Alot of players make the mistake after winning for a week or two that it is easy, yet none of them know what its like to go through a several losing sessions in a row and go from being extremely confident where their egos blind them to no end and reality slaps them in the face.

I wouldn't say I rely on this to pay my mortgage because I do not have one. I believe as many others do that if you're in debt before you start playing professionally you're just asking for nothing but trouble. There has to be another sort of income something that covers your mortgage payment to even consider this option viable. My only advice is to play part time until you build up enough bankroll to pay off A) all your debt for some this will be a long time coming. have enough in the bank to cover your bills in advance for 12 months. All of the professional players I know with no exceptions are debt free, and there is a big reason behind this, when you're at the table, you literally have to be at the table, you can't be worrying about a 2k mortgage payment at the end of the month. You can't be worrying about that 50k credit card bill you've got coming, you can't be worrying about that 70k car payment. The only kind of debt that a person should have is the good debt, examples would be people who have a personal networth (what you're worth on paper) * 25%-50% = total amount of debt (in investments), but that's just getting complicated I could write a book on how to bend the banks to your will and make a fortune off them but I won't go there.

I guess all in all before you consider playing baccarat professionally you need to take a DEEP DIVE into your financial situation, if it doesn't look good then don't even consider full time play, only part time play until you get to a point where losing a week straight doesn't even make you flinch.

[Guest]

Good advice Kiddo! And guys, consider this: What if you get sick??? Casino life has a way of doing that to you.

Also, pro gamblers are usually loners - Don't get rolled!

Edited August 11, 2011 by Guest