Modern WisdomCrazy Stories From A Professional Card Counter - Steven Bridges
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
135 min read · 27,455 words- 0:00 – 7:29
What Does Steven Do For Work?
- CWChris Williamson
How do you describe what you do for work when you meet somebody?
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah, this is something which frequently (laughs) comes up, and it's really tricky to explain because I think the, the most common thing I say is, "Have you seen the movie 21?" Because if they've seen that movie, they already have a basic understanding of at least the theatrical version of what card counting is. And if they haven't seen that movie, I just ask them if they know what card counting is, and a lot of the time, people don't know, and then I'm in a really (laughs) tricky spot because when you try and describe professional gambling, you do sound a bit insane.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Right. Yeah, I keep track of the cards at casinos and have a complex system of friends who have money bankrolled by anonymous, huge donors-
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... and we try and, we try and rip casinos off.
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah, essentially. Yeah, it does sound like a criminal entrepi-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bridges
... enterprise when you put it like that. But yeah, actually, you put it really well, actually. Just keeping track of the cards is quite an accurate way of doing it, because most people think that you're memorizing all of the cards you see, which is way harder than what we're actually doing, even though what we're doing is relatively cool. So keeping track is like a nice way of, of summarizing it, because we're actually assigning each card in the deck with a different point, point value, separate to its point in the game of blackjack, and then we're keeping track of that running total, which we're using to get an advantage over the house, basically.
- CWChris Williamson
Dude, I love your YouTube. I think your vlogs that you're doing with hidden cameras as you go in and take these casinos for everything they're worth until you get found out and rumbled and then escorted off the premises, I, I absolutely love them. I think they're fantastic, so everybody should go and check out, check out your vlogs once they finish, uh, listening to this.
- SBSteven Bridges
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
But talk to me about how somebody begins their apprenticeship into the world of professional casino ripper-offerer.
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah, yeah, (laughs) yeah, so card counting falls under the bracket of advantage play, and an advantage player is es- essentially anybody that can beat a casino game, in this case, legally. So there's a difference between card counting and advantage play and cheating. So cheating would be, you know, you're sneaking an extra card in, or you're maybe using, uh, technology where it's illegal to use software to run a computer algorithm to crunch numbers to beat the game. So with advantage play, you're just playing the game within the rules with the same information that everybody else has in the casino, in theory. You're just using it in a different way. So if you wanna get into card counting, it's, it's firstly something that I really (laughs) don't recommend for most people because the actual lifestyle of it can be quite brutal, and the way that I have it is I play for a bit, and then I have like quite a large break. And I think the time I was most stressed in my life when I was playing six hours a day, essentially like a nine... well, not quite a nine-to-five, but I was treating it like a nine-to-five job, playing six days a week. And even though you're playing with an advantage, you can just lose so much money, and even though you know you're gonna win in the long term, the psychological (laughs) impact of losing the money is really, really strong. Essentially, if someone wants to learn how to, to card count, y- there's books, there's resources, there's online websites now, and you just go through it like you would any other skill. I, I don't think it's... particularly way harder than the average skill. It's just that with card counting, you have very, very little margin for error. So you have to master each element of card counting and get it perfect.
- CWChris Williamson
Right. Yeah.
- SBSteven Bridges
Otherwise, you'll just lose loads of money.
- CWChris Williamson
Because your edge is reliant on your mind being completely correct, and when the margin edge that you have is only slightly above 50%, any mess-
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... up by the brain drags that back.
- SBSteven Bridges
For sure, yeah. Which is why also we need like tons of money to even do it, because we're playing with such a small edge. You can still have a losing streak that could go on... You know, one of my teammates had a 300-hour (laughs) losing streak, and it's just insane. So if you don't have loads of money to bet the amounts that we're betting, which is, you know, in the thousands per hand, well, the low thousands, like, uh, you know, K, K and a half. If you don't have 100, 200, 300, $400,000, then you could just burn through all that on a bad run. So there's a lot of stuff that needs to be taken into consideration. That's one of the biggest mistakes that a lot of new card counters will make. They will master how to count cards, but then when it comes (laughs) to the actual bankroll management and the risk management of it, they won't pay any attention to that. They'll blow through their bankroll in a very short amount of time, and then they'll be, that'll be it. They'll be bankrupt from card counting. So you've got to be-
- CWChris Williamson
Who-
- SBSteven Bridges
... super careful.
- CWChris Williamson
Who is it, not specifically, but where is it that you're finding half a mil to fund a trip to go and travel around the U.S.?
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah, so the way that I actually started was incredibly reckless, in that, you know, I collaborated with a, another YouTuber who, he's a card counter and he teaches people to, to card count called Colin Jones, and I got in touch with him mainly because I thought this would make a really... firstly, it was just like a bucket list item. I thought, "I really wanna do this," and I also had a, a small YouTube channel doing magic tricks, and I thought, "This would make a really cool vlog series." So I got in touch with him, and I thought maybe he'll bankroll me, you know, 10K or something, or maybe I... I didn't really have any money at the time. So I wasn't sure how (laughs) I was gonna sort the money thing out at the time. But then one day, I was moving house, and I had a friend that was just helping me move house, and I was telling him what I was getting up to and that I was gonna go to America for a month and count cards. And then he just shot me a message later on going, "Hey, can I invest in you?" And I was like, "Sure." And I think he offered to put something like 10 to 15K in. I can't quite remember the exact number off the top of my head, but then as we kept chatting, he just upped that, and eventually he just said that he'd put 200K in, in pounds, so more than that in, in USD, and that's the money that I played with. Now at the time, I misunderstood how the risk of card counting, uh, like the actual numbers on card counting, how long it takes you to get to guaranteed profit. So I didn't realize (laughs) how risky this was. And it's extra bad because he was actually... He actually gave me his mortgage, so I was playing with money that he couldn't afford to lose, which is insane by all accounts and goes against what every professional gambler would say. All professional gamblers would be like, "You've got to have your bankroll. That's separate. If you lose that, you've got to be okay," but we were essentially all in, and it would have probably ruined his life if I'd lost all of that money, and also the crushing guilt I would have felt. So I don't really know where you get 200 grand to count cards. Have a friend that has a mortgage, and then he (laughs) gives you the money? But I...
- CWChris Williamson
A reckless, a reckless friend.
- SBSteven Bridges
... yeah. But nowadays, as you network with card counters, card counters tend to have money and- because it's like a profitable thing to do, and then you meet other people that want to invest in card counters and you build up your network that way. And now, it's relatively straightforward if we're gonna do- do a trip. We can just send a couple of texts in WhatsApp and then raise 3, 400K or whatever it is that we need.
- CWChris Williamson
And they take a cut of some kind?
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah, essentially. So the way that we do it, different teams do it differently and the percentage splits are- are different. But the way that we do it is we have... It's- it's kind of like you're forming a company just for one project, then you dissolve it at the end. So you've got the winnings at the end and then you'll divide those. 50% will go to the investors and 50% will go to the players. And normally with the players, you'll- you'll pay them out based off playing time, not based off how much they've actually won. Because the only thing that's within the card counter's control is showing up and counting cards. Whether or not they actually win, provided their game is good, which we test ahead of time, is not up to them. So we could have a card counter that's put in loads of hours and got the most hours but they actually made a loss, whereas we could have someone that played the least hours and they made a profit, but we don't judge it based off results, we judge it based off time that goes in. So we split it proportionally like that. Sometimes you'll have a manager and they'll take a manager cut because it's quite a complicated logistical thing to manage, so, you know, a manager might take 10% or something, but then the rest of it usually is split 50/50 with the investors and the players.
- 7:29 – 15:30
The Dynamics of a Card-Counting Team
- SBSteven Bridges
- CWChris Williamson
Talk me through a typical team. People that have seen 21, you've got th- a variety of people, but like, probably not a previous bank robber. I can't remember the movie. But, uh, what- what's- what's the typical Avengers assembled that you take on these trips?
- SBSteven Bridges
Well the- the actual- the makeup of the team, as in the people, i- is a complete mixed bag of people. There's maybe some card counter stereotypes, like being white and being in your 20s is a little bit more common, but in general our team is quite- is quite a- a wide range of people. We've got like a core team and an extended team and it's not always the exact same people playing on a trip. But the- the ways that the actual team forms for a trip is that you have two main approaches: either what we would call solo team play, which is when all the card counters are playing individually at individual casinos in different parts of America or where- wherever else it's gonna be, but they're all sharing a bankroll. And that can be really useful because it's one of those things where the, what's the phrase, the sum is- the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, that kind of thing. Because if you have one card counter with $10,000 and another c- another card counter with $10,000 and they were both playing, they can play with a certain level of bets and they can make a certain hourly rate on average. But if you put those together and combine the resources, it's not the equivalent of that 20K divided by two, it's actually like one card counter with twice the money playing twice as fast. So it's really advantageous for card counters to team up and work together because it just- it gets you to the mathematical long run quicker, you can have- you can place bigger bets, you can win more money in theory, and that's kind of how that works. So that's solo team play. The other type of team play, which is like the movie 21 and the version that I find the most fun, but there are very few card counting teams that do this, is what we call big player spotter team play. So one of the things which makes card counters get caught is that we have to bet... We're- we're se- we're sitting there playing blackjack like everyone else and there's only certain moments where we have the advantage over the house. That's when the count is high. So sometimes if I'm playing in Vegas or wherever, I might be betting $25 a hand, and then the count goes up and I'll bet a grand a hand, and that's a huge jump. And any surveillance person that's paying attention to that will know that most people, if they're playing blackjack and have that kind of money, aren't betting $25 sometimes and a grand other times. They- they might vary their bets a bit, a bit, but never that much. So that can be a huge red flag where we can get caught that way. So with team play what we do is we'll have different spotters, so card counters, that are sat at different tables just betting the table minimum. They'll be keeping the count. And when the count gets high, they'll do a- a secret signal to get the attention of the big player who is also a card counter and his or her job is just to bet really big. So, let's say I signal them in, I won't be as, you know, it'll be less-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bridges
... it'll be more subtle than just waving, but I'll just come over here. They'll come over, I will either tell them what the count is via a code word or I will just use more signals to tell them what to do, how much to bet and how to play their hands, and they'll just come over to the table midway through the shoe and start betting big. But they'll leave when the count drops because I'll tell them to go. So it's really cool because everybody's consistent, all of the spotters are playing the minimum or close to the minimum, and the big player is only ever betting a grand a hand roughly or whatever it's gonna be, which makes it more difficult for surveillance to catch the actual, uh, big player and- and the team. Saying that, nowadays, because of movies like 21 and- and that system becoming more popular, who knows if it really gets you more time, but it's definitely more fun.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes. So what you're trying to avoid is any one player changing the amount that they bet.
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
So the variant that they bet shouldn't be much more. Okay, so going back to this solo team play or solo play generally, how do you- how do you increase your bet when the deck is hot?
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah, so we-
- CWChris Williamson
When you're on your own.
- SBSteven Bridges
We just do it. Y- you just have to do it-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bridges
... and- and sort of hope. It's- it's kind of a weird thing because surveillance aren't only looking for card counters, they've got a heck of a lot to do. They're checking to make sure that dealers don't make payout mistakes which are, you know, high limit room could cost a casino a lot of money. They're checking to make sure that people aren't trying to steal, that that drunk guy that's walking around isn't about to punch someone or grab some chips from the tray. Surveillance have got a really hard job and they're actually some of the most underappreci- no, definitely the most underappreciated casino staff that exists. Like, they get a really raw deal in general, that's a whole other chat. So, the main thing is that surveillance have got other things to do. So they're not always watching me play blackjack. So they'd have to see me, watch me, see me change my bet, and only then if I do that a few times maybe they'd start drawing a pattern, maybe they'd decide they have to run my game down. But in general, the way that I play, and this isn't how all card counters play, but the way that I play is pretty aggressively. So I'll try and bet as little as I can...... when the count is low, and as much as I can when the count is high, because that maximizes the amount of money that I have the potential to win per hour. And it's those little... the bets that you're betting when, when you don't have the advantage that cost you quite a lot over time. So, we just go for it. And now I've spoken to quite a few surveillance people, just because they've reached out to me, which has been really useful. And I think that, in general, a relatively aggressive approach doesn't really lose you much more time than playing really conservatively and trying to do all this, what we call cover play, where you might make a, a little mistake with your play so that you don't look like you, you know what you're doing. These things, I don't know if they help more than they harm in terms of your actual hourly, you know, expected value, the money that you earn.
- CWChris Williamson
When you're doing the big player team stuff, each different person must have a, not necessarily a cover story, but they're projecting a particular type of person when they go in there. So, what's, what sort of a person are you, and then what's your ideal big player persona?
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah, our big player is an absolute legend, but I'll get to him in a second. Yeah, so for me, when I'm a spotter actually, I'm more concerned with just not drawing any attention to myself, especially given that having the YouTube channel makes me... I can get recognized in casinos. So I try and just keep a, a relatively low profile when I'm spotting, because I don't want to be the weak link that gets the team busted. But in general, when I'm, when I'm a spotter, I'll just sit there quietly and bet the minimum, and try not to really draw any attention to myself, which is very different to how I'll play when I'm not a spotter. When I'm doing solo play, like we were just playing in Vegas, and I was playing various different characters with different elaborate disguises, and I would really lean into being an extrovert or being super obnoxious. We've done all sorts of weird stuff. We did a stag do, so a... What's the American term for stag do?
- CWChris Williamson
Bachelor party.
- SBSteven Bridges
Bachelor party. Where we were all wearing T-shirts the same and acting, acting drunk, and just going around and being incredibly loud, and singling over the BP in those cases was literally, "Hey, come here." It was a totally different strategy.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow.
- SBSteven Bridges
So, sometimes it's a case of standing out to blend in. But our, our big player, we- we've played with a couple of different big players, and they all have a different style, and there's not really a right way. But I think one of the elements is just them looking comfortable with that amount of money. If someone's new as a big player or new to card counting, then just betting, you know, $1,000 a hand or a couple K a hand can be really daunting. But our big player that we most commonly use is called Irish AP, and that's what he goes by. And he just plays this very loud, obnoxious, I don't... extrovert, but kind of aggressive, angry gambler. So whenever he's losing, he's kicking off such a fuss and just being like, just cursing constantly and just complaining about the cards he's been dealt. Not really taking it out at people, but taking it out at cards. So, he just plays this role where he's so annoyed that people are a little bit scared of him, which I think in a way can buy us more time because they're not looking at him through the lens of a card counter that's trying to blend in. They're looking at him like, "Oh, this angry gambler that we kind of want to stay away from."
- CWChris Williamson
Right. Obvious question, what's the legality of all
- 15:30 – 19:30
Is Card-Counting Legal?
- CWChris Williamson
this?
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah, it's totally legal in general. I mean, we could get into real specifics. Team play technically could be deemed maybe illegal in certain state, in certain states perhaps, but there's a lot of asterisks on that, uh, just because I don't want to speak too definitely. But in general, card counting is fine, because you're just using the same information that anybody else has. The way that I describe it is, can you imagine that you're playing high-level chess and you're like one of the best chess players in the world, and the tournament manager comes over, taps you on the shoulder, and goes, "Excuse me, we actually have seen... or we can tell that you're thinking four moves ahead, and in this tournament, three moves ahead is the max. It's just deemed not fair"? It would just be ludicrous. All we're doing is using our brains the same way that anyone else could. We're not, yeah, we're not cheating. It doesn't legally classify as cheating, and therefore it's legal everywhere, as far as I'm aware. The only sort of, not exactly exceptions, but there's certain countries, like the UK is actually weird to count cards in because you don't really have a lot of le- legal recourse if you get kicked out. Like they can potentially just withhold the money, and there's been stories from other advantage players, like Phil Ivey did this whole thing with the... It wasn't blackjack that he was playing, but he did this advantage play, it went to court, he didn't get paid out, if I remember that correctly. So there's some weird stuff where there was a person in, I, I can't remember if it was Ireland or Northern Ireland, that played roulette and then didn't get paid out. They weren't even, they weren't cheating or doing advantage play, they just were playing roulette, won a load of money, and then it was deemed that they were a, uh, "Oh, it's a private business, so they can do what they want." So there's certain places where you might have more difficulties than others, but legally speaking, it's not cheating and it's perfectly legal.
- CWChris Williamson
Right. So, d- this, this to me kind of jades my... I- not as if I thought casinos were bastions of ethical s- uh, uh, high faluting truiseness. But, what I did think was if somebody does manage to beat the house, that they've done it fairly, and if it's not illegal, the casino should take it on the chin given that they're fleecing every other non-advantage player in there.
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah, it's, it's absolutely wild, because really we don't even dent their bottom line, and most of the time they know that. I think they just have a, a vendetta against card counters, because we actually don't... The way that we get treathed sometimes, you know, I've had police called on me, multiple security guards, it just... intimidation tactics or them refusing to cash you out unless you show ID, which is not a legal requirement. All these kind of weird things that they'll do for what es- essentially won't, didn't, the average casino's bottom line. It's so rare that we'd make any kind of impact, especially like these big casinos in Vegas. It's so funny the, the lengths that they'll go to, to stop you counting when it just... Sometimes they will, they will ruin a blackjack game to make sure it's, so that it's not countable, and it's just, "Why are you doing that?"
- CWChris Williamson
What do you mean? How would they ruin it?
- SBSteven Bridges
Well, there's certain things that they can do, for example-If you've played a regular shoe game of blackjack, where you've got maybe six de- six decks of cards shuffled together, they'll have a cut card that goes towards the end. So when you hit that cut card, they know, "Oh, yeah, we've got to shuffle now." But if you move that cut card further forward, that means that you might only play, say, three of the decks before a shuffle, or two of the decks if you were going to be absolutely wild. But the further forward that gets, the l- the le- the fewer cards or less cards that you're going to play before a shuffle. Now, the less cards you're going to play, that's bad for a card counter because our information gets more useful, more accurate towards the end. So they'll sometimes put the cut card more forward so that it stops card counters. But the cost of that is actually they're losing a lot of time in rounds per hour that other non-card counters would be playing. And people have crunched the numbers, and even just moving it a couple cards forward costs, like, the average casino a ridiculous amount of money per year. So they'll do all sorts of things. I just describe it as they drop a nuclear bomb on a house to blow out a candle. Like, yeah, they'll stop card counters, but they will cause themselves so much damage in the process.
- CWChris Williamson
So do you see the process
- 19:30 – 23:59
Getting Recognised & Kicked Out of Casinos
- CWChris Williamson
of this largely just being a race against the clock to be discovered, to be rumbled? And what would you say is the percentage time that you actually manage to get in, do the thing, and get out, having not been recognized or noticed? And how many times do you get in there and get kicked out?
- SBSteven Bridges
I think most of the time it ends with being kicked out. Well, that's kind of the goal in a way. Not that we want to be kicked out, but there's a, there's a phrase in card counting called "don't back yourself off from a casino." Back off being just a term for being asked not to play blackjack. And if I leave a casino because I think they might kick me out soon, then wha- what- what's that achieved? I've left. I might as well have stayed and played another hour before they'd actually kick me out. So, I- I normally will play until a back off. On the trip I just did, you know, in Vegas, I was trying short sessions and going from casino to casino, trying to leave before a back off. But then, as soon as I compared my, my hours played with another teammate who was just playing until back off, he got way more time. And sometimes we'll feel what we call heat, which is just suspicion. We can tell when they're onto us. We'll feel that, and then we think, "Oh, maybe we should leave." But if we actually just keep playing, it might take them an hour or another two hours to actually get the go-ahead to back off a card counter. So, in general, the approach that me and my team make usually is just to keep playing until we get backed off. So in which case, the vast majority of the time, we'll get a back off. But it depends on the casino. Sometimes I could last... The shortest was about 12 minutes, and this is pre-YouTube videos, but someone just thought, "He looks like a card counter," called surveillance, and then surveillance were watching me from the very first hand I played and very quickly figured out that I was counting. But then I've had nine hours in the casino in a shift and gone back the next day, and sometimes just weeks at one casino before they'd actually caught me. So it really varies, but we play aggressively until the back off, usually.
- CWChris Williamson
How- how do you choose the particular casino that you're going to go and take on? Because if it was a Hollywood movie, it would be because of a vendetta that the guy's current ex-wife is now dating the owner of that particular casino. Uh, I guess it's-
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... probably more strategic than that.
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah, a little bit, although there is a, a small element of revenge sometimes in there. I think a lot of casino staff think that if they give the card counter a really hard time and back them off and make it really hard for them to get their money at the cage and send their photo everywhere and, and just be really aggressive, that the card counter will go, "Oh, that was horrible. I'll tell all my card counter friends how bad this casino was and we'll all avoid it." But the exact opposite will happen. Like, the card counter will tell other people, "I had this really hard time at this casino," and then the, the card counter they're telling will be like, "All right, where is it? I want to..." Because there's a sense of, that's not right, so might as well prioritize that casino. But in general, we'll play any casino that offers a good blackjack game. Not all blackjack is created equally. There's different subtle rule changes that can affect how much we'd win. There's certain elements of the game which might affect how risky it is or how long we'd have to play to guarantee that we're going to be up. So- but in general, if the ca- if there's a casino with a good blackjack game, we'll play it.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. Vegas. Is Vegas a genuine hotspot? You've mentioned it before, but surely they've got to be shit hot when it comes to security.
- SBSteven Bridges
They've probably got the best surveillance departments in the world, but also they're the most used to card counters. So the back offs tend to be- tends to be quite chill. I say, as I'm thinking of lawsuits that are- that are going on against Vegas casinos.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bridges
But in general, they tend to be pretty- tend to be pretty chill, but they are very, very fast. So we play Vegas mainly because we really like it, and it's so casino dense. There's all these casinos that you just have this- what feels like unlimited options, and because it's so fast-moving, it feels like even when the shift changes, it's like a whole new casino. So there is a lot of opportunity in Vegas. A lot of card counters hate Vegas and they think it's really bad, and it might be compared to other places, but also Vegas has a certain kind of weird charm to it that just makes it a fun place to play.
- CWChris Williamson
Macau? Is that too dangerous? Go over and get taken by the CCP?
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah, I- I've not... I- it was on my list of places to try, but I think I spoke to a card counter friend and- and he said that they don't have any shoe games. I don't know if that's true, but nowadays it's- it's becoming more and more common that there'll be this machine that is constantly shuffling the cards. So you play out a hand or two, they pick up the cards, put them back in the machine, and it constantly shuffles. And those you can't count because, I mean, there's nothing to count when they're constantly shuffling. And I've heard that Macau is just as that, which is a shame because I'd be well up for it. You know, there's a couple places on my list that- countries that I probably won't name but- that I want to go try. But yeah, I don't know if Macau is playable.
- 23:59 – 34:58
Is Card-Counting Fun or Stressful?
- CWChris Williamson
Is it fun or stressful? Like, talk to me about the felt sense of either being part of a team and being a spotter or, or- or doing solo play. Like, what's the actual felt sense of it? Is it a grind?
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah, it's- it's a combination of things. It can be a grind for sure, especially on those seven-hour blackjack sessions. I- I know I keep referencing the last trip, but it's just because I just got back. But there was one time when I was just so tired and wanted a break, but I hadn't been backed off, so I just kept going and I was sort of begging the casino internally to back me off-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bridges
... so I could go take a break. But you just don't want to give up this opportunity because who knows if the stars are going to align-... y- there might have been a surveillance person that's written you off, not, uh, from something you did, and they think, "Oh, he's not a card counter," so you don't wanna give that up. And that can be a real grind, playing the same card game. Because also, the thing is, is you're not making decisions in the same way that the average player is. You know, the average player playing blackjack will get a 16 versus a 10, and they might think, "Ooh, should I hit this time, or should I not hit?" And they get to sort of play the game. But all we're really doing is we've internalized, like, a decision tree that we've memorized, and that, that changes depending on the count, but we've just got a preset memorized formula, and we're just pressing go on that formula. So we're not really making any decisions. It's very much like an automatic process. So that can be a bit tedious. In general, though, it's more of a thrill than it is anything else. You are still getting the same, I guess, dopamine hit from gambling, except you know that you have an advantage, which is a very satisfying, satisfying thing, and the whole thing j- it does feel like a massive adventure, but it's all, it's, like, such a weird combination of emotions. It's super stressful. It can be really stressful, especially some of the times when we've been backed off, and they'll not pay out our money or be incredibly aggressive. But the overall experience is incredibly rewarding, and as soon as I come back to the UK, I'm sort of thankful that I get a bit of a break, but then I'm sort of itching to play again because of that combination of things.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. What, what are some of the worst back-offs that you've had in your career?
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah, the worst one I had was, I think... Oh, there's, uh, there's been a couple of contenders recently, but I think Tulalip Casino in Washington State. People have s- people have asked me, "Why aren't you calling these places out?" So there you go. There's your exact name. Tulalip Casino in Washington State gave me the worst, I think. I was playing there, and in essence, I'd been backed off from their sister property. Well, they, they sort of forcibly ID'd me, and I'd left, and they chased me out of the casino. So I was playing at Tulalip, and it just hit this point where a guy came over to me, tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned around, and I knew it was a back-off, and I did the thing that you probably shouldn't do. I acknowledged that the guy, you know, was backing me off. I just said, "Okay, I get it. No more blackjack." 'Cause I was trying to alleviate any hostility before it even happened. But he said, "No, no, no, I just wanna see your ID." I said, "Well, I don't really... I'm, I'm happy just to go. I, I'm, I'm good. I just wanna cash out and leave." And it's important for me to note here that a lot of people think that when you're in a casino you need to show ID or you need to have an ID. Now, yeah, if you're going up to the table and you sit down and they ask you for an ID, and you don't show it, they have the right to not let you play, or they could ID you at the door and turn you away if you don't have an ID. But if you've played blackjack, have your chips, you then have the legal right to cash them out, and you don't need to show an ID. Couple of asterisks. If it's over 10 grand, changes things. But you don't need to show ID. However, casinos will often try and force you to show ID so that they can get your name, upload it to their little system, write their little report, maybe send it to other casinos. And as a card counter, you really don't wanna give your ID, for the most part.
- CWChris Williamson
And presumably...
- SBSteven Bridges
So-
- CWChris Williamson
... using fake ID would then be a federal crime?
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I, I'm not sure if there's maybe some weird loopholes in that, but it's not something that me or anyone on my team has ever experimented with. But yeah. There's a good phrase. I think it's from Molly's Game, if you've seen that movie, but I think it's, uh, the phrase is, "Don't break the law when you're breaking the law," which is something I always think about when, when card counting.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bridges
What we're doing is not illegal, just... It feels like a crime-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bridges
... but it's not quite a crime. So don't mix in a crime like fake ID, Asterisk.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay, so this guy.
- SBSteven Bridges
Right, yeah, so he comes over, and he's just immediate- He's got this, such, this sort of, I don't even know how to describe it, but this, (laughs) this kind of macho alpha energy, where he's decided that he's getting my ID, and he's immediately just demanding it, and I, I'm declining it, and then, uh, he just escalates, and he goes, "I'm not gonna play games with you. You either show me your ID, or you get out." I'm like, "Well, I just wanna leave. Grab your chips. Get out. You can't even cash 'em out." Which was the first time I'd been in that situation, where the casino was denying me a cash-out. And I'd been advised by card counter friends that if I just stand my ground, eventually they will cash me out. So that's what I decided to do, and I just wouldn't leave this casino until they cashed me out. And they immediately brought over extra security, a Gaming Commission person, who, once again, the Gaming Commissioner should be impartial, but when it's, uh... I mean, there's a whole host of other politics regarding that stuff. Often the Gaming Commission isn't impartial. They're a bit biased towards the casino. So there's the Gaming Commissioner, multiple security people, other casino staff, and this whole big argument breaks out, while I'm just basically shouting that I just want my chips. All of this is, I got on hidden camera. And they just won't do it. They say that they're gonna call the police. They call the police, and then they all start to s- kind of leave me alone at this point. They start to just sort of leave, maybe except one guy, and I'm a bit concerned, because this casino is in sort of tribal land, so it's on an Indian reservation. So the law regarding Indian reservations is a little bit different regarding the rest of US law. They have, like, tribal sovereignty, so they can have their own laws that are a bit independent. So when, uh, they can have tribal court, and obviously the casino is bringing in all the revenue, so in a way the casino is funding these things, maybe not directly, and the whole thing is just a little bit, a little bit different to what I'm used to. And that goes for the police force too. I thought the police were essentially paid for by the casino, and whether or not that's true or not, that's kind of how I was reading the situation at the time, so I was a bit worried that the police would immediately side with the casino and I might be in a, a very bad situation. So I started slowly walking towards the door, not wanting to leave, but at least if the police came in, then I could say, "Oh, I was just leaving," if they came with really aggressive energy. And as I'm getting to the door, the police arrive, and they immediately tell me to sit down, ask me what's going on, and they asked for my ID. I gave it over. I wasn't really familiar with the, with the laws regarding when a police officer can have your ID, but I thought, "They're suspecting me of a crime," which they weren't, so that was a weird thing. But I gave over the ID. We had this whole thing, and they, in the end, just escorted me to the cash desk and got me, got my chips cashed out. And they may have given over my ID or not. They said they wouldn't, but you never know.... but I was actually really relieved that the police sided with me. I've had other situations where the police have just taken an immediate "no, we (laughs) don't- we don't want you here, we don't wanna help you," uh, side, and also gaming commissioners that were totally useless, so. But that was a, kind of a scary situation because of just how aggressive the tone was and how many people there were, and how early it was in my card counting journey, and the fact police were called, so that was a pretty bad one. But there's been so many that are quite similar.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, that, especially if you're tired and stressed and have been playing for a long time, keeping your cool as you're being pushed away from a game that you know is taking every other person sat in this casino's money-
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... and the fact that you have managed to spend enough time to be able to learn a process that gives you a... What's the edge, 50? What is it?
- SBSteven Bridges
Oh, it's like one or 2%. It's, like, tiny. It's a penny.
- CWChris Williamson
Right, okay.
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah, it's really, really small.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bridges
Funny you should say that, though, because there's been two incidences that, that really back this up. One time, also in Washington, there was a guy that was at my table, so drunk he couldn't stack the chips up properly, and he was just playing and just pushing the chips in a pile, no idea what he was doing, losing hand after hand after hand, and he was tipping the dealer every hand, something like 25 bucks, and I just made eye contact with the dealer and just sort of said, "Is he okay?" And the dealer totally just, just fobbed it off as like, "He's fine." And then 20 minutes later, I get backed off. And I just thought, "You're letting this person play that's clearly not in, uh, of sound mind to play because it benefits the casino, whereas here I am being kicked out for playing the game, honestly." And another thing that happened when I was in Vegas that isn't in the video yet, but I found out that there was a player at my table, and she was I think a 77-year-old woman. She'd been playing for over 24 hours and she hadn't eaten or slept, and I sort of spoke to a couple of members of, of staff about this. I asked, I mentioned it to a dealer, I was like, "Hey, she's been playing for, you know, this long. Do you think, you know," (laughs) like, "Is there something..." And the dealer laughed it off. I then spoke to a pit boss, same kind of thing. At this point, I knew that they were running my game down. I knew that I was, my time was limited, so making a, a bit of a spectacle wasn't really gonna cost anything, and each person I spoke to, in essence, was just totally fine with this woman continuing to play, and it's just one of those things where I get that everybody makes their own decisions and has a right to do what they want, and I guess, and I get that there's higher-ups in the casino that are setting these policies about how they handle people that have gambling problems, but I also was just left thinking, "Isn't there, like, anybody that's just sort of gonna go, 'Hey, maybe take, maybe take a ten-minute break.'"
- CWChris Williamson
Look-
- SBSteven Bridges
"Maybe go have a sandwich and just see..." Just noth- like, at what point is it just a human decency thing that wasn't being done?
- CWChris Williamson
Look, Stephen, if you are, if, if you are going to casinos in the hopes of finding some ethical decency, I fear that you may be looking-
- SBSteven Bridges
(laughs)
- 34:58 – 38:12
The Feeling of Losing Significant Money
- CWChris Williamson
How do you deal with these sessions where you end up being lots of money down and, and how, how much can that get? And how much can that get across a team as well in a day?
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah, we can lose tens and tens and tens of thousands. I think the biggest loss that we have on record for our team in one session, and I think that was probably, like, three or four hours, was one of my teammates called Sintax, he played and lost 42K, which is, I mean... He posts, we have like a little results group chat, and he'd post in the group chat, "This is the result," and we all just immediately feel it, 'cause it, it's, it's so much money. No matter what the context is outside of that, no matter what you were up at one point or anything, it's still 42 grand. Your brain automatically thinks, "How many years' rent is that?" Or, "How many..." It's just, it, it's crazy. So, the, the times that are the worst are when you're losing not necessarily a huge amount, but it's repeatedly, session after session after session, and you're on what seems like a never-ending losing streak. The first time we played in Vegas in, in 2020, we won, I think it was something like, 97K in two or three days, which is the best thing ever, and then in the next couple of days, we proceeded to lose 110 from that point.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bridges
And just, the way down, Chris, is not fun-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bridges
... 'cause each time you're thinking, "Someone's gonna have a win." And then, but maybe there's a couple K someone wins, but then someone else loses ten, and you're just like, "It has to stop." And I, I remember I had a, a session where I lost 30K on that downswing, and I just went into the, into the restroom and just sort of had to splash water on my face and just try and compose myself, and then I went out and there was a bunch of security guards waiting for me, which was lovely, but yeah-
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, fantastic.
- SBSteven Bridges
Just what you need. It, it can be really tough.And I think it, it sort of takes more than it gives in a way. Y- I think you have to have the... It's a certain kind of person to be a card counter. Just for like... I don't mean who's capable of it. I think a lot of people could learn it, but the actual lifestyle and having to go through those losses, and having to lose that money and not change what you're doing, you can't chase-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bridges
... your losses. You just have to keep playing like a machine. There's times I really want to leave because I'm down a lot of money and I just want a break, but the count's still high, so you've just got to keep going, and you're buying in, you're losing, you're buying in, you're losing, and the dealer keeps getting blackjacks, and you're just like, "This is... What are the odds of this?" But you still have to just keep going, and th- those are some of the hardest times.
- CWChris Williamson
That's the reason why play time is so important then, because you need to be able to accumulate. Knowing that-
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... given a long enough amount of time, you're gonna be 1 or 2% up, which means across infinite time, you would win.
- SBSteven Bridges
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
And therefore, if you have too short of a, a bunch of sessions, just straight up variance allows to chip into you and chip into you and chip into you. And despite playing the right way, even on hot tables, you can still lose, or it can just, the count can just never get to, uh, where you need it to be-
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... and you will continue to walk away, which means that's why it needs to increase. You need to have that longer time.
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah. For sure, yeah, it's all about getting those hours in. Quality games can also, you know, affect the amount of hours you need, but in general, yeah, it's just all about getting those hours in, because in the short term you are just flipping coins and hoping for the best.
- 38:12 – 40:50
Some of Steven’s Best Games Played
- CWChris Williamson
All right. So what about good games? What have been some of the best ones that you've been a part of?
- SBSteven Bridges
Oh, if I m- if I mention them, they might make them worse. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah, I'd, I'd be actually really cautious about saying this place has got the best blackjack game, because I genuinely worry-
- CWChris Williamson
No, no, no, no, no, like what days? What days have you, or what sessions have you done where-
- SBSteven Bridges
Oh, right. Oh, right. Whi- which are the days where it's just like we can't lose?
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah. I, I think some o- some of the team sessions which have ended in, when we've been doing team play and they, they've just been... You know, a- anything, honestly anything above like a 30K win feels like fantastic-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bridges
... no matter what stakes we're playing at. So, yeah, 30K, 40K wins are, are always really satisfying. I, yeah, there's j- there's just been sessions, I think I had a 19K session in my, one of my, uh, more recent trips, which maybe doesn't sound like a lot in the scheme of what we've lost at times, but there's something just so satisfying about even just winning 10 grand, 20 grand, and then knowing that you're gonna post that in the chat and everyone's gonna see that, that's incredibly satisfying. So, yeah, we more look at it in trips as opposed to days. But we, we've had some very, very successful trips that have just been really, really big wins in the six-figure range, and that f- that for being a couple of weeks' work is, is pretty good, even if you are splitting it between a lot of people.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. How... Y- you've mentioned $10,000, anything above that is difficult-
- SBSteven Bridges
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... to get cashed out without giving your ID in, so do you purposefully know when you're at about 10 grand and then stop?
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah, that is a strategy. So, so just so... I'll have to make this super clear in case it sounds like I'm promoting illegal conduct. If you have bought in or have got essentially 10K's worth of chips, generally, then there's a currency transaction report that the casino has to fill in. And if you are cashing out 5K at one cage and then going to a different cage and cashing out 5K, you could dodge that r- that report because they might not realize you have the 10K. That is actually a crime called structuring. So, if we hit that 10K mark, for whatever reason, then we have a hard rule where you just go and cash it out and you give over the ID. Now, maybe you don't necessarily need to cash it out there and then, depending on the circumstances, but in general you're still gonna have to show, show the ID. So yeah, if you're playing a session, provided you're not midway through a shoe, because you never wanna leave when the count is high, y- that would be very, very bad 'cause you're throwing away money. But yeah, if you're up 9K in a session and it's the end of the shoe and you realize, "Oh, if I win one, 1K more I'm gonna have to hand over my ID," it's probably not gonna be worth giving over the ID, so then we'll just leave. But we'll never actually physically dodge those checks if we legally have to do them.
- CWChris Williamson
All right, and how the fuck do
- 40:50 – 48:14
The Challenges of Carrying Huge Amounts of Cash Around
- CWChris Williamson
you get six figures back into the UK?
- SBSteven Bridges
(laughs) Yeah, this is weirdly a question that no one really asks, which is like... No one really asks about the actual cash management, but yeah, we have like so much cash we have to move around. Airport security is always a nightmare.
- CWChris Williamson
And it's in cash, right? It's in-
- SBSteven Bridges
It's in... Oh yeah, it's in cash. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... wedges of, "Hello, sir, where has this $150,000 come from?"
- SBSteven Bridges
It literally is that. So, we just... (laughs) We each have just money belts filled with money and we have to just go through. So I mean, when you go to the airport, uh, if you're transferring more than 10 grand-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bridges
... in US currency you have to sort of declare it, so we just go through those checks and, you know, we fill out a form. You've gotta fill out the form again maybe when you get to the, get to the airport. Even the airport staff don't often know what you have to do and we have to really insist-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bridges
... "No, no, we have to speak to a border patrol officer before we go through airport security or we're in a real bad spot." And they'll go, "Oh, okay, well, um, I guess if you go downstairs and knock on the door." So there's weird things like that. But yeah, we just take it, and sometimes it's just these awkward conversations that we have to have.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you tell them where it's come from?
- SBSteven Bridges
Well, yeah. I mean, the o- the origin is honestly gambling. It's just, it doesn't sound very probable. It, and it sounds like the perfect... It's like the kind of thing you would do if you were trying to launder money or move money irregularly.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bridges
So it's like the o- the honest answer is not super reassuring. So, sometimes I'll go through my phone and I'll be like, "Look, here's all these photos of us in the casinos, and here's this."
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. "Here's me being chased out by airport, by the-"
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
"... '60s casino security."
- SBSteven Bridges
Exactly. Yeah, but there's nothing illegal about taking cash around. The thing that we're really worried about, or I'm concerned about, is a law in the UK- US called civil forfeiture. Have you ever come across these YouTube videos, Chris, where there's people being-
- CWChris Williamson
No, what's that?
- SBSteven Bridges
It's absolutely... It's insane. So, someone will get pulled over by a cop for whatever reason and then the cop might go, "Oh, do you have any firearms or currency in the car?" And the person will go, "Well actually, yeah, I've got some... I happen to have my life savings." This one guy doesn't, didn't trust banks. He had like-I can't remember how much it was, but I think it was in maybe the low six figures. So we had a significant amount of money, and then the police officer has the legal right to just seize that money if they're not convinced of where it's come from and that it's legally held. They can just take it and have it. And as far as I'm aware, it can be really difficult to get that money back. That money can be used within the police force or something weird, but it's just one of these laws that, that seems so backwards where they can just take the money from you, and that's it. You'll get a little receipt, but getting it back is a whole other thing. So I've often worried about, "Oh, what if I get pulled over?" 'Cause you don't wanna lie to a cop either. You don't wanna say, "Oh, I have no currency-"
- CWChris Williamson
"Oh, I've got no money." Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- SBSteven Bridges
'Cause then you're in a... Right, it's a tota- you're in a different set of problems then. But yeah, there's, that's the thing I worry about the most is just being... (laughs) It's, it's honestly just police in the US regarding, regarding the cash. Of course, being mugged and stuff is still a concern. Uh, uh, in fact, just on the... I was playing in the, we were playing in the Bahamas recently.
- CWChris Williamson
I was in the Bahamas.
- SBSteven Bridges
Were you? Oh, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I go- I went to the B- so I went, I went to the Bahamas for two days, and before I went, I was at a wedding in Norfolk, Virginia, and this is when we'd confirmed this episode, and I'm watching some of your vlogs and stuff. And I'm like, uh, uh, talking to this guy, and this guy was a part of the Navy at this wedding.
- SBSteven Bridges
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
And he was saying, "Dude, do you gamble?" I'm like, "No, no." I know a guy that does, actually. Uh, well, I'm about to speak to a guy that does, and he says, "Dude, the SLS and Paradise Island, the two casinos that you've got in the Bahamas," he's like, "Their dealers, uh, they haven't got a clue. The airport, uh, the, um, casino security aren't that tight," and blah, blah, blah. So I remember thinking at the time, "I might be able to tell Stephen something he doesn't know about here."
- SBSteven Bridges
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
But it seems like you beat me to the punch.
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah, that's really funny. I mean, I wonder if we were there at the same time. But yeah, I was, I was over there, and we'd just had a situation where we... This is like a weird tangent story, but w- we were playing at this casino, and it was just me and Irish that were at the casino, and we ended up leaving the casino together. Normally, we wouldn't be seen with each other, but we both got so lost in the casino and didn't have, like, cell service, that we ended up just, in the end, walking out and hoping that the cameras hadn't seen us. So we left this casino, ch- uh, finally find a bit of road. We were really sh- we'd got so lost i- in this massive building, and a taxi pulled up, and we, we got into the taxi, and the taxi started driving. And then the, uh... I was a little bit concerned that it wasn't a real taxi, but I wasn't sure, and there'd been another taxi driver that told me that the taxis in Bahamas are chill, so I wasn't like super worried. But then the taxi driver started offering us, like, prostitutes and drugs, and I was like, "Ah, maybe this guy isn't a legit taxi driver." So we're driving and he said, "Oh, you're gonna need to give us directions 'cause I don't have a sat-nav or a GPS." Bit of a weird flag for a taxi driver, but okay. And we've got between us, I don't know how much it was, but 50, 60K, something like that, a lot of money. And then the taxi guy says, "By the way, I'm just gonna need to stop off at the strip club to pick up some food that I've ordered," at like, this is 4:00 in the morning or whatever. And it just sounded like the most sketchy thing. We were like, "No, no."
- 48:14 – 56:04
How to Not Be Recognised When You Are Well-Known
- CWChris Williamson
be having to do more elaborate disguises and covers given the fact that you've got a YouTube channel with half a million people on it, a- and it's not gonna be any easier after you've done this episode with me either. So-
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... I guess your, uh, the detailing of your experiences and the difficulty of your experiences are inversely correlated to each other.
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah, it's weird. It's like I'm my own worst enemy, because as my YouTube channel-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bridges
... goes up, then my card counting gets harder. So it's like the... when I, when I started the series, I obviously knew that this could happen, but I, I, the way I looked at it was, well, either the series kind of simmers and it doesn't really do any harm, in which case I'm card counting and it's fine, or it does really well, in which case it's like a luxury problem, which is sort of where I'm at right now. But yeah, I've had to go all in on disguises.So for the previous trip I just did, which isn't on YouTube yet, I, we designed these different looks. You know, using beard dye, and changing my beard and getting a goatee, and fake tattoos that were like the ones that they use in movies, so they look quite real. And I even went to a place called Fangs FX, which make sort of fake teeth and change how your jaw sits for actors in movies.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow.
- SBSteven Bridges
And I didn't get fake teeth in the end, but I got, like, these jaw fillers that just would push out the side of my face, and the, and upper bit of my face, that changed sort of how my face looked. So we were just doing everything that I could, pulling out all the stops. And it, it really worked as well. I mean, I got backed off and I got caught. Eventually people found out who I was. And it was like one person-
- CWChris Williamson
Not because you're Steven Bridges though.
- SBSteven Bridges
Well, yeah, exactly. It only takes one person in surveillance to be like, "Wait a second, that guy..."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bridges
And then it, and that's it. But it, it absolutely bought me so much more time. And yeah, it, it got me way more time. So it was really, really helpful because I was keeping track of different looks in different casino chains. So I'd know, okay, at this casino chain, I'm still clean with this look, so I'll just hammer this casino chain until I get backed off. You know, and I was mentioning before how I had this se- seven-hour session or whatever, and I just was praying they'd back me off. It's because I wanted to stop spraying my goatee with dye every day-
- CWChris Williamson
Ah. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bridges
... when I got up and having to, like, wet, makeup wipe all the... such a nu- getting dye in my mouth. And I was just like, "Please let me change this disguise." But I was keeping track of the... Luckily I've got surveillance people that will send me information, which is super handy so I, I knew which casinos knew.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. I was gonna s- I was gonna say, so you've got this network of fans who work actually in the casino world. You also probably have a, a even larger network of enemies that work in the casino world.
- SBSteven Bridges
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
But, um-
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You, there's, there's like a FBI most wanted, do not admit under any circumstances, known advantage player list.
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, so are there some places that you're never gonna be able to go back to now? Like are there some, are there some chains that are just completely boxed off for you?
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah. Not necessarily some chains because in a way it's not like every person that works in all these casinos knows who I am by look, right? But all of the casino chains will know who I am, and there'll be a description and a photo of me in their database. And there will be a case of if you see this guy, back him off or don't let him play. However, if I go to a new region in the US that I haven't been to for y- ever, then there's no... it's not like they're, they're looking through this list of, like, known advantage players for every single person. There's thousands of, of people that are unwanted players for whatever reason. So it has to be the first, you know, someone has to actually spot me for the first time, and then that, that's what goes to the top of the list, and then it can become a bit of a problem. But yeah, there's, there's maybe some casinos where I've played before and because I've done a YouTube video, there'll be extra, maybe everyone in the casino will have seen it because, "Hey, we're in this, in this video." In which case I probably would struggle with going back to those. But I don't think there's a chain that I wouldn't be able to play at. Apart from the UK, there's no casino I could go in the UK, unfortunately. In the UK you've got to, you've got to be a member to go in 99% of the casinos, so-
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, yeah.
- SBSteven Bridges
... I get stopped at the door.
- CWChris Williamson
Of course, of course.
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
What, are there any other games? I mean, you know, it's so funny to think about you being a professional gambler, but-
- SBSteven Bridges
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... you're not. You're a professional blackjack player.
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah, yeah.
- 56:04 – 59:35
Building Relationships with Dealers
- CWChris Williamson
I mean, you must have had... The amount of dealers that you've spent intimate time with, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours, you know-
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... of, of time with these dealers. What's the experience... I guess that you're trying to remain under the radar so maybe you don't speak to them so much, but, like, yeah, what's your insight about the life of a typical US blackjack dealer person?
- SBSteven Bridges
Th- I mean, they vary as much as regular people vary. I, I think my experience with all casino staff is, is a complete mixed bag. There's been some people and dealers that I just think, "Oh, these people are so fun. I wanna be friends with them in real life." And then there's other people that just aren't very nice people. So it's hard to sort of really give a, uh, you know, to sort of try and paint like a brush or kinda give an idea of the typical person that works in a casino, because they vary so much. I mean, certain security people can be a bit power trippy at times. A lot of pit bosses can be quite power trippy, but some of them are really nice. So it's kinda hard to sort of give, like, the archetype of a dealer. I think... Yeah. I mean, I've met a lot of dealers that are really nice. A lot of dealers that have known I'm counting and they haven't dobbed me in, so those people are nice, and they have... They could have just made things really difficult. But then I've also gone in and met dealers that have gone and pointed me out when I've walked in the door after driving six hours to get to the casino. So, yeah, it's a real mixture. But, yeah, you can have some really nice, interesting chats, and actually, the dealers being talkative is one of the things that keeps me going on these trips. If it's not a team trip where I- where I'm with the team, you're away for whatever it is, two, three weeks, and you don't know anybody, and you're just driving around, and your only human interaction that you get is when you order a coffee, buy some food, or are playing at the blackjack table. And as an extrovert, being able to talk with the dealers is one of the things which actually kept me, keeps me, like, sane on these trips. So, yeah, it's really nice when you get a dealer that's up for having a bit of a chat.
- CWChris Williamson
Dude. Yeah, I didn't think about that. I didn't think about how... You know, it sounds all romantic and fantastic-
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... and cool and sexy, but the reality of it is remembering plus one, D1-
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... or zero in your mind for-
- SBSteven Bridges
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... eight hours-
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah, it's-
- CWChris Williamson
... and then going to bed and then getting up and doing it all over again for a couple of weeks.
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah, it... I mean, it can be such a chore. I mean, I've done trips where the amount of time spent driving has basically one-to-one ratio the amount of time playing, so for every hour of play, hour of driving, because there's so much just, "Gotta go to this casino, next casino." And you can, you can... It's not an exaggeration to say you can drive six hours to the nearest casino because you've had to leave the town where that town with the five casinos have all called each other and told them what you look like. So, you burnt out that town when you just got there. You drive six hours to get to the next place, and then you walk in and someone, in my case, recognizes me, or maybe you just get a quick back off, and it's just... Those times are just, just brutal 'cause you get back in the car and you go, "All right, I gotta go drive another three or four hours to the next place now," and it-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, so it's way more-
- SBSteven Bridges
You just be like, "Ah."
- CWChris Williamson
... way, way more about logistics than it is necessarily about mathematics.
- SBSteven Bridges
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. The actual math that you're doing isn't that complicated. It's just a bunch of relatively simple components that get quite tricky to do together. But the, the math gets about as complicated as you have to look at the discard tray where the cards are, estimate how many cards are there to the nearest half deck, and then you divide your count by that number. That's about as complicated as it gets. But even that, you're rounding down, all whilst, you know, trying to keep the conversation going or not look like you're concentrating a lot. But, yeah.
- 59:35 – 1:00:08
Where to Find Steven
- CWChris Williamson
Steven Bridges, ladies and gentlemen. Steven, I love your YouTube channel. Everyone should go and check that out. Where else should people go? Where do you want them to go on the internet to, to look at your stuff?
- SBSteven Bridges
Thank you so much. Yeah, I mean, I am mainly on YouTube, but I'm also on Instagram and X and Threads, kind of, I guess. So, yeah, you can find me. It's just Steven Bridges, wherever those places are.
- CWChris Williamson
Hell yeah. Steven, good luck with whatever you're doing next.
- SBSteven Bridges
Cheers, Chris.
- CWChris Williamson
(upbeat music) If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks. And don't forget to subscribe.
Episode duration: 1:00:08
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