Latest / The Magic Guys / How Dustin Marks Outsmarted Vegas! #291
Transcript
- 0:01They're guys they do magic they are the magic guys.
- 0:10Ladies and gentlemen what's up welcome to episode 291 of the magic guys to my left we've got nick k,
- 0:20hi friends i'm nick k welcome to the magic guys podcast episode 291 look at
- 0:26us creeping up to that 3-0-0.
- 0:29And today, as you know, we just talked about Doug now being the manager at the Magic Room.
- 0:35And he's busy doing that right now with some new additions that have just started
- 0:39there requiring his time. My mouth is slowly warming up.
- 0:44Let me have some Jedi juice. And here we're back next week. Nick, how are you doing, man?
- 0:48Buddy, it's been a busy, busy week. And it's about to get a whole bunch busier
- 0:51leading into the corporate season. So things are good.
- 0:55This is the quietest week i've got for a short while so i am just buried in
- 0:59projects same here this is i wonder if it's i wonder if it's like countrywide last year
- 1:05i mean last week my brain is still recovering last week i was traveling here
- 1:10and there and i like six different events,
- 1:13and you know i'm emceeing so i'm learning scripts i'm doing a keynote so i'm
- 1:17tailoring staff and i'm trying to blow their minds with like this custom magic
- 1:20which you were just saying you're being and kept up at night,
- 1:23creating new magic for clients too.
- 1:25And then this week, boom, only two events I have to worry about.
- 1:28And they're both just magic. So there's no like crazy preparation needed.
- 1:33And so it's like a week of like.
- 1:36Ah, just breathing a little bit, you know, but, but what a bloody blessing it
- 1:41is to have this situation,
- 1:44but you know who else we're glad to have in this situation is our friends in
- 1:48the chat, Nick, who we got coming in for the live viewership today.
- 1:52Well, it's good to see the, uh, the regulars. We got our good friend,
- 1:55Thomas Conger, Scotty Link. Good to see you, bud. Gutbuster Mike.
- 1:58It's always a blast when he is around.
- 2:00Scotty P in the house. Oh, Mike Miranda. Good to see it's a new face and robbie p,
- 2:06all righty howdy robbie p guys thank you for being here in the chat this is
- 2:10of course a live show meaning that you can post your questions in the chat
- 2:14to ask questions for either ourselves or our amazing guest today which i i just
- 2:18i just want to get into it my guy i have so many questions we gotta go we're gonna go straight in,
- 2:23let's do it yeah all right because today guys.
- 2:27We are joined by a uh by a man who took the artist sleight of hand uh out of
- 2:31the magical theater and put it straight onto the casino floor.
- 2:34You see, back in the 1980s, our guest spent four years cheating some of Las
- 2:40Vegas' biggest casinos, operating right under the pit bosses' noses and surveillance
- 2:45cameras, and absolutely crushing the game.
- 2:47With more than 500 cheating plays to his name, he's walked away with some extraordinary
- 2:52winnings. Reportedly, 150K in a single night. He is remarkable,
- 2:58and he's a wealth of knowledge.
- 2:59It is such a privilege to have him on the show.
- 3:01He's a magician, a master of deception, and a man with some unbelievable stories
- 3:06to tell. So please join me in welcoming, I'm the Magic Guys Podcast, Dustin Marks.
- 3:31Dustin, welcome to the Magic Guys podcast. Please tell our friends who are you and what do you do?
- 3:36Well, first, thanks, Josh and Nick, for having me. I appreciate it.
- 3:40I was a blackjack cheat back in Las Vegas in the 1980s, both as a dealer and a player.
- 3:49And like you said, I was involved in around 500 different cheating plays.
- 3:53And we won every time. And the reason we won every time is because we were playing
- 3:59with a 30, 60, sometimes a hundred percent edge.
- 4:04To put this in perspective for your audience, card counters,
- 4:09the best in the world had a little less than 1.5 percent advantage.
- 4:15So there's never a question if we were going to win, only how much we were going to win.
- 4:20And that's important for longevity.
- 4:24That is insane. How do we even start? Yeah. How do we do it? I have questions.
- 4:28Okay. Cause here's what I'm, I think the origins is so, is so interesting because
- 4:32with the diligence I've done and a little bit of research I was managed to squeeze
- 4:35into my week, it's my understanding you got into magic at the ripe age of seven years old.
- 4:40Is that correct? Yeah. I think that's a magic number for most kids.
- 4:44Yeah. Seven years old, friend of the family.
- 4:47Uh, he was 70, I was seven. So, you know, he's old guy, but I remember the minute
- 4:52he got those cards into his hands, he became young again and something clicked
- 4:56in my brain and it's never stopped clicking.
- 4:59I've had a physically a tough life from being from a bodybuilder to mountain climber.
- 5:05So I can feel my age, but luckily my hands still feel like they're 17 or 18, which is a good thing.
- 5:13As well as your hair as well. We were just admiring backstage. age.
- 5:17Amazing and and you live in vegas uh still currently yes yeah i've been here
- 5:23since 1983 when i moved here.
- 5:26Before we dive into your work, which I can't wait to, could you tell us a bit
- 5:30about how Vegas is like evolved over the time that you've lived there?
- 5:34Oh, it's changed. I think when I got here, 300,000 roughly. Now it's the entire
- 5:40Vegas is almost 2 million. So it's, you know, grown too fast, in my opinion.
- 5:48I tell people when I moved here in 83, they didn't have traffic reports on the
- 5:52news because there was no traffic.
- 5:55You get anywhere in about 15, 20 minutes. You couldn't get lost because you
- 5:58could see the casinos from anywhere and kind of adjust yourself.
- 6:02Now it's a big city like all big cities and it has big city problems,
- 6:06crime, traffic, overcrowding, et cetera.
- 6:10So, yeah, it's probably changed. Now, this is my personal opinion,
- 6:13more in those 40 plus years than any other city in America, at least.
- 6:18Yeah. Wow. And back then it was mainly about the casinos and not so much about the shows, right?
- 6:25Resort destination, and I'm guessing 80% to 90% came for the gambling.
- 6:32There were other things like the shows and stuff and some restaurants,
- 6:36nothing like it is today.
- 6:39But when a visitor came to Vegas back in the 80s, the only place the casino
- 6:47had to make money from their visitors was the casino floor and have to make money on the rooms.
- 6:54They didn't have to make money on the food.
- 6:57But then again, a casino back then might cost $10 million. Now it might cost $2 billion.
- 7:03Huge amount to recapture.
- 7:08So when you first arrived in Vegas, well, prior to that, I have one more question
- 7:12with regards to your origin story. And it was when you were about 10,
- 7:14the story goes, and I just want to see if this is true or not.
- 7:18There was an older man who hustled you in a game of gin rummy and you couldn't
- 7:23work out how. And then looking back, I'm just curious, did that.
- 7:26Did that sort of plant the seed of you getting hustled out of a game with an
- 7:29older man that sort of put you on this path?
- 7:32You did your research. Uh, yeah, it was interesting. My father,
- 7:36friend of his, and you know, they would socially hang out and he was a family
- 7:41man, Italian, but a family man. But then he had this brother and his first name was Vic.
- 7:47I remember that. And nobody ever knew what he did, but he always had money.
- 7:51So I'm a little 10 year old kid. I'm already into magic. I know a little bit.
- 7:56I might have already had expert at the card table. I'm not sure.
- 8:00But he heard, I guess, from my father, I like gin. So he sat down and played gin with me.
- 8:05And he was doing all these amazing things, telling me in the third hand,
- 8:08he'll knock with five. And then on the fourth draw, he'll gin on me,
- 8:14et cetera. People know gin, know that's pretty impossible.
- 8:17Now, I can't remember if it was my deck of cards or his.
- 8:21Is that a huge difference, of course, but it was very interesting.
- 8:25And yeah, that was a long time ago. And I still remember that.
- 8:30Unfortunately, I'm sure he's dead. He'd have to be close to 100 now if he was
- 8:34still alive. But based on that, he was probably a mechanic.
- 8:39I would think. Right. But it was interesting. You know, say a 45-year-old guy,
- 8:44maybe in the mob, maybe not, but at least associate and sits down with a 10-year-old.
- 8:49To me, that's pretty cool. You know, really.
- 8:51Of course, I'm talking about it today.
- 8:54Yeah. I mean, it's a bit of a privilege being 10 years old and sitting among
- 8:57like fast companies, so to speak. I think that's interesting. Oh, yeah.
- 9:01So there's a gap between there that I wasn't able to fill the gaps in.
- 9:04So from there, you arrive in Vegas in like 1983 with a couple of grand in your
- 9:08pocket and you start walking with the likes of people like Jimmy Grippo and
- 9:13Michael Skinner and Paul Harris.
- 9:14That is phenomenal. Now, was it magic up until that point or was it gambling until that point?
- 9:23No, really magic. In fact, this is funny. When I came here, I did not know how to play blackjack.
- 9:29Wow. Heard of the game, but did not know how to play.
- 9:33No, the first interest was definitely magic. I came from a card playing family,
- 9:38not a gambling family. Oh.
- 9:42And those magicians you mentioned, Grippo and Harris and Skinner and all of
- 9:47them were very friendly and very accommodating, which was great because I was
- 9:52just a 24, 25 year old kid who,
- 9:56could do a few things with cards, but not in their league, not even close.
- 10:00They were really helpful.
- 10:03Yeah so being amongst company like that that's obviously magic company but,
- 10:09you know as you were going down the track you were seeking a card expert who
- 10:13you affectionately call mr cc,
- 10:15and i'm curious how that happened and what it led you down what path happened
- 10:22from that so tell us how like even heard of mr cc and what led you to go down that path.
- 10:27Well, I started wondering who was the best with a deck of cards.
- 10:29You know, being in Vegas, there are a lot of good card men.
- 10:32And the names came up, you know, Skinner, Grippo, et cetera.
- 10:35I heard of them. But then one name came up, and I'll call him Mr. CC.
- 10:41And they said he specialized in gambling moves, which intrigued me.
- 10:46But he never came to the meetings, and he's kind of reclusive.
- 10:49Well, somehow I learned he worked at a downtown casino in Vegas.
- 10:55Go down to the casino, cut into a boss and ask him, hey, is Mr. CC working today?
- 11:00And the boss said, you know, he used to work here, but he quit and moved back east.
- 11:06Now, to this day, I can't tell you why, but I didn't believe the boss.
- 11:11So, you know, I kept looking for Mr. CC. Back in the 80s, there was a bookstore
- 11:16called the Gambler's Book Club.
- 11:18I figured, well, maybe Mr. CC might hang out there.
- 11:22And, you know, when you see the building from the outside, just an old concrete
- 11:27building, nothing special.
- 11:29But inside, that's, you know, where the magic happened. From floor to ceiling,
- 11:33they had books, books on gambling, magic and con games.
- 11:38So I spent a lot of time in the bookstore, bought a lot of books, read.
- 11:42There's a guy in there, I nicknamed him Bookstore Paul, is in there so often
- 11:47they literally gave him a job.
- 11:49And Paul and I became friends. And I told him about, you know, trying to find Mr. CC.
- 11:55So I remember one day I walk in the bookstores, normal, and Paul does one of these.
- 11:59And he shows me a VHS tape. Remember those? And on the back,
- 12:04there was a picture of a guy and we assumed it was Mr. CC.
- 12:09So I told bookstore Paul, if this guy ever comes in the bookstore, give me a call.
- 12:14Best lead I had. A few weeks later, the phone rings. It's Bookstore Paul.
- 12:19He goes, I'm pretty sure he's in here.
- 12:21So the bookstore is about 20 minutes away. I got there in less than 10.
- 12:27Walk in, look, spot on match. It was Mr. CC.
- 12:32So I know, or I knew, I should say, this is one of those now or never moments.
- 12:36I'm sure everybody can relate to that.
- 12:39So I walk up to him. I asked him, are you Mr. CC?
- 12:44And I'll never forget what he said. He said, it depends on who's asking.
- 12:49So we talked for a few minutes. Then he asked me if I had a car.
- 12:53I said, yeah, I have a car.
- 12:56And he said those three words had changed my life. Follow me home.
- 13:02I followed him home. I got to spend the next six hours of my life with the best
- 13:08card cheat who ever lived.
- 13:10He showed me all kinds of moves, you know, with cars, with dice, with chips.
- 13:15He showed me so much that my head was spinning so much I couldn't remember a thing.
- 13:20A brilliant strategy when you think about it. But I did realize this.
- 13:25Mr. CC was light years ahead of the casinos.
- 13:30So I knew if I could get these moves down, I could beat the casinos.
- 13:35Damn. So what do you think the Mr. Cece saw in you?
- 13:40Like in that interaction that he was like, this is going to be someone I'm going to share.
- 13:46He was a real friendly guy. And I remember we'd hang out a lot.
- 13:50He'd pull a car over, see some guy kind of new, give him a ride.
- 13:54But I think he saw once he could see how I could handle a deck of cards. All right.
- 14:00There might be something down the road for me. Who knows?
- 14:05But yeah, it was an amazing experience to get turned out by somebody like that.
- 14:10And actually, even though I called him Mr. CC, we were the same age. So very relatable.
- 14:19You know, there is a huge level of deception at play in these sorts of things,
- 14:22both in magic and both in gambling. And I think what's really interesting is
- 14:26that we spend times working on moves as a magician to get an applause.
- 14:31And then as a gambler or a card cheat, you'd have to spend time working on moves
- 14:37so that nobody sees, nobody notices, and there is no applause.
- 14:41Exactly. No, we don't want to bring attention to ourselves ever, especially as a dealer.
- 14:49There is an exception If you're the BP, stands for big player,
- 14:53And you're going to win $100,000 plus You can't try to hide That would be a
- 14:58tell So that's one of the times you, you know, accept the attention But normally
- 15:04if you guys were my agents You'd come in, you'd just play,
- 15:09You'd try to just blend in as much as you could Okay,
- 15:12Because we wanted to go for longevity. I want you to come in for,
- 15:17you know, six months instead of six weeks.
- 15:20Safer, a long run, win more money.
- 15:24And, you know, we see, you know, maybe the modern day gambler giving this a go is Stephen Bridges.
- 15:32And he's got a great series out. But he kind of shows, you know,
- 15:36the worst thing that happens is you get backed off and you just get told to leave.
- 15:40Were the stakes the same back then? or I kind of feel like they might have been
- 15:44a bit more aggressive back in the day before there were as many cameras and stuff.
- 15:49What was like the risk involved back then? Well, first of all,
- 15:53Stephen was an advantage player.
- 15:55So he wasn't doing anything illegal, card counter advantage player.
- 15:59What I was doing was definitely illegal. Even more. Against the law.
- 16:03So no, it was not good if he got caught.
- 16:07A couple of things could happen. But scenario one is, you know,
- 16:11it's kind of an old time joint. They don't want to fool around with it.
- 16:13They're just going to either fire you if you're the dealer, tell you to get
- 16:18out and don't come back if you're the player.
- 16:21That's number one. That's obviously the best scenario. Number two is you do get arrested.
- 16:25And depending on the crime and the courts, and I don't have any experience,
- 16:29luckily, so I can't really talk much about that.
- 16:32Number three is you're an idiot and you try something like Binion's,
- 16:36the real horseshoe back in the 80s.
- 16:38That's not going to turn out good for you. Absolutely not.
- 16:42Anybody with more than a single digit IQ stayed out of there if they were doing something nefarious.
- 16:49Great place. And then you ran
- 16:50a good casino, but you don't cause trouble there, which I think is good.
- 16:57I didn't have any problem with that at all. We just stayed out of there.
- 17:01Yeah. As far as gambling, I mean, he had a great thing. It was Dauer 99,
- 17:05breakfast at two in the morning, and it was really good. Thank you.
- 17:09So what I'm curious about is that you were deceiving people who were professionally
- 17:12trained to spot the level of deception that you were actually doing. Mm-hmm.
- 17:19Did you learn more about manipulating cards or people's expectations in that process?
- 17:25Little of both. I mean, the cards are kind of stagnant. Once you know the move,
- 17:29it does, or moves, doesn't change a whole lot, but the people do.
- 17:34And real quick, I would try to assess their knowledge.
- 17:39And one of the ways I did this, just by listening to them, talking to other
- 17:44bosses, talking to players.
- 17:46And I'd think, okay, this guy pretty clueless. He's not knowing what's going
- 17:51on. Or this guy's pretty sharp. I better watch out for him.
- 17:54I never acted like I had any knowledge.
- 17:58I was a dealer that was not a great dealer, not a bad dealer,
- 18:02just middle of the road, according to them.
- 18:05So you didn't really pay attention to me too much.
- 18:09I kind of kept to myself. I didn't want to bring any attention to me.
- 18:14And that worked out well. In fact, what I say is biggest compliment I could
- 18:18get is after I quit a casino, nobody remembered I worked there. Wow.
- 18:25I'm reminded of that Ocean's Eleven moment with Matt Damon, where it's like,
- 18:29you want to be noticeable, but not memorable. Like it's, that's.
- 18:33And I wonder, because you would, because you were a magician,
- 18:37I imagine like if you were, when you're at home in.
- 18:41You know, when you're turning on the magicness, I imagine you're pretty good
- 18:46at shuffling cards, practicing slights, looking good with cards.
- 18:51But then did you have to practice being bad at cards, if that makes sense?
- 18:55Like, did you have to flip a switch? That's an interesting question.
- 18:58It kind of makes me laugh.
- 19:00One thing I did, I told myself from Jump Street, every break room where the
- 19:06dealers went on their breaks had decks of cards.
- 19:09I never picked up a deck of cards. No exception.
- 19:14Because the minute I pick up a deck of cards, this happens. Right then and there,
- 19:18that shows I have talent. I'd probably get fired.
- 19:22Casinos did not hire magicians for dealing jobs. They were scared of them.
- 19:26So I didn't want to show any kind of dexterity with a deck of cards.
- 19:30Of course, I could deal the cards and shuffle.
- 19:32But in fact, that brings me, I want to say this now before I forget a funny story.
- 19:38So I'm at this joint. We're doing a lot of business.
- 19:42I was a dealer and the two main moves are the flash and stacking the deck.
- 19:47So one night I'm on a dead game, meaning no players, and this older boss comes,
- 19:52starts talking to me, nice old guy.
- 19:54And he goes, you know, you don't
- 19:55know how to shuffle. I'm thinking to myself, this is going to be good.
- 19:59He goes, you clump shuffle, you know, how well there's clumps.
- 20:02And it's actually true because that's the slug, that's the stack.
- 20:06So he does two pretty nice riffle shuffles. Then he tells me,
- 20:11I want you to shuffle like that, go ahead.
- 20:14So honest to God, I knew this was my shot. I did two push-through shuffles right under his nose.
- 20:21And honest to God, he goes, that's the way to shuffle.
- 20:26Wow. And I knew in the future I'd be telling this story. Now,
- 20:30of course, I didn't know about podcasts back then because they hadn't been invented.
- 20:34But I said, this is my chance. Now, he is probably in his 70s.
- 20:38He might be semi-blind. I don't know. But yeah.
- 20:42It does make a pretty funny story. But it's good enough that you know if he
- 20:46sees you do that, he just thinks, yep, he's doing a good job now.
- 20:49I taught him how to shuffle properly.
- 20:51Oh, and I thank him. You know, you want them to make the bosses feel good.
- 20:55And, you know, because if you like somebody, it's harder to suspect them.
- 21:00True. Yeah. And if they feel like they had to teach you how to shuffle,
- 21:04now their radar is even more switched off.
- 21:09Yeah, he's imparting his knowledge to me, And I learned real quick, supposedly.
- 21:15So you say you were never caught, but you've also told a story about the gaming
- 21:19control investigators confronting you in that break room and the difference between.
- 21:27So let's, I just want to have this little distinction between like never getting
- 21:30caught and never getting suspected and what kind of goes through your veins
- 21:34in that point. Are you freaking out? You're full of adrenaline.
- 21:37Are you just, you chill? You're calm.
- 21:38I got this. like what's that experience like and stuff like that i just chill
- 21:44out maybe i'm too scared to be scared and if you're acting scared that's a tell,
- 21:49so yeah we were it was actually mr cc and i i was the dealer he was a player
- 21:54and we were winning a ton of money well it turns out the game uh game control
- 21:59agents which are part of the game control board were actually on the game playing.
- 22:05They They weren't just watching. They were on the game.
- 22:08Yeah, two of them. And there was Mr. Cece and probably a couple more players. I don't remember.
- 22:14And, of course, all the bosses were watching. We knew the Sky was watching.
- 22:18Didn't faze me a bit. Now, literally, in my opinion, of course,
- 22:22I'm biased, she had probably two of the best in the world working together.
- 22:27So I don't know how much he won. It was in the thousands, obviously.
- 22:30So the relief dealer comes, taps me out.
- 22:34I start to walk to the break room as usual. Get another tap on my back.
- 22:38I turn around to two gaming control agents who identified themselves.
- 22:42And I knew exactly, okay, thinking this ain't good.
- 22:46So we walked to the little room.
- 22:49And the first thing they asked me is, do you know Mr. CC? Well,
- 22:52of course, I'm not going to say yes. I said, no.
- 22:56I said, he's in the casino. He tips well, you know, tokes.
- 23:00And then they asked me if I ever worked at this casino downtown called XYZ Casino.
- 23:05And that's the casino I went into about a year ago, trying to find Mr. CC.
- 23:10Now I'd never worked there. So I said, no, which was the truth.
- 23:14So I know what they're trying to do. They're trying to make a connection between myself and Mr. CC.
- 23:20And there wasn't any on paper. So I felt good about that.
- 23:25But then, in my opinion, they, what I call crack out a turn,
- 23:31and they accused me of signaling the whole card to Mr. CC.
- 23:35Let me explain what that involves. Back in the day, if a dealer had a tenor
- 23:39ace up as his up card, he would look at his whole card.
- 23:44If he had a blackjack, he'd turn over his hand and everybody I'd lose kind of
- 23:48a time-saving procedure.
- 23:51Well, it takes no skill for a dealer to signal his agent the whole card.
- 23:58Well, we weren't doing this for two reasons. Number one, it was a well-known cheating move.
- 24:04But number two, it was too weak compared to what we were doing.
- 24:08We didn't even fool with it.
- 24:10So once they accused me of that, I knew they had no idea what was going on.
- 24:14And then in my mind, the dynamic.
- 24:18Changed. I was in control. I didn't act like it, but I felt very confident. They had no clue.
- 24:25They talked to me for maybe five, 10 more minutes. I don't remember.
- 24:29And then they left. I didn't get arrested. I didn't even get fired.
- 24:33Now, of course, Mr. Cece got backed off. I think they talked to him,
- 24:37but of course I never saw that because I was involved with my own thing.
- 24:40And I stayed working at this casino almost a month where they finally fired me.
- 24:45And this was the out-of-town casino. A little background on this.
- 24:49We took over that casino. We had five cheating dealers, seven players, and two shift bosses.
- 24:55It's like something right out of the movies. It really was. I remember the first
- 24:58time walking into a blackjack pit when everything was set up and looking and
- 25:02thinking, that's one of our dealers. There's another dealer.
- 25:05There's a player. There's a player. There's our boss.
- 25:08We had dealers on every shift. So this play was running around the clock we're
- 25:13taking out about between 10 and 15 000 a day every day,
- 25:19so yeah this was pretty big time and a lot of fun wow so this is this is an operation involving.
- 25:27Dealers players management the whole thing,
- 25:32what i think 14 people if memory serves me right yep yeah and you're not even like,
- 25:40yeah for you know for everyone to know like it the way in which you would do
- 25:44it is that something you talk about or is that something you keep to yourself
- 25:48as in like what the night would can consist of like you would signal them,
- 25:53like the the count or you would make sure they had the right i was doing two
- 25:57things i was flashing the top car of the deck now i didn't do it like this but
- 26:02you get the idea you can see the end to see there I can't.
- 26:06Two cards. That's not right. Okay. A three.
- 26:10But it would be down on the table. So only the person at first base who was my agent could see that.
- 26:17You would play and bet accordingly. So as I picked the cards up from the previous
- 26:22round, I would flash you your first card of the new deal before you had to bet.
- 26:29So depending on the card you saw, you would adjust your bet.
- 26:33Obviously, if you saw a 10 or eight, you're going to bet much bigger than a two or three.
- 26:38Then as I tucked my whole card I would flash you your first hit card.
- 26:43That meant you'd only double down when you get a 20 or 21 which is a huge advantage
- 26:47let's say you had a 15 and you saw a 6 coming,
- 26:51you're going to hit that regardless of the dealer's up card you got 21 you can't
- 26:55lose and you're about a 95 guaranteed winner,
- 26:58conversely if you had a 15 saw a 10 coming you're not going to hit regardless
- 27:02because you're going to bust,
- 27:05so that was very strong all the dealers were doing that but i was also stacking
- 27:09the deck when i stacked the deck and that was really the move i was really excellent
- 27:14at when i stacked the deck you were going to win every time no exceptions,
- 27:19so when you got a team of about a dozen or so what's the closest i mean for
- 27:24me having like one thing i love about being a magician is that like one man
- 27:28orgy i do everything yeah not relying on anyone,
- 27:32when you're in a team of about a dozen people like you're operating,
- 27:36that there's that for me is like,
- 27:39over 10 liabilities right of people that could screw this up what's the closest,
- 27:45you the team has ever come toward falling apart because someone's made a mistake.
- 27:50Well, in that particular play, what happened is this particular casino had a
- 27:57policy or randomly polygraphed in its dealers.
- 28:00And one by one, our dealers are getting polygraphed. And guess what?
- 28:04They couldn't pass the poly.
- 28:06Now they weren't getting arrested. They're just getting fired.
- 28:09Oh, for reasons to this day, I still don't know. I never got polygraphed.
- 28:14At the same time, the players were getting backed off for winning too much,
- 28:18told they couldn't play blackjack anymore.
- 28:21And again, for reasons I'll never know, Mr. CC did not get backed off.
- 28:25So the team went from 14, just him and I, and we continued playing,
- 28:31ripping and tearing, as I call it, until the game control thing.
- 28:35You've got strength in numbers, ultimately. Like if you've got 12 and once someone
- 28:39cocks it, it's not going to fall over because you've got 11 more players in
- 28:43the game to help you do that, whether it be a pit boss or someone at the table.
- 28:46Like people can be culled off slowly, slowly. The machine keeps running.
- 28:50And if you're the player, you can play against me, then you can play against
- 28:54Tommy, then you can play against Billy, et cetera, et cetera.
- 28:58So it doesn't look like you're, well, you aren't just playing against me.
- 29:01It looks like you're just going around and thinking this guy's a lucky dealer.
- 29:06So that was very strong that way.
- 29:10I think it went about a month before things initially start to fall apart where
- 29:17the dealers are getting fired.
- 29:19And then me and Mr. CC went probably three weeks before gaming control.
- 29:24Now this is the eighties. So it was, you know, the communications were archaic compared to now.
- 29:30So they didn't realize who he was until they found out who he was.
- 29:35And then, you know, things kind of went south.
- 29:40You know, in these situations, there could be an incredible amount of money on the table.
- 29:45And I'm curious if there's any particular stories that stand out where there's
- 29:48been a phenomenal amount of money on the table and a very terrifying moment
- 29:52in which you're either got a lot of heat on you, or it could result in everyone losing money.
- 30:00Yeah. Two stories. One wasn't a ton of money, but you know, we were winning
- 30:05my main agent and we were going along.
- 30:08I was dealing, he was playing, going along fine. And all of a sudden he gets
- 30:13his fear of God in his eyes.
- 30:15And I don't know why kind of trying not to look around, but kind of look around.
- 30:20Now the corner of the eye, I see this boss rapidly approaching my game.
- 30:25I'm thinking to myself, oh no, this is how it's going to end.
- 30:30And she is a woman comes up to me and whispers in my ear, listen, I can't watch your game.
- 30:37There's big money on the game across the pit.
- 30:41Let me know if anything's going on here.
- 30:44So I went from pure terror to pure relief, but my agent doesn't know.
- 30:50And I can tell he's just about to take off because he doesn't know what she said to me.
- 30:55So I got to communicate. Everything's George meaning. Okay.
- 30:59So I just look at another player and I say, you know, that was nice.
- 31:03The boss just told me you're a very good dealer and keep doing exactly what you've been doing.
- 31:10So my agent stays at the table.
- 31:14And of course we made a ton of money that night because essentially nobody was watching our game.
- 31:19That's an interesting ploy as well. Pretty unique in that aspect.
- 31:25As far as, you know, everything on the line, from my experience,
- 31:29when we did the computer coolers, a lot of times I was the captain,
- 31:34meaning I was the one in charge at the game.
- 31:37Once we got set up, meaning all the players were at the table,
- 31:42our dealer was there, the recorder who's going to record all the cards was over.
- 31:47Off in the casino, but watching. I had to either say it's a go or no,
- 31:54we're going to quit scrub the play.
- 31:57And that's a lot of pressure for somebody in their twenties.
- 32:00Cause I say it's a go, we get popped.
- 32:03You know, everybody's going to say, well, you misread stuff.
- 32:05You know, the casino knew what was going on.
- 32:08Or if I say, let's get out of here and there was no heat, I just cost us six
- 32:14figures, but luckily I, I made the right decisions. We didn't get caught or anything.
- 32:20Wow. Did, uh, once you, and, and so we know, you know, you mentioned eventually
- 32:26you got fired, you didn't get caught. You just got fired from that role.
- 32:29Did, did it occur to you to be like, all right, I'm going to keep this going.
- 32:33Or were you like, let me quit while I'm ahead.
- 32:35Oh no, I kept going. Now I knew the ins and outs of the flash and stacking the deck.
- 32:42And back then, especially in the 80s, dealers got fired all the time.
- 32:46You could get fired for anything. You're too tall. You're too short.
- 32:48You're too, you know. So that was not a big deal at all.
- 32:52I moved back to Vegas because this casino we took over was out of town.
- 32:56It was not in Vegas. Moved back to Vegas.
- 32:59And the funny thing, I should have brought the picture.
- 33:01Back at that casino, I had hair down to my shoulders, a big beard. I was 260 pounds.
- 33:09In fact, a little backstory I had to get hired by the casino manager At this
- 33:14casino who was not down with the plays.
- 33:16And so I drive down there, me and another dealer, drive down there,
- 33:19addition, basically didn't get hired.
- 33:22So I come back to Vegas and I tell Mr. CC, I didn't get hired.
- 33:26He goes, you know, you might want to clean yourself up a bit.
- 33:30He goes, you look like a damn buffalo. And that was my code name from then on, the buffalo.
- 33:36Yeah, I look pretty bad. I have a picture, but honestly, it is AI enhanced because
- 33:41back then I did not allow my picture to be taken for obvious reasons.
- 33:45But yeah, I looked pretty bad. I'm surprised they did hire me.
- 33:50But after that play, I come back to Vegas, clean up. I lost 90 pounds in about
- 33:55nine months. I looked totally different.
- 33:58And I got a job dealing blackjack and I farmed my own team and basically did
- 34:02the flash and stacking the deck.
- 34:04And that went real well and had no bosses down with it. It was just me and my agents.
- 34:10You know we've been talking about card cheating but there is a story a legendary
- 34:15uh a dice cheat by the name of bones oh yeah.
- 34:22Yeah he was this older guy and this was nowadays if i would have been involved
- 34:28i would have got out of there real quick because there were so many things that
- 34:31were wrong, but basically he was a very good,
- 34:35uh, dice chief switching the dice.
- 34:38And I guess he wanted to do one final play. And initially he didn't like me at all.
- 34:43I still to this day don't know. And of course he's passed, but what got me into
- 34:48the play was I had a camcorder and he wanted to film himself,
- 34:53you know, new technology to him. In fact, it was new to anybody.
- 34:57So I'd go over his house. He had a crap table. He's doing this switch.
- 35:01And I'd film from different angles.
- 35:03And we'd watch it. And then we kind of became friends. But that play was just,
- 35:07there were so many things wrong with it.
- 35:09And I was never like one of the insiders, insiders. But the bottom line is...
- 35:16Hopefully it wasn't a good friend of Bones, but the shift boss at this casino,
- 35:20had got popped for something and then talked Bones into doing this final dice
- 35:25play, which everybody was going to get caught if it went down.
- 35:30Because, you know, cops and FBI and everybody was there from what we heard.
- 35:34Well, luckily we did not do the play. These kinds of plays take time to set
- 35:39up. It's not like, oh, let's do this. And 20 minutes later in a casino.
- 35:43I mean, it was like weeks and weeks and And it kept getting postponed.
- 35:47I don't know why. Some of the stories I was told kind of sound like BS.
- 35:51But anyway, that night we were going to do it. Finally, everything's perfect. We're all excited.
- 35:57So we have some guys go in early. Because the craps table, I think you can get about 14 people.
- 36:02And we wanted to lock up the crap game. Because basically, if you're on the game, you can't lose.
- 36:08Pretty nice. So one of the guys, and I don't remember who it was. Pretty smart.
- 36:15Called Mr. C.C. and said, something doesn't feel right here.
- 36:19So Mr. C.C. had a friend who was very knowledgeable, new gaming control people,
- 36:23FBI people, et cetera, et cetera.
- 36:25And this guy goes, you know, I'll go in before I go to work and just take a
- 36:30look around, see if anything looks off.
- 36:33He calls Mr. C.C. and said, the damn place is flooded with gaming control and FBI.
- 36:40So we never stepped near that casino that night.
- 36:45And the story I was told is the shift boss was trying to set us up.
- 36:50Of course, he didn't even know I existed, luckily.
- 36:52And all the FBI and gaming were in, nothing happened.
- 36:58This guy probably got additional time because it sounded like he was just BSing.
- 37:02Nobody came in, no switch, no anything.
- 37:06So that was, yeah, that was a close call in a sense of.
- 37:12Nothing bad happened to any of us. But when you get these big teams,
- 37:18yeah, the more people involved and you had to for this kind of play,
- 37:21but the more people, the more possibilities of something going South.
- 37:27That's why when I had my own team, I only had five agents. We all trusted each
- 37:30other, got along and I can't think of one problem we ever had.
- 37:35You know, I thought eventually a mentor of yours did get arrested. Correct.
- 37:40Mr. CC did. Yeah. So I have a question regarding that, because you mentioned
- 37:46that with regards to the FBI, they were observing his wedding,
- 37:49which you attended. Yeah, we were all invited to his wedding,
- 37:52which of course I attended.
- 37:54And then afterwards, at some point we heard, yeah, the FBI surveilled it.
- 37:58So now I'm linked with him.
- 38:00I don't remember all who was at the wedding, but probably 90% were cheats and stuff.
- 38:06There were parents and stuff that weren't, but yeah, pretty good guess that,
- 38:10yeah, it was probably one of his partners.
- 38:15So what goes through your mind when you know that all of a sudden you've got
- 38:18FBI heat and there's probably every chance they've got some faces,
- 38:22but then they know who those faces belong to, what those faces are called, but you know.
- 38:27Yeah, that was not good, obviously. And that, this is probably year,
- 38:32yeah, I'm sure it was year four of my four years.
- 38:35And I decided, I had a good run, made money, had heat, but nothing serious.
- 38:41But now this kind of takes it to a new level.
- 38:44So a couple of weeks later, I retired from dealing blackjack.
- 38:50And then about a year later, I quit playing blackjack, got away clean.
- 38:55And I've not made a bet of any type since 1990. Really? Oh.
- 39:02And did it ever, is it a thing you started doing or thought about to get into
- 39:07the security business of casinos? Like, did you think of consulting for them?
- 39:12I have some. Is that a thing? Not a lot, but I have consulted some casinos.
- 39:16It's okay. It's not my cup of tea.
- 39:20Not because I feel like I'm betraying people, but to be honest,
- 39:23my stuff's kind of old and archaic as far as the moves.
- 39:26Now, the psychology is still applicable, but the moves, you don't find them
- 39:33in casinos almost at all anymore.
- 39:35Private games, yes, but not the casino thing.
- 39:39So what I'm really geared up
- 39:41toward now and working on hard is more of a corporate speaker entertainer,
- 39:47talking about my stories and then using the principles because the principles
- 39:53I use can be applied to anything, cheating, investments, et cetera, et cetera.
- 39:58So my opinion is, and you go to these corporate speaking gigs and we all say
- 40:05kind of the same thing. There's no magic, but, and this is something you guys
- 40:10get a kick out of because you might not know.
- 40:12I have a speaking partner now. We just kind of hooked up and working very hard
- 40:18on our speech because she's a woman. Of course, I'm a man.
- 40:24So that's kind of unique. But she was a real-life diamond thief.
- 40:30It's a $600,000 score. Oh, shit. So you got a card cheat here and a diamond thief here.
- 40:38Now that, I think, would kind of capture attention. If you're going to go,
- 40:44you want to see a speech about some junior CEO talking about fluctuation in
- 40:48the market or a diamond thief and a card cheat.
- 40:51Of course, I'm a little biased, but I think that's a little more interesting.
- 40:55That's a very unique selling point.
- 40:58Absolutely. Yes. And marketing, you've got to stand out. You've got to be unique
- 41:03and we're unique. That's for sure.
- 41:07100%. And so for any corporate bookers listening, what is the kind of elevator pitch of your talk?
- 41:15Like it helps people deal with being under pressure. What do you sort of- Yeah,
- 41:20under fire, under pressure. We have two completely different stories,
- 41:23obviously, but I never got caught. she got caught a few times.
- 41:27Now, she's completely changed her life around.
- 41:31I, of course, back in 1990, made my final bet, never cheated again.
- 41:38But then I changed my life also.
- 41:42I had two loves.
- 41:44One was magic, and that kind of manifested in a pretty interesting way.
- 41:48But the other was mountains.
- 41:51I was fascinated by mountains and Vegas is surrounded by mountains.
- 41:55So I think seven years after I quit gambling, I wrote the first hiking guidebook
- 42:00for Las Vegas, followed that up with a couple more guidebooks.
- 42:05And then just kind of, I've always been creative. I started a thing called the
- 42:0952 peak club, which is a hiking club.
- 42:14Why 52 peaks? Probably already know 52 cards in a deck.
- 42:20So each time people would hike with us to the peak, they'd earn a playing card.
- 42:25The goal was simple. Earn all 52 cards, climb all 52 peaks.
- 42:31And we had in the heyday, we had 3000 members, 90 hikes a month.
- 42:35This is a big art operation. Wow.
- 42:38And people, you know, once they climbed all 52 peaks, most of them said this
- 42:46was one of the biggest accomplishments of their life.
- 42:49Not only did they get in great shape, a lot of them conquered their fears.
- 42:52You know, fear of heights is a big fear.
- 42:55And they met lifelong friends. So it was really a good club for many,
- 43:02many people that really enjoyed it. So that was kind of my redemption story.
- 43:09You're speaking mixed language now with honking yeah dude yeah i'm a mountain
- 43:12man myself love it oh really,
- 43:15yeah i'm either mountain biking all summer and then snowboarding all winter
- 43:18so like i'm totally very cool yeah yeah yeah so,
- 43:22i i've got a separate cohort of friends who i mentioned your name and they fired
- 43:25up a couple of questions if i may and uh sure one of the questions is with regards
- 43:29to when you have like one of those massive nights where you clear 150k what's it like afterwards?
- 43:34Do you, do you celebrate? Is it, is it very like low key, get your money, go away?
- 43:41Is there a little of paranoia that surrounds you trying to hide that money?
- 43:45You know, like how do you clean the money? So to speak, it was the first question they have.
- 43:49I think the aftermath is something that's not really talked about.
- 43:53Like obviously the glory of battle, you know, is one thing that's always written,
- 43:58but what happens afterwards when, when you've got the spoils?
- 44:01Well, I remember the real big one, the 150. The BP, big player, won all the money.
- 44:08His codename was Iggy. And this guy had a interesting background.
- 44:11Let's just say he wasn't the most trustworthy person.
- 44:15So the play went down.
- 44:17And once Iggy comes to the table, we all leave. We literally leave the casino.
- 44:22We're not needed. So we don't know what's happening.
- 44:25So we're all Mr. CC's waiting. And we don't know if Iggy's going to show up
- 44:29with the money. He's much older. He's in his 60s. we're still in our 20s.
- 44:32He may take off with the money, which obviously wouldn't be good.
- 44:36Or when he goes with that pile of chips to the casino cage to turn it into cash,
- 44:42that's when they're going to talk to him, security, casino manager, et cetera.
- 44:47And they may arrest them and he may roll on us, give us up.
- 44:51So we don't know what's going to happen. So we're all in Mr.
- 44:54Cece's house and there's a knock on the door.
- 44:58Iggy's not there yet. And we all look at each other and bottom line,
- 45:02Mr. CC opens the door, it's Iggy. And he walks in, dumps $150,000 out on the kitchen table.
- 45:08And we all celebrated like we just won the Super Bowl.
- 45:12So that was really fun. Now we didn't go out, you know, to a bar and in fact,
- 45:17most of us didn't drink. So we weren't drinkers, we weren't smokers, drug users, nothing.
- 45:23That's another reason we never got caught as far as hiding the money i'm not
- 45:27very materialistic so you know i kept the money i spent it some but i wasn't
- 45:32going to go out buying fancy anything that's,
- 45:37what gets you in trouble there's a great scene out of the movie casino with
- 45:40denaro's bitching at everybody for buying cars the mink stole and he was absolutely correct um.
- 45:49The only other thing I was asked about this cohort was ask him.
- 45:53It just says this, ask him about the Kaiser. Ha ha ha ha. Yeah.
- 45:58The Kaiser. The Kaiser was my main agent during all this.
- 46:05And we're completely different.
- 46:08We don't know why it works, but it works. If you ever seen the movie Planes,
- 46:11Trains, and Automobiles, I'm Steve Martin. He's John Candy.
- 46:16You know he's all over the place and you know i'm very focused and organized
- 46:21but on our podcast which is called cheating at blackjack we talk about the old
- 46:26days i think we're shooting episode 24 25,
- 46:31tomorrow it's you know we just started six months ago but,
- 46:35if you're into this kind of thing i think you would like it bottom line we're
- 46:39entertainers we're not trying to teach you how to cheat you know we tell you
- 46:43about the old days but it's an entertainment type thing,
- 46:46we try to make it interesting and funny and it is like kaiser's kind of crazy in a good way though.
- 46:54Definitely going to be kaiser for 40 plus years we've never had any problems you know we have,
- 47:01different viewpoints on stuff which is good we don't want to be exactly alike,
- 47:06but you know In the casinos or in the podcast But it works, it works real well,
- 47:12And he was a Magician also Nick, I think from hearing You know,
- 47:18how things would operate And you know, how,
- 47:22Now also performing As a magician, there's one thing we haven't Covered yet,
- 47:26and I think it is our little Segment called Gig Stories And I'm pretty keen
- 47:30to hear what Dustin might have up his sleeve, so we're gonna roll that Segment right now.
- 47:41The Geek Stories is where we talk about our magical moments,
- 47:43either from our day to day or while performing. And I think that Dustin,
- 47:46you have a ripper story to share with our friends today.
- 47:50I'll do one for magic since I've been talking about gambling so much.
- 47:56Jimmy Gripple taught me this way back and I use it all the time,
- 48:02especially when the spectator has a deck of cards in his hand. Watch.
- 48:07If you can just get that bottom card, you can do a miracle.
- 48:11And you never touch the deck. So it can't be attributed to your skill if you
- 48:15never touch the deck, supposedly.
- 48:17So I do stuff like that where, you know, I knew the bottom card after he shuffled.
- 48:22And then I would, you know, do this kind of force where it's just the bottom
- 48:27card and let them shuffle.
- 48:29And then use some of Danny D'Artese's creating false memories where I never touched the cards.
- 48:36And yet somehow I know your card. It just seems impossible.
- 48:41So I'm always big on that kind of thing. The other thing I did,
- 48:45and this was a lot of fun and kind of funny, I was talking about the hiking and stuff.
- 48:51Well, when we got to the peaks and usually peaks were big and not going to fall
- 48:55to your death or anything, I'd take out a deck of cards.
- 48:59And basically what I would do Because it made it look real fair I'd hold it
- 49:04like this Which really you can't manipulate And I'd turn away and I'd just say
- 49:08Tell me when to stop And I'd stop exactly where they said stop No force or anything.
- 49:14Then I'd show them, you know, all the cards are different because if it's a
- 49:16forcing deck, it's not much of a trick.
- 49:19And then I'd pretend to read their body language and their facial expressions.
- 49:24Of course, I knew the card, pretty interesting method.
- 49:27And I had these people thinking I could read their minds, which is really funny to me.
- 49:33And they would say, yeah, don't try anything on Dustin because he can read your mind.
- 49:39So that was a lot of fun and it was good practice for me. that's great it's
- 49:43always an interesting concept when,
- 49:46you read their mind with cards and then they it does get a great,
- 49:50visceral reaction but you you think to yourself like do you think if i was reading
- 49:55your mind i would that's what i would spend my time reading like that it's the
- 49:58you know three clubs but of course like it's so clean,
- 50:03that i think we i think us magicians overlook it sometimes the idea of how strong
- 50:07that effect can be that you can reveal what they're thinking in terms of a physical card,
- 50:13we seem to think no it has to be it has yeah i get always always get very strong
- 50:20reactions yeah it doesn't card you know they didn't physically pick one or anything even better,
- 50:27even better so you know i'm really curious with regards to cheating right so
- 50:32there's so many places that you can cheat at the table,
- 50:35casinos private games back rooms that kind of thing i'm curious if you guys ever did that.
- 50:43And if there's a sort of, or do you have a kind of a moral code in which you
- 50:47tell your, your team, like, you know what, like I have no issues rolling a,
- 50:51rolling a casino, but to roll an individual, I kind of draw the line there.
- 50:56I never cheated except in a casino. Wouldn't cheat private games or anything.
- 51:01Two reasons, mainly the moral thing. And two, a private game,
- 51:05you could, something really bad could happen also.
- 51:10True. Yeah. A pit boss ain't going to shoot you. That's for damn sure.
- 51:15But a private game, people drinking, you never know. But no,
- 51:18I had no, I was never tempted to do a private game.
- 51:23Yeah. So as far as that goes, the motivation for winning at the table, is it purely the dollar?
- 51:31Is it a little bit of the ego? Is it a little bit of the thrill of being able
- 51:38to use a skill set to your advantage? Or was it just like, I just want the dollars.
- 51:43And once the dollars were there, I didn't need to cheat.
- 51:46No, it was more like David versus Goliath, beating them at their own game.
- 51:51That was the primary motivation. Of course, the money was secondary,
- 51:56but it was a motivation. But yeah, there's just something about beating them at their own game.
- 52:03And of course, most of the bosses thought they knew everything,
- 52:06which is good. That's what we wanted, because they really didn't, obviously.
- 52:12You know, walking away voluntarily is such an amazing amount of strength.
- 52:16How did it affect the rest of the crew?
- 52:19The Kaiser kept going a little bit, and he understood. There's no problem, no tension.
- 52:26A funny story is there was a guy who I met who I thought would be a great agent.
- 52:32Now, I was not dealing anymore, but I told him about Kaiser,
- 52:36and I showed him what we were doing in the flash and stacking. This guy was sharp.
- 52:41So I was not there, but Kaiser told the story that I could just imagine it.
- 52:47Kaiser doesn't know what this guy looks like.
- 52:50So the guy comes in, and there's a code word, and he plops down in his chair,
- 52:55almost falls out of his chair, adds a beer, and Kaiser's going,
- 53:00what the hell, are you telling me a drunk guy?
- 53:03The guy wasn't drunk at all. It was all an act. He had everybody believing he was just a lucky drunk.
- 53:12And Kaiser tells a story at this casino. If you get a blackjack,
- 53:16you win crap. That's his technical term, like hats and stuff like that.
- 53:20The next time the guy comes in with all the crap, you know, the hat,
- 53:23beads and stuff, the whole casino thinks he's a sucker.
- 53:27And I don't know how they did, but Kaiser said this guy was so good.
- 53:32And that, you know, I would have seen it because I would have got a kick out
- 53:36of that. I can imagine knowing this guy, he was good at.
- 53:43And that's the thing. So you're, you're, you're looking at people's character,
- 53:46their ability to hold themselves together. That is such a huge plane itself. And I'm curious.
- 53:53How this like a lifetime of studying people has led you to be able to just identify
- 53:59like whether someone's worth trusting or whether they're suspicious?
- 54:02Is there anything that we should be looking for as we approach people in our
- 54:06lives, like friendships and even dating, for example, like, you know, is it great?
- 54:12Yeah. It's, you know, when you almost do stuff automatically,
- 54:16it's hard to break it down, but consistency,
- 54:20you know, you guys are magicians, but if I talk about it's making this up now,
- 54:25a double lift. And you didn't know what a double lift was.
- 54:28Something's wrong there. How could you not know a double lift if you're a magician?
- 54:32You know, so consistency, I studied Chase Hughes and he's one of the best at
- 54:37reading people in the world. And he says, you know, one little thing is meaningless,
- 54:43but it's the consistency.
- 54:45You know, when people just, and you meet somebody and there's just that sixth
- 54:50sense, something's not right with this guy.
- 54:52Sometimes you can't put your finger on it, but you just get that feeling,
- 54:57you know, and I'm not talking about talking to somebody for 20 seconds,
- 55:00but you know, you're talking to him and he says he's X, Y, Z, but something's wrong.
- 55:06You know, he's a multimillionaire and he's, you know, whatever.
- 55:10They're just little tells.
- 55:12Doesn't mean you're a hundred percent but you keep looking for those towels,
- 55:18and you know i've always been kind of a i'll,
- 55:22say suspicious but guarded you know not too many people could work with me back
- 55:27in the day because you had to be good,
- 55:30you couldn't you know crack under fire and do stupid things and the last person
- 55:37i ever wanted and we never had is somebody oh yeah i.
- 55:41Know more than you. Just give me a chance. Well, you're gone.
- 55:45I won't even give you a chance. I don't want some kind of a narcissist because
- 55:48that's just going to get you in trouble, in my opinion.
- 55:51You know, I want somebody kind of low key, won't crack under fire, et cetera.
- 55:57But yeah, it's a good question. It's just one of those hard to put into words,
- 56:01but you just get that sixth sense sometime.
- 56:04Now, sometimes you're wrong, of course, but the gut feeling,
- 56:08a lot of time your gut is right and i don't think we know exactly why yet,
- 56:14but it's pretty good at determining,
- 56:18i was wondering if there's maybe like a screening process where you would ask
- 56:22a cat do something or give him a deck and see how he handles himself you know
- 56:27no not he's he's going to be safe in class company but it's just a gut feeling which is phenomenal,
- 56:33yeah all my agents i knew personally They were, most of them were card counters.
- 56:39So they already knew about the casinos and stuff.
- 56:42You know, I didn't have to tell them about casinos and anything like that.
- 56:46They're not going to do anything silly.
- 56:48So that was a big help. I did have one...
- 56:52Who wasn't in the casino business. And I taught him, I had a blackjack table
- 56:58at my house and we practiced.
- 57:00But I remember one time he came in, this one of the first plays.
- 57:04And let's say he had a 13. I don't remember. It was more than 11, say a 13.
- 57:08He saw an eight coming and he tried to double down.
- 57:12So I said, this ain't going to look good. So I said, okay, how can I clean this
- 57:16up without being suspicious.
- 57:18I said, excuse me, I just want you to know you have a 13, not 11.
- 57:23And then he knew it was, oh, I thought it was 11. I go, no, it's a 13.
- 57:26You probably don't want to double down.
- 57:28You know? So I cleaned it up because, you know, double down on 13, get an eight.
- 57:33That ain't good. You know, and I'm not going to deal a deuce because first of
- 57:37all, I don't know the second car.
- 57:38Another day I'm eight. So I make a move that isn't going to help.
- 57:42But normally though, all the other people were in the casino business.
- 57:48And that's the thing nowadays. You have the money, you can buy some kind of
- 57:51electronic thing, lack of a better word, that will cheat, but you have no idea
- 57:58how to act in a casino and you just stick out like a sore thumb.
- 58:02I've seen videos like, oh yeah, I don't know what these guys are doing, but they're.
- 58:06Obviously up to something. They're just, you can just tell by their demeanor,
- 58:11something's not right here.
- 58:13And, you know, if you never been in a casino and you got this piece of equipment,
- 58:17that's going to take off quarter million dollars, unless you're a, you know.
- 58:22Rip and tear artist and you're down under fire like that a lot,
- 58:27which most of these people probably weren't, you're probably going to be pretty
- 58:31nervous and act suspicious.
- 58:33And that's the last thing you ever want to do.
- 58:36One of the very first things I learned from an old timer, he was very good.
- 58:40In fact, he was actually portrayed in the movie Casino. He was a Don Rickles character.
- 58:47He told me, in fact, he's the one who showed Mr. Cece the flash.
- 58:51I was over there when we got the team together. He said, the last thing you
- 58:56want to do is this when you're dealing.
- 58:59Never do that under any circumstance.
- 59:02And man, he drilled that into my head and I never did that because a dealer
- 59:07should never take his eyes off the game.
- 59:10Big question is why does somebody do that?
- 59:15Now, if there's a logical reason, let's say it's not a dealer,
- 59:17but a player, maybe he's looking for his wife, girlfriend, buddy,
- 59:21but maybe he's looking for his partner, agent, et cetera.
- 59:24So that why is a really good question. Why did that person do that?
- 59:29And you're not always going to know the answer, but that's a good first question.
- 59:33A lot of times there's a logical answer, but sometimes there's not.
- 59:38It's been amazing. Well, I mean, Dustin, I can't, what's remarkable is I only
- 59:43got through half the amount of questions I had written down for you today.
- 59:47So I say that in the spirit of asking and the guys in the comments also said
- 59:51the same thing. Like, will you please come back and visit us again someday?
- 59:56Oh, absolutely. I really appreciate this. It's been a lot of fun.
- 1:00:00You guys asked some good questions.
- 1:00:02I can tell you did your research, which I appreciate because I'm a big researcher.
- 1:00:06I think there's a lot of value in that.
- 1:00:08Before I go, I'd just like to mention, again, the podcast, which is Feeding
- 1:00:12at Blackjack on YouTube.
- 1:00:15But if you're interested in anything I do, just my own personal website,
- 1:00:20which is dustinmarks.com.
- 1:00:22It has links to my books. It has a podcast. It has all kinds of stuff.
- 1:00:27So if you have a bad memory, that's probably the best thing to remember and
- 1:00:32go to is dustinmarks.com.
- 1:00:34And then you get to everything else.
- 1:00:36Beautiful. And we have that link in the description of wherever you're watching
- 1:00:41that on YouTube or listening to this on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
- 1:00:45So that can be your starting point. And then you can break off to,
- 1:00:48yeah, Cheating at Blackjack podcast or the books.
- 1:00:52Look, this has been amazing. And now we can continue listening to your stories
- 1:00:56through the podcast, your podcast, which is great.
- 1:00:59But for now, we're going to end our podcast in the way we always do,
- 1:01:03which is by giving our guest the final word.
- 1:01:12Well, again, Josh and Nick, thanks so much for having me. This has been fun.
- 1:01:16Really good podcast. You have some great questions.
- 1:01:20Definitely, I'd like to come back again. If any of your listeners are interested
- 1:01:24in anything I do, we just mentioned DustinMarks.com.
- 1:01:29My email address is there if you want to email me a question about something.
- 1:01:34And the podcast, Jeep at Blackjack, is on YouTube. And that's the best way.
- 1:01:39It's also on Spotify, Apple.
- 1:01:42But you're going to want to see the podcast because we're doing a lot of moves on various segments.
- 1:01:48Again, it's been a lot of fun. I really appreciate it.
- 1:01:52Thanks for listening. It's time for us to disappear now.
- 1:01:58But we'll see you again on the next episode of The Magic Guys.