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Originally Posted by sba9630
A Card-Counting Mix of Bibles, Blackjack and Cash [New York Times]
Until last year, he and his high school friend from Bible camp, Ben Crawford, ran a group of more than 30 religious card counters. Based in Seattle, the rotating cast of players says it won $3.2 million over five years — all while regularly attending church, leading youth groups and studying theology.
I don’t think these “Holy Rollers” are quiet as adept (and profitable) at playing blackjack as the New York Times article would have you believe. Take the purported gross amount they claim to have won over five years, (i.e. $3,200,000.00), and divide that by the 30 players who they claim were members of the team. That yields (roughly) $106,666.67 per team member. That would be a respectable annual income (in any job or profession) if earned over a one-year period, but this result was over five years. So, taking $106.666.67 and dividing by five yields an average (adjusted) income of $21,333.34 per team member per year. This “average” adjusted ROI (Return on Investment) is before adjusting for expenses – such as travel costs to the various gambling venues, cost for hotel rooms and lodging, food & beverages, taxes and other routine living expenses. Adjusting by fifty percent for living expenses, the average team member would have been lucky to net $10,000.00 (per year) playing blackjack. Dividing $10,666.67 by the 2,000 hours a year that a typical 40-hours-per-week wage slave works, the average “Holy Roller” team member earned somewhere in the neighborhood of $5.00 to $5.50 per hour. That’s not even minimum wage. Some of the team members did better than the average, but it’s doubtful that any of them consistently earned net income above $50,000.00 per year.
Of course, the dead giveaway that the “Holy Rollers” are not the great success that the article implies is what the founders of the group are doing now. They’re no longer playing blackjack themselves. No, they have started blackjack training sites and “instructional videos” where they teach others how to play the game – for a price. That’s where the real money is in blackjack and poker – writing and teaching about the game rather than actually playing the game. (Hmmm, seems like blackjack and poker have something in common …) Playing day in and day out is a real grind. Why do that when you can sell your knowledge and expertise for so much more? Heck, just ask Jamie Gold! That guy is selling his wisdom for a cool $1,000.00 per hour.