For those that are interested, here is why I concluded Don Johnson didn’t win as much as people thought. It was something that caught my eye at the end of the Atlantic magazine article: “Johnson says his life hasn’t changed all that much. He hasn’t brought himself anything big and still lives in the same house in Bensalem.”

Now if there is one thing I think everybody would agree with and that is Don Johnson is flamboyant and likes the good life. I’m not motivated by money, and I know even I’d have bought a new house if I had just came into a $15 million windfall. If Don didn’t make any big purchase, it makes me question how much he really won during this time. I expect he had some pretty big losing sessions too that he doesn’t talk about much.

Eliott Jacobson also shed some light on what was going on during this time. These very attractive loss rebates offers were going out to a lot of whales; it wasn’t just Don getting them. The Atlantic magazine article makes it seem like this was just something Don had negotiated. The math was pretty easy to do and people saw how these rebates could be exploited. Syndicates were sponsoring some of these whales. All the whales had to do is play basic strategy and quite when they lost $500,000 and they would be playing a positive EV game with the way the loss rebates were structured.

This is also why I’ve wondered if Don was probably playing with investor money, rather than his own. While Don is wealthy, it doesn’t appear he was wealthy enough to support betting $100,000/hand. This could also explain why Don didn’t make any big purchase. It wasn’t his money. I’m just speculating here.

If you do some research on the internet, there is quite a bit out there on what was going on during this time. It’s a little more complicated than how the Atlantic magazine paints it. But one thing is clear the Atlantic magazine article is what made Don famous. He then ran with it, and gives interviews about how he took advantage of the casinos with “his entourage”, when he knows “his entourage” had nothing to do with his three big wins that made him famous.

It’s a a fascinating story. I encourage people to do their own research and come to their own conclusions..