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Thread: astonishingly good run

  1. #14


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    Quote Originally Posted by Dbs6582 View Post
    Why does Don get credit for his big wins, and people ignore his losses?
    I'm guessing because the former were considerably greater than the latter.

    Don

  2. #15


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    Quote Originally Posted by DSchles View Post
    I'm guessing because the former were considerably greater than the latter.

    Don
    I get it. But it’s msileading to say Don took the casinos for $15 million in six months. It’s my understanding that’s what his plaque says at the BJ Hall of Fame. By Don’s own admission, he did not take the casinos for this much during that timeframe.

    If I only reported on my winning sessions and ignored my losing sessions, I could claim I’ve won millions from casinos too.

    My respect for you and what you’ve contributed to the blackjack community is on the highest order. I’ve got several of your books to make sure they’re always around when I need them to reference something. I like all your advice on these various sites. Thank you!

    But I do struggle with understanding how someone like Don Johnson got into the BJ Hall of fame. Does it just take a couple big lucky wins, taking advantage of loss rebates, and getting an article written about you in a popular magazine? I’ve done a lot of research on this and I’m as confused as ever.

  3. #16


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    Some people want and need the notoriety. Reality is, it's not a good thing. I stand by my comment on the HOF, the people behind it and casino it's located at. Free room and silly party are NOT worth it!

  4. #17


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    Quote Originally Posted by ShipTheCookies View Post
    Some people want and need the notoriety. Reality is, it's not a good thing. I stand by my comment on the HOF, the people behind it and casino it's located at. Free room and silly party are NOT worth it!
    What’s interesting about Don Johnson is that at first he didn’t want the notoriety for his wins. It was the casinos that made him famous. The casinos were the ones who showed the reporters (during their earning report) the receipts of Don Johnson’s wins. Obviously, they only showed receipts of Don’s wins. They didn’t show any receipts of Don’s losses. The casinos exploited Don’s big wins to their benefit.

    As we all know, casinos like to take pictures of the slot winners and post their picture in their casino, making people think any common folk can win at their casinos. Don is the slot poster for whales. It was only after the casinos made Don famous that he started talking about his wins.

    Btw, it’s in the casino’s interesting to celebrate and advertise a big win. This feeds into the fantasy people want to believe. What is that fantasy? That one person can “bring down the house”. The casinos got added publicity by the Hall of Fame group voting Don into their elite group. This was probably beyond what the casinos could have hoped for. A poppy having a lucky streak getting in the Hall of Fame.

    Casinos aren't dumb. They know how to exploit a big win. The amount of positive publicity casinos have gotten from Don’s big wins was far more valuable than any multimillion marketing campaign could have brought them. It’s been 7 years since Don’s big wins and the casinos are still reaping the rewards from it. They’re probably looking for their next Don Johnson.

    The perception that any Joe (or in this case Don) can be the next big winner is what drives Vegas.

  5. #18


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    Quote Originally Posted by Dbs6582 View Post
    Casinos aren't dumb. They know how to exploit a big win.
    Casinos always posting winners. Some of them display a running billboards to show how much it pays out by the hour/day/week/month or YtD. But they have counter measures against AP/counters, sometimes in violence ways.
    At one of my local store there is a story about a big winner of a progressive jackpot of over million Dollars. Casino invited her family come back with hotel, food , limo gifts, and vacation trips, after about a week or so they gave all back and more.

  6. #19


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    Quote Originally Posted by Dbs6582 View Post
    But I do struggle with understanding how someone like Don Johnson got into the BJ Hall of fame.
    FWIW, I never voted for him, didn't feel he deserved to be in, and am not the least bit happy that he's in.

    Don

  7. #20


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    Quote Originally Posted by DSchles View Post
    FWIW, I never voted for him, didn't feel he deserved to be in, and am not the least bit happy that he's in.

    Don
    I respect that and I think you said that before. Not that you probably care, but my opinion of you went up a couple notches when I learned you didn’t vote for him.

    What were the others thinking? To put Don Johnson in the Hall with the truelly greats in BJ made no sense. Every time I hear Don give an interview, I’m shocked he’s in there.

  8. #21


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    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..

  9. #22


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    I don't know Don, but maybe he was already wealthy enough to already have and do every thing he wanted. Thus no change.

  10. #23


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    Before answering the question of whether or not Don Johnson deserves to be in the BJ Hall of Fame, I'd like to see what the Blackjack Hall of Fame says it requires for membership.

  11. #24


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    Quote Originally Posted by DSchles View Post
    FWIW, I never voted for him, didn't feel he deserved to be in, and am not the least bit happy that he's in.

    Don
    He was probably voted in as he draws attention to the fact that an HOF of Blackjack players exist which might lead to more visitors.

  12. #25


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    Quote Originally Posted by Gronbog View Post
    I don't know Don, but maybe he was already wealthy enough to already have and do every thing he wanted. Thus no change.
    Point taken. If Don Johnson was wealthy or not is not really my point. My point is he did nothing more than have a couple big wins at three casinos (with several losses mixed in between, which we know nothing about) and now he’s in the BJ HOF. What? This is all it takes to get in?

    We know he didn’t do any advantage play during this time since he was welcomed back. At Don’s most famous win (Tropicana where he won $5.8 million) his play was reviewed many times by experts. As I’m sure people know, tape is saved and sent to gambling experts when a big win occurs and they all agreed he got lucky, nothing more. It happens. It’s called positive variance, and casinos deal with it. It’s why whales play big. They sometimes have positive variance and win big.

    If the only criteria for getting in the Hall of Fame is a big win, then Kerry Packer should be in there. Before Kerry Packer died, he was the wealthiest person in Australia and a big gambler. Vegas loved him and feared him at the same time. They loved him since he was the worlds biggest ploppy. They feared him because his bankroll was so big that if he happened to get on a ploppy hot streak, he could impact their yearly profits. There are stories of Kerry winning $20 milllion at four casinos in Vegas in a weekend and hurting their financials for the year. At the Hilton in Vegas, he won $9 million in one session around Christmas and it had such a big impact on the Hilton that they couldn’t give their employees bonuses that year. He was winning this kind of money back in the 90s, when a million meant something. He obviously lost a lot too, which is why he was also welcomed back.

    I always thought being in the BJ Hall meant more than just having a couple big wins. If that’s all it takes, I’m sure there are a lot of whales that should probably get in. A couple months after Don Johnson had his big win at the Tropicana another whale won over $5 million playing blackjack at the Tropicana. Why isn’t he in the Hall of Fame?

    It should be pointed out there are two phases of Don’s playing career. 1) the first phase is what got him famous and I think into the Hall. In this phase, he played solo and basically took advantage of loss rebates. He did not play with an advantage since he didn’t want to get kicked out. That’s why Don always brags that he doesn’t count cards. He makes fun of card counters, saying you could teach a monkey to count cards.

    2) the second phase is when he tried to do some advantage play with “his entourage”. This is the phase he always talks about in his interviews. This is the part where he claims he brought along porn stars to confuse the dealers, Billly Bob to do some hole carding, a couple counters to signal him so he knew when to bet big, etc. You know the standard AP moves. This is the stuff that got him kicked out of casinos, as if the casinos couldn’t see what he was doing from a mile away.

  13. #26


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    DBS, you seem obsessed with Don J. Every HOF has a player of two that did not deserve to be in it while better players were not elected. In the case of BJ HOF, they probably need a celebrity or two to spark the interest of the average casino visitor.

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