The Real Deal

By Carl Austin

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While the players and technology portrayed in Chinaman's Chance is fictional, the inspiration for the book is as real as it gets.  For more than 20 years I prowled the green felt jungle looking for targets of opportunity.  Just as in my novel, I always played with a team.  Unlike the book, the game we played was blackjack, not craps. 

Being a professional blackjack player is kind of like being a secret agent.  If your cover gets blown, you're dead.  Not literally dead like you see in the movies, but unable to play in a casino.  That's because the casino managers don't like it when you do to them what they do to the public, which is use math to make money.  Whereas in a game like poker, playing pros have been elevated to rock star status, card counters are treated like cockroaches.  The pit bosses like to step on them whenever they are discovered. 

Having begun my career in the gaming industry as a blackjack dealer in Atlantic City, I soon came to understand several things.  In the first place, I quickly learned what tipped off the pit that a card counter was at work.  Secondly, I came to realize that there were a few "regulars" who seemed to be able to walk away from the table with a win more often than not.  Last but not least, I knew for a fact that the players were having a hell of a lot more fun than I was.

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One night after my shift, I spotted one such winner that I recognized as having just taken about $2,500 from my table a couple hours before.  We both found ourselves at a local watering hole away from the boardwalk.  I was hard to miss since I was standing there in my dealer’s uniform. So, after we both ordered a libation, I decided to chat the guy up.

“I noticed you did pretty good tonight,” I told him as the bartender brought us our drinks. 

“I didn’t do too bad,” he admitted while sipping his beer.

“I’ll say,” I agreed.  “You made more in three hours than I do in three weeks, including tips.”

  He smiled at me before replying, “Well, you know what they say.  Some days you eat the bear…”

“Then you must have a mind like a bear trap,” I shot back.  “Because nearly every time I saw you in my pit in the past couple of months you came away with a win.”  At the time I had been working in Pit 7 that housed the casino’s $25 minimum tables.

This caused him to take another healthy pull on his draft while he considered the implications of my comment.

“Look,” I explained, “I’m not trying to put the bite on you.  In fact, it pleases me no end knowing that someone can do to the casinos what they do to most everyone else.  In fact, I only have one question for you.”

“What’s that?”

“How do you do it?”

Looking right and left, he drained his draft before leaning in close to murmur three words into my ear.   “Million Dollar Blackjack.”  Then he got off his barstool, slid a $10 bill to the bartender and walked out of the bar.

“Thanks for buying the round,” I said to him, wondering what the heck Million Dollar Blackjack meant.  The next afternoon, I called a fellow blackjack dealer at home and told him about the odd conversation  at the bar.  His response wasn’t what I expected.

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“It’s Ken Uston’s book,” Rex explained with a chuckle, as though that meant a thing to me.

“Ken who?”

“Kenny is a professional card counter who used to be a stock broker on the West Coast.  He’s currently suing several Atlantic City casinos for barring him.”

As soon as I hung up the phone, I got dressed and drove downtown to the used bookstore.  Sure enough, I found several well-worn copies of Million Dollar Blackjack on the shelves.  Investing a whopping $3, I took my copy home and started reading.

The book detailed Ken Usui’s (AKA Uston) exploits as a stock broker by day and a card counter by night.  Living on the West Coast meant that Kenny could easily take junkets to Vegas and Tahoe/Reno on most weekends.  He used his status as an executive to entice the casinos into giving him the red carpet treatment as he milked their high limit tables for as much profit as possible.  The only fly in the ointment was that by the 1980’s he had worn out his welcome in all the casinos out West.  That meant there was only one stop left on the casino gravy train at the time: Atlantic City.

Aside from being a page turner, Million Dollar Blackjack also contained a complete card counting system called the Uston Point Count.  The UPC is a sophisticated multi-parameter count that assigns a number of different values to the cards.  It also has numerous count-based strategy deviations.  Being a novice player who only had a rudimentary knowledge of basic strategy, I didn’t realize I was biting off more than I could chew.  All I knew was that I spent the next month dealing in the casinos by night and dealing at home during by day.

 It took me 2 years to become adept enough at playing to turn my hobby into a vocation.  Believe me when I tell you it isn’t like you see in the movies.  In the Hollywood version of the story, the protagonists are usually some kind of math wizards working on their PhD during the day and playing blackjack at night.  They are looking to make millions in the casinos or die trying.  Invariably, they have a falling out when the big money starts pouring in and the team implodes.

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Here’s your reality check… Playing blackjack for a living is like most jobs. You clock in, you work your shift and you clock out.  You don’t rub the dealer’s nose in it when you win.  If you want to learn how to count cards you need to either spend hundreds of hours practicing or you need to be trained by a pro. Remember, the trick isn’t only to beat the house at its own game.  The trick is to be able to get away with it whenever and wherever you want.  When you realize that all casinos are better protected than NORAD, then you need to have your act together if you want to last more than a few sessions in the card counting business.

Just as in Chinaman’s Chance, even the best laid plans sometimes go awry. Over the years, money got squandered and  egos were bruised.  Just as in any other business there is a certain amount of turnover when it comes to playing partners.  That’s the bad news.  The good news is that the lifestyle is pretty good, if you like living in hotels for months at a time.  Any of you who have ever been to a casino know that the booze is free as long as you play, the meals can be comped as long as your action warrants and the entertainment is first rate.

Even more intriguing is the drama that goes hand in hand with the allure of easy money.  There are people on both sides of the gaming tables who would kill to make a big score.  That's why most of them wind up dead broke and/or in jail.  The secret to my success and those of my teams was that we were happy to walk away with $500-$1,500 when we won and $300-$400 losses when the dealer got the cards.  We weren't looking to walk out with the chandeliers.  

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As a result, we maintained a low provile, I have never been barred, and my team was never kicked out of any casino. To this day, I can still walk into any gambling hall and make a consistent profit.  Just as Dennis Delaney points out to Ming when they first hit Reno in Chinaman;s Chance, what brings most illicit operations down is not mischaned.  It's greed.  If you want to play David to the casino industry's Goliath, you have to find a way to play like a winner while looking like a loser.  You need to get the pit bosses to like you as opposed to loathing you.  And you need to work on maintaining your cover at all costs.

That's as real as it gets.

Looking for a sure thing?  Carl's author website contains a wealth of information about his novels, his life and his exploits in the green felt jungle.  If you're a casino player, check out Carl's other website Big Game Blackjack. There you will learn the ins and outs of what it takes to play to win.