“The #1 Loophole!” - How VegasMatt Secretly Beats The Casino For Millions of Dollars

20:06Graham Stephan:So my understanding with that is that there are certain payouts that need to be hit on certain slots. And if you identify what slots will pay out when and you have, let's say, yeah, like a like a 10 to 100 ,000 dollar bankroll, you could theoretically just say, I know I'm going to put in a maximum of 100 ,000, but I'll get back 115 ,000. Is that kind of how it works? Yeah, kind of. I mean, conceptually, there are certain machines that have must hit by, you know, and those are the easiest ones to explain. There's a lot more than that. But let's say you go to a machine that says it must hit by 10 ,000.

20:42And let's say it resets at 9 ,000 usually, and it moves five cents for every X dollars that you put in. I forget it. But I mean, you can just put money in and hit the button and then see how much it moves to figure out how much money has to take to move it. Right. So for every, to move the meter$1, you know, it's going to take$1 ,000 or $10 ,000 of coin in. And then what these guys do, obviously it's not me because I can't even figure it out or explain it right now, but I know how it works. Uh, so they'll add up. Okay. It will take, $172 ,000 of coin in for this meter to get to$10 ,000. So you know you're going to get$10 ,000 at the end.

21:28And let's say that the meter's at X right now, and they know that that machine has a 92 % return to player. So mathematically, every dollar you put in, you're losing$0.08. cents. So you multiply that 172 ,000 of coin in times whatever, and then somehow they figure out a way mathematically, if you played this same play a million times, you would have a mathematical advantage on this particular play. And that doesn't mean that you're going to win every time because I've sat and I've done live streams and let's play this machine until it hits. and mathematically we were supposed to win$1 ,000 or$2 ,000 or something like that and we lost 20 or 40.

22:13Like, I mean, if you have a run of bad luck, but you can't outrun the math in the long term. And so I feel, and I've talked about it many times, it would make the greatest movie. Like there is a movie in the behind the scenes world of advantage slot play. It's an incredible world that most people haven't the foggiest idea about. I walked up to a machine the other day and someone had played it. It has a must hit by 75 and someone had left it at 74 and they must just have been oblivious or run out of money and literally walked up, pushed the button like four times and won like$11 ,000. It was like they had left$10 ,000 on the ground.

22:56Graham Stephan:So once you're right on the cusp of the must hit, do you just max bet every single time? Because the bonus will be higher if it's max bet. as opposed to minimum bet, right? It depends on the game, but that, like, in the case of a must-hit, like a progressive, it's going to be, let's say it's 10 ,000 or 100 ,000 is what they usually are. It doesn't matter if you're betting a dollar or$50, it's going to be the same. You're going to get that entire amount. It just takes longer to move the meter if you're betting less. In this particular case, all of those things were bet-dependent. So this was on, I think, like$18.75 per spin.

23:34And that was where they left the 74 on a must hit by 75.

23:39Graham Stephan:Are there any ways to get advantage play if it's not a progressive bet? The people who can actually beat the casinos are next level smart, is all I can say, from those that I've heard about. And they do everything, like everything to maximize their return. Like, you know, if there's a gift giveaway, you know, or if it's like the holiday giving guide that's going on right now at a lot of the casinos, you know, they'll go and they'll play on a day when if you swipe your card on a Tuesday, you get 10 times points. And then they'll play 99.8 % video poker for 15 hours and rack up an absolute ton of points because the 0.02 % that they're losing mathematically on the video poker.

24:30Now, they might get wrecked for$50 ,000 and not get a Royal and whatnot, but mathematically, they're winning and they're getting all these points for the holiday shopping extravaganza where they know that they can buy Walmart gift cards or whatever it is that is actually like dollar for dollar value or something that maybe is even worth more that they'll in turn sell on eBay. I mean, it's nuts. But yes, if you maximize every possible angle to maximize your play, you can make money.

25:03Graham Stephan:Do you think that's worth that person's time, assuming they're not retired and have nothing else to do? It depends on the person and how big they're willing to play and how much they play and how, again, how often they do. The problem is most people that try to do advantage slot play are also degenerate gamblers. And so like me, for example, I'll do something and it's like, okay, that's only like four spins until it does what I want it to do or whatever. but then I'll be like, ah, I want to play a little bit more, you know, or like this game, you play it whenever the number of balls in the pot are over 15, or there's this many rich little piggies or whatever the case may be.

25:49And there's, you know, there's math on it, but then hit it and they're like, ah, I want to play a little more and do a few more spins. Every single spin that you do, that's not a mathematical advantage. It makes you lose money. But I would go out on a limb and say that there are people, not many, but some, that make seven figures a year playing slots.

26:08Graham Stephan:What about Mickey Mays, who claims that he has a mathematical advantage with Baccarat? I'd love for him and WBG or W2Jesus to sit down and talk about that sometime. I just don't know how that is possible. We could try to arrange that conversation. I mean, one thing I say about him is he definitely knows how to get airtime. And maybe he does. But I don't see how he can do it. I've tried to figure it out. Yeah. He said he would sell the rights to how it works for$20 million. And I tried to do my own investigation. I'm like, how on earth is it possible to beat the casino at Baccarat? Yeah. Yeah. I have heard, I mean, again, it, I don't know the guy, you know, and I, and I see some of the things that people say about me and just the level of just untruth and jealousy, and then just, just completely speaking out of their ass, so to speak.

27:11And I don't want to do that to him. Some of the, I can tell you this, that some of the stuff I've heard him say, doesn't really make sense to me. He's a good talker and he's says some things, but some of it just there's a logic gap and i'd love to know but i don't believe that that game unless like the phil ivy thing uh where he uh with that the lady over in uh what was it in whatever singapore or wherever it was that they were playing in like where he he could tell from the back of the deck whether what the card was you know um well phil ivy kind of is the tiger woods of that's what i I was thinking they're goats.

27:49Yeah. Great guy too, by the way. I hung out with him. I've met some neat people in this whole world, but like that, that happened. But I mean, it's, it's so random and it's just, it's player or banker. It's like flipping a coin and how can you beat flipping a coin? I don't think it is possible. There's no way to count at Baccarat. There's just, I mean, I don't know. These are way better questions for WBG. Who knows everything about gambling? But all I can say is that Mickey Mays looks like he's having a lot of fun and he gets a lot of attention and he gets a lot of airtime and he seems to fly around in jets and I've seen him have millions of dollars of cash and he was a young guy and I'll bet he's having a blast.

28:28So more power to him, that's what I say.

28:30Graham Stephan:What's the biggest loss you've ever seen off camera? Well, last night, we were down about$562 ,000. You were down? I mean, not me, but me and my son and a couple of friends were playing something and just kind of sharing the result and I was waking up and getting text updates And, uh, I I've seen, I mean, my other, another friend, uh, also yesterday, I'm, I'm doing, I do a lot of gambling. He, he, uh, he lost, I think almost$400 ,000 in about 20 minutes. Um, and then he went to another casino and won 2 million. Uh, I've just, I see some pretty big losses, but me personally, I don't like to lose a lot, you know, like I've seen it and I've been, I, and I've had little slivers.

29:17of the action. But I just, if I lost 50 or$100 ,000, I'd be so mad.

29:23Graham Stephan:What's the biggest loss you've ever personally experienced off camera? Probably like$30 ,000, something like that. I'm not like, I don't know, I like my money. You know, I don't want to lose it all. So yeah, I haven't lost that much money myself off camera. But I do now have a lot of friends that are really big, crazy gamblers and that gamble big. And they lost a lot of money. How do you think experiencing loss at such extreme levels and winning at such extreme levels affects your just like dopamine receptors? And do you think that, have you noticed it's more difficult for you to be excited or to feel bored or like these other emotions when you're not gambling?

30:08Yeah, I mean, I would imagine like that whole dopamine. I mean, I'm not a biologist. I don't know. What would that, not when you're a biology or physio, whatever. I don't know anything about chemistry or whatever. I don't know how it works, but I've heard this dopamine stuff is good. Like that's what you get when you look at the TikTok or whatever, you know, I mean, gambling is a, is a, is a rush. It's just like anything else, I suppose, that is like maybe an addictive behavior and whatnot. So yeah, I mean, it is, it is fun when you win and it is depressing when you lose. and I guess that that's a dopamine thing.

30:48And I mean, they have meetings about it, you know, for people who get like addicted to gambling and stuff. So be careful with it. I mean, we try to do a pretty good job of telling people, you know, gamble within your means and we show our losses. I mean, we were, I think, one of the first groups to really show that you lose a lot. There's actually a couple of casinos that don't want us to make content there because they don't like when you show that you lose, which I thought was interesting. But the reality of gambling is you're going to lose. Like, unless you're, you know, some Rain Man level person, you know, who's way smarter than the average person and way more disciplined, you're going to lose.

31:26So it should be recreational. But yeah, it's a lot of fun. I mean, I do it, I did it before I had a channel. It was when I, you know, if I was bored, I would go down and play video poker. I like it, it's fun. I've been doing it since I was in my 20s. I came to Vegas like the first time in like 1984. Been coming here at least once a month for 40 years. So I love it. I always have. But yeah, it's like playing with fire, you know? Gotta be careful.

31:54Graham Stephan:How do casinos actually make their money? Is it through gambling? Is it through selling rooms? You know, I don't own one, but I'd like to. I'm pretty sure it has to be mostly from the gambling. But I think these days now there's like all, you know, there's a lot of ancillary revenue sources like, you know, those super clubs and all these expensive restaurants and the shopping and so forth. The model's probably fairly elaborate, but there can't be anything more profitable than having a machine that every time someone pushes a button, you make 8 % of the money. You know, I mean, think about it. If you have a bank of machines, they're playing the long game.

32:28Yeah, someone's going to hit a jackpot over here, but they almost never even have a losing day or week, certainly not month you know i mean it's so if someone's playing a hundred dollars a spin you know it's like spin spin spin spin eight dollars to the every single time that button is pushed it's an enormous amount of money that they make on on slots do they make more money from the high rollers or from the people making smaller bets this would be conjecture i but i would think the bigger players because if someone's betting a thousand dollars a spin right uh you know that's a thousand dollars thousand dollars thousand dollars if someone's putting a dollar a spin you know they'd have to do it a thousand times to get the same coin in but then there's more smaller players playing small so i don't know that would be a better question for someone who owns a casino and has looked at the math but it seems like it would take a long time to match the coin in of the bigger players.

33:27But again, there are, I'm thinking, I'm just like, I'm making this up as I talk because you walk through a casino, you know, you got the big part with just all those machines where the average person's probably betting$5 a spin. And then you go into the high limit room where maybe the average person is betting$100 a spin. Again, making that up, but it's, that's 20X. So the question is, are there 20 times more people outside on the floor playing than there is in here? I'm not sure.

33:51Graham Stephan:But then why with Dana White, has he been banned from some casinos. I don't think he's an edge player, but I don't think he's an advantage player. I've played with him. I can tell you he is not. So why did you see him do something that was - Well, I mean, he does some crazy stuff. Like, I mean, he, well, not crazy. He's, you know, he's an instinct player. Like, I mean, he doesn't play even basic strategy. Like, you know, where there's a mathematical strategy. Like there's a black and white answer to every single situation in Blackjack, for example. and I've seen him make plays, you know, he'll stay on 16 if he just, you know, he feels like it, or, you know, he'll, uh, he'll hit on something that he's not supposed to, or he'll double something that he's not supposed to, or whatever the case may be.

34:39Like he plays kind of by his own rules, but I can tell you that sometimes there are some people who are lucky. He's obviously a lucky guy. I mean, president of the UFC, everyone likes him. He's a great, he is an amazing dude. he's maybe lucky and if you beat casinos for a lot of money they don't like that they don't still

34:59Graham Stephan:like if you're not an advantage player can't they see it expanded over a long enough time horizon and be like okay like you know if you bet you know coin in 50 million dollars here this year we're going to end up retaining some of that i think maybe the thing with him is he just bets like for maybe a smaller property or something like that uh i think he bets so big that they just are scared of the swings, you know, like, I mean, that's why these, you know, they had these places have limits, you know, I mean, like, you know, the most you can bet is 10 ,000, you know, also to prevent people from martingaling, I would imagine.

35:31But, you know, some places don't want to take a bet bigger than 10 ,000 or$20 ,000, you know. Have you ever martingaled? Oh, yeah, we've done videos while proving it doesn't work.

35:40Graham Stephan:Did you ever successfully martingale? What's the worst you've ever lost martingale again uh i mean we we successfully martingale every single time until you don't you know and then i mean it can get real bad real quick so a lot of times like we'll play especially online you know we'll you you bet a hundred dollars and then so 100 200 400 800 1600 3200 6400 you know then you're pretty soon your table max you know so seven hands in a row, until you lose seven hands in a row, you're winning a hundred dollars every time. And most, you can dodge the bullet quite a few times. You know, we'll sit there and we'll, we'll do that.

36:20One, two, four, eight, 16, 32, 64. And you know, we'll win, win, win, win, win,$100,$100,$100, win a few thousand dollars, right? It works out great until it doesn't when you just lost one, three seven whatever i mean it's it becomes you know 10 15 20 000 loss the one time you lose seven in a row you have to add that up but 6 400 plus 3 200 plus whatever 1600 uh and and that one time it happens it just devastates all the money you made along the way it absolutely scientifically has been proven by us many times does not work you will get wrecked and what about on the topic

37:00Graham Stephan:of getting wrecked. Have you ever seen people freak out at the casino? What's the worst you've ever seen? Not really. Like I've seen those videos of the guys throwing a chair through the machine and whatnot, but no, but I know like what's even worse, I think is when you just see someone who's just devastated and they're just quiet, you know, they're on a cruise and, you know, day three of the cruise, you know, they have their credit cards maxed out and they have no money left. And they're just kind of sitting there, you know, pretending to play bingo or, you know, I mean, I don't know, like there's not it's terrible but i haven't seen anyone really lose their mind you know but i know it happens and it's it's tragic but it can happen you go on tilt i mean i've done it you know where i just i just i just i just get oh i'm gonna get it back i'm gonna get it back and then you just end up losing way more than you were were comfortable doing and it's it's sad but i haven't seen any real big temper tantrums you hear about them what about the rumor that some of the slots closer to the door pay more than those further in the casino yeah it's funny every almost every single question we've had as a question of the day on our show because wbg does a question of the day i don't believe that that is true i don't think that they do that i think the you know the machines are set and to change the the payout you know the hold it's it's a lot of effort so usually they just set them and forget them and they have a policy like what their machines are set out for.

38:25Again, I'm not 100 % sure. Like I'm not, I can't speak in absolutes, but from the people that I listen to, what I understand, I think that that is a fallacy. I don't think that there's any truth to that.

38:37Graham Stephan:And what do you think about online gambling? Is that pulling people away from physical casinos? I don't know. I think people who like to gamble like to gamble. Like I really like online gambling. I mean, there's no, it doesn't smell like smoke. You can do it from the comfort of your home. I mean, not in Nevada, but like in, like I'll go to Atlantic city or, you know, to Pennsylvania or wherever, you know, some of the states where it's legal and I really enjoy it. You know, I mean, when they took us, uh, to a, um, what was it? A basketball game. Is it Detroit Pistons? Yeah. Uh, and I went to the game and I'm not a huge sports guy and it was a kind of a blow out and I was kind of bored.

39:16So I was like sitting there on the court side on my phone, gambling, playing Ultimate X and a couple of different games. I really like, I quite enjoy the online gambling, but I guess if someone has, you know, an X number of dollars available annually for their gambling budget, right? If they're gambling online and losing some of their money, that might take money away from them, what they spend in the offline casinos. I know that that area is really growing and a lot more and more people are gambling online and betting online and so forth. And yeah, it's very controversial, but I quite enjoy it.

39:53I like it. And then the thing that a lot of people don't know that I think might be interesting is that the return to player is way better online than it is in the casinos. I mean, so you can look on the game, there's like an info tab and you can look what the return to player is and on a game like a six ball three coin you know your classic dragon link s type of game there's a lot of those games online as well same basic premise okay i want six balls and or three coins online i've seen rtps like 96.4 and probably the best you'll see uh in a regular uh physical casino is about 92 and that and that's more than a 4 % difference.

40:39It's like almost like twice or three times as good than it is. So it's good RTP. It's good entertainment. Do it from the comfort of your home. As long as you do it responsibly, I think it's good. And I don't know how much it's hurt the online casino business. I wouldn't have that data.

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41:36Just quit gambling.

41:37Graham Stephan:Never push a button again. Never bet on something again. I don't think so right now. For$20 million. After tax, just in your bank account right now. I'd have to consult with my team of advisors. What do you think, guys? No, I don't think we would either. He just looks over and his son's like sitting in the couch. Just shaking his head. No. I just don't think that would be a good financial decision for us right now. you know because we uh we doing very well from gambling and it's a lot of fun you know and uh between the three of us you know i mean that would only be like seven million for me what am i gonna do seven million now it would i mean i don't know like you a money guy a million like when i was a kid being a millionaire was like a big deal you know equivalent to probably what five is today okay well i mean i'm a lot older than you like i think i mean that term like was probably coined in the 20s or something like that.

42:32So like a 1970s millionaire or 80s millionaire is probably a 20 millionaire. So I think 20 million is a number that you could, if one had 20 million after tax and you invested it intelligently, I mean, this is your guy's area, but you could live very comfortably on the interest on$20 million forever. You can't have a jet though. And so I still have big goals. If you look in the last chapter of my best-selling book, The Art of Being Lucky, you know, that's one of my dreams is to have my own plane. And you just need a lot of money.

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45:56Graham Stephan:Do you ever not want to gamble? Sometimes. Like if you get on a really bad losing streak. I mean, we've had conversations where it's like, I'm quitting. This is stupid. you know, like I've gotten frustrated and, and it never lasts more than a day or two, but like we had the worst losing streak and, uh, WBG always says, you know, winning streaks and losing streaks. So I'm last longer than you'd ever expect them. He said it better than that, but the essence is we just, we just couldn't win. And it was getting, it was bad, you know, cause like our content is like, okay, welcome to the Vegas Matt losing his ass show, you know?

46:34And then like day after day after day after day we just we you know let's play this let's play huff and puff let's play dragon link let's play this and just lose lose lose lose i mean it was good for the audience to see you know there's no magic you're gonna get wrecked um and so when i lose a lot and then and just over and over and over and over again but it i mean now that big jackpot's right around the corner you know when we hit that 400 000 that was so that was insane and that just that just made up What was the reaction to that? I was very enthusiastic. You know, a lot of times I'll do like a victory lap where like I run around the machines.

47:11I think that's one of the reasons when I first got started, I'm a very emotional, you know, I mean, I wear my, like what you see is what you get kind of a thing. And so like when I win, I'm elated. And when I lose, I'm mad. And that honest reaction, I think, is what kind of have people like. And so the first video that EJ ever uploaded was me, I got a royal flush. and I was just all excited. And it was just my reaction that really got the thing to kind of go viral. And that's what started the whole thing. How long did that high last after winning$400 ,000? I don't know. It's still kind of lasting, you know, because we have like a gambling fund.

47:51And when that gambling fund is empty and like every day I have to like go to the bank and get$10 ,000 and bring it to the casino, know, you know, and say, OK, here's for our video today. Doing that day after day after day after day, you know, starts to get kind of annoying. With the$400 ,000, all of a sudden the whole the coffers were full and I haven't had to reach in my pocket now for a couple of months, you know, so maybe that there's still some residual high from that. But I mean, it was it was definitely, you know, elation for a day or two, I would say.

48:29Graham Stephan:How do they pay you$400 ,000? Is it cash? Is it a check? Is it a wire? A lot of it just depends, but I took a check for a lot of it and then some cash. But, you know, I mean, I don't want to walk around with that much cash. But, I mean, they'll pay you however you want. They'll wire it. They'll give you a check. They'll give you cash. They'll leave it on an account for you. What's the most cash that you've seen in the casino? Probably half a million quite often I've seen. You know, again, not mine, but I mean, I've seen a lot of people coming with a lot of cash. I saw Steve Will Do It just dumped a million dollars in front of Red Rock.

49:05Graham Stephan:Did you see that clip? No. Yeah. He just takes a duffel bag full of a million dollars and drops it and just shakes it out. And there's a million dollars spread in the valet. And he's like, spillage! And just has a million dollars in cash laughing at it. I'm convinced he has a money tree because, I mean, all he's ever doing is just giving people Rolexes and cars and, I mean, and spending money and gambling and just, I've seen him lose a lot. Maybe he wins a lot too, but man, he just seems like he has an endless supply of money, that guy. I saw he just gave, I think it was like$750 ,000 to Karina Kopp over the last month.

49:46Graham Stephan:It was like a GT. I've seen her on. GT3 RS, Rolexes, cash, bags. It's a lot. Yeah, he must like her. See, I just want to know what his taxes are like. I have no idea. Like, how do you write that off? Hopefully he pays them. Yeah. Because he would have to either give someone else a 1099, and then they would be responsible for the taxes, or he's paying it at his highest tax bracket. Yeah. So it costs him like 40 % more to pay the other person's taxes on the gifts he's giving. How? I could text him. Uh, now he's, he's, he's, sometimes he's really good about responding. Sometimes he takes a while, you know, how these famous people are sometimes.

50:25Uh, but I don't know, he doesn't, he doesn't strike me as the type of person who would sit still long enough to answer that question. And, or he probably doesn't know. And I, you know, someone else does that for him. My guess is my guess.

50:36Graham Stephan:It's probably gotta be someone else. Yeah. Well, hopefully he's handling it, you know, because I mean, taxes and stuff, all that stuff's really important. You know, I always tell EJ, you know, stay on top of all that stuff and pay your taxes and don't get behind and you know all that is because if you they some of these people that are famous like athletes and celebrities and stuff like that they'll make all this money and then they'll buy all these cars and all this jewelry and all this and they'll forget this one little detail of their taxes and then all of a sudden they have a career-ending injury and then they owe you know 13 million dollars in taxes and they're dead broke so that's not good but i'm steve's been doing this for quite a while and he's a very very talented guy and that's cool We had a million, you know, you gotta be careful with that, that much cash around, you know?

51:19Graham Stephan:Yeah. Speaking of that, what do you think about the recent law that passed that now you could only write off 90 % of gambling losses? I don't like any taxes any more than the next guy. You know, I mean, some people, I hope someone was saying the other day, you know, like their income tax was originally just a 3 % tax in World War II and it was supposed to be temporary. And now it's like 40 % of everything you make and there's taxes and taxes on taxes. and taxes and I just registered my car and it was, you know,$3 ,500 to register my car for the year. Then if you live in a state where there's state taxes and so forth and so on, and then the gambling, they tax the live in daylights out of these, out of the casinos and the casinos almost always win.

52:01And then in the rare event where somebody wins more than$1 ,200, they want to get a tax on that. I think it's ridiculous. And then I also think that it's not good, you know, cause like if you gamble and you get$100 ,000 worth of W2Gs, you know, and, but you have more than$100 ,000 of losses in the past, you could just say, well, I didn't win. It was a net loss. Now they're saying you got to pay taxes on 10, you know, so if you lose a million and you win a million, you still owe taxes on a hundred thousand. I don't like it. I don't think it's fair. I think it's dumb. I think it's going to really hurt the professional, you know, like the poker players and the professional gambling world and sports betting.

52:39And I really hope that that gets repealed and we'll see what happens. I've heard some rumors that it might.

52:45Graham Stephan:Yeah. Why do you think it passed? Who do you think was responsible for that? And what do you think is the objective of that? Just from your own opinion. Yeah. I feel bad because like, I don't know anything. I'm just a guy that gambles. Yeah. You know, I mean, I think it passed because it was part of some bill that like nobody read. and it's like they just sit in these rooms and then all they do is argue with each other and they say, these people are bad. These people are bad. And then, you know, they try to get you to vote for them. And then if they get people to vote for them, then they do something and these guys do something and they hate each other and then they just fight all the time.

53:23And then eventually they all get really tired because they've been in this room for like seven days straight and someone's saying something has to get done and then somehow someone puts pressure on some people and then enough people vote for it, that if something passes finally, and probably 90 % of them haven't even read everything that's in there. That's my layman's understanding.

53:45Graham Stephan:I'm going to give you my theory. Go ahead. I'm like 80 % sure this is correct. I want to hear it. This was just put in a much larger tax bill. It was snuck in there. Yeah. People weren't going to vote that out. My assumption, my pure speculation guess, is that it's probably the prediction markets. someone associated with, for instance, as an example, like Kalshi or Polymarket or some of these prediction markets where it's not considered gambling. And they could carve out and they say, okay, 90 % of your gambling losses are deductible, but that doesn't apply to us. Because why else would they do it?

54:18Graham Stephan:They want to dissuade people from gambling. But prediction markets, they're making the case that this isn't gambling. This is a hedge you're making with an educated bet. It is not random chance. And because of that, they could sneak in the little bill that gets passed and more people now go into prediction markets that's my theory i think the whole politics thing is really interesting it's not something that we ever talk about because you know it'd be really dumb to talk about something that would alienate half your audience and i don't really have that strong of opinions on any of it i just think it's all really dumb and they should just everyone should just get along and there should be like a law that you can't just spend all your time hating on your opponents and talking crap why don't you just spend your energy coming up with intelligent solutions.

54:58Now I realize it's infinitely more complicated. I was on the board of my HOA and after a year I resigned because I couldn't get anything done. And every decision that we made, half the people hated it and half people, you know, didn't. So, um, I didn't like it at all, but I think that the gambling thing is kind of interesting and it's just the same as everything else. It's all money and power and so forth. So So you've got the, you know, you've got the casinos, you've got the online casinos, you've got the sweepstakes casinos, you've got the prediction markets. And these guys make a big donation to this guy's campaign in this state.

55:32So it's legal in this state, but not in this state because this guy's tighter with this group. And it's all just a big racket to keep all the politicians' pockets lined and all the lobbyists and everyone. And there's just so much money. and then they don't want to make logical laws or make things universally, like let adults make their own decisions because then that would stop the whole shell game of everyone getting in everyone's pockets and having to pay all these lawyers to figure out all these complicated things. And I'm just, quite honestly, I don't like it. It's nonsense. And it's like, it's like...

56:12And gambling or smoking or drinking or anything, it's like, do we want to live in a totalitarian state where someone tells you, you can do this and not this and, you know, whatever? Or it's like, are we big people? Let's just make our own decisions and do what we want. We don't need the government telling us what to do and not do. I guess if I were to ever talk about politics, that's what I would say. It's just, I think it's a big scam and, you know, there's like so much waste and they waste so much time. I mean, I don't know, like maybe, again, I don't have the answer. If I was president, I wouldn't fix it.

56:48But like it makes something like a universal sales tax or something like that. But like the IRS code is like 80 billion pages long. Nobody understands it. Nobody knows how to do it. It's like, oh, I just hope you don't get audited. And then even the auditors, I've been audited three times in my life. You know, they sometimes can't even agree on things. And the amount of records that they would expect one to keep to be able to be within like the letter of the law, it's just a big extortion game, in my opinion, from the people.

57:17Graham Stephan:That was a phenomenal rant. I could see you behind a big podium speaking this to an audience, gaining a bunch of votes. Well, I don't want to run for office, man. It's a thankless job. And again, I'm not saying that, you know, like all like some, I'm sure politicians are very nice, nice people, you know, very nice people on both sides. but I'm sure there's some, they're very nice people, but I'm just saying it, just looking at the gambling thing, because there's this, there's online, there's offline, there's the, the tribal gaming, there's this, and these are all, they all have politicians that they are in with.

57:56And then they're, they're, they're just jockeying and then they're just, and then they're trying to undermine this guy and, Oh, well, I'm going to get this passed. And like what you had suggested, like, oh, well, we're kind of treated differently for tax purposes. So if we could screw them, it would be really good for us. And I just don't like it. I just wish people would just be nicer. People just love drama and, you know, and all that kind of stuff. And I just try not to get involved in our show is kind of a break from all that. I mean, WBG is making just really dumb puns, like brilliant and does like rapid fire left and right.

58:29People just enjoy his humor. People like the father-son dynamic that me and my son have. You know, our show is just a couple of idiots getting together and gambling every day and having fun, and people watch it to get away from, you know, all that craziness.

58:45Graham Stephan:One thing I wanted to ask you about, you mentioned this quite a bit in our previous podcast, running for the HOA. Why did you run for HOA? Well, because my house got broken into, and I, you know, was like, why don't we have better security. You know, we pay all this money. And, you know, I was in an uproar and then I just, and then I started talking to everybody. And, and then next thing I know, like someone says, you know, you should be on the HOA board. And then I'm like, okay. And then I like to win. So then I just like, you know, got all the votes and I won in a landslide. And then I find myself on the board and I don't understand any of the, you know, how the meetings are run.

59:24And I'm just like they would talk about the architectural committee and, you know, well, that whole XYZ address is like three feet too close to the curb. And, and I'm like, I don't know about any of this. And they're like, oh, well, this landscaping, you know, we should be doing this. And I'm like, I don't care about this. And then the security stuff, I'd be like, well, let's do this. And then we'd get, you know, we'd get a bid on it and be like, yeah, that's a great idea. That would probably work. Okay. So everyone's dues would go up a thousand dollars a month. And I'm like, okay. and then they're like people cry if you raise the dues twenty dollars a month i'm like so we can't do that no well what about this well this is good that's what this is going to cost and everything costs too much money and then there's the people who don't want to pay they don't want the dues to get increased and then and then security is a tough thing too like we had the chief of police come and everything like that i mean it's like there's going to be crime you know the best thing you can do is take precautions uh you know the sad reality is there's people that are you know that want your things and they will take them from you if you don't guard them and then getting them armed there's all kinds of rules and so forth well that's why our hoa dues went up like

1:00:30Graham Stephan:150 a home times hundreds of of houses but yeah it was uh increased cost of patrol plus increased insurance yeah and then it's like how many you know how much area is there to patrol because all they got to do is like sneak in sneak out and but yeah the crime and there's these are like Like all these topics are just very, very, you know, very, very difficult. And that's why I mean, I'm trying to be ever too critical about politicians because they have an impossible job. It's very, very difficult to come to decisions that please everybody. I really like that ring, by the way. That ring is cool.

1:01:03Graham Stephan:I like the on the side. That's pretty sweet. Versus three sevens. Yeah, the three sevens. I noticed that you're wearing quite a bit of jewelry. And you usually do. And you also pulled up in a Cullinan, like a very, very nice Rolls Royce. And you said it was like the Black Label one, which is the match. Black Badge. Black Badge. Not Black Label. Black Label, that's whiskey. Okay, the Black Badge, Rolls Royce. I'm not quite there yet. I'm not there yet. The Black Badge, Rolls Royce. How much did you spend on that Rolls? I'm a bargain hunter, you know? Like, I bought it a couple years old. It's still under warranty.

1:01:36I think the retail is like$450. I got it for$280. Why did you buy it? Because I love it. I don't know. Like I say, I just, I don't know. I like having fun. I like good things, you know? Like I don't mean to shamelessly plug my book, The Art of Being Lucky, but I talk about all that in my book and a lot of it has to do with like my childhood, you know? And it's actually, I worked my ass off on this book. It is hard to write a book. Have you written a book yet? No. You need to write a book, Grant. You too. And it takes a lot longer And it's just really, really hard to encapsulate, you know, this is my kind of my life story with like some lessons and what I've learned and so forth.

1:02:17But I went like I went to a really upper middle class high school, you know, where it was really competitive. There was a movie with Tori Spelling. I think it was called The Cheerleader or something like that. Like I used to babysit the girl that got married. And it was like, that was their family friend. And the reason it happened was because like she was a really popular cheerleader. And then there was this other girl who was like her family, you know, didn't have the money. There was like a comment made about her clothing. And it was so intense and just hard to explain. kind of like mean girls meets, you know, whatever else.

1:02:57And, and I just was a weird environment. And I was always kind of like, I wasn't, you know, on the football team. I wasn't like on the front lawn, you know, with the cool kids and whatnot. And so it just motivated me my whole life, you know, to just do better and to do, you know, to be. And so sometimes like the trappings of success, you know, like the jets and the Rolls Royces and stuff. I can't help myself, you know, but just kind of say like, Hey, I did pretty good. You know, it's so I just, I get a kick out my son. On the other hand, he was got a Toyota truck. He doesn't care. You know, he's like, you were like, which how many zeros in your bank account?

1:03:36You know? Um, but I mean, the jewelry's kind of started off as a joke. I bought this because I thought it, um, gold was going up and I bought it at meltdown value. And I wore it in a video and a bunch of people said I look like an old idiot. And, and so the engagement was good in the comments. And so I just said, well, I'm going to wear it every day then. And then, uh, this I had made just cause I thought it was kind of cool. Cause we have this neat Vegas mat logo with the handle. And then there's a local, uh, jeweler here in town. Shout out to the guys at jewel trends. I like, they're really nice guys in my neighborhood and they, and they made this for me.

1:04:11And yeah, so when I wear this every day, my wedding ring, I've had forever. I got this watch when we hit a hundred thousand subscribers And I've always wanted one of these gold presidentials, you know, that presidents wear. And then this, this was a new addition. A lot of people called it the unlucky bracelet because I started really losing right after I got this bracelet coincidentally. And then I had it cleansed with sage and stuff like that in case it actually was unlucky. But I got this from someone again. I just bought it for, I had my jeweler tell me how much these diamonds were worth individually, how much this gold is worth.

1:04:43and I just paid slightly more than what the meltdown value is. So it's a decent investment. And it just kind of is a thing, you know, Vegas mat, flashy jewelry, whatever. Yeah. But I mean, it's a hybrid of my psychological profile from my childhood. And just, I like cool stuff. How much did you pay then for that chain?

1:05:05Graham Stephan:And what's it worth now? Because gold's gone up a lot. I bought it like three years ago and I think I paid 10 ,000. It's probably worth 20 ,000 now. something like that. This one's 10 carat. This one's 18 carat. This is like a pound of 10 carat. So whatever. I don't know the formula to figure it out. But I mean, gold is expensive now. That's why I bought this watch. So I bought this watch about eight months ago, and I paid$12 ,500 for this. And I bought it because the melt value of this was like$10 ,500. So I figured I'd pay$2 ,000 basically for a really rare Rolex. And now with gold prices up, the melt value is worth more than I paid for the watch.

1:05:45Graham Stephan:And so I got a free Rolex. Smart. Yeah, that's, I mean, those are good, like buying the, you know, the right watches and stuff. If you're going to waste your money, get something that, you know, saves value. The cars, obviously, is just straight dumb. Jets, straight dumb. But, you know, we work, I mean, we work so hard. Like, I don't think there's anyone that outworks us. I mean, it would be difficult. And not necessarily me, but, you know, Robert and EJ, those guys work like literally probably 16 to uh ej probably 16 robert probably more like 18 to 20 hours a day he doesn't sleep and um so you know every once in a while you treat yourself but that you know might as well if you're going to make some money you know you're going to spend it buy something intelligent like so good goodbye on that watch you want to sell it no we had asked you this last time and it went pretty viral and i i want to see if your answer has changed any bit in the past year or so.

1:06:38Graham Stephan:Would you say, are you addicted to gambling? I don't know. Like, I mean, that addiction is such a complex, uh, you know, topic, you know, not an addiction expert, but I certainly enjoy it, you know, a lot. And it's what I love to do. And, and again, I think I said earlier, even if I'm not working, you know, or making content and I have a free Sunday here in town, there's a very good chance that I'm going to be gambling. And I don't find many other things as stimulating. You know, I mean, if I'm on vacation, we were on a cruise recently and, you know, we stopped in Puerto Rico and, you know, I went to the beach and I walked on the beach for a little while.

1:07:23I'm like, Hey, I'm walking on the beach. You know, I don't have ever been there. I'm like, yeah, I'm sitting in the sun. And then it got kind of hot, you know, And then we went to the shopping area, you know, and there's nothing but the crap you see everywhere. And like, I don't need any of that. And then I went on a little tour where they said, you know, in 1697, this is where I forget now, but it was a lot of history in Puerto Rico. And, you know, this is in all the statues of presidents. And I drove around the main area and then I'm like, OK, that was cool. And then we still had like six hours to kill.

1:07:56So I was like, let's go to the casino. So I don't know. I mean, addicted, maybe, you know, but I definitely I think I could quit, you know. How long could you go without gambling? I mean, not more than a day with because I need to put out a video every day. Let's remove that.

1:08:12Graham Stephan:How long could you go without gambling until it gets uncomfortable? Oh, I don't know. I've never done it. Like in so long, I couldn't even tell you. Like, I mean, I was at my doctor today and by the way, my blood work was incredible. Oh yeah. My doctor asked me, how often are you in the casino? And I think it's probably 28 out of 30 days. I maybe take two days a month off. Maybe. It's probably more like 29. Would you say the world would be a better place if gambling was illegal? Oh, I don't know. Uh... My name is Mackenzie and I started a GoFundMe for the adoptive mother of a nonverbal autistic child.

1:08:54Graham Stephan:The mother had lost her job because she wasn't able to find adequate care for this autistic child. So she really needed some help with living expenses, paying some back bills. So I launched a GoFundMe to help support them during this crisis. And we raised about$10 ,000 within just a couple of months. I think that the surprising thing was by telling a clear story and just like really being very clear about what we needed. We had some really generous donations from people who were really moved by the situation that this family was struggling with. GoFundMe is the world's number one fundraising platform trusted by over 200 million people.

1:09:38Graham Stephan:Start your GoFundMe today at GoFundMe.com. That's GoFundMe.com. GoFundMe.com. This podcast is supported by GoFundMe. I mean, if gambling was illegal, like I would think the world would be a better place if, you know, if as long as you didn't like hurt someone that you could do what you wanted and you didn't have someone telling you what to do. You know what I mean? Like obviously like violence should be illegal, but I don't think that something that an adult chooses to do is, because someone else should be able to tell me what I can and can't do with money that I've earned and paid taxes on. So I don't know.

1:10:17But does it cause harm and stuff like that? I would imagine yes. You know, there are people who maybe don't have enough money and then they start gambling and they think that's going to be their ticket to ride. But then again, franchises, you know, a lot of people buy franchises and they think that they're just going to, you know, it's going to be easy. They're going to buy a franchise and then they open up the doors and nobody comes and they don't follow the playbook and then they lose their life savings on a franchise. So should franchises be illegal? A lot of people think, oh, I watched Million Dollar Listing.

1:10:49I'm gonna become a realtor and that's how I'm gonna make my fortune. And then they don't work hard and they don't follow up and they don't respond to their texts from clients and they don't do anything and they don't show any houses or they're too dumb to pass the test and they don't make any money becoming a realtor. So should becoming a realtor be illegal? Where do you draw the line? Like, I just think you can lose money at anything. And so I think people should be able to make their own decisions. I'm not really big on people telling me what to do.

1:11:19Graham Stephan:I tend to agree. I think everything in life is kind of a double-edged sword. Some people are going to benefit from the exact same stimulus, and then other people will suffer consequences from the exact same stimulus. It's just kind of a matter of, like, you know, where you take the hand that you're dealt. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's just like trying to legislate behavior and stuff is just it's just impossible. And if you made it illegal, then there would just be more illegal gambling. The new debate right now is whether or not the prediction markets are gambling and whether or not that is considered gambling or that is something that you could have an educated place of money on.

1:11:56Graham Stephan:let's say like instead of betting what the weather is you have a historical you know knowledge on what the weather is in boston tomorrow and can place money on that it's good it's gambling i don't know like you're asking me it was gambling i mean i i know that on the prediction markets you can bet on the football game yeah so that's but you could argue and they argue that some people have uh more knowledge than others on which team is statistically more likely to win and therefore you could have an edge based on your experience with that thing my answer would be who cares do it all it doesn't make any difference it's stupid it just gives more lawyers and politicians and lobbyists and and people excuses to take money from people and find people and run their whole extortion racket that's my opinion it does but then what's interesting is that people don't view day trading stocks or buying options or selling options the same way at all even though to me that's riskier that's riskier extremely risky not selling options but maybe covered calls covered calls covered calls nothing wrong with covered calls covered calls covered calls covered calls is a good strategy WBG taught me that one but again all these young kids I've seen so many of them and some of these rackets that come along with like oh some super duper trading software and people think they're going to make money trading options or trading commodities or whatever it is I don't do any of it, but like I've seen countless people, they go, oh man, I've been doing it on test mode and I'm making 10 % a day.

1:13:25I'm about ready to go in. And then they take their whole IRA and put it in. They start trading it on the software and then they have, there's one really volatile day in the market and then they lose everything. Happens every single time. That should be illegal, but you know, or should it? I just don't really believe in legislating people's behavior unless they're hurting somebody. That's just my opinion.

1:13:48Graham Stephan:I am curious now that you're going to these casinos all the time and you're more popular than you've ever been. How difficult is it now becoming to go gamble publicly? We, I walk into, you know, some of the casinos that we play at regularly and there are fans there just like waiting to get pictures and it's just so humbling and I just absolutely love it. And there, and 99.9 % of the people are just so nice and it's just like, I feel like I know you. I'm like, well, you do. You listen to us every day. And, and, uh, and it's, it's a lot of fun. And we generally now play places where they make it really easy for us to film.

1:14:26So once I get done with all the hellos and the taking of the pictures and so forth, once we set up and we start filming, there's usually a little bit of a perimeter around us, weirdly. And, and people watching and saying, Hey, you know, they'd love to take a picture with you. Let's wait till they finish filming. And it's, it's super fun. Like every day it's Matt, like I never would have dreamt that there'd be people that would even give a shit about taking a picture with me. You know, now there's like, I'll come out of the high limit room and then, then the, you know, the casino manager or whoever's with us will say, okay, you guys line up.

1:14:57And then there'll be like a line of like 20 people to get a picture. It's so, it's so awesome. And so it takes me, you know, five or 10 minutes, but it's just the most flattering thing in the world and it's fun and the people are super nice and I'm so happy that they watch. We wouldn't be anything if it wasn't for all those people. So it's a little more complicated to film because of the attention, but it also makes it more fun and we get it done. What's the craziest gift you've ever received? The craziest gift, bar none, we meet these guys. They want to do business with us. We'd never heard of them.

1:15:33We're at the Super Bowl and, um, we're texting or our manager's texting them and says, Hey, blah, blah, blah. And then she texts us and says, Hey, these guys seem nice. They really want to meet you. Can you meet them, you know, in front of this bar in New Orleans? And so we meet them and then they're like all in suits and we're like just Mardi Gras it up. And, and we start walking and talking with them and they're, they're pretty nice. And, um, then we ended up on this, like this park and we're just sitting on like a park bench with seagulls or I don't, it was weird. And we're having this like somewhat serious meeting.

1:16:05And then they're at the end, they're like, well, it was really, really nice to meet you. And by the way, we, we, we brought you a gift. Congratulations on hitting a million subscribers. I'm like, oh, that's nice. And there's this bag and it's a tissue paper and stuff. And I open it up and it's a, it's a Rolex and it was, it was silver. And I'm thinking, you know, it's probably a stainless bra. It's a$10 ,000. It's a pretty decent gift and for some random guys that are just trying to do some business with us and then uh and then i open it up and i and i put it on i'm like wow it's heavy like well it's platinum and it was like a solid platinum presidential rolex as a just a random gift that someone gave us so that was that was it was probably worth 40 to 60 grand i think it was 65 retail wow did you end up doing business with them after a long courtship like that was kind of an interesting first date But yeah, we ended up doing business with them.

1:16:58And I think that's actually a smart strategy for anyone watching. I mean, get us a$65 ,000 gift. Or us. Yeah. I'll take it. Yeah, you guys. But, you know, funny enough, we did. And I think that definitely got our attention. But yeah, that was a weird, that was weird. I forgot about that. Thanks, EJ. Wow.

1:17:14Graham Stephan:Now, for a lot of the casinos, what's the biggest deal you've seen in terms of offering influencers to use their product or to gamble at their casino? now? I can tell you this much that one of my friends who is in this space who had been doing it a lot longer than me, we sat at dinner at the Cosmopolitan and I'm young and fresh and I've always been in sales and I'm enthusiastic and I, and I'm like, man, these casinos, they're going to, they are going to pay and they're going to be dying to have us. And I, I'm so mad. We got kicked out of the, you know, for filming or whatever. He's like, they're never going to get it.

1:17:51Believe me, I've been beating my head against the wall for years. They're never going to get it. And I go, they're going to get it. They're going to see the value. And I can just tell you, it's come a long way and it's getting better all the time. And the casinos that have, you know, done intelligent deals with influencers, uh, are really seeing the benefits. And I think it's still very, very out of whack. Like the money that the influencers are making for the casinos, they're getting way the better end of the deal. And I think there's a lot more room for the influencers to make even more money before a true equilibrium that's fair is reached.

1:18:34But some of them are getting more and more generous all the time. It's getting better and better and better. It's a really fun space and it's been fun being involved in it and watching it kind of come from. You can't film here to please, will you come here? We'll send you a plane. Yeah, it's quite it's quite fun.

1:18:53Graham Stephan:And really quick, I just want to say that you don't have to overhaul your entire life going into the new year. Sometimes it's as simple as making a few smart swamps, especially with what you're snacking on. And that's exactly why we are super excited to be sponsored by Masa. They make tortilla chips with real ingredients. So snacking actually feels simple instead of something that's restrictive. And guys, what's actually crazy is that Masa chips are made with just three ingredients, organic mixed amali-ized corn, sea salt, and 100 % grass-fed beef tallow. And that's it. No seed oils, no fillers, just real food.

1:19:24Graham Stephan:And the best part is that you don't have to taste compromise. These chips are genuinely phenomenal, and they're nothing like regular chips. They leave you feeling satisfied and energized, not sluggish and heavy. There's no crash, no bloat. You feel great after eating them. My personal favorite is the barbecue flavor. It's actually like phenomenal. And I made a massive mistake because I had one bag left. I was hosting a party. I brought the bag out and it got eaten in like two or three minutes. And that was really unfortunate. So I brought out a bag of the original flavored, which also got eaten in like four or five minutes.

1:19:57Graham Stephan:And that just goes to show how absolutely delicious these chips are. And I know it sounds ridiculous. Of course, as a sponsor, so of course I'm going to say this, they really are that good. And because they're made with real ingredients, they're also much more filling, so you're not just going to sit down, eat an entire bag, and then still feel hungry afterwards. If you want to try Masa chips, head to masachips.com slash iced and use the code iced to check out for 25 % off your first order. Or you could scan the QR code on the screen, and the link is also down below in the description. And if you don't want to order online, Masa is now available nationwide at Sprouts, so make sure to grab a couple of bags the next time you're there.

1:20:31Graham Stephan:Now usually Fridays are about easing into the weekend, but during NBA season, the energy starts even before the games tip off. That's why we're excited to be sponsored by FanDuel and their NBA Happy Hour every Friday from 6 o 'clock to 7.30 Eastern. It's your pregame for the weekend. That includes boosts, bonuses, and surprises that are only available during that window, and the offer changes every week. It's a simple way to check what's available before the first game starts and to make a move before the night gets going. Just be sure to get in before the shot clock expires at 7.30 Eastern, and once Happy Hour ends, those specials are gone.

1:21:02Graham Stephan:It's an easy way to kick off the weekend. A little basketball, a little action, and that Friday night NBA energy. That's NBA happy hour every Friday from 6 to 7.30 p.m. Eastern, only on FanDuel, the official sportsbook partner of the NBA. And of course, I want to make it crystal clear, sports betting is not investing. It's just something that I like to do for fun. And watching the NBA, watching the NFL is very fun, but it's a little bit more fun when you have a couple bucks on the game, so it's just something I like doing. This is for 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or 18 plus and present in D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming.

1:21:31Graham Stephan:opt-in required rewards are non-withdrawable restrictions apply including bonus and token expiration leg requirements and max wager amounts see terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com gambling problem call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com call 1-88-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in maryland hope is there visit gamblinghelpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in new york for the average person what's the best way to get comps at a casino well i think that one is i i would suggest you know you pick one a casino or a casino group and you play there consistently.

1:22:01You always use your player's card. You swipe your card at the kiosk, take advantage of all the promos, read the mailers that they send to you and so forth. So just, I think it's just a matter of playing. One of the mistakes a lot of people make is they'll go and they'll play and they'll, they will only play just a little bit. Like they might just go like, Oh, I have a hundred dollars in free play and they'll go and they'll take the free play and then they'll leave. And what they, I think the math, it's all varies, but for the most part, they do it based on your average session, you know, from your last X number of visits.

1:22:37So if you're going to play, you should play quite, quite a bit at the casino. And if you want to like maintain your offers and earn the most comps, which was your original question, I'm not saying, I'm not advocating gamble more than you should, but if you're going to, don't hit and run if you want to build up some good, uh, comps you want to have when you go and go gamble at a place, like if you go to Vegas for the weekend, you want to do the majority of your play at the place where you're staying, you know, so you, so you put a lot of coin in, you know, they look at you that, that the, the EV that they're, they're expected win from you is higher.

1:23:13And then, cause that's what's going to determine the offer that they send you next.

1:23:16Graham Stephan:So here's, what's interesting. We went to a casino and a buddy was playing blackjack to talk with the person in charge of, I guess, comps. They looked at his play and said, hey, listen, you're only playing$25 a hand. We can't offer you any comps. You need to play minimum$100 a hand to start getting comps. And the comps would include free food or free hotel, things like this. It seems like that's gone up a lot. Comps are a lot better from slots than they are from tables. Yeah, this was for table games. Because the thing about it, blackjack is really a half percent or let's call it a one percent.

1:23:51People don't play perfect. 1 % hold for the casino. So if you're betting$100 a hand, they're making mathematically, they're making a dollar a hand, less labor cost, insurance, you know, security, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It's not like there's a lot of meat on the bone. Now contrast that with slots. Every$100 you put into a slot machine, they're making 8 % to 12 % more than likely. So they're going to be able to comp you a lot more. Plus there's no, they're not paying a dealer for a slot machine. It's just electricity. So, yeah, the comps on table games, I think that's probably very accurate.

1:24:26You know, you're a big table games player. You're going to get comp. You're playing$1 ,000 hands of Bach Ra. You know, every hand, if they're making 1%, I mean, it still is only$10 a hand.

1:24:36Graham Stephan:It just seems like the bar has risen so high. Like, I remember in 2011, I could go to M Resort, spend$500 for the whole weekend playing craps and table games. They would comp us free food every single day. and every third trip you get a free room. And that was just spending like$500 at, you know, Craps. Yeah. Back then. And now I can't even imagine how many thousands of dollars it would take. It's gotten very corporate Vegas. Like in the 80s, you know, when I was young, it was the power of the pen. And a lot of it was your relationship, who you knew. You know, there were some people who were really good at working the hosts and they thought they were much better bigger players than they were.

1:25:21And I mean, it was a paper comp slip, you know, and they would just write up a comp. And nowadays it's all computerized and it's just, you know, it's formulas and it's like, okay, profits are down. Oh, we're going to change the point value on this, that, and the other thing. And it's all very, very, very corporate with the multi-billion dollar corporations running most of the bigger casinos. And so, yeah, I think that has a lot to do with it. It's corporate greed. I like the good old days, you know? I was going to say, when the mob ran this town, but I'm not going to say that. But I guess they did.

1:25:57I mean, wasn't it like in the history, didn't Bugsy Siegel and those guys? I mean, I'm just a historian. You guys, we should definitely talk to EJ and WBG a little bit too, because those guys, you talk about, when you think of Vegas Matt, like it's not Vegas Matt like me, it's Vegas Matt is, you know, me, Robert, EJ, John, a whole cast nowadays. But I'm happy to answer a question, but don't want you to forget to talk to those guys because they're the heart and soul of everything that we do. And they do all the work.

1:26:28Graham Stephan:So we're going to ask you a couple more questions and then get onto the finances of everything because we're very curious. We're like a financial podcast. But these two questions that I have first for you, what is your dream gamble? A dream gamble? Yeah, like is there something that you've always wanted when you're at the casino, You know, like hitting this one bonus or maybe like putting a million dollars on a hand like Dana White says or betting on one thing or another. Well, I mean, I want to get the million dollar grand, you know, or the two million dollar grand on Dragon Link, which is, you know, something that it's like the prize that, you know, that doesn't hit very often.

1:27:04Some people have gotten it. I've never gotten that. There's a game called Buffalo Gold Collection where we want to get the 15 buffalo heads. there's a game called wolf peak where we've never gotten the bonus we've probably put hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars through the machine and we've never triggered the bonus so when to get the wolf wolf peak bonus be sure to ask that question of vj and wbg because i'm sure there's stuff that i'm forgetting uh i've talked about doing a million dollar hand uh the problem is no one will take the action you know what about dana i think i would think you know he's got special you know special uh but you could go head to head with yeah i suppose but does he get a million a hand does caesars or whoever take a million i don't know i thought it was like

1:27:47Graham Stephan:250 but you i'm saying you and dana could go you play the house or he plays the house and it's just exchanging one million from one person that would be that would be illegal is it yeah i think so it could be for entertainment purposes only games or games or games i don't know like you say everything is illegal i'm sure dana could get a license if he yeah i mean give him a call i'd love to i'd love to see him again. I haven't seen him in a while. We, me and Steve and Dana played, uh, slots and Dana's like slots. The hell's wrong with you guys. And then Steve was like fast spinning$250 spin huff and puff.

1:28:18And I had like me, we were chopping the ticket, you know? So I'm like, slow down there, Steve. And I go, this guy's great. And then boom, he hit something. We won like$37 ,000. And then Dana's like, wow, that's really cool. And it was a great video. And Dana was very nice. I don't know him well enough. Like I don't have his phone number. I couldn't text him and say, Hey Dana, you want to bet a million, but that would be really cool. If you guys arrange that i'll definitely go uh but the casinos like you'd be surprised like uh the the limits are not that high now you can negotiate special limits like if you put five or ten million dollars they don't want just one hand for a million dollars you know they might get really beat they want you to put up front money or wire in ten million dollars then they'll let you play maybe a half a million a hand or something like that because they they have a very good chance of beating you for the whole 10 million because you're not going to play one hand and quit why

1:29:05Graham Stephan:not do four hands at the same time 250 000 each no it sounds fun to me uh you don't think they would allow that i mean you're you're splitting the risk no again you want one hand one million dollars i mean that would i just think it would be cooler to do like one hand for a million dollars like when we hit a million subscribers that's what i wanted to do um but we couldn't find anyone that would take that bet from us the biggest we got was uh the pepper mill said they take a hundred thousand. And so we did a hundred thousand dollar hand to Baccarat. And I'm telling you, I almost passed out. I mean, that was, that was a lot, you know, I mean, a hundred thousand dollars, a lot of money.

1:29:41And it was like a hundred thousand dollars, one hand to Baccarat. And then we got like a natural eight or natural nine and I just jumped up and then I almost passed out. It was really funny.

1:29:50Graham Stephan:What was that feeling like? It was awesome. I mean, cause it felt so great to win. I would have felt like a complete idiot. Like, all right, we hit a million subscribers and to celebrate, I'm going to lose$100 ,000. You know, that's just dumb. So it's always, always the videos do better when we win. But, you know, people always say, oh, it's rigged. They're paid by the casino. It's like, I wish, oh, it's real money. You know, I mean, yes, we make money, you know, but that's my money. That's like saying a doctor comes and gambles and says, well, it's not really his money because he makes so much as a doctor.

1:30:22Like, well, okay, we make a lot of money as a YouTuber, but YouTube sends me my check and I go and gamble it. If I lose it, I lose it. The casino is not going to give me the money back. You know what I mean? So, but it's much more fun when you win those big hands, but it's terrible when you lose them. If you could only play one game for the rest of your life, what game would it be? If it was like a casino table game, Baccarat. I think we, again, we, all of us, have popularized the game of Baccarat. And I think that Vegas Matt started playing that a lot and we, you know, we peel the cards back, you know, like it's kind of the tradition in the peel Bach rock game.

1:31:03Everyone always comments are like, you guys are so obnoxious, bending those cards. You know, you think you're so special. And it's like, it's part of the culture, you know, like you, you look in the big high limit, the Asian gaming, it's like, that's what they do. They sit there and it's a very social game. And so whoever bets the most gets to touch the cards. That's how it works. So if you're the one, if you're the biggest, better, they push the cards to you. and then you get to look and you peel it up and you see, oh, there's three dot, there's three diamonds. Okay. It's a, it's a six, seven or an eight.

1:31:33Let me look at the other one. No dots. It's an ace two or three. And you know, it's, it's, it, you can build tension and it's, it's fun and everyone's around and you're all betting, you know, either player or banker. It's a very social game. So like when we go out at night and we're, you know, we're all having fun, we always end up in the, in the Baccarat. The other night we were playing and we first, of course, you know, I don't know how this happens. We always bet banker. Uh, and so we sit down banker and then we just run into it like an eight player streak. So we, you know, first bet a thousand, we bet a couple thousand, we bet 6 ,000, we bet 10 ,000.

1:32:09And we got to the point where you're down 65 ,000 in a matter of like about seven or eight hands. And there was a few of us kind of going in on it. and then we bet$45 ,000 on one hand and then we finally won and then we won a couple more and we ended up breaking even. But that was like a 45 minutes of just absolute hilarity and fun. So it's a long answer to your short question is love Baccarat.

1:32:32Graham Stephan:That's dangerous because it makes me want to gamble. Oh, let's go. But I'm not, I can't, I can't do that. Hypothetically, if you could be the house, would you put up a million dollars against a hand of blind? No. But if you were the house, you'd have an advantage. Half percent. Would you? No, you wouldn't. That's a horrible question. Why would that be a horrible question? Because why would I do that? Because you have a statistical edge. My life, if I get a million dollars right now, would be maybe. Maybe 10 to 15 percent like like better than if I lost one million, my life would be like 100 percent worse.

1:33:11Graham Stephan:So like that's what I mean, like I'm just saying the risk and reward. What a$500 ,000 each. No. If you had a chance to be the house, you should definitely do it. Like, I mean, but maybe one hand. But if you could be the house for a month, then you'd win 100 % of the time. Right, but like me doing a million is like, is the same thing as me. Hey, Graham, would you do it? $10 million. You're the house. Would you do it? Well, one hand. No, no, I wouldn't do it. There you go. I mean, I think it's. But you would do it if you could be the house for, like, if you could take the house's side, any casino in this town for a month.

1:33:42Graham Stephan:Oh, yeah. It would be done a month. It would take you crazy not to because you're going to win. It's the one hand. That's why the casinos don't even do it. One hand. Yeah. One hand is risky, but, you know, being the house is. My understanding with one hand on a hand of blackjack, if you're the house, you have a 53 % chance of winning one single hand. I know this because I go to the casino a lot and I just place one bet and that's it. One bet. If I win, I double. And if I lose, I walk away. And so I've always gone in thinking, where am I going to get my best odds? and that's usually Baccarat because blackjack, you're not likely to win on one hand.

1:34:15Graham Stephan:You're likely to get 50-50 over like 10 to 20 hands. Well, I mean, that's because every time you play a hand, you're giving away a little bit more. So the best gambling strategy, if you really wanted to maximize it, if you had a budget of$1 ,000, it would be to bet it on one hand and then quit regardless of what happened. And then over time, you probably would win about half the time. So that's a smart strategy. No surprise, young Graham. We want to talk about some YouTube numbers, the business you guys are doing. So we're going to bring EJ on here.

1:34:48All right.

1:34:48Graham Stephan:So we've brought EJ on as well because you're kind of like the brains behind the finances and YouTube strategy, money strategy, right? Sure. WBG and I. Yeah. So how much are you allowed to lose per video? I don't think we really think about it in those terms anymore. I think that the expected loss of one of our videos is probably around$4 ,000. So that's our cost. That's before like any free plays or offers we get just from our play, which is generally in the range of, I don't know,$300 to$1 ,000 per day. So we don't really think about it like that anymore. We can, fortunately now we could lose a lot on a video and it wouldn't make much of a difference.

1:35:30Graham Stephan:It's all, as long as we are making the right decisions and we understand what the results could potentially be, we will do things smart. Like we, we did a thousand dollars a spin for hitting 1.25 million. And we figured, okay, we could possibly lose a hundred thousand if we do$125 ,000 spins in a worst case. And we were like, we can live with that. That's not the expected result. The expected result is probably lose a 14, 15 ,000. We lost a hundred and there There was a big contingent of people blaming me for that, but it went about as bad as it could have possibly gone. And we lost a hundred grand that day.

1:36:05Graham Stephan:We actually made an I blame EJ t-shirt. Yeah. People blamed him because we switched machines and, and everyone blamed him for switching machines. And, but we ended up doing well on the t-shirt. No. Yeah. We might've made a couple thousand dollars on the t-shirt. No. Yeah. I was just like, this machine seems cool. We should switch. Which by the way, it does not matter. Every time you push the button, it's an independent event. We could have potentially done worse. It's not likely had we stayed. But yeah, moving in hindsight was a bad choice. So what type of calculations do you guys do to know how much you can lose?

1:36:39Graham Stephan:Or is it just kind of like, oh, we could probably lose 100 grand on this. We could spare 50 ,000 here. I think that you're maybe giving us more credit than we deserve thinking about it that way. from the beginning and again WBG who we'll talk to in a minute he said like we can't afford this based on projections of what we will make and then there was moments and credit to him for giving us the confidence to go forward and do it and now we don't think about it because I mean you guys know how YouTube is and it's it's good and if we lost a million dollars a month it would we would go bankrupt but um we generally don't do anything too crazy except for maybe a couple times a month where we could lose upwards of$100 ,000.

1:37:22Graham Stephan:How often do you balance the budget? Is it weekly, monthly, every quarter? So like he mentioned earlier, we have that fund of money that we keep for gambling and then add to it as needed. And right now there's just a surplus because we've done so much winning. So we're kind of just in a very comfortable position where we don't even really need to think about it because this money has already been allotted to the gambling. And until such time as that money is gone, we're just making all the money from the content. How much do you have in the fund right now? About$156 ,000, but I mean, I don't pay that close enough.

1:37:55Graham Stephan:More actually. Is it more? Yeah, it's like$210 ,000. Oh, really? Yeah,$210 ,000 in that fund, the gambling fund. And it was up to over$300 ,000, but it's taken some hits. So you just don't see that money as yours? It's his and it's theirs, but it's just that money is what we use to make the videos. And we'll add to it as needed, but hopefully we just keep getting lucky and win. But yeah, you like you think about it. How do you view that money? Like it's already gone in your mind, right? Like I said, I think when when it's depleted and it gets to the point where every day we have to add to it, then it's really painful, you know.

1:38:30But once there's like a little bit in it and it's like, ah, it goes up and down. And as long as there's still money in that fund, I mean, I'm thrilled. I haven't had to add money in a few months. How much would you have to lose to quit the channel? I mean, it'd be a lot. It's, as you guys know, you have a podcast and you get a lot of views and hopefully you'll get a lot on this. I'll encourage our audience to watch it. I mean, there's a lot of money to be made in this and then with sponsors and all that other stuff. I mean, you know, after doing this every day and as hard as they've worked on this, you know, we, I don't think we could lose.

1:39:03Graham Stephan:How are the finances like split up between the people? Like, is it like even keeled? The three of us are even partners. Do you ever have any disagreements because you're all even that like one person believes very strongly for one thing and the two like outnumber the one? We get along surprisingly well, I would say. Yeah, I think that. This episode is brought to you by White Claw Surge. Great podcast pick, friend. No surprises there. After all, you're all about finding the tastiest flavors out there. Just like White Claw Surge. And with big, bold flavors to enjoy, like blood orange, blackberry, cranberry, and more, it's time to go all in on taste.

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1:40:18Graham Stephan:After three months, plan auto renews at$12.99 a month. Terms apply. WBG and I generally agree on like anything content related most of the time, and he doesn't really feel too strongly about any of it. So he just goes and has a good time and then if he ever feels really strongly about something we do it so it it never there's never been an issue the only one in charge technically sure yeah if you're gambling then off camera is that with your money or was is that with like the his own his he calls it his walking around money okay that's just the money that he keeps on him that's his own it's separate from the the budget that we use to produce the videos the three thousand dollar coffee was your on money oh yeah i mean i couldn't go oh guys i was at coffee and i lost three thousand dollars no that wouldn't fly no so it's like so like this is my walking around money oh can i hold it uh and it's heavy let's see yeah that's and so so like this is this is this is because and see the stuff is a different color that's like the the you know like the ones and fives and tens and twenties but it's mostly hundreds and this money clip by the way was a gift we got a money clip from one of our fans and it's the best money clip and it's huge and it can hold it can hold 150 bills so 15 000 is the capacity and this is available at the vegasmat.com merch store and where thousands of lucky people have this very money clip so how much do you have that in cash i'd say this is about 9 600 bucks i guess so you as a young guy with 33 of the money that Vegas Matt Channel makes, I imagine you're probably doing pretty well.

1:41:56Graham Stephan:But he said you still drive like a pickup truck. Yeah. Despite his best efforts. Yeah. I thought I think you and a few people have convinced or are talking me into buying a more expensive car, Ferrari or something along those lines. But I don't I don't know. What are you doing with all the being young and like making a lot? Just working, putting the money with the rest for now. As soon as it's enough to retire forever, then I'll really maybe. So what are you doing in the meantime? Are you investing it or yeah investing it yeah i have a financial advisor and uh he invests a lot of in the stock market i hate i buy uh gold and crypto and whatever but for the most part just letting my guy handle it and i focus on this and what is that amount that you said is enough to retire forever i don't know i you know for a long time he said 10 and now he's saying 20 so as he's moving the goalposts sounds like i think you're five but i don't know um i think you need 20.

1:42:48Yeah. I don't know. We'll see. What do you guys know? Like, what do you think a really comfortable retirement? How old are you? 31.

1:42:57Graham Stephan:Okay. So, I mean, I would. Depends on how much you spend. Like living. Yeah. You could do five. You could do two. You could do 10. You could do 20, maybe 30. I mean, if I ask chat GPT, I put in all my different portfolios and then I ask it how I'm doing and if I could retire and it says, yeah, you probably could, but you'd have to adjust your lifestyle and I'm like, I really want to adjust the lifestyle just yet. So he wrote like a chat GPT net worth convo that he could just prompt it and say, what's my net worth today? Like, you know, it's pretty cool. Yeah. I would say like at your age, a 3 % withdrawal rate is probably reasonable.

1:43:29Graham Stephan:So if you have 10 million bucks, 300 grand a year. Yeah, that's great. I mean, you could, if you weren't like gambling or doing anything, I mean, I, you could probably live on 300 ,000 a year. Yeah. Easy. Probably. You could certainly live. He couldn't. Yeah. You could, With your$3 ,000 coffees, you could certainly live off of$300 ,000. Absolutely. That's a very, very, very comfortable. No, I could. Yeah. What are your thoughts on Bitcoin? Because you guys are pretty early in on Bitcoin. I see you. I'm saying that and you're like, I don't know about that. I haven't been able to give it too much brainpower lately.

1:43:56Graham Stephan:It's just focus on this. I think we actually, when we talked to you last, I don't know if it was on the podcast or not, but you said you just dollar cost average and don't even think about it. You still do. Yeah. So you're doing really well. and i've been meaning to just dump all the altcoins and just hold bitcoin in dollar cost average that way because i don't want to give it too much to sell all the ethereum at 4400 and you said 10 you did not say all of it you said sell 10 but you changed it to sell 100 you're like you cost us hundreds of thousands no guys invest together well yeah i managed the crypto just from back then when it was like all so wild west i was making sure we didn't get hacked or whatever and so it's just still in that those accounts i got hacked uh they when they they did a sim swap and all of a sudden my phone just went dead they said tell your sim and i'm like what and then uh they got into my my email and everything else but he had it uh set up with uh two-factor and like a lot of really higher security and they weren't able to get anything and then they then they sent me one time my wife was getting out of the shower and this sounds kind weird, but I just like, I snapped a picture of her for some reason.

1:45:04So she's like naked in this picture and had it on my phone. And, uh, sorry, her face wasn't in it. How do you know that? Actually, let me finish this story. So, so, so I had this picture of my wife on my phone, right? And then they got into my iCloud and everything when they did the SIM swap. And then they, they texted me and they said, it's the hackers. And then they're like, yeah. And if you don't send us this, I'm going to show your wife this picture. and a text pack, oh, that's my wife.

1:45:32Graham Stephan:Why did you tell them that? So why didn't you play along? Be like, no, you told them that? I said, that's my wife. You're giving them more, like, go F yourself. Like, I just told them to pound sand and they didn't get anything. I wouldn't have said that's my wife. Yeah, if I was the scammer, I would have been like, okay, well, I'm going to release this picture of your wife. I'd just be like, oh, no, don't do that. I mean, she's a Pilates instructor. She's, like, really in good shape. I wouldn't be embarrassed about her. You're much. Yeah, no, it's funny. It's a good story. But yeah, so they would have been able to get into his Coinbase account with the text.

1:46:00Graham Stephan:That's like a very common hack, but they didn't, thankfully. We dodged a few bullets in the crypto space over the years. So that was good. FTX, he calls me like 11 o 'clock at night and he's like, yeah, we got to get all your FTX out. And then so he did a bunch of stuff and then I tried, I go, I want to get some cash. And so I did an ACH for$50 ,000 and then overnight when it took the ACH. so every we got all the crypto out but the 50 000 of cash that i tried to take out just disappeared and i and then i never like they send these forms for the bankruptcy and i've never filled them out so you never filled them out no they're paying back 118 they have a recovery over 100 i know but it's just so complicated and i don't remember and and they're paying back dollar for it can you get i'll give you half the money if you can get my i think it's too late oh is it i have 50 grand that Basically, I did an ACH the night that it went down, and I never got the money, and they owe me 50 grand.

1:46:52So if there's any FTX administrators listening, your forms are too complicated for old people to figure out.

1:46:58Graham Stephan:Figure out how to submit a claim. Seriously. A little late. You might be passing out. I don't know. That's the great thing about being a gambler. We lost that day. You know what I mean? That's the great thing about being a gambler because anything that happens, you can always say, well, I just pretend like I lost it. Or if a Christmas gift is kind of expensive, I'm like, well, if I had won, I could have afforded it. Like money takes on a weird thing when you're a gambler. What's Christmas like with you guys? I imagine you're getting pretty crazy presents for each other. I would imagine we're not getting anything for each other is my guess because we don't need anything.

1:47:29Like I like to give stuff. Like my neighbor's doing an event at Allegiant Stadium, like the largest event for veterans in the history. And so like I would rather just give money, which I do a lot of, by the way, to the haters that, you know, because I, like, there's this kid, Bluff, who's great, great, great friend of ours, you know, and he's doing a lot of real public giving, you know, like buying tacos for everybody and stuff like that. It's like, I do a lot of giving like privately and they're like, you should be more like Bluff and give money away. It's like, mind your own business. Why don't you go start a channel and you give your money away?

1:48:03But I mean, I, I don't, EJ doesn't need another watch or anything like that. I'd rather give money during this season. It's cool.

1:48:11Graham Stephan:We just, my sister just had a kid. So this is going to be her second Christmas, but that's going to be fun. Like when she gets older, buying gifts for her and being able to spoil the grandbaby is going to be a lot of fun. So I'm curious now for the business, what does the income look like? Where are you making the most amount of money? Where is the money coming from? Yeah. A large portion of it is YouTube. And then another large portion of it is sponsors. And then something that we really love that is all of our passions is the merchandise. You can see him and I wearing it. Love that the fans support it.

1:48:44Graham Stephan:Love that they enjoy it. We try to produce stuff that they'll enjoy wearing. And that is a smaller portion of it. I would say maybe the breakdown would be 50-50 with YouTube and sponsors and then some merchandise and stuff without getting into too much detail. And if you're trying to expand the revenue of the business, what do you think is the best way to maximize that? Well, if we're trying to grow the business, yeah. If trying to grow the business so we make better videos and grow the audience and then in turn more deal flow will come in and more ad revenue from YouTube so it all comes down to making the best videos you can and having the most fun which he specializes in do you worry about YouTube cracking down on these sorts of videos so I thought they just announced a new like an age verification or you're not allowed to link or show certain things on screen yes we do worry about that yes the policies have changed quite a bit.

1:49:37Graham Stephan:Brick and mortar, they still, they don't age restrict it. But online, I think that there are companies in the online space that are maybe bad actors. So they're trying to navigate that. And they can't distinguish between the online content that aren't bad actors and the ones that really are. So they're age restricting online gambling at the moment. But I think that they'll be able to flesh that over time and figure out which online casinos are regulated and which ones will be tolerated and not tolerated. But for now, that's a bit of a tricky space. He's more worried about it than I am. I think YouTube enjoys the ad revenue from all different casinos and stuff a little bit too much.

1:50:14Graham Stephan:Here's what I've seen recently. It seems like YouTube just announced this new AI moderation tool that is going through flagging channels and then having them deleted overnight. And it seems like what they're doing is they're going now back years and then just flagging all these videos concurrently and then all of a sudden when you get a few strikes the ai tool just removes the channel sure you request a review and then it just says oh immediately afterwards it's all ai now yeah oh sorry your content you know doesn't go against our guidelines right deleted i think that that's why it's important to have a rep like when you get to be our size and the rep would be able to fix that if it was wrong but yeah it's it's worrying but that is the space we play in and And so we have to.

1:50:55I have seen though, even with a rep, it seems like it could take weeks.

1:50:59Graham Stephan:Right. And that would be a bummer. Yeah. So follow us on all the different social medias just in case anything ever happens. I guess, I mean, I'm almost to a point where I guess, you know, what good does worry do? And if it did happen, it'd be like, okay, well, you know, now I don't have to go film a video every single day. And there's other revenue streams and things like that. Like I like doing events a lot. Like we do these, these fan events, you know, and we'll bring people in for like a weekend to a casino. We do cruises. Cruises are an absolute blast. We have a deal with Virgin Cruises and we do what, three or four a year now?

1:51:39Graham Stephan:Yeah. 2026, I think we have three scheduled already and maybe add a fourth and a fifth. So, so it's like, you know, so much fun. We meet the nicest people. I've got a bunch of like friends that are like I text every day that I came to my Christmas party that I met on our first cruise like really really really nice people I was kind of concerned when we did our first one like what if I'm trapped on this boat with a bunch of weirdos and close talkers and you know people with bad breath that like to tell secrets and I'm like oh my god this is gonna be awful and then it turned out everyone was nice except for that one girl it was like stalking you but yeah um but you were a stalker not a stalker but she was like an empty nester old woman and she developed a very strong fascination with me and wouldn't leave me alone the whole cruise at one point she like cornered me in the hallway and was saying some things and crying and I was like well she I don't know if we can say on the podcast but I was just I said no thank you and I was like I'm not interested she was crying oh yeah she had some stuff going on for sure yeah so you weren't interested no no not not at all but most that except for her though everyone was really nice.

1:52:48And it's just fun. You know, there's a lot of other things that you can do. And I think, yeah, like EJ says, you know, as long as we make great content and we build our audience, you know, the revenue follows.

1:52:58Graham Stephan:I could see you guys creating a slot machine. And maybe it's like a limited edition slot machine where you only make five of them. You put like one in a, you know, your top five favorite casinos or just one casino. You've got five Vegas mat slot machines all right next to each other. And then you can spin it and it's like all of your faces. Oh, I love the faces idea. fantastic it would be an attraction i feel like lines could form there's something there i'm happy i'm happy you're saying it there absolutely is yeah uh we haven't had any slot manufacturers reach out or we have but that the right situation hasn't presented itself and those big companies have to do so much legal and all this different stuff and they give us all these different excuses but you're right it would be good we'd want thousands of them instead of five because we want to be able to get them in the most amount of places and have it do really it would be the best game i mean there's a couple of online vegas mat slots there's vegas mat blackjack there's vegas mat cash eruption there's you guys own them licensing i think no i mean we get i don't know how it works but it's an nil thing but name image and likeness that's what nil is i learned about that and uh but but there but but i really would like to have the vegas mat slot our slot would be the best slot.

1:54:12How would you make it the best game? What would you do? How would it look? Well, you'd never be out of it. Uh, you know, we'd, we just, I don't know, just make it fun. I think it'd make it fun. And it'd be the, you know, there are a lot of them. They're the same, you know, like there's 82 variations of huff and puff and they're, you know, they, they do all these machines. I'm so you take, you take, you know, some of the machines that we really, really like and take some of the good dynamics from those machines. I would want it to have a a good return to player. I would want it to be too volatile where, you know, where the big wins are so big, but you usually lose.

1:54:43I'd rather have something that's a little bit more even keel. More frequent winning. Yeah, more frequent bonuses, maybe not as massive. You know, we would just create a really, really good slot machine. But just with the funny stuff that we say and so forth, I think our audience would love it and interact with it. And I'd be willing to bet any slot manufacturer that's watching this podcast that it would be the highest performing slot that they would ever put into the casinos.

1:55:06Graham Stephan:It would be interesting if they lose on one. It just says, Sando. Yeah, exactly. And then lose against Sando. Oh, yeah. And then you lose another one. And you're like, oh, just one more. Come on. Could you egg people on? Oh, yeah. Well, like on Vegas, Matt, Blackjack, you know, I'll be like, oh, that was brutal. Or, you know, oh, what a Sando. Or like I said something I thought was funny. Like I got like a jack of diamonds and a king of clubs. And I said, oh, jack king offsuit. That's EJ's favorite hand, you know, and like tried to make it funny. And yeah, it's a great idea. And I'm shocked that it hasn't happened yet, but I believe it will.

1:55:44Graham Stephan:So any other things left to expand on the business? I'm curious, like, is it literally just making more high quality videos, getting higher paying sponsors and that's it? Or is there any other like stuff in the woodworks? I did hear you guys mention, I don't know if I can say this, a movie? That would be fun. And he has had the movie idea for a long time of just not necessarily about us, but about a lot of the stuff that we know about and see. And you can speak more about it. You talk about your script. I mean, it would be like Rain Man meets the MIT card counting team meets Casino. I mean, WBG doesn't like when I use that analogy, but it's like people think that.

1:56:22I mean, I think we could make a movie that's that big about the slot world, about the world of advantage slot play, all that kind of stuff that people have no idea about. And like, I have like the opening scene, you know, the guys walking through the casino, kind of like the Terminator, just like looking at all these things that no one else is noticing. There's this little lady pushing the button. These people over here hooting and hollering. And then it's like, oh, wait, someone, you know, that's a, there's a 72 on that machine right there. boom you know and then just the uh people like they're the the rain man dynamic is interesting because you know how like autism rates have gone up just like crazy like since 1992 i believe and i don't know what where what it is caused by and whatnot it's a whole nother thing i'll leave that to rfk or whoever's fixing it now but uh there's a lot of people on the spectrum that are professional gamblers because that that's that's like that what the rain man you know made that he was pretty extreme example of it but there are a lot of people that are like not maybe that too far on the spectrum but they're on the spectrum like super math geniuses and so forth and then there's tales that i'm aware of of people not in the too distant past of people getting taken in back rooms beaten up like casinos do not like when you beat them there's danger and intrigue and so much interesting stuff that happens in the world of gambling and professional gambling.

1:57:47And, and I saw the MIT card counting, the Kevin Spacey one was so well done, that movie 21. And I think the slot underworld is even more interesting. Way more. Coming soon to a theater near you. And then there's, uh, we did a, they did a, uh, reality show, like a - Docu-series. A docu-series. For like six months, they had us mic'd up everywhere. Like the restroom It's weird sometimes. And I forget that I had a mic on. And I mean, they literally were like 24-7, we were mic'd up. And they did all this behind-the-scenes concert. They do a docuseries. We were approached about us doing a sitcom, like where they had actors play us.

1:58:26And, you know, we never ended up doing that deal. But yeah, all kinds of crazy stuff comes up. I personally want to do a regular Vegas Matt show, like a variety show, like here in Vegas, where people come and, you know, the Vegas Matt show. EJ isn't as crazy about that idea as I am, but I really believe that we could do a great show and make it fun and entertaining and fill theaters. And I think that we would fill theaters with people, you know, like, I don't know, Carrie Underwood or Janet Jackson or whoever fills a theater. You know, those people come, they go to the theater, they go to the show, and then, you know, they may put a dollar in the slot machine, you know, but everyone who comes to my show would probably get on the way out and stop at the high limit room and gamble$50 ,000.

1:59:10and it would probably be the most profitable show in the history of shows for Las Vegas if we were to do that. First one's in April.

1:59:18Graham Stephan:I'm going to list off a bunch of casino games and you guys are going to rate it one out of 10. Oh, fun. Okay. One out of 10 or one to 10? I know what you meant. One, one, not one to 10, one out of 10. We're going to stop. Oh, like which one's one? 10 is great. Are we giving each one a rating or are we ranking them from one to 10? Just one to 10. You're not, you're not ranking them one to 10. years rating. So if we really like it, it's maybe a nine or an eight or seven. Yeah. Six, seven. Okay. Six. Jeez. I still don't understand that. I don't think that there is anything to understand, unfortunately.

1:59:52Graham Stephan:It's just a six, seven. How close to the mic should he be? Oh, it's great. Oh, that's good. Okay. All right. Dragon Link. Oh, probably an eight. I mean, it's the most popular game in the casino. I think there are better games. I like it. Yeah. 7.5. I think it's getting old. I'm going to go six. Buffalo. Buffalo in general. The entire franchise. Buffalo Gold. You know, six and a half. It's a good game. Solid. Good math. Buffalo Gold Collection? Or is there, I mean, there's so many Buffalo games. All right. Well, let's just say Buffalo broadly. As a franchise, probably eight. Buffalo Link brings the average way up.

2:00:34Yeah. But there's some that are fours and fives. Buffalo Link is the best game. is a 10 and buffalo like buffalo gold collection is you know a six or a seven buffalo you know there's buffalo stampede there's all these different buffalo games so it's really difficult to say because there are so many but our favorite game is in the buffalo family there are games one through ten on buffalo buffalo links 10 though firelink six yeah i'm not a huge fan of the fire link i don't uh i would say yeah six four yeah bacra bacra bacra is a solid eight and a half i mean to me it's a it's a 10 it's a great table games it's the best

2:01:20Graham Stephan:i mean it's so fun but it can be such a disaster i'm gonna go

2:01:28Graham Stephan:Firecracker. Firecracker gets me every single time. What's Firecracker? You must mean something like - Baozu Zaofu. Baozu Zaofu, the one with the little spark. Oh, it's Baozu Zaofu. That game is just like the pinnacle of what we call perceived progression. So it looks like it's going to hit when really it's just a display of how long it's going to hit. How long it's been since it hit. Yeah, exactly. So it doesn't mean anything, but it does get a lot of people who aren't familiar. They're like, look at all the lights. That game is, I do not like that game. I'm going to go four. Yeah. And he says perceived progression, but it's actually perceived persistence.

2:02:10What is the difference? persistence is a persistent state slot machine where as you play it the the elements that you see on the screen are persistent they stay until they're hit um and they use these elements to fool

2:02:27Graham Stephan:you into thinking that it's oh that it's progression so like the one that let's say that i said that lady left a 74 that it must hit by 75 so you know if you walk up to the machine is that 52, 53, 54. That's a real persistent feature because at 75, it's going to hit and you're going to get a bonus. But the firecrackers, it's like, oh, they're lit up a little bit. They're lit up all the way. It's perceived that there's some kind of a persistent feature, but it's not real. That's still completely random every time you hit the button. It's perceived persistence. But for some reason, we call it perceived progression.

2:02:59I think progression just makes more sense

2:03:00Graham Stephan:to people who don't follow gambling. Yeah, it just, I mean, progression just applies that there's some type of progressive towards getting bigger progressing towards something i think they should actually change it to perceived progression yeah it's funny other i've heard other people call it perceived progression now yeah we that's we we made a better name what about huff and puff i mean we've made so many huff and puff videos and i i'm on record that i just despise the game now uh so i'm gonna call huff a puff a four yeah you know the whole franchise is probably someplace between three and maybe eight like huff and even more puff is it's a strong game but it's it's i don't know maybe seven maybe three to seven it's hard yeah the the huff and puff brand is spectacular like they crushed it rivals the buffalo brand and the dragon link brand so maybe their brand is a nine but the games and the math behind the games are a five and a half at best they're fun too about a six and a half maybe he was expecting like a number for an answer sorry but I don't know people who know slots will enjoy the answers I think what about Regal Riches Regal Riches is a solid nine it's a great game it's it's it's there's an experience that you get to play I mean I guess they could make it a little fancier and maybe a little bit better music or better graphics but I mean for for what it is it's it's a great game it's you know a starting point there's an ending point it's fun it has decent payouts um and it's just been so good to us it put us on the map we played an 1125 regal riches and we were chasing a green i think it was uh and and we were down uh was it 300 000 yeah it doesn't seem like as much now uh we were down like 300 000 and we were just i was having a come apart you know because it was just taking forever and you just can't quit until you hit it uh but yeah we love that game i i wish more places had it and uh i'd say it's a yeah definitely a nine out of ten yeah it's up there it's at fewer places now which is unfortunate but uh yeah eight and a half something like that about ultimate x oh ten it's probably it's it's probably the best video poker variant that's ever existed he taught me wbg taught me that game and I just absolutely love it.

2:05:20And it's, I've had some of my biggest wins ever on that game. And it's just so fun. I mean, you're never out of it in Ultimate X, you know.

2:05:27Graham Stephan:There are so many things that are good about it too. Once you understand it, the variants they have figured out really what you can win a ton and you can get wrecked, but it's great. The household is really, really low. So you can play a lot. It's a great, great game. 10 for sure. Yeah. What about Pi Gow? Pi Gow is a game that's a series of pushes punctuated by an occasional loss. So it's a great drinking game um it you can play for a long time it's slow it's a good relaxing game it's kind of fun um you know as far as table games go it's probably seven and a half i mean i haven't played it so long i mean i could barely even tell you i know there's house way pair pair two pair behind it's a fun game yeah as far as table games go i mean i'd probably i'd probably play that i'd like that better than three card poker or ultimate texas hold 'em and those are all kind of in that category that i'd throw into like the seven range i don't know i would say lower because we never play it if we liked it a lot we would play it so i would say maybe a five and a half yeah there's something about pigo that a lot of people don't know is oftentimes most casinos you can bank the game every other hand like where you get to be the house so i like that element of it like in la you can go and actually just be the house but it's kind of hard because they have corporations that run those games but even in casinos in las vegas you every other hand the the players can bank the game.

2:06:43Really? Yeah. Do you do that? I have, yeah. Yeah? We should do that. We should make a video about that. We should. Where's that at? I don't know if where we normally play allows you to do it, but I mean, I've done it at many casinos on the strip.

2:06:59Graham Stephan:I like Pie Guy. It's really fun, but yeah, it's a lot of pushes. Like my friend Alan used to say, it's a great game. He liked it because you play a lot, you don't lose a lot, you get free drinks, and you get rated and so he would get he would just play hours and hours and hours pie gao not lose very much money and get good drinks and comps craps i mean craps is a perennial favorite it's i'd say it's probably an eight eight or nine eight and a half something like that it's a fun it's a fun game it's weird because because craps is the kind of game where i can go bet five thousand i mean it's probably not this way anymore but i remember when i was first starting to gamble i could bet five thousand and a blackjack no problem not not feel anything but you put a hundred dollars on a crap table just the energy just is so amped up but craps is bluff game you know i mean he's made that famous i i personally despise craps like i know that if you're playing perfect strategy i guess i should play the don't because for me what happens is i put i hit a point and then i do a combat and then i place max odds and i get a few other points and then i roll a seven and i lose at all every single time like i do not like craps at all i give it a two five maybe it's a little slow for me and it's hard to film and it's hard to film and you lose a lot and it's not my favorite blackjack 10 point it's a 20 out of 10 it's it's the best game yeah he loves it that's i mean some of our only wins are when we let him drive and blackjack frustrates the hell out of me like i said earlier, I'd like, it just seems like I always bust and they always make a hand and, you know, it's good sometimes.

2:08:33Cause you know, you bet one hand and you get a blackjack or a double down and you win a lot. That's great. But if we play it for a while, almost always, I end up starting with a bunch of chips and ending with no chips. Uh, but it's, it's fun and it's easy and it's everywhere, you know, so it's, it's, you know, it's probably like a seven.

2:08:50Graham Stephan:I would say seven as well. You guys have very high ratings for every single one of them. Like, I don't think I saw really a single thing under five, except from you. You had a couple things that are under five. What would you say is the worst game of all time? A lot of people say three-card poker. It's not that fun. There's not that much variance, and you lose a lot. Yeah, if you're talking about table games, I would say something like Let It Ride. That was a very innovative game when it first came out. Oh, you have some history with Let It Ride, I see. I sat down at a Let It Ride table with my friend Gavin one night, and we did not, in fact, Let It Ride.

2:09:23yeah no i mean it's okay i know there are people like they still have it at pepperville and i know there are people who go there just to play it um and it's okay when it first came out it was a fun game because it was new it was one of the new carnival games but there's just like the other games are just just so much faster and more fun and what about casino war yeah i mean i got wrecked on that one time coming out of the bellagio i think i had won too many drinks and i sat down and i just lost so much money so fast at that game um well i don't know what which which is it a bad game for the player?

2:09:55Like, which one of those carnival games has the worst odds, you think, for the player? I mean, probably, like, any of those side bet games, like Let It Ride and those games, if you play good strategy, it's not too bad, but it's mostly the side bets. Like, side bets on Baccarat can be 8%, 10%, 12 % a house edge. Side bets are generally sucker bets, right? Yeah. We never bet the side bets. I mean, I do, but you don't because they're sucker bets. I mean, unless there's a reason to.

2:10:23Graham Stephan:What would you say are the main things that people get wrong when they go gambling? Like, if you're going to put out a message to the casual viewer, I don't endorse gambling, by the way, at all. But if you are going to do it, what tips or tricks should they have that'll cover like 80 % of hopefully what they would have lost? I mean, try to understand the strategy of the games you're playing. Like, with Blackjack, Baccarat's easy. You just pick a side. You pick, what do you say, red or blue? and you don't really have to have any, there's no decisions. But if you're going to play craps or something like that, bet the odds because that lowers the overall edge.

2:11:00If you are going to play slots, make sure that you're going to be better off if you play $5,$1 versus$500 pennies because there's a chance that a dollar denomination has a higher return to player than a penny version of the same game. But just only gamble recreationally don't if you if it's if it's money you need don't gamble it the biggest mistake i think that okay what comes to mind to the biggest mistake is uh so many things that i did wrong that you taught me one like i i very rarely used my player's card you know i didn't really see the value or the value of it enough and i didn't i didn't swipe my player's card at the kiosk i didn't take advantage of promotions that you leave a lot of money on the table if you don't use your player's card and all the promo properly people who play video poker and do the wrong holds you know like they they they hold something that they think is right you know they'll hold a you know they hold an ace king over a pair of sixes you know or something on depending on the game there's different holds but uh like i don't like to play juice is wild because the holds are really really complicated and i and every mistake you make in the holds costs you a lot.

2:12:14Like if you play 10 play ultimate X bonus poker with a good pay table and you play perfectly, which is almost impossible to do, it's like 99.4 % return to player, but most people play so bad that they're probably getting like 94%. And then also blackjack, the biggest mistake I see is people like kind of playing by instinct rather than the book, you know, like, Oh, I don't know. I don't want to hit that because, you know, I think I'm going to bust when you know you should hit hit it mathematically because you're so on the pulse

2:12:47Graham Stephan:with everything gambling i'm curious the level of information that you have access to what have been the biggest exploits that you've come across the biggest like treasure chests because you knew this little bit of information that ended up taking you really far i mean me personally like Like I understood things like must hit by jackpot. So whenever you're walking through a casino, you're keeping your eyes open for something like that. I mean, it's like now, like a lot of that stuff, that ship has sailed just because the information is so ubiquitous that so many people know about it. It's hard to find those kinds of things anymore.

2:13:23Turns out to be worth very, very little. But, you know, 10, 15 years ago, if people, if it wasn't widespread and you were the only person in a region that knew that there was a must hit by$10 ,000 jackpot you could find a more profitable situation. But a lot of that stuff is like everything in life. Eventually the market figures it out and those advantages don't exist anymore. But just like if you're going to play blackjack, just play, get a basic strategy card or look it up on the internet so you know what you're doing. If you're going to play three-card poker, make sure you understand that when you're supposed to bet.

2:13:58Graham Stephan:But for you, when have you ever used this finely tuned knowledge? I got one for you that I think you're comfortable telling and it's a phenomenal story. The, the, uh, one that when we were at the, uh, with our friend Jonathan and, and, and, and, and you're like, oh, I was there that night. Oh, I mean that, cause that one's long since gone. No one's ever going to do it again. Well, there was just like, like you're talking about take advantage of promotions. That promo that where they got. Yeah. Like, I mean, sometimes there'll be, there'll be promotions where the casino will just be very generous.

2:14:31Like you can earn X amount of points, but the value of what you're getting for those points is worth more than the cost. The expected cost doesn't mean you're not going to lose today. But if you were able to do it thousands and thousands of times, you'll come out ahead. What's that look for? Just because you're doing that thing that you do. Like he's the king of not telling anyone anything. It's a it's a it's his this gambler runs so deep even when he. time because tell about the freaking thing where you know you got paid for every w2 and how you beat how they i'm not you but how how it they got beat really bad there's been casinos where they have tax day promotions where they'll give you 50 let's say 15 of a jackpot on um on april 15th right they'll run a promotion so if you can if you can find a way to create a jackpot that only costs you five percent you're going to have an edge so things like that have so you've done that

2:15:24Graham Stephan:Oh, yeah. And so what did you win? Money. And how much money did you win? How much did you risk? A lot. A lot. A lot. A lot. Enough that the CEO remembered it about 10 years later and they laughed about it because they got – because they did a promo and they didn't think it all the way through. And so these smart people, they see that and they're like, well, you're going to give me – you're going to meet X dollars for every$1 ,200 jackpot I get? Okay, I'm going to go play$600 a hand on video blackjack. and every single hand that I win, I'm going to get a tax form. I'm going to win a hundred bucks.

2:15:55And in an hour, I'm going to hit a hundred jackpots. And it's supposed to cost you$6. You know, your negative expectation is maybe$6, but every other hand you win a hundred. So it's not too hard to make a lot of money that way.

2:16:07Graham Stephan:Have you ever gotten an offer from a casino? Like, hey, can you consult us and advise us to make sure we don't make an error like that again? I mean, yes, informally, never professionally, but there have been casinos that have reached out and asked questions like, could you take a look at this promotion and see if there's anything that doesn't make sense about it. And I've done that. It's so cool. This guy's going to be the star of the movie. No, definitely not. Yeah. His character, for sure. No. Hmm. So good, so good, so good. Spring Styles are at Nordstrom Rack stores now, and they're up to 60 % off.

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2:17:16Celsius. Live, fit, go. Grab a code RefreshingCelsius at your local retailer or locate now at Celsius.com. There are a lot. Yeah, it's fun. Can't wait for the movie to come out. He's also super humble, gets embarrassed when you say nice things about him. But definitely, I mean, you say EJ's the brains. WBG's, I mean, EJ's definitely done an incredible job there. And he's worked really, really hard. But these two together, I mean, you got super brain and a young brain. and he's learned a lot from him and they've well i mean and you're very talented in front of you he's the best in front of the camera yeah i like to think about youtube like social media youtube what what vegas mat is kind of like um a recipe and if you're baking a cake for instance like you need all the ingredients you need the salt the sugar the flour and even though the flour may be 90 % of it Vegas Matt.

2:18:14You still need, you still need the other ingredients to, to, to make the product. So are you the salt or the sugar?

2:18:21Graham Stephan:Yes. Certainly not the dairy. But I'm saying it's like you need all the ingredients and even though it, you may not be 90 % of the ingredients, the whole product won't exist without, without, without all the elements and they're all equally important because you can't do it without each other. And I think we, we just work very well together yeah when i when i mentioned to people oh yeah we're filming an episode like vegas mats and they're like oh are you bringing on wbg and like ej and like yeah yeah like they're gonna hopefully come on the show i love it spread some wisdom too okay last question have you ever found a true edge like they say in roulette when you spin it maybe if the table's a little crooked it could be landing on something more often or something to that degree do you want me to talk about the roulette one or yeah here's the thing you should do a podcast someday when i don't know when like and just have him tell you everything he knows and it would probably be the most viewed podcast in gambling history so tell us a roulette story he's got one on everything i know i know i have been involved with with i mean yes you can there's not a thing is is there's not a game in the casino that you can't beat it doesn't matter what the game is under the right circumstances circumstances i mean that doesn't mean that that exists at every like you can't just walk up to every single table and there's an edge but there's every single game there's a circumstance where it could where the tables could be turned how so then on like where you listen earlier to ask about the baccarat thing and the guy that claims he has an edge on baccarat and he'll give it away for 20 million dollars so like how could you beat baccarat well first of all that's not true that's just he's just saying that he that if i it wouldn't be worth 20 million because if you could beat it you get kicked out before you could win 20 million so no one would buy it and i i think i think people who claim to have systems are just they're just charlatans it's just like it's like it's like people who who claim that they can beat sports for instance it's very very difficult because the mark there's so much money and so many smart people betting into those markets that that you're going to have an equilibrium price and the people who say that oh i have an edge they're just selling picks to both so give us a little nugget okay bacra you said there is a circumstance or that can you give us an example of when a bacra game could have been beat i mean they're like there are side bets that that are accountable like blackjack that you can that you can that you could be the side bet so like you would count a 12 deck shoe down and then you know that like All the nines are gone, and then this makes the big tiger more likely or something like that?

2:20:54Like one of the side bets could, like when there's no more face cards, for instance, something could, there could be an advantage on one of the, like a tie. Like I'm not saying that that's the actual circumstance, but it's circumstances. It's not huge, though. God forbid you give a specific. No, because I mean, I don't know it by rote. Or also, is it something like when some dealers do something wrong and when the card comes out of a shoe, if you're sitting in a certain place, you could see the. You're talking about hole carding? You could see the card or something? Well, not on Baccarat. But I mean, well, I guess if you could, like if you knew the first card on Baccarat, you could, you could gain an edge.

2:21:25Like if you knew it was a nine and it was going to the player, of course you would bet player. Mm-hmm. So, okay. So then you said roulette, you kind of, your eyes lit up a little bit. And is there, can you think of an example when roulette was beatable or like that you beat roulette? I know people, yeah. Like I know people who have found situations where, um, things, um, replicated often enough. like you were saying, like the table was tilted, like they could, they, they knew that it was going to go around three times. And if it goes around three times, it's going to land in a quadrant. So they could just bet the quadrant.

2:21:58Graham Stephan:And so they, they literally wait to see how fast the spin is. Yeah, exactly. Interesting. Because it's a, it's a, it's a physical element. It's a physical thing. So if you roll a bowling ball down the alley, the exact same way, every time you're going to knock over the same number of pins. I mean, on average. I want to ask him more questions. Very rarely is the answer. I think also all of that stuff is so hard and the opportunities are so rare and it's really not what we do. We're just aware of it. And it's a fun thing to talk about. I mean, look at how interested you guys have been. And I find it fascinating.

2:22:35Graham Stephan:It's not what we do at all. Like we play. We go gamble. No casino cares if we come in and play Huff and Puff and Dragon Link. They're like, welcome to the casino. Yeah, the thing is we know about it. we don't do it we don't actively participate in it but i think this is how kind of maybe kind of how all this might have happened is because when i met matt like he knew that i had some knowledge about these things and he was fascinated by it so we just had an instant friendship and we would talk about it and just talk about stories and things that maybe we had done before and he wanted to go gambling and things like that so i think it cemented our our friendship and our relationship And that's why we hung out together and why we were gambling together.

2:23:15I used to beg him to let me go with him, you know, and, and he had like, you know, he's WBG. And like, I remember saying to him, like, he's like, how can I get to be your sidekick? Because he, he always seemed, you know, he's a nice guy and he's fun to hang out with. And he, and he's a people person talking about you like you're not here. I know you love that. And, and so he would have, you know, these various people that would go with him all the time. And like, I always wanted to go more because it was just so fun. Because, I mean, not that he won every time, but he certainly didn't lose as much as most people that I had met.

2:23:49And I just learned so much about like a game like a Harley Davidson that they don't have anymore. Like that one was something. If I remember, we used to play that a lot. Well, I mean, it was, that was just one with an actual progression, right? Yeah. It was a, it was, well, it was the, you would play and they were, there were free game meters. And the longer you played, the higher they would get. And they weren't guaranteed to hit. But there was a point where what you would expect to pay to hit one of the progressives, like let's say the minor jackpot, was you knew it was within a certain range.

2:24:25So if there were 50 games and it would cost you X amount of dollars to hit it, but you knew that the 50 games would pay more than that, you would play it until you hit it. Now, it doesn't mean you were guaranteed to win that day, but if you did that over and over and over, you were just going to print money. Do you remember the first machine that you ever showed me? First slot machine? For the first slot machine that, you know, that there was something that I should look for? Plants versus zombies? Plants versus zombies. Yeah, there was a plants versus zombies and there was a brain meter. And I can't remember.

2:24:57Oh, I remember that game. But if the brain meter was like over a certain mount, like we'd be walking through the casino and we would like walk to like 20 casinos in a day and good cardio. And then we'd see a Plants vs. Zombies and be like, oh, the brain meter. And I was like so proud of myself the first time I found something good and we'd come up, boom, boom, boom, and then win. They don't have that game anymore, though. No, I mean, it probably exists someplace, but like everything, those games come. They go away. Yeah. If the games are beatable, they don't. to let's not just that they're beatable i just think they have have a life cycle that's like one of the things when you asked talked about dragon like one of the reasons i gave it a high ranking is because it's been around since like 2014 and it's still very very popular so yeah i mean you have to respect the fact that a game could be around for 11 years and still be one of the biggest

2:25:46Graham Stephan:games to drive coin in have you made most of your money that you've made in your life from gambling yes from exploits no just i mean i was professional poker player for a while so it's from professional poker yeah and so i was i was professional poker player and i was involved in poker right before what's so funny i'm just looking over at him and he's just smiling like he's like he knows something like senator oh well you know so before the poker boom Like I was fortunate, like just coincidentally, I picked up poker before the poker boom. So when the poker boom happened, I was in a fortuitous position and I was able to take advantage of it.

2:26:30I got involved in affiliate marketing with poker. When are you going to write a book, WBG? I would love to read that book. When you retire. When you write the books. You'd get mad at me for everything I said. You don't talk about that. Yeah, so I played poker. I was, I played a lot of tournament poker back before people, before everybody learned how to play on the internet. So. It's just fun to watch him like just even just betting sports, you know, cause like, I'll be like, I like the blue team, you know, or whatever, like, Oh, Ohio, you know? And then, and then he just won't casually like make a bet, you know, even if like we're at a game, you know, and he's like, well, let me take a look, you know?

2:27:08And he looks at like 17 books and sees what's going on. And it's just like a level of intelligence and patience that I couldn't do if someone paid me all the money in the world, you know, but then he'll go and he'll bet on the Eagles anyway. I think it's just a disaster. Go birds. I think it's just a matter of just kind of looking at life in terms of EV, right? If is okay, sure. The gas across the street might be one cent less. So I'm going to get 10 gallons. Is it worth 10 cents to cross the street? Probably not. Is it worth it to make a phone call to save$150 on your insurance? Probably, right?

2:27:46It takes you 10 minutes, right? It's hard to find opportunities that are worth$900 an hour. So you just try and think in terms of EV and apply it to everything else. There's so much, let me tell you. WBG is a wealth of information if you can get it out of him. He knows everything about gambling. I think I'd like to create like a gambler's trivia thing sometime and have all these people that think they know and then like Jeopardy. And then - That would be good. And I would back WBG to be the guy that ends up on the show for like 100 days straight. I wouldn't win, but I'll tell you what, because of my gambling history, career, whatever you want to call it, I've been fortunate to meet some of the most brilliant minds in gambling.

2:28:32So I've tried to learn from them.

2:28:34Graham Stephan:I have a couple of trivia questions, but then we have to wrap. Okay, got it. Okay? Oh, it's a lot of 10-hour podcasts. I just wanted to see, because that was an interesting prompt. What specific rule change in U.S. Blackjack caused the house edge to increase by 0.4 % without changing payouts or deck count? Changing payouts meaning that they're not going to give you like 49 cents. I guess adding more decks would be the only way you could do it without changing. Or like not hitting on soft 17. That's a rule. That's a rule change. What specific rule change without changing payouts? meaning they didn't give you that rule change.

2:29:05Graham Stephan:They changed the rule, but they didn't change the payout. So it sounds like, what was the rule that dramatically increased the casino edge? It was a rule change. It was a rule change that didn't change the payouts, like not like three to two versus. Okay, yeah. So yeah, it could be hitting on soft 17. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. I knew that one. Who got that one? Me. All right, well, one more. What is the only common casino game where the house edge can be mathematically reversed in favor of the player without card counting or hole carding? Because you said slots. Oh, no. The only one I can think of is ultimate text is hold them if everybody sees, if every player sees the hand.

2:29:44Well, that's hole carding. Is that what that is? It's not hole carding.

2:29:48Graham Stephan:Hole carding is when you see the dealer makes a mistake and you see their card. Yeah, right. Yeah, I know you know what it is. But not everybody does. I mean, slots, that's the thing. With a game that has a variable state slot machine, the odds can change. can go from the house edge to a player edge. It's craps. Pass line and don't pass line. The blended edge approaches zero. It says no memory, no counting, no exploit required. Well, I guess what you're saying is if you bet max odds. But it doesn't go into the player's favor. Like your odds are even money. So there's no edge. It's 50-50. But you still have to have a pass line or a don't pass line bet where they do have an edge of X percent.

2:30:33Yeah, so your element of risk on craps might go from 1.0, whatever, 1.3 to 0.3 or something like that, depending on... But he said it goes actually into the player's favor. I just don't know how you could create that situation. I guess the only thing, what he must be saying is that if you have, if you are betting on a number, like if you're betting on the don't pass with odds once the point is established once it's established then you've got an edge because the 7 is the most likely number to come up that's probably the scenario that he's describing although the overall edge on the game is still in the house's favor

2:31:18Graham Stephan:which Las Vegas casino slot machine malfunctioned in the 1990s it led to a court case that changed how casinos handle obvious errors versus binding wins Well, some must've been mega bucks. Something like that. Yeah. It has to be. Lucky Lucy. Lucky Lucy. Do you remember that one? No. WPG. You want one more? Sure. Fire one more in there. In Baccarat, why does the banker bet still have a lower house edge, even though the casino takes a 5 % commission? And what would the edge be without the commission? Well, the house edge be, or would the player edge be? If you don't pay the commission, you'd be printing money by betting banker.

2:31:56But it's just the rules, the rules for hitting favor the banker.

2:32:05Graham Stephan:It says the banker house edge with a 5 % commission is 1.06. Banker wins more because it acts second, like the dealer in blackjack. Which I actually felt like I heard before. I mean, you're implying that there's position involved. And it doesn't matter who the order, because you can turn over the cards either way. I think what they're saying is what the banker does is determined sometimes by the card the player draws. Like there's times when if the player draws an eight, the dealer doesn't draw. And if the player draws a three, the banker wouldn't draw. The odds are better for banker because of the rules.

2:32:48The odds are better for banker. but with the commission it's 1.0 what'd you say 0.3 or 0.8 or whatever and it's slightly less for the player so the banker is the better bet even with the commission and the reason that we bet banker all the time is because the banker does win more of the time like if you played a million hands there's going to be more banker hands than players there's going to be three results banker player and tie and then you could tell them what the skew is but it's more more wins are going to be banker and videos do better when you win. So we bet banker and also because it's mathematically a better bet.

2:33:24And so we bet banker every time. Yeah. I mean, if you bet banker all year and you bet millions of dollars, you're going to lose a slightly less money, but thousands of dollars less. But also like Matt was saying, the result of that actual hand is for the banker more often because of the commission, right? Because if it's... And a lot of people don't like paying commission, so more people bet player, which is just another example of uneducated gambling, you know, because they think, oh, I'm going to bet player because I don't have to pay commission, and it's a worse bet.

2:34:01Graham Stephan:I asked Chachipiti for the hardest trivia questions that it could come up with. Wow. And that's what it came up with. That's cool. I'm curious, where are you guys headed to after this today we are i don't know to be side el cortez today what are you guys gonna gamble oh just whatever see if they have any new slot machines and place in baccarat and have fun how much how much coin in are you gonna are you gonna risk today probably 50 60 000 coin in i would say i mean there's a there's a couple places uh in vegas that we film at and el cortez is one of them and we have a great relationship there and i mean a typical day we're gonna get a little bit of a later start because we were here a long time than we normally do.

2:34:43But normally around two or so, we meet, go to the Starbucks, get some coffee or iced tea or ginger and turmeric shots, a lot of offerings, sometimes some egg bites. And then we will sit around and we'll say, like, what do you want to do? What do you want to play today? Oh, and then they come up and say, hey, there's a new machine or this, that, and the other thing. And then we have a little 15 minutes, take pictures with people, hand out lucky stickers, just say hello to who's there and get in the zone. And then we go take a, what I call a profile pic. What do you call it? It's a thumbnail. A thumbnail.

2:35:20And they take a thumbnail and then we sit down and assume our positions and start pushing buttons. And WBG starts telling dumb jokes and me and EJ bust each other's balls. and we talk about whatever's going on in the town. And, you know, like I went, like if we go and see The Wizard of Oz, you know, which I said earlier, I thought was awesome, but talk about that. Or I talk about a TV show that we're watching, you know, that's really, really good. And we just talk about anything and everything. It's like a 45 minute session. It's four friends sitting around talking about life, really. And it just happens to take place in a casino.

2:35:58Yeah. And then that will, depending if we make one video or two, will be there for anywhere between two and a half to five hours. And then we'll either go home or go do something with our friends, which generally will involve more gambling and are going to dinner. And then EJ will go home and edit. And then that is probably what the rest of today looks like. Yeah. Lather, rinse, repeat.

2:36:23Graham Stephan:Well, thank you guys so much for coming on the show. Thank you. Graham, do you have any parting words? Graham says like and subscribe. Guys, please like and subscribe. Also, obviously, all of your information will be left down below. Thank you guys for coming on. Thanks, Rob. Thank you for having us here. Appreciate it. Thank you. Best of luck at the casino. Guys, if you want the full unedited raw version of this podcast, if you like it raw, subscribe to the members because you can see the full thing. All that stuff that we talked about. All the stuff that we talked about. How you can get an edge in the casino.

2:36:54Graham Stephan:Just kidding. We didn't talk about that. But thank you guys so much for watching. Appreciate it. Get the book. See you guys. Thanks a lot. Good to be back.

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