Our guests this week are Jim Pasko, and his son Dan. Jim has been one of the best backgammon players in the world for 40 years, and together with his son Dan they have been very successful as sports bettors, primarily focused on prop bets.
[00:00] Introduction of gamblers, Jim and Dan Pasko
[00:35] Does Jim still play backgammon?
[03:17] Studying backgammon before bots, taking risk
[09:33] Cheating stories from The Cavendish, scams, magnetic dice
[17:06] Sport betting
[19:36] Jim and Dan’s background in math
[23:29] Betting football and nba props, increasing market efficiency
[26:37] Solving problems for other bettors, combinatorics
[29:12] Erosion of edges as markets change and evolve
[32:42] SouthPointCasino.com
[33:36] BlackjackApprenticeship.com
[34:20] VideoPoker.com/gwae
[35:22] Unabated.com
[35:58] How to contact Jim and Dan
[37:15] Backgammon, learning curves, Stu Ungar
[41:51] Bomb pots
[49:06] Recommended; The Great on Hulu, The Duke, Good Will Hunting, Tombstone
Sponsored Links:
http://SouthPointCasino.com
http://BlackjackApprenticeship.com
http://VideoPoker.com/gwae
http://Unabated.com
Recommended:
“The Great” http://Hulu.com/series/the-great
“The Duke” http://Mubi.com/films/the-duke-2020
“Good Will Hunting” http://Miramax.com/movie/good-will-hunting
The 50 Greatest Stories in Poker History was published by Huntington Press in October 2021. It is a short, easy-to-digest, and entertaining book about poker history.
Instead of a long, continuous narrative about how the world’s favorite card game developed, it’s giving you 50 short stories all about poker. These stories are fascinating snapshots of poker’s history. The chapters are in chronological order, so by the end of this new poker history book, you will have a comprehensive look at how poker got from its earliest stages to the global industry that it is today.
The Chapters in the 50 Greatest Stories in Poker History
The earliest story is all the way back from 1836. It is about an American soldier serving in the ‘Dragoon Regiment“ of the US Army. He’s trying to organize an evening of “rational enjoyment” with his fellow men. However, there is just one problem – his Major “just lost some cool hundreds last night at poker”, and thus he is not in a forbearing mood.
You’ll also read about Richard Nixon, the 37th President of the United States (and the only one having to resign from the office), building enough of a bankroll from playing poker in the US Navy to help fund his first campaign for the House of Representatives. You’ll read about the “most dubious” heads-up match between the first-ever WSOP Main Event winner Johnny Moss and Nick “the Greek” Dandolos; as well as a call with 10-high on the river by the legendary Stu Ungar that is forever cemented into poker history.
There are plenty of stories from the modern era as well. The book has a chapter about the long and arduous internet feud between two poker greats, Doug Polk and Daniel Negreanu. It started with a rake increase by PokerStars and ended in a fierce, $200/$400 No Limit Hold’em heads-up challenge – as well as new-found respect for each other for the two former nemeses. The stories also include the one about Instagram “bad boy” Dan Bilzerian, and whether or not he got his much-flaunted wealth from poker as he claims. They also include the most infamous cheating scandals the game of poker has ever seen. Those are the stories of “potripper” on the now defunct online poker site Absolute Poker, and Mike Postle’s case at Stones Gambling Hall.
On top of all that, you’ll also read about the biggest loser in online poker history, the biggest online tournament winner in poker history, and the biggest buy-in tournament ever in poker history.
How to Buy The 50 Greatest Stories in Poker History
You can buy this fun, new poker history book directly from the publisher by clicking here; or order it from Amazon by clicking here. Shipment is free of charge for United States residents if you place your order on either site.
We owe much in life to “fortune” as in luck, be that good or bad – as in money, be that much, some, little or none – as in all the events, thoughts, and decisions we make in our lives without truly knowing the consequences of such and their impacts.
And what’s “out there” in the world can cascade in on us and determine our lives from a given point onwards. Pestilence, war, poverty, natural disasters, our own mental sharpness, or lack thereof, is the scenery for much of our lives. Fortune hangs above our heads.
Even in relatively simple things fortune plays a role.
I’m guessing that 100% (or close to that) of couples getting married think that their marriages will succeed. About 50% of those marriages don’t. All those couples flipped coins. Some got the winning side, some got the losing side. Some of us have been on both sides of that coin flip. How much did fortune have to do with that?
To continue reading this article, please visit: https://www.888casino.com/blog/price-of-fortune
“It matters more when there’s money on it,” the bookmaker Sky Bet’s marketing slogan used to say. It certainly mattered to our family, when my husband Luke took his life after struggling with a devastating gambling addiction.
He’d started out betting on football every weekend with his friends, doing exactly what the ads portrayed as harmless fun. Yet it’s anything but harmless. More than a million people are addicted to gambling in the UK, and every single day at least one of them takes their life. Behind every person who dies or has their life destroyed is a network of family and friends destroyed along with them.
This week there was another boot laid into all of us harmed by gambling, as it was revealed that up to 72 English football clubs have taken a cut of the money fans lose gambling with Sky Bet. It is almost unbelievable: clubs are encouraging their own fans to gamble and then those same clubs cash in when they lose. The more fans lose, the better it is for them. A family’s ruin is the jackpot.
It’s no secret that gambling companies have hijacked football, but it comes as a shock that clubs have conspired to also profit from a harmful addiction that ultimately costs lives. This is at odds with the community-focused, family-friendly image clubs peddle, paying lip service to things such as Mental Health Awareness Week as they rifle through the pockets of people struggling with a life-threatening illness. If football was serious about preventing mental health harm and suicide, it would stop promoting and profiting from gambling – an addiction with an elevated suicide risk.
If you are in any doubt about whether gambling companies, and in turn football clubs, are benefiting from misery, consider this: 86% of online betting profits come from just 5% of customers – those addicted or at risk. Gambling is an industry built on addiction, and it spends £1.5bn a year on advertising, in part to replace the large number of its key customers who are financially ruined or who die. With the advertising comes the inducements. Whenever Luke tried to stop gambling he was lured back, again and again, by direct marketing encouraging him to continue.
Last year, Sky Betting and Gaming sent offers of 100 free spins to many people recovering from gambling disorders who had explicitly asked to be excluded from any marketing. It was the second time it had committed such an offence, but it was fined only £1.2m by the Gambling Commission. Just last week, the bookmaker Betway was fined only £400,000 after it was caught advertising on the children’s section of the West Ham United website. This included a direct link on a page where children were invited to colour in a teddy bear.
These regular, paltry fines are no deterrent for gambling companies making billions each year. Bookies factor them in as a cost of doing business and carry on. Until the commission uses its power to remove their licences, the recklessness and harm they cause will continue.
With an estimated 55,000 children already addicted to gambling in the UK, the next generation is being groomed. My son no longer wants to go and see his beloved Leicester City at home, something he used to love doing with his dad. Leicester City has more gambling partners than any other professional club, and the constant barrage of gambling advertising around the stadium reminds him of the thing that led to his father’s death.
All 72 English Football League (EFL) clubs are forced to promote Sky Bet in their stadium, on their shirts and online. This deal is up at the end of next season, and it should not be renewed. The EFL deal with Sky Bet to profit from fans’ gambling losses was supposedly binned at the start of the 2019-2020 season, but some clubs will continue to rake it in under “legacy” contracts until 2024. No football fan should stand for this.
The government must publish its long-awaited review of the Gambling Act 2005 that promises to set out the changes needed to make gambling less harmful. It must include an end to all gambling advertising and direct marketing. This means not just removing ads from football shirts, as has been suggested, but from stadiums, television, billboards, the internet – everywhere. People will still be able to bet if they want to, but they, and importantly their children, won’t be subjected to an onslaught of nudges and inducements including so-called free bet and free spin offers to use addictive and dangerous gambling products.
The need becomes urgent in a cost of living crisis. The £14bn the UK spends on gambling each year benefits the economy less than if it was spent almost anywhere else. The Social Market Foundation argues that redirecting 10% of gambling spend into retail would put an extra £311m into the economy and create 24,000 jobs. And it is the poorest who are targeted and who suffer most. Deprived areas have 10 times the number of betting shops the most affluent parts of the country do. The seemingly recession-proof gambling industry will use the economic turmoil as an opportunity to prey on desperation.
Though it both hurts and gives comfort to think about it, I remember a time when Luke was alive and free from gambling addiction. I remember when I was happy and free from grief. Gambling companies ripped that away. They are causing people to take their lives because they want people’s money. And many fans are understandably sickened that their clubs have for so long been taking a cut.
Annie Ashton campaigns to raise awareness of gambling addiction
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at [email protected]
From September 15th to October 15th, we’re celebrating the rich history and culture of the Hispanic community during Hispanic Heritage Month. Not only is this a month-long celebration, but it’s also a time to reflect and shine a light on an issue that affects the community and other people groups around the globe and in our state — problem gambling.
The way this issue presents itself varies, whether it be through video gaming, casino betting or online gambling, the effects these behaviors have on people with a gambling addiction are generally the same. This includes trouble with mental health, finances, relationships, and more.
While this disorder impacts people worldwide, recent studies show that the expansion of sports betting could disproportionately affect Latinos, specifically men. Since the U.S. Supreme Court made a ruling in 2018 that legalized sports betting in many states and overturned certain restrictions, the risk for gambling problems has increased by 50% and has enticed nearly 20 million adults to take part in these activities.[1]
Another study explains how Hispanic participants were significantly more likely than other demographics to use and abuse substances and report mental health problems such as behavioral addictions or suicidal thoughts.[2] While these are issues that commonly come packaged with problem gambling, there is nothing common about the way the Hispanic community has become vulnerable to these potentially harmful behaviors.
In light of this, we want to ensure the Hispanic communities in our state have access to the resources that help make recovery possible. We know the road to recovery can seem daunting when you don’t know where to start or if there is help available in your preferred language. However, there is hope — the Florida Council on Compulsive Gambling (FCCG) has streamlined the process for you, so you don’t have to jump through hoops to get connected to proven resources for problem gambling recovery — in fact, you or your loved ones can take the first step toward healing today.
The best way to get connected with resources is to contact the 888-ADMIT-IT HelpLine, a place that provides live multilingual support for those whose lives have been impacted by problem gambling. This resource is available 24/7 and offers referrals to Spanish-language literature and licensed and certified gambling disorder treatment providers who are fluent in Spanish.
We want to provide you with a recovery program that meets your needs, and the HelpLine serves as a one-stop shop where you can gain access to diverse resources that are designed to meet you where you are and help you get to where you want to be.
While recovery isn’t easy, there are simple steps you can take to help you get on track to your new reality. While it may seem too easy, we recommend envisioning the life you could lead once you overcome the temptation of problem gambling behaviors. This will help remind you what you are striving for and why putting in the work now will be worth it in the end.
Practical steps you can take today include replacing problem behaviors with positive activities, such as getting outside for a walk, exercising, meeting up with a friend or doing something that you’re passionate about. It can be difficult to give something up when you don’t fill that space in your life with a new behavior, so pick something that makes your life feel a little brighter!
For more information on the 888-ADMIT-IT HelpLine and the steps FCCG is taking to make recovery possible for everyone in Florida, watch the video below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Drt3A-oiy5Y.
To start your recovery journey and begin the healing process, call 888-ADMIT-IT (888-236-4848), text (321-978-0555), email ([email protected]), live chat (gamblinghelp.org), use the 888-ADMIT-IT App (https://landing.appypie.com/888-admit-it), or reach out on social media, such as Facebook and Twitter.
Gnat, Jordan. The Sports Betting and Gaming Industry Must Do More to Service the U.S. Hispanic Market, https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/en/SB-Blogs/COVID19-OpEds/2022/02/18-Gnat?_sp=96597770-6461-4b89-bae9-120af5a46837.1660590503717.
Caler, Kyle R, et al. “Problem Gambling among Ethnic Minorities: Results from an Epidemiological Study.” Asian Journal of Gambling Issues and Public Health, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2017, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5589834/#:~:text=Overall%2C%20the%20highest%20proportion%20of,ideation%20in%20the%20past%20year.
Seventy-three 888poker players bought into the XL Retro Super High Roller event for $2,100 and it was Ireland’s “9salute46” who outlasted them all. The Irish star became an XL Retro champion, and padded his 888poker bankroll with $48,750 of the $150,000 prize pool.
The action at the final table was fast and furious, thanks to the average stack being around 20 big blinds. Brazil’s “FranciscoAI” went into the eight-handed finale as the chip leader, yet his stack was still only 49 big blinds. 9salute46 was second in chips at the restart with a 27 big blind stack.
XL Retro Super High Roller Final Table Results
Place
Player
Country
Prize
1
9salute46
Ireland
$48,750
2
feerofeero
Ukraine
$31,500
3
FranciscoAI
Brazil
$22,500
4
BetBetFck
Ukraine
$15,000
5
sk8erisz
Lithuania
$11,250
6
matokr
$8,250
7
bettyordaine
United Kingdom
$6,750
8
dadude50
$6,000
“dadude50” went into the final table action as the shortest stack, but found an early double-up when his ace-deuce of diamonds held against the queen-jack of FranciscoAI. However, any thoughts of an epic comeback were soon dashed when dadude50 three-bet all-in for 8.1 big blinds from the small blind with pocket nines after “matokr” had min-raised from early position with pocket kings. Matokr called, the kings held, and the final table lost its first player.
The United Kingdom’s “bettyordinarie” was the next casualty of this Super High Roller final table. The Brit raised to six big blinds, leaving themselves 3.5 big blinds behind. Matokr three-bet enough from the big blind to set bettyordinaire all-in, and they called. It was pocket nines for the all-in player versus ace-ten, one of tournament poker’s many coinflips. An ace on the flop proved more than enough to reduce the player count by one.
Follow all of the XL Retro Main Event final table action at PokerNews
Matokr was now the chip leader, but they were still the next player heading for the showers. They lost a handful of pots to find themselves with a 12.3 big blind stack when they were in the big blind with pocket sixes. From the button, 9salute46 decided to shove with the lowly ten-five of diamonds, and matokr called all-in. A ten on the flop sent makotr to the rail.
Each of the surviving five players were now guaranteed a five-figure score for their effort. Lithuania’s “sk8erisz” was the first player to net such a prize. 9salute46 min-raised from the button with pocket nines in the hole before calling when sk8erisz jammed for 8.5 big blinds in the small blind with what turned out to be ace-queen. Pocket nines had lost two key all-ins earlier at the final table, but they held this time around, busting sk8erisz and sending 9salute46 to more than 60 big blinds, almost three times as many chips as any of his opponents.
The final four became three when Ukrainian grinder “BetBetFck” fell by the wayside. Again, it was 9salute46 who did the damage. The Irish star open-shoved with queen-ten of clubs, and BetBetFck called off their 4.9 big blind stack in the small blind with ace-nine. The hot-running 9salute46 spiked a ten on the flop and BetBetFck was gone.
marllonsanti Takes Down XL Retro Mystery Bounty Event
Start of the day chip leader FranciscoAI busted in third, sending the tournament into the heads-up stage. FranciscoAI opened to four big blinds from a 6.8 big blind stack with ace-five of hearts, “feerofeero” called from the small blind with king-ten of hearts, and it was off to the flop. A deuce-ten-seven flop saw feerofeero bet three big blinds with their top pair, and FranciscoAI called all-in. No ace nor a runner-runner appeared, and FranciscoAI headed for the exits.
9salute46 held a 62.4 big blind to 28.9 big blind advantage over feerofeero, and it did not take too long to press that advantage home. Less than five minutes into the heads-up battle, 9salute46 jammed with ace-seven, and feerofeero called off their 15 big blind stack with pocket queens. 9salute46 caught an ace on the flop, and feerofeero failed to catch up. The runner-up banked $31,500, leaving 9salute46 to collect the $48,750 top prize in addition to the title of champion.
XL Retro Main Event Reaches Final Table
Attention now turned to the XL Retro Main Event where only nine of the 1,969 starters remain in contention for what is a $70,164 top prize. The PokerNews Live Reporting team is bringing you exclusive coverage of the Main Event final table, while the 888poker Twitch team is streaming with cards-up coverage from 8:30 p.m. BST on a 30-minute delay.
Best Online Casinos for Ontario Players | Canadian Gambling Choice
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If you’re looking for the best online casinos for Ontario player, here are our top selections. All of these online casinos are compliant for Ontario players and offer some of the best games available.
Our choice of the best Ontario online casinos includes some of the biggest names in the industry, like Yukon Gold Casino, Zodiac Casino and Luxury Casino, as well as four other great options.
Each casino offers a wide range of games that appeal to a variety of players, with brand new slot and table games added to the casinos each and every month. If you’re looking for best online casinos for Ontario players, then choose from any of the 7 listed above and you will be in good hands.
Please continue to our list of Regulated Ontario Casinos
Using a W for wild card to indicate a deuce, assume you are dealt W WQ♦ J♦ T♦ on a Triple Play version of Deuces Wild. This is not a tough play. You hold all five cards for a wild royal flush. (Other terms for the same hand are royal flush with deuce and dirty royal.) Usually this pays 100 or 125 coins, depending on the pay schedule, and in the specific version you’re playing it returns 100 coins.
But wait! Technically this could be a straight flush, couldn’t it? After all, the two deuces could represent the 8♦ 9♦, couldn’t they? There are several versions of deuces wild, but assume in the version you’re playing, 5-coin straight flushes return 50 coins.
One of the general principles of video poker is that each hand is valued at its highest payout, so since 100 coins is greater than 50 coins, clearly this is a wild royal flush and not a straight flush.
But wait again! Assume you’re playing Ultimate X Gold when you’re playing this hand. According to the Wizard of Odds website, this game returns 98.3% in the Triple Play or Five Play versions and 98.1% in the Ten Play versions.
This is too tight for intelligent, disciplined gamblers to sit down and play long sessions, but sometimes it’s a good play. Several hands, namely the flush, full house, four of a kind, straight flush, five of a kind, wild royal flush, and four deuces, come with multipliers that keep building until they are hit, or reach the maximum value allowed for that pay schedule category. Most start at 1x, but the wild royal flush in this game starts at 2x. The top end of the multipliers varies from 4x to 10x. These multipliers do not go up evenly. Straight flushes, for example, go from 1x to 3x to 5x to 7x to 9x to 10x.
Other Ultimate X Gold games have similar multipliers that grow when triggered by certain dealt hands. Each pay schedule of each game has its own strategy.
Surely when enough of the multipliers are high enough, this is a game with positive EV. Sometimes very positive EV. There is considerable speculation on the Internet as to when a particular pay schedule is positive. While I do play this game sometimes when I see a combination of multipliers that I believe is too good to pass up, I’m not an expert at this. And that’s not what today’s article is about.
Assume, however, that when we are dealt W WQ♦ J♦ T♦, the wild royal has a multiplier of 2x (worth 200 per line), and the straight flush has a multiplier of 10x per line (worth 500 per line). There may or may not be other multipliers higher than 1x currently active on the game, but they are not part of this discussion.
Does the rule that W WQ♦ J♦ T♦ is always a wild royal flush and never a straight flush still apply? Doesn’t being forced to accept ‘only’ 200 coins per line seem unfair when an argument could be made that it should be 500 coins per line?
It turns out I received this same basic question twice in a matter of days, only the second was comparing a straight flush (with a 1x multiplier) with a flush (with a 10x multiplier). Both players wanted to know to whom they should complain in order to be paid the higher amount.
The answer is that multipliers do not affect the definition of hands. W WQ♦ J♦ T♦ was determined to be a wild royal flush decades before Ultimate X Gold was invented. Just because a new game has multipliers that occasionally make straight flushes worth more than wild royal flushes doesn’t change the definition of hands.
Both players who contacted me were quite upset at being forced to accept the lesser payout. Too bad. Each combination of five cards has one and only one payout. But, as Patty Loveless sang in a country western song from the mid-1990s, you can feel bad if it will make you feel better.
Better than a casino and more fun than the track, Bovada is your one-stop shop for online gambling. The site targets casual poker players in the US instead of pros. With betting on horse racing, the largest poker room, over 200 casino games, and the opportunity to bet on sports, there’s something for everyone at Bovada.
Indeed, Bovada Poker is one of the top-rated poker sites you can play if you reside in California. They offer an awesome variety of games, fast payouts and massive player pools (over 1000 cash players).
The site’s ease of use and functionally make it tick. This makes it one of the best sites to play on your mobile device, desktop, and in-browser. They also offer a 100% up to $500 poker bonus for new players. Download their app today & start playing!
Pros
$2,000,000+ in weekly prizes
The largest poker network in the USA
Compete with the best of the best against a field of thousands
$1,000,000+ tournament available monthly on Zone Poker variant
Available to play anytime and anywhere
There is a fast-fold poker variant called Zone Poker, which allows you to play at multiple tables at the same time. same time
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