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Thread: The Results Are In. 3rd Best Gambling Year Lifetime

  1. #1


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    The Results Are In. 3rd Best Gambling Year Lifetime

    I have been playing blackjack for 39 years now with the last 4 being online. This year was quite good considering that promotions have been cut way back. This year was only $300 better than my best brick and mortar casino year to earn 3rd place.

  2. #2


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    Wow, 39 years - a lot of experience.
    I play for a year, and mostly it's blackjack too, but also poker

  3. #3


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    Quote Originally Posted by Midwest Player View Post
    I have been playing blackjack for 39 years now with the last 4 being online. This year was quite good considering that promotions have been cut way back. This year was only $300 better than my best brick and mortar casino year to earn 3rd place.
    Congratulations on your profitable 2024.

    I am also from the Midwest and I played my first BJ at a physics conference in Reno 39 years ago.

    I play almost entirely online and earn a lot more online than I ever did in B&M. I also agree that the online promotions have been declining in value and frequency, especially in 2024. But I keep learning new AP angles, and 2024 was my second best year ever.

    Of course, I always wonder if it is only the profitable players who are seeing their offers cut back. I should dig into the financial reports of the publicly traded companies and see if they break out their promotional spend as a percent of revenues. It would be interesting to look for trends in promotional costs.

  4. #4


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    Quote Originally Posted by OnlineAP View Post
    Congratulations on your profitable 2024.

    I am also from the Midwest and I played my first BJ at a physics conference in Reno 39 years ago.

    I play almost entirely online and earn a lot more online than I ever did in B&M. I also agree that the online promotions have been declining in value and frequency, especially in 2024. But I keep learning new AP angles, and 2024 was my second best year ever.

    Of course, I always wonder if it is only the profitable players who are seeing their offers cut back. I should dig into the financial reports of the publicly traded companies and see if they break out their promotional spend as a percent of revenues. It would be interesting to look for trends in promotional costs.
    People have been saying that about online offers since 1999.

    There's probably more opportunity online now for ap's than aver before though you need to be creative.

  5. #5


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    It is true that one can still make profits on promotions that are run by online casinos. Those promotions have become poorer over the years but many of them are beatable if you know how to play them correctly. Mostly those promotions allow no table games like blackjack but only slots but even those ones are often beatable. However, many countries - like my home country - have prohibited or at least restricted playing in online casinos so for many people including me online casino promotions are no option. FML.

  6. #6


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    Quote Originally Posted by Archvaldor View Post
    People have been saying that about online offers since 1999.

    There's probably more opportunity online now for ap's than aver before though you need to be creative.
    The level of gross incompetence from the online casinos/sports books from 2019-2022 was incredible.

    It tapered off in 2023 and really dropped off in 2024.

    I'll put it this way- I used 15 or so legal online sportsbook/casinos that are out of business.

  7. #7


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    Quote Originally Posted by tomf23 View Post
    The level of gross incompetence from the online casinos/sports books from 2019-2022 was incredible.

    It tapered off in 2023 and really dropped off in 2024.

    I'll put it this way- I used 15 or so legal online sportsbook/casinos that are out of business.
    I tracked my promo dollars separately from my W/L because luck affects W/L whereas promo dollars are a better measure of opportunity. This promo cash peaked for me around the end of 2023.

    I used to make a large fraction of my income from leaderboards that were not sized properly. This may seem like gross incompetence to create a leaderboard where the players as a group were +EV. But for some larger casinos, the leaderboards eventually started attracting enough play from ploppies that they were no longer +EV for any player. Until 2022, I had a weekly BJ leaderboard at a minor online casino where I could win the $1800 top prize most times with a theo loss of $500-700. If this had been at DK, there is no way I could have avoided serious competition for so long. Sadly, the site closed down. It is just hard to attract play at the smaller shops. If they increase the promotional spend, then most of their volume play will be from APs. Without a big advertising budget like DK or FD, none of the ploppies are even aware that they exist.

    I do feel the all of the online casinos had a strong business imperative to promote like crazy to grab market share during the pandemic. Then they promoted heavily for a while to keep the players from going back to B&M gaming. It is still easy to make money online in the US markets, but the first three years of this decade were definitely a special time for me.

  8. #8


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    Quote Originally Posted by OnlineAP View Post
    I tracked my promo dollars separately from my W/L because luck affects W/L whereas promo dollars are a better measure of opportunity. This promo cash peaked for me around the end of 2023.

    I used to make a large fraction of my income from leaderboards that were not sized properly. This may seem like gross incompetence to create a leaderboard where the players as a group were +EV. But for some larger casinos, the leaderboards eventually started attracting enough play from ploppies that they were no longer +EV for any player. Until 2022, I had a weekly BJ leaderboard at a minor online casino where I could win the $1800 top prize most times with a theo loss of $500-700. If this had been at DK, there is no way I could have avoided serious competition for so long. Sadly, the site closed down. It is just hard to attract play at the smaller shops. If they increase the promotional spend, then most of their volume play will be from APs. Without a big advertising budget like DK or FD, none of the ploppies are even aware that they exist.

    I do feel the all of the online casinos had a strong business imperative to promote like crazy to grab market share during the pandemic. Then they promoted heavily for a while to keep the players from going back to B&M gaming. It is still easy to make money online in the US markets, but the first three years of this decade were definitely a special time for me.
    I say gross incompetence because that's what it was in most cases. There's a reason so many sportsbook/casinos I used are out of business. They didn't understand basic math and gave people tons of authority as hosts to hand out money that didn't have a clue as to what they were doing. It was a glorious time.

    The sportsbooks are still far too fast to limit people but it was comical back then. If you opened a new account and happened to win after 20 or 30 bets a lot of places would limit you. If you happened to lose they'd give you tons and tons of bonuses. You can't run a book that way.

    Even with something basic like free bets to this day these sites don't let people use them on big favorites when they should be begging you to use them on big favorites. It's pretty incredible actually.

    I definitely miss the bonuses that cleared on slots with a 2-3 percent house edge with only a 4x rollover and blackjack bonuses that cleared at a 20x rollover and a few even less than that.

  9. #9


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    Quote Originally Posted by tomf23 View Post
    The level of gross incompetence from the online casinos/sports books from 2019-2022 was incredible.

    It tapered off in 2023 and really dropped off in 2024.

    I'll put it this way- I used 15 or so legal online sportsbook/casinos that are out of business.
    I know what you mean. However I would not call that gross incompetence by historical standards. I made around 100k circa 2002-2004 when I started out just from hedging bank and player at baccarat for bonuses for risk-free profits. That is what I call gross incompetence. The leaderboard play OnlineAP mentions is like quantum physics by comparison.

    A lot of books are basically ponzi schemes so we would expect a lot to go out of business.

    I say gross incompetence because that's what it was in most cases.
    I recall a study which showed that a typical sub to an online casino/book was worth about 4k a year on average. This was in 1999. Most people were still not online and most that were still had dial-up. I would be surprised if that figure is less than 20, maybe even 50k now.

    So when online ap's talk about casino stupidity and so forth I think they tend to ignore this. You can actually run a business giving everyone $100 if you can snag one whale in a 100. Most of the early success stories (Intercasino, Casino On Net) had very aggressive promotional programs. To my mind most online casinos/books are insanely risk-averse with their promotions.

    Of course it does depend on the type of promotion you offer. A crucial factor is that your bonuses must appeal to regular gamblers-early promotional offers didn't have much in the way of variance so appealed more to ap's than normal players. That said you can justify giving away a fortune in promotional deals providing you are growing your customer base-and indeed you won't succeed without doing that long-term.
    Last edited by Archvaldor; 02-05-2025 at 08:10 AM.

  10. #10


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    I believe Midwest Player is playing in US regulated casino. Promotions are quite different on the international market. Many offshore casinos can be easily attacked by APs from all over the world. US casinos have a richer customer base and have a certain level of protection because of their Player Location Checker (PLC) software. Fewer AP attacks and richer ploppies means the casino can off better promo terms without getting killed.

    The casinos that I frequent have done a very good job of disqualifying 97%+ RTP games for play-through requirements. The hammer really came down in 2023 starting with the 98% RTP games. But, some good games always seem fall through the cracks.

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