A Dream of Mine

I often get into arguments with card counters over their level of ambition. Don't get me wrong, card counting is a fine discipline, but it is very tough. And, realistically, only the top well-financed teams can make big money at it these days. For most solitary counters it's just hobby.

Now, I don't want to be counting in ten years. It's in my nature to want more. So, I'm forever researching new advantage play methods, like an alchemist searching for the formula that will make me rich, and like the alchemists, often getting my fingers burned and completely side-tracked into areas I never planned to venture in.

You see, my friends, I have a dream. Oh yes, I have a dream. There is an estate in Bath, England, one of the ancient homes of gambling where noblemen used to play hazard and take refreshment at the Roman Spa, near to my own home in Bristol.

The estate used to belong to Liz Hurley and Hugh Grant. Then it belonged to a gentleman who is considered the world's leading authority on soccer betting.

My dream is that I purchase this estate. I assemble a library and fill it every with piece of gambling literature known—from ancient texts in French on Chemin de Fer through to cutting edge writings on online gambling. I turn the rest of the estate into a vast development centre for advantage play. There are roulette tables, blackjack tables, craps tables, all designed to regulation standards with on-call live-in dealers. Groups of counters, shuffle-trackers, dice controllers and visual roulette trackers hone and develop their skills here.

The west wing is devoted to technology—a bank of computer screens attended by small teams of bonus hustlers, sports bettors and arbitrageurs with a giant mainframe monitoring every book on the web for pricing inefficiencies. A workshop houses a group of computer hardware experts developing miniature devices for use in the casinos themselves.

On the lawn sit two helicopters ready to fly the world's finest advantage players to rare and favourable promotions in the Americas, Europe and the Far East.

An idle fantasy? Possibly. But the dream has come just that bit closer to the real world of late. When my cheque for $50 million comes through the door it might well happen.