Michael Kaplan is a gaming writer with incredible street cred.
He has a list of gambling articles and books longer than the wait for your drink to come to the table.
Along the way, Kaplan has developed close relationships with people who are spectacularly successful at beating casinos out of millions of dollars.
Kaplan authored a new book The Advantage Players: Inside the Winning World of Casino Virtuosos, Master Strategists, and Mathematical Wizards, a fascinating, deep dive into stories about those hyper-obsessed geniuses who take money from casinos through perseverance, grit, social engineering, hard work, and sheer mind power.
The book is chapter after chapter of fascinating stories about beguiling, risk-taking real-life advantage players, many who still operate today. Some are famous and some operate in the shadows. All of Kaplan’s advantage players are captivating.
Amazing personal story
But the amazing thing about this book is that the best advantage play story is Kaplan’s own tale.
In the book’s epilogue, titled ‘My Ultra-Rare Cancer and the Doctor/Scientists Who Played It to a Draw,’ Kaplan relates how he used advantage play theory to help keep him cancer free.
Extensive knowledge
Michael Kaplan spent the last 20 years writing about advantage players in gaming.
Kaplan is a seasoned journalist and author renowned for his in-depth explorations of the gambling industry. He has a gambling column in Cigar Aficionado and has written extensively and with great knowledge and insight about APs for leading publications.
Based in New York City, Kaplan has contributed to esteemed publications such as the New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Rolling Stone, Los Angeles Magazine, Wired, GQ, Playboy, and the New York Post, where he serves as a senior features writer. His work often delves into the intricate world of gambling, profiling its most enigmatic figures and uncovering the strategies behind high-stakes advantage play.
Hollywood
Kaplan’s journalism also hit Hollywood, where his article “The Baccarat Machine” – which profiles Cheung Yin “Kelly” Sun and her partnership with poker pro Phil Ivey – has been optioned and is being adapted into a feature film starring Awkwafina. ‘The Baccarat Machine’ is one of the chapters in his new book.
Advantage Players
In his book, Kaplan describes advantage players as “people who figure out and deploy ways to beat casino games, turning the tables by giving themselves the house advantage and transforming the house into a money-spewing sucker. In short, advantage players play games advantageously. Left to their own devices, edge-seeking advantage players can bring financial ruin to a gambling enterprise—and not break a single law while doing so.
“This book drops you into the specialized worlds of people who figure out how to win on their own terms, earning money by being smarter, sharper, and harder working than everyone else in the room,” Kaplan writes.
A way to win
Kaplan believes that advantage players can be found anywhere in everyday life.
The book includes stories about an art dealer, a magician, and a Hollywood madam. All of them applied advantage play techniques. Kaplan’s theory is that everybody can use advantage play to get a leap ahead of life.
“I think advantage players exist in life. It is not just in gambling; there are all kinds of advantage players.
“The truth is that we can all incorporate elements of advantage play into our lives. Think about it and you’ll likely realize that the smartest, most successful people you know are advantage players, even though they never codified what they do as such. It’s a matter of coming up with a way to win in whatever you’re competing at,” Kaplan writes.
Aces, tattoos, mistakes and best times
In 2005, Kaplan wrote a gambling book titled “Aces and Kings: Inside Stories and Million-Dollar Strategies from Poker’s Greatest Players,” a vivid look into the world of high-stakes poker, featuring profiles of legendary players like Doyle Brunson and Chris Moneymaker, and providing insights into their strategies and experiences.
He also wrote “Buried Mistakes,” a true crime book. Then there was a book about tattoo artists called “Tattoo World,” and “The Best Time to Do Everything,” where he interviewed everyday people and celebrities about the best times to perform tasks.
I just loved writing
Kaplan was born in the Bronx. His family eventually moved to Elmwood Park, New Jersey “after the second person was shot in our building,” Kaplan said.
“We moved into a garden apartment and it was a pretty blue-collar town. There was a lot of gambling around. My dad would play those football tickets every week. As kids, we played nickel and dime poker. So, I grew up with a sense of gambling. I liked writing the whole time, and I read a lot.
“I wrote for my town’s newspaper. I was into the punk rock scene. So, I wrote about that, and it was super fun. I just loved writing,” Kaplan said.
Kaplan went to Glassboro State Collage and wrote for the college magazine. “I was a runner up for Rolling Stone’s college journalism award for some music stories that I did,” he said.
Kaplan began freelancing in his mid-20s. “The gambling writing probably began in my late-20s when GQ hired me to do a story on this guy, Austin Squatty. He was a poker player named John ‘Austin Squatty’ Jenkins, and I wrote the story. Soon after, he got murdered, and that was all really interesting, but the story wound up not running,” Kaplan said.
Cigar Aficionado
“Off and on I would write occasional gambling stories, but then I did a story about Stu Unger, the poker player. I was the last journalist to interview him before he died. I got a great interview.
“And then I did a story for Los Angeles Magazine about the murder of Ted Binion, and then Cigar Aficionado asked if I wanted to do a gambling column for them. I just started doing it. And, little by little, I started meeting advantage players through doing the column,” Kaplan said.
Blackjack Ball
“Max Rubin hosts an event called the Blackjack Ball, and I started going to that. And through that, I met advantage players. I didn’t really even know what it was.”
Through these connections, Kaplan eventually began developing relationships that would lead him to create “Advantage Players”.
I asked Kaplan to explain the Blackjack Ball.
“It’s kind of a secret gathering of advantage players who beat casino games. And somebody gets named into what they call the Blackjack Hall of Fame. There’s a vote for that and there’s a contest and a written test. I mean, it’s a cool event and you’re with the greatest gamblers in the world,” Kaplan explained.
In “Advantage Players,” Kaplan explained it this way:
“Sipping fine champagne and munching canapés, they constitute a generations-spanning collection of the most skilled advantage players on the face of the earth (to call them mere gamblers would be insulting, not to mention incorrect). All told, they’ve taken north of $100 million out of the casinos across town.
“Of the 40 or so players at the 12th annual Blackjack Ball, nearly everyone in attendance has managed to flip-flop the casino’s odds. ‘We out-house the house,’ one of the advantage players gleefully enthused.”
Team play
From 2007 to 2009, Kaplan played on card counting teams. It started with an idea for an article.
“There’s a guy named Rick Blaine who wrote a book called “Blackjack Blueprint,” and we had some friends in common.
“Blaine said to me, ‘Well, how about I teach you how to card count using the techniques for my book.’ I said,’ Yeah, if you can teach me, I’ll write about learning to card count.’
“I would go to his house in Hoboken every Wednesday. We did it for a few months. It’s not that hard to learn to card count. And he taught me how to do it,” Kaplan recalled.
Kaplan eventually built his skills to a level where he could pass an audition to join a card counting team backed by an investor.
“It was this hotel ballroom where they tested everybody, and I passed, and I got on the team. I mean, I had never gambled for that kind of money before. I went to Las Vegas, and I’d go to this guy’s house. He gives me $50,000 in cash and chips to go play. It was pretty wild.
“I was on a team, and it lasted for a couple of years, and it was really cool. I learned what it was like to be an advantage player. You go into the casino and you’re doing stuff that most other people in the casino can’t do,” Kaplan declared.
Riches to rags to riches to Gucci
After years of growing a network of advantage players, Kaplan developed a knack for befriending those advantage players who benefited from being anonymous.
In this case, it landed him an interview and an article that put him on the path to a Hollywood film.
He was the first journalist Cheung Yin Sun, who goes by the name Kelly, agreed to speak with. “I’m the only one she’s spoken to. Somebody introduced us, I don’t want to give the name, and we hit it off. She was willing to chat with me and we became friendly, and we’re still friends now. I mean, you know, she’s cool, and the story got optioned for a movie, and hopefully it’ll get made,” Kaplan said.
The chapter ‘The Baccarat Machine’ tells the story of Kelly Sun, who was raised in a wealthy banker’s family in China until the Chinese Cultural Revolution took their positions and sent her father to a work camp. She spent years in abject poverty with her family wearing homemade cardboard shoes and growing their own food.
Her father recovered his wealth and allowed Kelly to traverse the world, feeding her gambling hobby. She partnered with advantage players and learned the craft of advantage play.
“After a beef with MGM over unpaid markers, Kelly wound up spending 21 days in downtown Las Vegas’s Clark County Detention Center. It took that long before her father could fly to Vegas and pay a total of $104,000—there were additional fees—to straighten things out. Sun vowed to become good enough for revenge on MGM,” Kaplan wrote.
She joined forces with famous poker legend Phil Ivy, called the “Tiger Woods of Poker,” and discovered she had a skill for edge sorting and social engineering that earned her the title “Baccarat Machine”. She virtually printed money from the casinos.
“Kelly won her money by employing a technique known as edge sorting. It involves capitalizing on casinos that use playing cards in which the edges on either side are unevenly cut by fractions of an inch. In the game of mini-baccarat, in which players do not touch their cards, Kelly employed social-engineering techniques to convince Chinese-speaking dealers to turn certain cards ‘for good luck’. It allowed her to set the decks so that she could recognize the game’s key cards: 6s, 7s, 8s, and 9s. Winning millions becomes a forgone conclusion when you play the Kelly Sun way,” Kaplan wrote.
John Chang, a legand
“Among serious blackjack players, John Chang is a legend. Chang helped found the MIT blackjack team and inspired Kevin Spacey’s Mickey Rosa character in the card-counting film “21”.
“An elder statesman, John Chang has an elite education, decades of playing under his belt, and the capacity to keep gambling long after others of his ilk have moved on to fresh endeavors. Additionally, of course, he helped launch one of the most famous teams in history and refined MIT’s style of play.”
Based on ‘The Players,’ Chang is still playing the game, guarding his shadow identity along the way.
Cancer Math
One of the most astounding stories in the book belongs to Rob Reitzen, who is an advantage player legend. Reitzen created advantage play teams that were so structured he hired people to play “The Reitzen Way” and provided hourly pay, per diems and healthcare plans to members of his team. His signature move, the “Hammer,” involved card counting, card sequencing, and more.
“Max Rubin told me, ‘Rob Reitzen’s one of the sharpest guys in gambling. He’s taken more money out of casinos than just about anyone I know.’ Of course, that alone certified him as a King Kong of advantage players. But one can make the case that Reitzen did more than merely accumulate cash to earn his 2019 entry into the Blackjack Hall of Fame. More notably, he brought important innovations to the battlefield of casino warfare,” Kaplan wrote.
But the amazing part of Reitzen’s story is how he used his gaming math to beat cancer.
“Years ago, when diagnosed with a particularly brutal form of the disease, he listened to grim prognoses from doctors, then started running his own numbers. Dissatisified, he data-mined the Internet for keywords linked to highly-regarded surgeons with well-received white papers. He then used decision-theory math to attack his cancer like he would a new game at Bellagio. Reitzen’s discoveries ran counter to the medical-community’s conventional wisdom. Like all good APs, he trusted the math. Advice from doctors took a back seat. He devised a course of treatment that had the best odds of curing him with the least amount of discomfort and misery in the process. Statistically, it made sense. He rolled the loaded dice, got a little lucky, and overcame what initially seemed like a death sentence.”
In 2003, according to the book, Reitzen helped his friend and playing partner, John Wayne, survive 16 years with liver cancer after doctors gave him 30 days to live.
While writing the article, Kaplan’s newsroom associates started referring to Reitzen as “Cancer Math”.
The Goat, Mattress Mack, and the $150 Million Dollar Man
Kaplan chronicles other famous advantage players like James Grosjean, known in the advantage player world as “The Goat”.
“So, I’m fortunate to have gotten to interview Grosjean on several occasions, watch him play, and sometimes catch him via telephone. We’ve done four stories together and have had our ups and downs.
“He’s smart, computer savvy, mathematically skilled, hateful of casinos, adept at looking like a degenerate player, and blessed with a killer work ethic. The AP equivalent of a complete package, he’ll wear out his shoes in search of exploitable games. Then he’ll sit at the table for hours on end, blissfully grinding away, searching for profitable edges. Grosjean takes what could be an easy life and makes it a brain-busting challenge,” Kaplan wrote.
In ‘The $20 Million Dollar Hedge,’ Kaplan chronicles the spectacular sports bets placed by Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale, the Houston furniture mogul who won the largest payout in sport betting history. Kaplan tells Mattress Mack’s story from the vantage point of Anthony Curtis and “Frank B,” who consult on Mack’s tumultuous sport bets.
Or “58-year-old Alan Woods who used computer technology to win more than $150 million in Hong Kong horse racing during the last 16 years,” Kaplan stated.
“Woods and his partner Bill Benter wondered what would happen if they applied precepts of card counting, with modest-percentage returns and high probability of being barred from casinos, to horse racing, with seemingly unlimited returns and a slower burn on expulsion. Doing something that no one else had tried before, they came up with a system that provided real race odds, while almost every other horse player randomly gambled and, in the process, funded opportunities for Benter and Woods,” Kaplan wrote.
Vegas Matt, David Blaine, and The Ramones
After spending years studying gaming advantage players, Kaplan believes that the tenets of advantage play can be seen in the lives of successful people who used the advantage play edge.
Take the story of Vegas Matt, who retired only to reinvent himself as a YouTube slot influencer. “At the time of this writing, the Vegas Matt page on YouTube has 1.1 million subscribers who can view 1,300 Vegas Matt reels. That has made him YouTube’s big player in a category rife with people putting their casino escapades online. According to SlotsFan.com, he’s the only one in the category of “slots streamers” to have cracked the one-million mark in terms of subscribers.
There’s magician David Blaine, who describes his outrageous stunts by saying, “It’s about figuring out how much the human body can endure.” Blaine is famous for pushing the limits of endurance through stunts like regurgitating frogs, catching a bullet in his teeth in a tin cup, drinking a gallon of kerosene to become a human blow torch and more.
“David loves freaking people out. And, yeah, he’s an amazing advantage player. With most magicians, it’s all focused on them. He realized that when he does a TV special, focusing on the people who are freaking out over what he’s done is really his edge in a weird way, which I thought was pretty interesting,” Kaplan related.
With all the rebels in rock and roll, Kaplan offers up the Ramones as rock’s advantage players. They found their advantage in simplicity. “When everybody was sitting around trying to learn to play guitar like Jimi Hendrix, they realized that if you just knew three cords and you had the right attitude, you could do it. But the Ramones were going to take their shot. And it worked. As one of the guys said, ‘We only knew three chords, but they were the three right chords.’ Good line.” Kaplan said.
‘My Ultra-Rare Cancer and the Doctor/Scientists Who Played It to a Draw’
Kaplan discovered he had a rare form of cancer, and I asked him if he recalled Rob Reitzen’s advantage player move to help him recover.
“Well, I’m like a journalist” was his short answer to how he used advantage play to help him move into remission.
“I was diagnosed with this very rare cancer, and the treatment is brutal chemotherapy. My doctor had prescribed this thing called the Nordic Regimen. It’s really brutal chemotherapy, and it could kill you.
“My doctor was on vacation for a couple weeks, and we’re supposed to start the chemo. And I was like, I’m going to find the guy who knows the most about this disease. There was a doctor at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, which is the best cancer hospital in America.
“He talked online about this disease, and how he’s interested in nontoxic treatments. I got an appointment to see this guy, and I worked really hard to get the appointment. When he saw me, he said, ‘Yeah, you’re not going to die from this.’ I had stage four cancer, and I really wanted to avoid chemotherapy, obviously.
“The protocol was invented by a guy in Australia, in Melbourne, and this guy at Anderson is a big proponent of it. I saw him and quickly wound up with a really great oncologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in Manhattan.
“I’ve been getting treated for the cancer, and I’ve been fine. I never needed chemo. I take six pills a day. Every eight weeks, I go for an infusion of this drug called Rituximab, which kind of lights up the cancer cells, so that my antibodies and the medicine can get at it. And last summer, I had a special blood test done, and there was no cancer evident in my blood. And my bone marrow was like 40% cancer before all this began,” Kaplan related.
Beat the odds
Using advantage play theory to help send cancer into remission is one of the more compelling stories in the book “Advantage Players: Inside the Winning World of Casino Virtuosos, Master Strategists, and Mathematical Wizards.”
From Heidi Fliess, the Hollywood Madam from the 1990s, to legend Phil Ivy, “Advantage Players” is filled with stories about people who beat the odds. According to the book, the thread that ties the advantage player personality together seems to be a deep obsession accompanied by a strong work ethic.
And, as Michel Kaplan puts it at the end of his book, “Please Try This at Home.”
You can find “Advantage Players” using this link here.
Entries in the Faces of Gaming series:
- Michael Kaplan – Writing the book on advantage players, for gambling and for life (now reading)
- Andrew Cardno — Data Scientist, Dyslexic, Taekwondo Master, Author, Futurist, A Modern Renaissance Man Who Really Should be Dead
- Dr. Katherine Spilde – There’s no place like home
- Mattress Mack – Furniture mogul, marketing genius, sports betting champ
- Jeff Connor, owner of Lockdogs – A better mousetrap
- Antonio Perez – An optimistic realist
- Kara Napolitano – Human rights advocate and trafficking expert
- Next Gaming CEO and skill-based slots evangelist Mike Darley
- Dennis Conrad – Executive, founder, creator, speaker, author, columnist, and innovator
- Adam Wiesberg – A journey from sign salesman to dealer to El Cortez GM
- Gary Ellis – Las Vegas entrepreneur
- Alan Feldman – From Mirage and MGM to responsible gaming expert
- John Acres – the Thomas Edison of gaming
- Alex Alvarado — Vice President, Casino Operations at MGM National Harbor and Casino Aficionado
- Lauren Bates — A successful VP at Konami and Chair of Global Gaming Women, all before her 40th birthday
- TJ Tejeda and EZ Baccarat – Reimagining a centuries-old game
- Chris Andrews — Don’t cry for the bookmaker
- Wes Ehrecke — From gasohol and pork chops to president of the Iowa Gaming Association
- Steve Browne – Casino philosopher, master gaming instructor and father of a rocket scientist
- Noah Acres – Shaking up the industry one player record at a time
- Kate Chambers – ICE queen, casino exhibition maven and keeper of fairy dust
- Joe Asher — From the newsstand and racetrack to sports-betting icon
- Paul Speirs-Hernandez — Randomness, chance, reward, and luck
- Ainsworth’s Deron Hunsberger — From finance and sales to president
- Roger Gros — Chronicler of the gaming industry for four decades and counting
- Debi Nutton — Everi board member, gaming trailblazer
- Cache Creek’s Kari Stout-Smith — Dancing backwards in high heels
- Andrew Economon — Making downtown Las Vegas cool again
- Richard Marcus — From the wrong side of the casino tables to the right
- Willy Allison — From New Zealand bloke to world game-protection leader
- Tom Jingoli — From gaming enforcement agent to COO of Konami Gaming
- Tino Magnatta — Interviewing the interviewer, 3,000 and counting since COVID
- Deana and Brady Scott — Still talking shop with the owners of Raving Consulting
- Kevin Parker — “Putting everything into everything I do”
- Laura Penney — Putting in the Work as CEO of Coeur d’Alene Casino
- Andre Carrier — Paying it forward
- Jean Scott — The original casino influencer, still frugal gambling after all these years
- Anika Howard — From Harrah’s First Interactive Employee to CEO of Wondr Nation
- Anthony Curtis — Gambling Guru, Las Vegas Expert, Customer Advocate with Street Cred
- Mark Wayman — An executive recruiter with a brand and something to say
- Melonie Johnson — From rural Louisiana to resort-casino leadership
- Brian Christopher — From actor, Uber driver, and cater waiter to slot celebrity
- Allan Solomon — From accountant and tax lawyer to pioneering casino owner
- Kenny Epstein — A Niche from Nostalgia
Tom Osiecki is a casino consultant who writes an occasional column for CDC Gaming called Faces of Gaming, about interesting and engaging people in the gaming industry.
Tom Osiecki is a marketing and management consultant for Raving Consulting and can be reached for consulting engagements at 775-329-7864.
If you know of a fascinating personality in the gaming industry you would like to see profiled, please send Tom Osiecki an email at tosiecki@cdcgaming.com
