Sure there are a body of the patrons who are just 'there' being part of the social experience of it all - whether it is simply a large commercial casino, or a horse track, or a poker tournament - but among what will appear to unschooled outsiders as 'the professional players' in the space, virtually no one will see the actual tiny handful of individuals who have no other objective than literally to make a living gambling on the outcomes of events.
Now I will add that in my view the share performance of a quoted stock is also, 'an outcome event' situation.
One day I'll tell you how you can pick out a professional gambler - a real one - from the types of clothes they wear, and the colors they choose |
Effectively, then, as I have maintained many times, most gaming situations are no more and no less than money markets where prices are determined by supply and demand, and there are regular 'rule-offs' of the market, namely being the event outcome itself determining who gets paid. And then, the market gets re-set for the next go round.
The media, being the kind of animal which likes to talk only about BIG things, will serve up a long litany of identities and their BIG money habits, losses, or wins.
No casino in the world plans to survive and thrive by 'beating' the tiny handful of individuals who walk away with a hundred dollars or so in constant winnings over say, a pretty long day's gambling, for instance.
Vanessa Rousso - dual French-US citizen |
In my experience as a professional race horse gambler a while back, there were, from my insider knowledge of the local tracks, trainers, owners, breeders, bookmakers and officials, three full-time professional gamblers besides myself, that made a living continuously from the thing, and another two who moved across to buying young horses for very wealthy owners, and commissioning for bookmakers who were 'laying off' big bets. And I can can name them all: Freddy 'the fox' Clyne, John Blackburn, Dave Sommers, with the two additions of Ron Wilson, and Barry Farmer. Now these are all extremely well-known identities in the local racing community. And there were absolutely no others that were legitimate - anyone and everyone else had 'an underlying story' going on. The people I named were pure professional gamblers. That was what they did and all that they did. ...And of course there was a young well-dressed law clerk. And that was about all that anyone knew of who I was. I wasn't a law clerk at that stage - I had the qualifications to be a practicing lawyer and I didn't do that. I was a full-time professional gambler. When they opened the first big casino and hotel complex here I made it to the front pages of the main Weekend Newspaper as 'the guy who effectively left the casino every weekend with a potted plant under his arm...' And the rest of the column explained that the casino didn't like me because I was like a guy who turned up at your house each night and walked off with one of your potted plants under his arm. 'How would you feel? That's how the casino management feels about this gentleman.' And then they named me.
And I was very happy about that!
American whiskey, and hats... and a gun. LOL |
Anyway I tell you all that to tell you this - people who are majorly famous in the world of gambling of some kind are either laundering money for someone and usually some illegal source, or they are operatives installed by some of the world's biggest investigations agencies with a view to getting close to people who are committing crimes (who they then shop to the FBI), or because they are on the look-out for particular specific people who have stolen jewels or money or carried off some insurance fraud or similar and who might turn up at casinos.
You can believe in fairy-tales if you like but no one ever won a million dollar jackpot and no one ever won several million dollars that they kept and aggregated, in poker tournaments. Tournaments are run by investigation agencies and by half a dozen government security and intelligence departments around the world - one of which is certainly Russia and I am going to have to delete that last sentence in a few hours.