Do I have a Good or Bad Idea?? Team Play

[White Guy]

I need someone to talk me out of this or something probably but the idea of team play is so appealing to me that I keep looking for ways to make it a reality. I own a business so I have employees now and than. I have found qualified candidates through the job posting at the University in my area.

What about posting a "job opening" for a "risk assessment professional?" I could set qualifications, take applications, run background checks, run simple math tests, even personality tests, and put the applicants who pass through training. I can pick the ones that are best suited and put them on a minimum wage hourly payroll with a small "profit sharing" bonus at my newly formed "investment" business. I would be the big bettor always so my main risks I see are; They lie about how many min bets they lost, They lie about the counts just to gamble. They talk too much and I end up getting barred everywhere. They just take off with the couple hundred I give them to min bet with. If I set up business rules and someone doesn't adhere to them (ie: runs off with a few hundred, skims, bets above the guidelines) I would have the same legal recourses as I would at my day job. Wouldn't I? Has anyone been involved in or witness to something like this? What are the ups/downs you see? I know an ATTY opinion about the business legalities will be needed in the final stretches but mine is $300/hr so I don't call until she is really needed.

I still remember the reference AutoMonkey gave of team play to group sex and VD which really struck a cord with me. I would really like some devils advocates here.

Thanks

[Sonny]

The qualifications you listed aren’t actually that important for an applicant. You are going to teach them everything they need to know about the game and the math is very simple to learn. The most important qualification is how much you trust somebody. I wouldn’t put too much trust in some college kids that I just met and don’t know how to track down. It might be a good way to meet people but it would be quite a while before I trusted them enough to hand them cash and put my money on their skill.

But before you even get to that point, what is your game plan? How many players will you use? What styles of play will you use? What specific casinos will you play at? What is your teams EV? How much will you pay the players? How often will you pay them? Are they required to invest? How will team expenses be paid? How much will you give them to play with? How will you handle cash transfers in the casino? What if some players want to quit early? What if they get fired? What are the training and testing procedures? What are the behavioral guidelines for sessions? What are the team's signals going to look like and/or sound like? How are team procedures created and amended? There are dozens more questions that you have to ask yourself before you start inviting people to join your team. You should have the entire team handbook written up and ready for them to sign before they start training. Make sure that they know exactly what they are getting into and be sure to dispel all the myths about card counting before they agree to start training. Be careful and more importantly be prepared.

-Sonny-

[EasyRhino]

Originally Posted by Sonny

It won't work.

I agree.

[Sonny]

Are you putting words in my mouth, or are you just paraphrasing?

-Sonny-

[shadroch]

I've been trying to put a team together for well over a year. Results have been mixed, at best.
As my ideas haven't panned out, I can't critique yours, but I had a much more developed plan than you appear to hve.

[callipygian]

I echo everything Sonny said, but I'll add some more.

(1) Commitment. Aside from trust, you're not going to get a very high commitment level from people you just met, especially college kids. At the first downturn, they'll just leave.

(2) Profit. Having 5 people min bet for you isn't cheap. At $10 min and 100 hands/hr, that works out to $25/hr. Let's say you can make $100/hr with BP play. You split half of the profits with the team (so you take $50/hr); your net profit is then $25/hr. If you can make $25/hr by yourself, why bother with a team?

(3) Trust. I'll say it again, because it's so huge that I'm tempted to say even the concerns I listed as #1 and #2 don't compare to it. You are, directly or indirectly, handing over thousands of dollars to these people. If you don't absolutely trust them, as in people you'd give your bank card and PIN to withdraw cash for you, or people you'd give the code to your safe, don't play with them. Period.

It is my opinion that you should never look for a team at all. It's like that reality show where some big celebrity looks for a new best friend:

- Chances are all the applicants are greedy, manipulative attention whores.
- Even if they're not, you still need to weed through a ton of asinine applications to find the few gems.
- Even if you manage to find some, chances are you won't trust them anyway.

[ccibball50]

I honestly believe it is like any other business. you have about an 80%chance of failing, which is the failing rate of a new business within the first 5 years. After that you have another 80% chance of failing within in the next 5 years and so on until you reach 20 years. Once there the chances of failing reduce.

More importantly, I believe it can be done, but it takes a different person to run a program like this than someone who is just an AP. It takes a manager, someone who can run a business, someone who is good at hiring the right type of employee, multitasking. It takes someone who can properly train. It takes a person who can successfully run a business. It is an entirely different aspect and skill set than counting cards.

Fred Smith went to Harvard and in one of his business classes he submitted a business proposal as a project for one of his teachers at Harvard. He received a grade equivilent to a C (which will get you kicked out if you have more than a couple of them). His teachers laughed at him and his classmates thought his idea was crazy becaue it was competing against the government. He was the founder of FedEx.

The point of the story is people may tell you it can't be done, but it can in the right situation with the right person running the program. Besides, didn't the MIT team make millions? They were recruites from Universities.

[callipygian]

Originally Posted by ccibball50

Besides, didn't the MIT team make millions? They were recruites from Universities.

The MIT team(s) are a great example of team planning, both positive examples and negative examples.

The first teams in the 1980's were "recruits," so to speak. But they weren't recruited by outside interests - the students themselves organized. Because MIT is a predominantly residential campus and academically competitive, students have incentive not to act as flunkies towards each other. In addition, classes were offered during a short January session called IAP (Independent Activities Period), a month where the formal semester hasn't started, but some "classes" (everything from Charm School to Special Relativity) are offered, both student-led and faculty-led.

As the popularity (and bankrolls) grew, some people decided to try and form an actual, incorporated team sometime in the early 1990's. I forget the name, but it was something generic, like Strategic Investments. It's important to note, first of all, that this team failed! They lost a bunch of money, they fought amongst themselves, and disbanded at a loss.

More importantly, though, it's important to dissect the differences between the teams. The first teams reported to each other - internal social pressure held the team(s) together, not external financial pressure as in the later teams. Expectations were low but motivation was high - after all, this is essentially what MIT students were doing for fun. In the later teams, expectations were high (both internally and externally) but motivation was low - after all, they were signing on to a proven product, not trying to develop it from scratch. The organization of the later teams was strict and people were selected on skills (or perceived skills), rather than familiarity. Incorporated teams aren't doomed to fail, but they don't enjoy many of the advantages that homegrown teams have.

There were teams that formed after the incorporated team; I believe some were bankrolled by outsiders (and I believe the majority of the stories from BDTH came from these later teams), but ultimately, although MIT teams have been incorporated and teams have been successful, none were both.

Universities are a great place to START teams; I don't think they're a particularly good place to RECRUIT teams. When I played on a team several years ago, I played with people I had known from college - people I had lent hundreds of dollars to over the years, borrowed hundreds of dollars from over the years, people I've cried to, people I've helped cheat on exams, people who have helped me move, people whom I've seen drunk, naked, bleeding, or all three. We put together a series of verbal signals entirely based on inside jokes, and selected the best drunk act to be the BP. It was a blast, but I'd never, ever consider doing it with anyone else (except maybe my wife).

If you're going to have a university team with outside funding, it's much easier to form the team FIRST, and THEN get outside funding, rather than having the funding first and then trying to form the team.

[White Guy]

Thanks for all the opinions. I think the main problems are committment and trust. Committment is the #1 problem I have had with my immediately family and friends.

The training, game plan, and business plan aspects of it are not a problem for me at all. I am a business owner and have owned and ran successful businesses for years. I enjoy it. I think the business aspect of it is what is appealing to me.

I have done the math on it and it is true that unless you have at least three spotters that will work for less than 25% its not really worth it due to the risk and the $$ lost from them flat betting all counts and the BB overbetting lower counts depending on when you wong in and out. Your EV isn't much higher but risk is. The only way to make it work really is to have them work for $10 an hour, double their bet at high counts and give them each a 10% share of profits. The EV is higher than playing alone but the risk is also higher when you add more people to the equation. It is not the loss of $$ I am most worried about even because I wouldn't invest a large BR into something until it ran successfully for a while. I just don't want to waste my time on a project that is doomed.
Thanks Again For All The Info. It is appreciated.

[ccibball50]

I believe Strategic Investments lost money becaue they were focusing more on shuffle tracking and advanced techniques as apposed to sticking with what is the basis for all AP players. The count.

As stated, there were problems among people in the team. That is where the management side of things come in. A good manager can recruit according to personalities that fit within the group. SOmetimes you still get a bad apple, but then you let them go.

I do agree that starting a team first is the way to go and find outside funding.

Bottom line, it takes a good manager/CEO to run a team and be succesfull.