A good year

2011 was my second year as a professional gambler. Although I haven't yet added everything up, I can say that I earned more money last year than I ever had in a "legitimate" job -- by a long shot. Counting the car I won in a drawing but not comps, I cleared more than $100,000. Of course, my job comes without the usual benefits -- health insurance, paid vacation, retirement -- but does come with show tickets, gifts of all kinds and all the restaurant meals I could eat. Perhaps the best benefit is that I don't have to answer to anyone and at the places I do business I am treated like a valued customer, not an employee. The biggest downsides are the uncertainty, the frustration caused by losing steaks and the sheer amount of time required to succeed. In the latter regard the job is like that of a medical resident -- seven days a week, 10 or more hours a day. Not all of it feels like work but the amount that does seems to be growing. My main goal for this year is to make about as much money as last year but to take less time doing it.

During 2010, my first year as a pro, I occasionally had doubts about whether I would be able to make a living, long-term, by gambling. I now believe I have found a mix of methods that works for me and should continue to work for the foreseeable future. I am also convinced that, despite the long-term trend of casinos worsening the games they offer, there will be opportunties to make a living gambling for years to come. Two years of ground-level observation of casino operations has taught me that to attract and hold the vast majority of their customers, casinos must offer opportunites that can be exploited by the few people with the time, understanding and motivation to take advantage of them. One of the analogies I use to help people understand what I do is that of advantage player (long-term winning gambler) to super coupon shopper. A big part of my job is keeping track of "sales" offered by casinos in the form of point multipliers, free play and the like. I even use actual coupons from the casinos and other sources to obtain free bets and other "savings." I guess supermarkets and many other businesses have very careful customers they lose money on in the long run. This is definitely true of the casinos, at least in a highly competitive market such as Las Vegas. I intend to continue being one of those customers this year.