Note: For security reasons, casinos don’t allow players to place strategy cards — or other “things” — on a blackjack table, so just hold the card in your hand, and if you are unsure as to how to play a particular hand, glance at your strategy card for the answer. Strategy cards can reduce your mistakes while playing. The Player: Secrets of a Vegas Whale. Another documentary inspired by a real life story, “The Player” tells the story of Don Johnson, one of the best gamblers in the history of Vegas. Johnson managed to walk away with $15 million in a single winning streak. Johnson is known for. Don Johnson - Blackjack Master, Bensalem, PA. 536 likes 2 talking about this. High stakes blackjack player Don Johnson has absolutely been crushing the gambling scene. In fact, Johnson has earned.

October 3, 2019 General Gambling News by Kristina Vujadinovic

Every casino enthusiast knows the name, Don Johnson – the Atlantic City legend that won millions of dollars playing blackjack. His story is an inspiring tale of how one man managed, not to only to beat the house, but to take down three major casinos in Atlantic City for a $15.078 million between December 2010 and April 2011, without counting cards or any form of cheating.

It is the largest sum ever won in consecutive wins in blackjack, which put Johnson into the casino history books.

Negotiating the Odds – First Step in Johnson’s Strategies

It seems impossible that anyone can win over $15 million fair and square in a period of five months. Yet, Johnson pulled it off. While everybody thought he was counting cards or executing some kind of elaborate scam, the truth is actually much more interesting than that.

He developed his own system that allowed him to beat the house in its own game. According to his interviews, Johnson explained that he didn’t just walk into a casino and start playing. In his opinion, playing casino games in Atlantic city was like throwing money away, as the rules of the game are set to give the house a significant advantage. His goal was to change the odds.

And that’s exactly what he did, by negotiating better terms before even approaching the tables. The tactic that most sophisticated gamblers and high rollers do. Surely, it might not work with average players, but casino management is usually very keen to negotiate a deal with players with a large enough bankroll.

The unfavorable environment in the gambling sector of Atlantic city after the financial crisis of 2008, made casinos desperate for customers, so they offered very beneficial deals for layers. Johnson knew exactly how to take advantage of such a climate.

Perfect Timing

At the time Johnson began his winning streak, AC casinos were seeing a significant drop in revenue and were keen to attract high rollers. Desperate might be the better word since casino marketers were offering deals that no one in the New Jersey gambling industry had ever seen before.

Accepting a greater risk for the possibility of a larger return was the game plan for casinos at the time. For instance, Johnson had a lifetime discount at Borgata casino. He was getting a 20% rebate on each $500,000 he’d lose.

Under the rules before the crisis, this perk would kick in only after he would lose whatever amount he’d won on previous trips to the casino plus an additional half a million. When he realized such rules were skewed against him, he took a break on visiting until the most convenient chance opened up – which it did, since the gambling sector was struck hard by the economic crises in 2008.

Looking to solicit Johnson with more enticing inducements to return to Borgata, the casino executive offered him a historic deal by changing a lifetime discount into a trip-to-trip basis just to make it more appealing.

Due to the casino’s competition for high rollers, once Borgata closed the deal with Johnson, Caesars and Tropicana offered him similar terms. That’s how he was able to negotiate once-in-a-lifetime changes in rules and conditions.

Bulletproof Plan and Sticking to It

Starting his winning streak at the Tropicana which is now operated by Eldorado Resorts, Johnson brought along a boatload of cash and negotiated a deal that effectively allowed him to play a 50/50 game of blackjack and to have a 20% on his losses on a visit-by-visit basis.

Johnson has approved a $100,000-a-hand limit since he had the cash to back himself up. Over the next 12 hours, he managed to work the odds in his favor, rolling with the punches and cashing in on the big wins. For such a short time, he won $6 million which resulted in the Tropicana CEO being fired a week later.

During play, Johnson was closely monitored by video cameras to see if he was using card counting strategies or cheating in any way. It turned out that he was winning fair and square, simply by using the basic blackjack strategy to ensure that every hand was played according to its merits.

Blackjack Secret Code

After he ruined Tropicana’s revenues for the month, Johnson then moved on to other unsuspecting AC venue, generating a win of over $15 million dollars for its legendary five-month winning streak.

By using his rather large bankroll as a hook, Johnson continued playing blackjack via similar negotiation deals at Borgata and Caesars venues. He took down Borgata for $5 million and picked up another $4 million from Caesars before being politely asked to leave the premises.

Although he wasn’t specifically banned from the casinos after having his face printed across the newspapers, it’s not likely that Johnson will be getting such beneficial odds ever again.

The Simplicity of His Strategy

After taking down Atlantic City casinos, he has become a local legend and an inspiration for many gamblers. Players with a taste for huge wins and high risks were eager to find out its secret. The truth is – there isn’t any magic formula.

It all comes down to math and negotiating better terms with casinos. Johnson himself explained that there is no point in risking your cash and playing a casino game where the odds are never going to be in your favor. Hence, the player needs to find a way to improve the odds in order to start to win.

When it comes to blackjack, this means:

• Sticking to the strategy
• Playing the perfect game
• Looking for the best odds

Aside from his skills and intimate gambling industry knowledge, Johnson is also an avid horse racing bettor and has been involved in equestrian performance sports for years. He grew up with racehorses on his uncle’s farm and worked as a professional jockey before being hired to manage Philadelphia Park racetrack back in the 1990s.

Johnson used his experience and keen intellect to serve as a state regulator in Texas, Oregon, and Wyoming, before making enough capital to found the company that develops custom-made software which defines risks and odds on horse wagering.

If Johnson was into making a lot of money, he could have used such background, and his obviously excellent negotiating skills to monetize on it.

However, he opted for blackjack and it turned out to be the smartest move due to a massive win of over $15 million over the course of only 5 months.

Why Blackjack?

Johnson opted for blackjack because of the house edge and the idea that knowledge, intelligence, and discipline are needed when relying on skills and math to beat the house.

When it comes to this, no other game can stand toe-to-toe with 21. It is clearly shown by comparing the odds of other games.

Let’s take a peek at those numbers:

• Roulette – The mathematical advantage of the roulette in Europe is 2.7 percent, whereas in the American version it’s 5.26%.
• Baccarat – Comes with the house edge of 1.06% on the banker, 1.24% on the dealer, and whooping 14.36% on a tie.
• Caribbean Stud Poker – Is at 5.22% not including the casino’s rake.
• Slots – Can be anything between 5% to 12%.
• Craps – Even the closest companion of blackjack, lags with 1.41% or below, although it can go up to 1.6% to 2.7% on some bets.

In comparison, 21’s house edge is below zero by default – meaning if the player executes a proper blackjack strategy in a well-selected game variant the house edge drops down to between 0.2 and 0.4 percent.

However, with the proper strategy executed to perfection, the house edge is close to zero.

The only countermeasures at casinos’ disposal are the rules, which are being changed slowly, gradually, almost invisibly for the last sixty years in order to revert their advantage.

As the industry insider and a professional blackjack player, Johnson was utterly aware. It is exactly the reason why he negotiated the rules so wisely before taking a seat at the tables.

Don Johnson Blackjack Strategy

He knew precisely when was the right time to strike, beat them at their own game, and walk away with over $15 million. It is why he will remain as the legend who only by his own wisdom has conquered the toughest opponent – the house itself.

When I hear Don Johnson, I still think Miami Vice, but maybe that’s because I’m a child of the 1980s.

This post isn’t about the actor, though.

It’s about the high roller who won so much money playing blackjack.

Don Johnson is a high roller who beat casinos in Atlantic City for $15 million dollars in 2010 and 2011.

And he did it without counting cards. (In fact, you can’t count cards in Atlantic City, because they shuffle the cards after every hand.)

Here’s how to win at blackjack like Don Johnson did:

Get a Huge Bankroll

Almost all the steps on this list presuppose that you have a huge bankroll. The casinos allowed Don Johnson to play for $100,000 per hand. Getting the casinos to offer betting limits that high is the subject of another step below.

But before you can play for $100,000 per hand, you need a large enough bankroll to handle that action. I don’t have $100,000 lying around to bet on a single hand of blackjack.

But Don Johnson was playing head-to-head versus a blackjack dealer, which means he was getting in probably 200 hands per hour. Of course, you don’t lose every hand you play. You don’t win every hand, either.

But you have a reasonable chance of losing one or two hands in a row early, so you need a minimum bankroll to handle that kind of action.

If you’re an aggressive gambler who’s willing to accept a reasonably large risk of ruin (going broke), you can probably get by with a bankroll of $20,000,000.

If you’re more conservative, you might want to have an even larger bankroll—say $100 million.

How many people reading this blog post can come up with that much money?

I’m not sure, but I am sure that you can take these principles and use them to improve your gambling.

Even if you’re a low roller, you’ll benefit from making sure you have a reasonable blackjack bankroll. Even if you’re playing for $5 per hand, you can draw some lessons from this bullet point.

If you’re playing for $5 per hand, you should have a minimum bankroll of $1000. $5000 is much safer.

Take whatever stakes you’re playing for, multiply that bet by between 200 and 1000, and that’s the recommended size of a bankroll you should have before sitting down at the blackjack table. The larger your bankroll compared to the amount of your average bet, the less likely you are to go broke.

Unless you can find a way to get lucky, though, it doesn’t matter how large your bankroll is. If you’re playing a negative expectation game, you’ll eventually go broke. The only question is how long it will take.

The rest of this post details how Don Johnson improved his chances of getting lucky.

But you can’t get lucky if you have an insufficient bankroll.

Also, when I talk about a gambling bankroll, I’m talking about money you’ve set aside specifically for the purposes of gambling. You should be able to maintain your current lifestyle even if you lost your entire bankroll.

If you need that money for rent, mortgage payments, groceries, or anything else in your life, you shouldn’t be gambling with it at all.

Learn to Play Perfect Cards

Tony Rodio, the CEO of the Tropicana in Atlantic City, said this about Don Johnson:

“He plays perfect cards.”

What does that mean?

In blackjack, you have a finite set of situations. You know what all of them are when you sit down—you can have one of a limited number of hard totals or soft totals, and you’ll be facing a dealer who has an upcard that’s worth between ace and ten.

In every one of those situations, there’s only one correct decision.

That decision is correct because it offers the highest expected value.

What does that mean?

The expected value is what a bet is worth when compared to your chances of winning and losing it.

In other words, if you hit a hand with a hard total of 21, your expected value is negative. Any card you take will bust, which means you’ll lose your bet. That’s an extreme example, but it illustrates why your decisions affect the potential outcome.

Experienced blackjack players understand that the mathematically correct decision in every situation is called basic strategy. All those articles about blackjack that you read on the Internet which cite that the house edge for the game is incredibly low assume that you’re playing with perfect basic strategy.

Most players don’t use or understand basic strategy. Depending on how far these players deviate, they’re giving up about 1% to 3% to the casino.

A great blackjack game with a house edge of only 0.5% might only offer a house edge of 4% to an inexperienced player who’s making lots of strategy mistakes.

Here’s an example of a basic strategy decision:

You’ve been dealt a king and a 3. That’s a hard total of 13.

The dealer has a 3 showing.

What do you do in this situation?

The mathematically correct decision here is to stand on your total of 13.

This seems like a low total to stand on, but the dealer has a good chance of busting in this situation. You might as well let her try.

Any 9 or 10 will bust your hand, and keep in mind that there are 16 cards in the deck worth 10. That’s a total of 20 cards that will bust your hand.

You’re better off letting the dealer bust.

You don’t have to be a high roller to benefit from mastering basic strategy in blackjack. No matter what your goals are as a gambler, understanding and using basic strategy will improve your chances of achieving those goals.

Understand Which Rules Favor You

Blackjack is one game with some basic rules, but a lot of the rules vary from casino to casino and from table to table within a casino. Some of those rules improve the casino’s chances of winning your money, while others improve your chances of winning.

Don Johnson was intimately familiar with which rules favored him and which rules favored the casino.

Here’s an example:

Most casinos in Atlantic City use 8 decks, but Don Johnson got the casino to agree to playing with a 6-deck shoe. That’s a difference of 0.03%.

That’s not a huge difference, but Johnson knew that every 1/100 of a percent counted.

Here’s another example:

The casino allowed him to split and double down on up to 4 hands at one time. If this included being able to re-split and double down on aces, this reduced the house edge by 0.3%, which is significant.

In fact, Don Johnson negotiated game conditions where the house edge was only 0.25%, which is better than almost any blackjack game you can find. Often, your best case scenario is a blackjack game with a house edge of 0.5%, and Johnson cut that amount in half.

How does this apply to low rollers?

If you’re acutely aware of the difference that the rules make, you can choose only the best games, mathematically. If you don’t know what difference these rules make, you can’t choose the best games—you’re just guessing and hoping.

Guessing and hoping are not winning strategies for blackjack (or anything else, for that matter).

Find a Desperate Casino

This is where Don Johnson’s experiences got interesting. In late 2010 and early 2011, the casinos in Atlantic City were suffering financially. They were desperate to turn things around.

Most casinos have limits on how much risk they’ll accept from a blackjack player. They often won’t accept bets above a certain amount. Smaller casinos usually limit blackjack players to $500 per hand. Larger casinos might have limits in the $1000 to $5000 range.

The house edge in blackjack is low, which means that players can go on winning streaks almost as easily as they can go on losing streaks.

If the casino allows blackjack players to bet $100,000, $200,000, or even $500,000 per hand, they risk losing a larger amount of their quarterly profits. In the case of Don Johnson, they lost even more.

These casinos wouldn’t have offered Don Johnson the high betting limits and favorable rules they did if they weren’t desperate to get some extra money in their coffers that quarter.

You might not be able to find a “desperate” casino.

But you can compare the casinos’ games and rules to choose where you want to play. This doesn’t just apply to blackjack. Video poker players can find casinos offering great odds, too.

Negotiate with that Casino

This is where the rubber hit the road in Don Johnson’s situation. I already wrote about how he negotiated better rules for the game and how he got them to raise their usual limits.

But that’s the least of what he negotiated.

In fact, without negotiating this next item, he wouldn’t have pulled off these huge wins. Even if the house has an edge of only 0.25%, the casino will eventually win all your money if you play long enough.

Casinos offer high rollers “loss rebates”. These are basically discounts on the amount of money you lose. The slots club is a small-scale version of this practice.

High rollers can negotiate deals where they get back 10% of their losses in the form of rebates. If a high roller loses $100,000 at the blackjack table, the casino gives him back $10,000. His net loss is only $90,000 at that point.

This doesn’t turn the game into a positive expectation game, though. A 10% discount on your losses just means it will take you longer to lose all your money.

But you’ll eventually still lose all of it.

The casinos in Atlantic City were so strapped for cash that they started offering rebates of 20%.

Even then, most casinos offer these rebates as a lifetime discount. If you have a winning trip, you lose the benefit of those rebates.

For example, suppose a casino offered you a 20% rebate on your losses of up to $500,000 on a lifetime basis.

You spend a weekend at the casino. You win $100,000 that weekend.

You go back a few weeks later. You lose $200,000 that weekend.

The $100,000 you won the weekend before is deducted before the 20% is kicked in.

But Don Johnson negotiated a trip by trip rebate. His wins on previous trips didn’t affect his rebates on subsequent trips.

He’s playing a close to break-even game, remember, because he negotiated those good rules conditions for himself.

Now he’s only risking $80,000 every time he tries to win $100,000.

It doesn’t take a math genius to realize that a close to 50/50 shot at winning $100k when you’re only risking $80k is a profitable situation.

Normally, casinos use computer models to predict how well they’ll do against a specific player in a specific situation. The managers at these 3 Atlantic City casinos missed their opportunity with Don Johnson:

1. The Borgata
2. Caesars
3. The Tropicana

How’d it turn out for Johnson?

He won $5.8 million at the Tropicana.

Don Johnson Blackjack Secrets

He won $5 million at the Borgata.

He won $4 million at Caesars.

His total winnings at the 3 casinos were close to $15 million.

Don Johnson is now one of the most famous gamblers in the world. He didn’t cheat, and he didn’t count cards. He just played perfect basic strategy and negotiated great rules for himself.

Conclusion

Most of my readers can’t duplicated Don Johnson’s achievements as a blackjack player. Most people don’t have the bankroll for it.

You can take several lessons from his success, though. It’s important to understand how the rules affect the house edge. For that matter, it’s important to understand the math behind the game, period.

You should always be willing to shop around. You should also always be willing to negotiate with the casinos for a better deal.

Can you win $15 million in Atlantic City?

Probably not.

Even if you have the bankroll, the skill, and the temperament to do what Don Johnson did, you probably don’t have the temperament.

Don Johnson Blackjack Secrets Game

It’s still fun to read about someone who beat the casinos, though.