Those who’ve become well known in the video poker community have always had to put a very loose spin on their backgrounds, their abilities, and their entire lives in general in order to pretend they are the “right people to listen to” so that players just entering the arena will look up to them with unwavering trust – that is, at least up until I came along. Why? That’s simple. These other “professionals” as they like to be called, use the enthusiasm of other players for the game to reel them into their web of promises in order that they may transfer the cash in their wallets to being cash in the famous names’ wallets. So exactly how is this accomplished? You got it! By the advertisement and sale of paraphernalia designed to bamboozle the buyer into thinking they will be as successful as the salesman purports to be. And that, my friends, along with the following, is the entire answer to WHY I am here.

My beginnings with the game doesn’t use the pretense of coming to town with a “few thousand dollars” to my name, and then years later, claiming to have turned that into much more by being successful playing video poker. Rather, these type of self-proclaimers constantly working job after job and selling anything marketable to players is what is far more likely to be verifiable. I’m also not trying to trick people into thinking I played another casino game with success, and then decided to change to video poker for even MORE profit. I’m sure when you look at those balance sheets, you’ll also find a whole lotta BS associated with that one too.

Instead – and most of you have seen this before - my provocative introduction to video poker came in 1990 when I went to the Gold Coast and played it for the very first time. Halfway through a “short roll” of quarters I was treated to a surprise royal flush and a $1000 hand pay, and that’s all it took for my head to grow by several sizes. When I returned home and for the next 6 weeks of airplane travel around the world – which is what my career was comprised of for the better part of 25 years – I studied/practiced and idolized “advantage play” – the term those who claimed they only “play with an edge against the casinos” came up with as they cheerfully but shamelessly sold us their wares that were designed first and foremost, to put gambling money into their own pockets.

Sure, they all had a tempting message that was based on indisputable mathematical calculations and captivating probability theories, but what they DIDN’T tell anyone and what they would have CONTINUED to get away with had I not come onto the scene, is that what they were selling (SELLING being the key of course) was absolutely unattainable without the extraordinary good luck that any gambler has to have in order to become a successful winner. In short, what they were preaching would be good for an “A” in the classroom, but inside the stark reality of the casinos it became nothing more than an anticipative state of mind.

After my experience at the Gold Coast I immediately became a pawn of those who were selling, only all that was available at that time was various reading materials. Still, with an EE degree and an MBA, I believed with my background that nothing could stop me from consistently beating the machines whenever I was able to get home for 3 or 4 days. I was knowledgeable enough to know where I could play with that so-called “edge”; I was intelligent enough to calculate my theoretical “earnings per hour”; and I was savvy enough on how to hide my exploits from casino managers and anyone who could be hurt by my “advantages”. And guess what? With all that background and ability….with all that understanding and savvy….and with all the game’s past and rapidly growing list of current gurus supposedly at my side – I lost an average of $45,000 in each of the 6+ years that I so diligently tried to do well. This result, of course, was no one’s fault but my own.

I looked back and tried to make sense out of it all. I found I had extraordinary hand-eye coordination, as I consistently played the fastest machines in the later years of my losing, at 1400 hph with what I thought were very few if any errors. But of course, no one really knows now, do they… I had no trouble with optimal play because I was a true student of the game’s mathematics. And I believed no one was able to milk the slot clubs and hosts more than me. In short, I wasn’t some binge-drinking barfly/nickel & quarter-playing/going nowhere hitchiking loner-bum in Montana; I wasn’t some helpless geek in Minnesota whose life was hopelessly controlled by the machines; I wasn’t some intellectual guru who was forced to move away from Las Vegas or else face living on the streets; and I wasn't some wild-eyed poor slob from Georgia who had so little cash that he was confused on what to do next. I had a head on my shoulders, I had money in the bank, I had a very happy & supportive family life, and I made all the right moves to be able to do this thing right. And yet, I lost.

Not only was I a loser at expert-play video poker, I also had to deal with a separate financial disaster that I’m certain was caused by my paying too much attention to video poker, and not enough to other matters. Again, it was no one’s fault but my own. However, because I’ve always had well-paying jobs and the wherewithal to think of family first by putting certain funds “away” in certain places, when I decided to become a professional player I went into it with a substantial – and proper – gambling-only bankroll. This idea that someone can come to town with five or six thousand dollars to their name and be able to build their bankroll and earn a living through "optimal play" without also working and selling constantly, is one of the most outrageous misrepresentations of all time in the video poker world.

My choice to start playing for a living in late 1999 was, in and of itself, a roll of the dice. Sure, other “names” had been claiming to be doing it successfully, but seriously clouding their claimed prowess was the fact that every one of them were also in the video poker business making money from all sorts of other angles. And neither they nor the math geeks, who like to be known as winning “lurkers”, have then or today ever been able – or WILLING - to prove their claims of having video poker success of any kind. They simply enjoy making statements from behind the safety of their computers, while making believe they live in a world loaded with naive and gullible pansies, and void of any type of common sense.

So here I am today, $982,000 in pure machine profit (i.e., with NO slot club comps, cash, free-play value or freebies of any kind added in for a more positive perception) and nearly 10 years later, still able to almost win at will whenever I go up against the machines. And as I become more and more convinced that they are not nearly as random as I once thought -- and as the advantage players need to keep on believing they are in order to justify their overly addictive style of play – the only things that have changed are due to belt-tightening by the casinos. Yes, pay tables are constantly being reduced, but none of that has had any real effect on my results. One decent hit is usually all I require during any session, and that is what I got on my only for-profit trip this year so far.

As you can see, for me, becoming a video poker professional has been the right decision...and HUGELY so. I wanted to be home much more often and I am. I didn’t want to live my life on airplanes or on foreign soil any longer and I don’t. And I wanted to be able to share my knowledge and views with others in the form of books, columns, a website and the media and I do. And you know what? The best part about all this, because I am a consistently successful player, is that I can do it all for free. You know anyone else who does that?