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The Gambler Who Turned Casinos Into His Playground

Don Johnson’s Winning Formula

If the first paragraph of your online biography includes the phrase “professional blackjack hustler,” you must have figured something out. Don Johnson started out in racetrack and casino management, moved to high-end horses/casino gambling to the point where gambling houses agreed to at least some of his rules to get his business. 

Saying he gave them the business isn’t exactly fair, but what Johnson accomplished was to leverage his staggering amount of play into ensuring more of his wagers would find their way into his pocket. 

Here’s a look at some of the secrets to Don Johson blackjack…

How to Win at Blackjack Without Counting Cards?

Casinos have been using multi-deck shoes in blackjacks more often than not to cut down on the player’s ability to “count cards,” seeing what’s already out there and what’s left to be drawn.  

Now, without such an advantage, players need another strategy if they plan to beat the house. In the case of Don Johnson, it wasn’t the computer-assisted wagering he designed to help him win at the track, rather the huge bets and subsequent rules changes which turned an average casino into a Don Johnson casino. 

As the story goes, when the 2008 financial crisis hit, tremendous desperation set in at gambling houses who needed the whales (“high rollers”) to come through their doors. Enter Don Johnson, native of Salem, Oregon, who agreed to visit the casinos and spend a good chunk of change at the blackjack tables if they bent some of their rules.

How Did Don Johnson Make His Money? 

With a bio listing his first foray in gambling working in management at a racetrack in Philadelphia, Johnson then moved to state regulatory jobs before moving to the other side. He was a founder in a company which was one of the first to incorporate computer-assisted wagering on horses, using different mathematical equations to spread bets around a race or a number of races. Computer-assisted wagering, or CAW’s, are not a pleasant foe if you’re a bettor of the old school, but that’s another story.

Johnson then moved his craft to backjack, finding an amenable partner in casinos who wanted a crack at his bankroll. We can’t say with any certainty that Johnson is the best blackjack player in the world, but perhaps close. 

Johnson demanded certain concessions out of the casinos. In turn, he’d then guarantee to bet a “minimum” amount per hand, per day, per month, whatever.

Casinos surrendered some of their advantages, such as forcing them to stand on a “soft” 17 (ace and six), splitting an additional pair of aces (an oddity, but a possibility) and rebating what was said to be 20 percent of his losses if they were more than $500,000.

That last point is worth another mention…a loss of a half-million dollars would put $100,000 back into the pocket of Johnson. Do you suppose the $25 bettor gets to play with house money in that way? Hardly. 

There was a story about Don Johnson Atlantic City, involving the casino at the Tropicana. Johnson split and doubled down on what began as a pair of eights. He then won every hand after a bust by the dealer, doubling his $800,000 into $1.6 million.      

Who is the Most Successful Blackjack Player?

Again, no one can say with absolute certainty if Don Johnson is the best blackjack player out there, but after taking multiple millions out of more than one casino, he’s in the mix. Eventually, those concessions Don Johnson blackjack demanded ate into the profits (though not his), forcing the casinos to return to what was the status quo.

Any Final Thoughts?

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