my motivation behind learning to play proficient blackjack

#1
As i mention in another thread i am a college student, so my primarily goal is not in BJ and not trying to make it as a life long career. my motivation? raise $100,000 for tuition that goes toward the last two years in a private institution. I am also planning to get a porsche 911 in a year or so when i move out my parents house and go to the private school. the used porsche i need in my life is about $50,000.

A porsche 911 for a college student? some of you probably think i am crazy, lol.. but if you are a car freak, then you should be able to understand:rolleyes:

what i want to know is that is it worth while to put all the effort in BJ and archived this goal? I have another 1.5 years before i go to the private school and once i get there, i want to be able to concentrate without worrying about money everyday. It cost about $60,000 for cost of living and tuition a year to go there.

here's what i need to consider:
1. should i invest my money and time into BJ if the EV for return on investment is not that great?
2. i can build up a bankroll of 25-30K within a year from now, with such small bankroll, what is the possibility and things involved to get $150k?

i don't know if this is the right approach or attitude, but i can really use some extra money while i finish up my major without getting too much hassle and stress.

i would really appreciate some honest advice and feedback from people that been doing this for years, you can also pm me. thanks
 

PrinceDragon

Well-Known Member
#2
what i want to know is that is it worth while to put all the effort in BJ and archived this goal?
No.

i can build up a bankroll of 25-30K within a year from now, with such small bankroll, what is the possibility and things involved to get $150k?
Time Constraint?

Don't be a victim of "21" the movie,Free Lunch does not exists

P.D.
 

Bojack1

Well-Known Member
#3
jetblack3s said:
As i mention in another thread i am a college student, so my primarily goal is not in BJ and not trying to make it as a life long career. my motivation? raise $100,000 for tuition that goes toward the last two years in a private institution. I am also planning to get a porsche 911 in a year or so when i move out my parents house and go to the private school. the used porsche i need in my life is about $50,000.

A porsche 911 for a college student? some of you probably think i am crazy, lol.. but if you are a car freak, then you should be able to understand:rolleyes:

what i want to know is that is it worth while to put all the effort in BJ and archived this goal? I have another 1.5 years before i go to the private school and once i get there, i want to be able to concentrate without worrying about money everyday. It cost about $60,000 for cost of living and tuition a year to go there.

here's what i need to consider:
1. should i invest my money and time into BJ if the EV for return on investment is not that great?
2. i can build up a bankroll of 25-30K within a year from now, with such small bankroll, what is the possibility and things involved to get $150k?

i don't know if this is the right approach or attitude, but i can really use some extra money while i finish up my major without getting too much hassle and stress.

i would really appreciate some honest advice and feedback from people that been doing this for years, you can also pm me. thanks
This is a bad plan and I would scrap it before putting any more effort into it. You don't have the funds, the time, or the knowledge to pull off what you want. It sounds as if you are an impatient young person looking to make some big money quick and easy. Thats just not realistic when talking about blackjack. I'm not saying you can't learn how to play with an advantage and make a little money as well, just not on the scale you want to. My advice, get a student loan or loans to relieve the financial burdens of school, scrap the Porche idea until after you graduate and have a good job, use your 25-30K to help with your expenses while you are in school. For you to accomplish what you want you would have to have a bankroll so big that it could pay for your school and Porche anyway, so playing at that point would be foolish.
 

EasyRhino

Well-Known Member
#4
What you're looking for is a get rich quick scheme.

Advantage gambling is a "get moderately better off, slowly, with huge risk" scheme.

Whatever you'd do to scrape together a 3k bankroll? Do that three times harder, and then you can pay for school.
 

gibsonlp33stl

Well-Known Member
#5
Yea - as said...overall bad idea. I completely understand the desire to drive a porsche, everyone does. But especially with this economy, you should probably wait until you have an income before you spend that kind of cash on your car. Making that kind of money in BJ would take a much larger bank roll, and on top of that take countless hours at various casinos. If you want make money and drive sweet cars, you're better off finding a part time job in the field you eventually want to enter...make a little money, get some valuable experience...use that to get a good job. Then you can buy nice things.

Without a strong income, don't buy a 50k Porsche. Many people in America are learning the lesson of living outside your means. Don't fall into the trap...
 

Cherry7Up

Well-Known Member
#6
As a rough approximation, let's say you have your $30k bankroll and decide on a max bet unit of 2% of your bankroll (pretty aggressive by my understanding or risk or ruin) = $600.

Let's put you playing a standard Vegas rules shoe game and spreading 1-12, then your minimum bet unit is $50.

As a rough rule of thumb calculation, let's say you can make 1 unit per hour or $50 an hour.

You didn't really indicate how frequently you think you'll be able to play, but let's put you at about 30 hours a month (quite a bit of play for a college student I think). That's $1,500 a month or $18,000 a year.

This doesn't sound like nearly enough for you to make your goal, but it is a roughly 50% annual return on your $30k bankroll--though with significant risks. However you would also have to subtract out any expenses involved in your play time (e.g. if you have to fly to Vegas or some other location).

There are a lot of assumptions and approximations here that might not hold up in real life (as I imagine subsequent posters can explain in detail). However, I would say that the takeaway lesson is that if you have lots of free time, can risk losing your investment bankroll, and don't have a more productive way to spend your free time (e.g. a well-paying part time job or internship), then learning to count cards might not be any worse an idea than investing your bankroll in the stock market (though neither will bring you anywhere near your goal of buying a sports car and paying two years of elite private school tuition). If you want that, you'll need to join an elite secret society (see the movie The Skulls instead of the movie 21).
 

nottooshabby

Well-Known Member
#7
jetblack3s said:
As i mention in another thread i am a college student, so my primarily goal is not in BJ and not trying to make it as a life long career. my motivation? raise $100,000 for tuition that goes toward the last two years in a private institution. I am also planning to get a porsche 911 in a year or so when i move out my parents house and go to the private school. the used porsche i need in my life is about $50,000.

A porsche 911 for a college student? some of you probably think i am crazy, lol.. but if you are a car freak, then you should be able to understand:rolleyes:

what i want to know is that is it worth while to put all the effort in BJ and archived this goal? I have another 1.5 years before i go to the private school and once i get there, i want to be able to concentrate without worrying about money everyday. It cost about $60,000 for cost of living and tuition a year to go there.

here's what i need to consider:
1. should i invest my money and time into BJ if the EV for return on investment is not that great?
2. i can build up a bankroll of 25-30K within a year from now, with such small bankroll, what is the possibility and things involved to get $150k?

i don't know if this is the right approach or attitude, but i can really use some extra money while i finish up my major without getting too much hassle and stress.

i would really appreciate some honest advice and feedback from people that been doing this for years, you can also pm me. thanks
How do you archive a goal? I hope English isn't your major. ;)
 
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#8
nottooshabby said:
How do you archive a goal? I hope English isn't your major. ;)
Sry mr.english professor, effin A thurr always someone trying to correct peoples grammar. No its not my major, just a new language I am still trying to catch up....
 
#9
i understand the expectation of 600% ROI is quite outragous. I think i am going to stop here, and view BJ as an entertainment instead of AP whenever i do go visit a casino. Good luck to you all and make so big buck this year!!
 
#10
jetblack3s said:
i understand the expectation of 600% ROI is quite outragous. I think i am going to stop here, and view BJ as an entertainment instead of AP whenever i do go visit a casino. Good luck to you all and make so big buck this year!!
Looks like that college education is paying off. A winner is you! :)
 
#11
jetblack3s said:
...
here's what i need to consider:
1. should i invest my money and time into BJ if the EV for return on investment is not that great?
2. i can build up a bankroll of 25-30K within a year from now, with such small bankroll, what is the possibility and things involved to get $150k?
...
With a $25K bankroll, playing the types of games I play with a $25 min and a $200 max bet (avoiding bad counts) you will have a 1.5% chance of losing all of your money.

You will have a 50% chance of reaching your goal of $150K in 168,000 hands. This represents about a year of full-time play, putting in a full work week every week.

If you are willing to double your betting unit and raise your risk of ruin to 12.5% (approximately full Kelly) you will have a 50% chance of reaching your goal in half that time.

Those are the numbers. My advice to you is to concentrate on your studies and screw BJ and the Porsche, for now. Fancy cars aren't important, and 10 years from now you will look back on your interest in this and it will seem silly to you.
 
#13
Horrible misconceptions

Listen to Automatic Monkey and as a matter of fact follow up with factual research into this. Much of it you can derive from this site and a few books. True, there is no "free lunch" and the long, drawn out, grueling process of reasonably assuring a profit at blackjack requires a huge amount of money and playing absolutely perfectly to gain the sort of money you can make working a job someplace.

I think that idiotic movie "21" has produced a lot of eager, young hotshots with unreasonable expectations and it's the best thing that has ever happened to the casino industry! There is a fallback to being an eager, impetuous young hotshot... which is the patience and diligence required to "hold the line" in the long run. Throw in a short bankroll along with that and you have a recipe for disaster. In blackjack, there is no quick and instant gratification in playing professionally. Instant gratification is only achieved by hardcore gamblers willing to take off the chart risk relying on luck and not math and most of them take an ugly fall outside of the short term.
 
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callipygian

Well-Known Member
#14
Tarzan said:
I think that idiotic movie "21" has produced a lot of eager, young hotshots with unreasonable expectations and it's the best thing that has ever happened to the casino industry!
Unfortunately, the movie came out just as the country was slumping into a recession - gambling revenues have declined precipitously, as have gambling-related stock prices, and people will never recognize the real effect it had. :(
 
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