October 15, 2023 • 48 mins
Peter Liston is known as "The Pokie King" or "The Slots King (depending on which country you are in). He was an accountant and a high school teacher before he discovered how to actually earn money on the pokies! He's met some interesting characters, had plenty of adventures and has secured a place among an elite group of professional gamblers.
Learn more at his website: www.peterliston.com
While Peter's book doesn't give away the exact formulas and strategies he used, it is an interesting read all about his life. Find Peter's book here.
Learn more at his website: www.peterliston.com
While Peter's book doesn't give away the exact formulas and strategies he used, it is an interesting read all about his life. Find Peter's book here.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:09):
Episode three of Jamie's Club. Herewe are and I'm still going strong and
having a great time. And Ihope that you've enjoyed listening to the episodes
so far. And if you haven'tlistened to the earlier episodes, what's wrong
with you? Make sure that youyou don't have to listen in order.
You're welcome to listen to this one, but make sure you listen to all
of them in time. Hey,today I'm speaking with a bloke that I've
(00:30):
known for a long time. Now. I've talked about Peter. Listen just
in social context when I've said topeople, oh, yeah, I know
a guy who plays the Pokey's fora full time living, and they always
say to me, what, No. People don't believe that it can actually
be done. But here is someonewho has cracked the code. Now,
(00:53):
I probably should say in Australia wecall them pokeys. They might be poker
machines. They might be slot machinesif you're in the US, whatever you
call them, they're all the samething. Now, he has worked out
a way mathematically and logically to makea full time living from them, and
he spoke about it in a bookhe wrote, and the book didn't exactly
(01:18):
tell you the formula and the secretto how he did it. It does
give a couple of clues there,but it's mostly his life story and the
different things that happened and the transitionfrom being a school teacher to a full
time gambler and then the things heexperienced there are just amazing and it's a
(01:41):
really good read. I do recommendit now. One stage, I was
playing a lot of live poker,the card game, and I was spending
a lot of time in casinos,and I heard so many different stories from
people about how they've trying systems andmethods to make a full time living from
(02:02):
the casino, and most of themare rubbish. You know. There's the
old fashioned Martingale system that's been aroundforever, and that's about doubling your bets
until you win. That's a systemthat theoretically works, but in the real
world doesn't work as well because itdoes require you to have an unlimited amount
(02:23):
of money to start with and tablesthat have no cap on the bet size,
and both of those things are nottrue for all of us, almost
all of us. I don't know. Some people I've spoken to talented sports
betters who seem to know when theodds are more in their favor. I've
(02:45):
spoken to people who do arbitrage betting, which is betting on both sides of
an event with different betting agencies,and I've been told that their margins are
usually pretty slim. We're talking likeone to three percent, maybe five percent
on the odd occasion. But ifyou can have a guaranteed return of even
(03:07):
one percent no matter who wins,I can see why you would do that.
Other people are very passionate about followingthe racing industry and knowing the trainers,
knowing the tracks, the horses,sometimes the dogs even And I've followed
people's hot tips sometimes in these racingthings with definitely mixed success. But I
(03:30):
think that there are people who canhave an edge over the competition when it
comes to betting on these racing events. But right now, this is Peter
liston the Pokey King. Peter,I've got a bit of flat for asking
people this, but I'm tending tospeak to people with some odd occupations.
(03:53):
And what is it that you sayto people what you do, being that
you are a full time Pokey's playeror slots player. But we'll say Pokey's
because we're both Australians. But doyou just be front up with people when
they say in a barbecue, whatdo you do for a living? Well,
it depends where I am, Jamie. If it's in an area that
(04:16):
I am playing in they asked mewhat I do, I usually tell them
I mental women's clothing. Usually shutsthem up pretty quickly. But yeah,
look, it depends where I am. If you tell somebody that you're a
professional gambler, that's okay. Ifyou tell them you make your money on
slot machines or poker machines, theylook at you as if there's something rather
(04:43):
strange about you. And the reasonfor that is, well, it's always
been considered that you can't make moneyon poker machines, and that's the first
thing people are going to say toyou. Yes, yeah, even now
I'm starting now people started to realize, yes you can, particularly in America,
Yes you can make some money onpoker machines now. But it's very,
(05:08):
very slightly starting to come around,which is good because the more people
who know how to do it,or know that you can make money on
poker machines or less money, I'mgoing to mate so it's been basically a
secret, which I've been quite happyto hold on to. In fact,
when I first started my children,was formed a secrecy. Once I realized
(05:30):
that I can make money on paganmachines, then it went from being a
bragging situation. At the high schoolI was teaching out to basically everyone basically
had to yeah, shut the mouth. I did have a mate, a
teaching mate, who helped me withmy first particular jackpot, which was a
(05:55):
luxury car. I needed to getabout four machines, and I've got three.
I got three fellow teachers and mysister to help me help me play,
so they sort of knew that Icould do it. But one of
my friends was a delivery man forDon Small Goods, and this was too
(06:15):
good a story for him, sohe he tell all these customers and so
forth, and I try and shuthim up. So I went very quiet,
and I didn't tell my friends oranybody else what I was doing after
that point in time. Because youhad quite a respectable job at the time,
right, You're a school teacher andpeople and a maths teacher, is
(06:38):
that right? So what you woulddo in high school now, before I
was a high school teacher. Iwas an accountant. People all think I'm
a maths expert, but I'm alot better at arithmetic that I am at
maths. And what I found inthis game, what's more important than mathematics
is logic. And a clue foryour listeners is this, I'm not a
(07:06):
gambler, so did basically how didI go from being a high school teacher
to a professional gambler? Well,the difference was from me to anybody else
in my state and possibly Australia atthat stage. The one difference was I
didn't have the answers, But theone difference was I asked the questions.
(07:28):
So when I went to Crown Casinoout of curiosity and looked around and felt
sorry for all the poor suckers playingthe machines and so forth, I noticed
the progressor jackpots rising. So questionI asked myself, which I don't think
anybody else in the land had askedthemselves, was we all know that poker
(07:51):
machines lose money, but if it'slinked to a progressive jackpot, as that
jackpot rises, it's got worth moremoney to you as it rises. Now,
the question I asked myself is couldthat jackpot actually rise to a point
where there's more value in the jackpotthan what you lose on the machine.
(08:13):
So that taught me about three monthsof mucking around and sorting around with adding,
subtracting, modiplying, and dividing percentages. Ultimately I thought I had the
answer, and so it came tothe time to check it out at the
crowd casino. So tried out mytheory on little three hundred dollar jackpots.
(08:35):
I had an expectation that if Iplayed it from the optimal hit point the
jackpot, the profit potential jackpot shouldhave been half the value of the jackpot
itself. So I tried about adozen three hundred dollars jackpots and my expectation
(08:56):
was to make about eighteen hundred dollarsout of that, less whatever action the
others have. So I made fourteenhundred dollars out of that. So proved
of the work. Approved of thework. So the next set was to
go a little bit higher, andwithin eighteen months I won a three hundred
thousand dollars jackpot in Perth. Soyou're all city, Yeah, I spent
(09:20):
some time in Perth and a lotof time in the casino there in the
poker room. But so you're tellingme that a lot of people know how
to do this. There is acommunity out there of people who are professional
players. Do you know each other? Do you see them when you're out
and about. Yes. In Victoria, I had this to myself for about
(09:43):
three years. Ultimately, something likethis if you're winning a lot of money.
And in the first eighteen months therewas a sign outside the crowd Casuino
that they've given away one hundred luxurycars lone one ten of them no way
come on really most mostly BMW BMW'sand I had a system where whoever was
(10:11):
playing for me, they had totake take ownership of the car. They
would then I would organize to sellit to the BMW dealers in Doncaster and
then they would pay the person whowas playing for me. Then that person
would would then transfer the money backto me and keep a keep a commission.
(10:33):
That's you're placing in someone you know. That's or trust is another thing,
and I was using ex students neighbors, relative relations, and basically people
come in two flavors. They comein. They come they come honest or
(10:56):
dishonest, and it's a bit likepregnancy. Can't be half pregnant, you're
rather honestly, you're dishonest. Andso those ex students, the neighbors,
family, family, extended families,no problem at all. Then it became
competitive. People started to realize whatI was doing, started to started to
(11:18):
copy me, and then my competitionin Victoria was mainly Chinese. Ultimately I
finished up with about thirteen families,thirteen Chinese families who are my competitors.
And in the old casino, initiallyI had one competitor who was Leberties,
(11:39):
but he was getting He was hiringpeople off the floor, off the casino
floor and paying them peanuts, andI was paying my people very good money.
So ultimately I had to dispense withmy good people and start hiring people
off the floor as well. Andthat was a bad move because cheap people
(12:00):
can be very expensive. And thenI found that the money that I was
making before, I was actually losingso much money through through theft that it
was almost not not profitable. Soyeah, that the answer is your question
is you trust people? Well,basically you find you find the first flavor,
(12:24):
the honest ones. Yeah, andif there's any doubt at all,
no, you can't be half.You can't be half trustworthy. Hm hmmm.
And so, Peter, is therea time that you're so you're working
as a teacher as you're sort oftransitioning into this role as a as a
full time gambler. Yes, uh, yeah, that was for about two
(12:50):
years. I was very reluctant togive away teaching because basically, I was
my ambition at that stage of thegame was to build up my super innovation
and have something to retire on,and I was very reluctant to give up
that super anuation. When I firststarted playing the pokeys, I was making
(13:11):
ten times as much as I wasas a teacher. It was all tax
free, whereas teaching was taxable.So I built up quite a bank role
and it got to the point whereI just couldn't afford not to be in
the casinos, and at that stagealso the hotels. The hotels was at
(13:33):
that stage starting to get a lotof a lot of poker machines as well.
So you're making, yeah, you'remaking ten times what you're making in
the classroom as a teacher. Isit like, was teaching your passion?
Did you love doing it or wasit just a job? I was an
accountant, and then I felt Iwanted to expand myself. So the first
(14:00):
few years the teaching were great.I was young, the students thought I
was pretty good. Then as youget older, the students start to think,
well, you're an old basard.You can't you've got nothing to offer
me. Actually, as time goeson, you actually get good. You
start to know what you're doing,but the kids don't relate to you so
well, so it gets harder.It really does get harder. And I
(14:24):
was looking forward. I was hangingout for the retirement, so it wasn't
the passion that it was. Ido love teaching, but you get a
class of thirty year nine's and theydon't want to be there, and I
let you know, it to bevery stressful. And it wasn't the only
(14:45):
thing I missed. Well, Isuppose the thing I really missed about teaching
was what I did leavers. Imissed the camaraderie, the Friday nights at
the pub because being a professional gamblersa very lonely job. It's the sort
of thing you don't go. Youdon't mix with anybody, you don't mix
with your competitors. You really tryto outgun them, if that's the right
(15:11):
word. So I've never really hada great social life since I've been a
professional gambler. I've been a professionalgambler now for twenty nine years, whereas
before when I was a teacher,had a great social life. So is
playing the pokey's playing the slots?Is that your passion? Is this passion
(15:35):
that was ignited in you? Orwas it just a game and you we
just wanted to beat the find away to beat the system. Initially I
wanted to beat it was just achallenge. I mean, I've always been
interested in challenges. Male teachers arevery competitive in terms of their ability to
make money on gambling. What thisis? The thing is that I've never
(15:58):
heard of this. Yeah, butwhen I actually started to make money on
gam me, that's my status inthe town grew tremendously. And what is
your passion? Then? The passionthat initially was not monetary, It was
basically a challenge, and I reallygot into the challenge. I thought it
could be possible. If these progressivejackpots rise, there must be a point
(16:22):
where they're playable. And it tookme about three months mucking around with the
numbers, trying to teach at thesame time, but my passion was purely
challenged, nothing at all. Thenwhen the best part of all wasn't the
big jackpots that I won. Thebest part of all was when I put
it to the test for the smallerjackpots and I won. In fact,
(16:48):
when I won that big three hundredthousand jackpot in Perth, that was a
frightening situation because I had three strangersplaying for me, old Dutch ladies that
I had met on the floor.I'd gone back to have a rest because
I had a supervise, and I'dgone back to a hotel to have a
rest. And now this was athree hundred thousand jackpot. The odds were
(17:11):
one point three me into one.The expected costs of that three hundred thousand
jackpot was one hundred and fifty thousanddollars, so there was one hundred and
fifty thousand dollars profited it. Theproblem was it's going to take a one
point three million spins at twelve spinsa minute. So I got these old,
three old ladies I hardly knew playingfor me. I loaded them up
(17:33):
with I think it was dollar coins. Back then, there were no note
accepts. I loaded them up withcorners and ultimately went back to have a
rest because this was going to bea twenty four hour day job for three
weeks, expected to take three weeks. As luck would have it, it
took two hours. So I gota phone call it was a hot day
and saying it the motel about twokilometers away. I ran, I believe
(18:00):
you, you know, just keepin mind, I think back now,
they could have claim they were perfectlyentitled to claiming the jackpop themselves. When
I got there, my favorite staffmember was there. She was happy for
me. The three the three ladieswere happy for me. The manager came
(18:22):
down side the check over to me, which was good. Then a couple
of days later, I took thethree ladies out at dinner and they had
a few drinks and one of themactually souvenir the Sultan pepper shakers off the
table. So I thought, well, there's a pitcher, sultan and pepper
shaker. But she had three hundredthousand of your money in her hands at
(18:48):
one stage and didn't didn't nick offwith it. But a Sultan pepper shaker
that was worth it. Now.The other story here, of course,
is you never use If somebody's wontedbig jackpot for you, you never used
them twice because they've had time tothink over the meantime. So unless they're
found me or something like that,that's okay. But if there's something you're
(19:08):
not too familiar with, you ultimatelythis sounds strange, but ultimately you have
to sack them, oh for beingtoo successful? Right? Yeah? This
is so. This is a teamexercise often, and I understand, like
from reading your book all about thiswas such a good read. The link
(19:29):
will actually be attached below here,so do I encourage anyone to read it.
It's so interesting being a team exercise. There are gangs that get involved
in this, and it can actuallyget quite hairy at times. I believe
that overseason someone threatened you and theysort of made implications that maybe your life
won't be too long and won't betoo pleasant if you keep on playing on
(19:52):
his turf. Yes, over overthe years things have been relatively good.
When I learn how to do this, of course I started to want to
do it everywhere else, so Iset up teams in Sydney and Perth,
and I went over to Auckland asthe JACKPI came up there, which I
won. There's no competition. Ileft that for a bit that I went
(20:15):
back there about four years later,and in the meantime, a Chinese family
had had moved, had discovered howto do this, and they were starting
to reap a lot of money outof this. So when I came over
there and set up my own team, of course they weren't very happy to
(20:36):
see me and the guy. Theguy the head of the team, I
was mum and dad, him,his wife and his sister. The head
of the team quite a nasty pieceof quite a nasty character, and he
did make it didn't make death threatsto my workers. He'd also made a
(21:00):
threat to one of the staff membersas well, because they tried to kick
him out of the casino, theAuckland Casino. And then it become quite
an interesting court case whether or nothe was entitled they were entitled to kick
him out because he applied to theHigh Court. The High Court upheld the
casino's right to kick him out.He was then going to go to the
(21:22):
Privy Council and on the basis thatwhether or not a casino is a public
place, and an public place,we're entitled to that they don't have the
right to kick you out unless you'vebroken in certain rules. Anyway, the
casino figured they might lose that case, so they invited him back in.
(21:44):
He finished up being a headline thecrump page headlines of the local Auckland Auckland
newspaper. Do you think he wouldhave really harmed you or killed you?
I don't think so, but heyeah, he certainly. He certainly made
the threats. So as I saidbefore, he was a nasty piece of
works. And did you leave histurf after that and just stay away?
(22:07):
What happened for me was I hada Basically I couldn't be everywhere, so
I had to see him over therein a lady in charge. That lady
was actually pinching more money than whatshould have been a lucrative I mean a
lucrative exercise. Over there, Iwas actually losing money. So I had
(22:30):
to let that go. Oh that'sa shame. So casinos would be privately
owned businesses, I would have thought, like any other they could rescind your
invitation to be a patron, justlike any shop can. Well that's what
the creat casino did to me initially. When after about three years I had
(22:52):
a competitor startup who was hiring peopleoff the floor, and they were on
a commission basis, so they werepretty keen to get me machines when jackpots
got high, and they were ascourteous to the clients who are citty on
the machines as they should have bomSo that become a headline in the Herald's
Sun, a front page headline inthe Herald's Sun. I hadn't broken any
(23:14):
rules at that stage of the game, and because of the publicity, they
came to me and said, youknow, we're just going to have to
exclude you. They said, we'vehad Buend's counsel advice that we can take
away your license to enter the premises, which I believe is wrong. Now
I believe that they can because therewould be considered to be a public premise.
(23:36):
So anyway, they excluded me forwhat turned out to be six months.
Yeah, but basically, the differencebetween professional poker machine play and things
like card counting and other types ofprofessional gambling is you're not actually taking money
from the casino because what you're doingis you're playing the jackpots when they get
(24:00):
high, and the money in thejack boss belongs to the players. In
fact, when professionals come into play, they actually they actually contribute money to
the casino because they make the jackboss go a lot quicker. They put
a lot more money through, Socasinos can actually benefit from a professional poker
machine player. So ultimately they're notkeen to They're not looking to exclude poker
(24:25):
machine players, whereas a blackjat player, his wins are at the expense of
the casino, So if you're countingcards, you can expect to be excluded.
So is that to say that casinosin general do want you there and
do smaller venues welcome you just thesame or is there a pattern? Well
(24:45):
they I mean, if you dothis correctly, they won't know that you're
a professional. So you bleaned inwith other players, they're really not aware
that you can make money on pokermachines and you're not a threat to their
bottom line. So provide you don'tupset the other players, there's no loss
to anybody. I thought that asmaller venue might be thinking, we want
(25:08):
our locals to win this that havebeen contributing, not just some blowing it's
just walked in. Yeah, thatcan be the case, but it's not
as if you're going to the localvenue week after work after week. You
spread your net fairly widely, soyou might only visit one venue maybe twice
(25:30):
a year, so they won't theywon't remember you. You might be visiting
twenty different hotels, for example.You might only be playing so once a
week. So yeah, so youshould not be that familiar to them.
So I want to give back tosomething you said earlier too, that all
of that money's tax free? Isthat? Is that? Because is that
(25:52):
under taxation law it's like considered tobe winnings in a game of chance or
something. Yeah. There were threeHigh Court cases in nineteen eighty nine and
basically they said, that's the elementof chance. Because of the element of
chance, it's not taxable. Whathappened was there were business people who were
(26:17):
making money, but they were claimingthat they were making money on the gaming
was very much doubt right because theyknow what they're doing. So the taxation
department decided that they would say,okay, well you're running your gambling in
a business like manner, then we'lltax you. The three High court cases
(26:37):
threw that out. In fact,one of the judges said to the tax
department. You really don't want towin this case because if you do,
then you'll find people will start toorganize their gambling in a business like manner
and then they lost their losses againsttheir Yes, that could be a net
loss for the tax department. Ican see that. But Australia is pretty
(27:00):
unique in that, isn't it.I know when I played when I was
playing poker over in Vegas, Ihad to pay tax on any jackpots that
I won, and as a nonUS citizen, I got a higher tax
rate than what everyone else did towhich was fairly disappointing. Yes, America
is certainly a taxable. In fact, any jackpot you win over twelve hundred
(27:21):
dollars you've got to pay tax.I think it's about thirty percent. If
you to record your losses and yourexperienses and so forth, so you can
you can reduce that down a fairbit. But Australia and New Zealand,
and I believe England no tax ongambling winds. There are not many ways
(27:41):
these days that are legitimate to earnmoney tax free. No, that's certainly
a benefit, not just the factyou don't have to pay tax on it,
but The other benefit, of course, is you don't have to record
and you know all the paperwork andthe red tape and everything else. So
that's one of the benefits of whatI do is there's no no huge red
(28:02):
tape involved. So do you actuallyenjoy sitting at poking machines at the slots
playing them? I can't think anythingworse sitting there pressing a button as as
fast as you possibly can. It'smind blowing, mind blowingly. But for
other people to do that for me, but sometimes they have to do that
myself. Some people enjoy I've hadarties, not on my side, but
(28:29):
on the ex wife's side, artistswho you know, they do eight hour
shifts. They love it. Imean there were every sep they're looking and
hoping and wishing and there's not amoment that they don't like it. Worse
for me, I know exactly what'shappening. I know to every dollar that
I put through, I'm going toget ninety cents back in the jackpot.
So I know how the whole thingoperates. And there's no joy if I
(28:52):
get a free spin and whatever.To me, it's just I wish it
goes off. I wish it goesoff. I wish it goes off.
Hurry up and go off. Sothen what brings you joy? Peter?
What are you into? What areyou passionate about? What do you love
doing? I do like I guessthe mental side of it. You might
be monitoring a certain number of placesto play. You've got to work out
(29:15):
when those places need to be checkedagain. Sometimes if it's a busy venue,
you can't wait until the jackpot reachesa certain point where you can sit
down and take the machine. You'veactually got to maybe take the machine a
little bit earlier. When you doit, the longest spin on the machine
that's before it reaches the optimal hitpoint, the more money you're going to
(29:37):
lose. All those sort of calculatingtype things I enjoy. That's the challenge.
Sometimes you might spend quite a bitof time on a machine and waiting
for it to reach the point whereyou're going to play, and then office
for quite a few hours. Itgoes off early, So that doesn't worry
me. If the final result doesn'tworry me, What would worry me would
(29:59):
be if something happened, if Ihadn't done the right thing, if I
mister jackpot or waited too long tohitch or something like that. If I've
done it, made a miscalculation,that would worry me. If I've done
all the right things and I've lostmoney, that doesn't worry me. In
the long run, if you havewhat we call ev expected value, if
(30:22):
you have a profitable expectation, inthe long run, you'll make money.
And I've never had a losing year. I'll have losing days, the occasionally
losing month, but never losing yearbecause i have a positive expectation. So
you said before, you don't haveto be some sort of maths genius to
be able to do this. Youcan. Anyone is able to do this
(30:45):
if they've got the proper information.Is that what you're telling me, Well,
you need to understand arithmetic, Butthe most important thing is you need
to ask the question. You've gotto ask yourself the question. And I
guess I'm not trying to turn peopleinto becoming professional gamblers, but there are
opportunities out there for people in businessand if you want to make some money,
(31:10):
if you want to make some seriousmoney in your business area, ask
questions, Ask questions that other peoplehaven't asked. And if I can,
if I can do the impossible,which is to make a living out of
playing poker machines using only arithmetic.Well, imagine what you can do.
Data is power, isn't it.That's it. Well, not data,
(31:30):
not the answers, not having theanswers. That's having the questions. Okay,
yeah, from the other side ofthat, having the questions and then
hopefully eventually the answers. Well,if you've got the questions, you can
find the answers. That I mean, there were certain things I couldn't do
myself, which I found other peopleto do, the difficult mathematics that was
on certain things like kino returns andthings like that. No, I should
(31:55):
just digress for a minute that playingprogressive jackpots is not just about poker machines.
There are progressive jackpots in quino likeClub Kno, there's progressive jackpots in
lottery systems. There's a movie outnow which is very good. It's called
Jerry and Marge Go Large. Ihave seen this. This is an amazing
(32:19):
film. My kids saw it ontheir flights and it's on some of the
airlines and I said, this isDad over. There's an old basket.
He's retired and it's really good atnumbers, but a real boring old far
And and then he just by chanceon a lottery the local lottery finds that
they've got a loophole, which heexploits to the tune of I think over
(32:44):
nine years, I think he'd madeabout clean about seven million dollars. But
the story is very, very similar. But he was just one person,
one person who looked at the system, and there was millions of other people
who play the play the thing.He just looked at it and asked the
question, well, could you makemoney out of this? My book is
(33:05):
not a how to do it ashow I did it, but I have
done it, and I lived exclusivelyoff poker machine earnings for the last twenty
nine years. And if anybody wantsverification that I know what I'm doing,
they can go to my website PeterListen dot com. Okay, And there
(33:27):
was in two thousand and nine TodayTonight program they did a thing on me.
They wanted me to come in thinkingthat I'm a fraud. You can't
make money on poking machines, Andat that stage I was teaching some people
how to do it. Anyway,I refused to go on camera. But
(33:51):
they did some research and I hadpreviously been a British documentary, so knowing
that they would rubbish me, Ileft a copy of the documentary disc with
the Channel nine and I said,don't use any of that of course,
which of course they used bits andpieces of it. They then had some
(34:12):
idea of what I was doing andbecause of that they knew well, because
of the British documentary, they knewthat I was actually making money. So
they went to a Melbourne University professor. It was his name Jackson, Alan
Jackson, and he said that basicallywhat I will do is get the modol
machine when a jackbot's ready to gooff. So it's all about, Look,
(34:35):
you can't make money on a pokermachine by itself. They're designed to
pay money to the government to paymoney to the casino. And when the
linked progress for jackbots, then thatopens up the window for you. Peter,
is luck a real thing? Doesluck exist? Well? In dambling?
Your success is ninety percent management andten percent luck. The short term
(35:00):
it's ninety percent luck and ten percentmanagement. At the end of the year
it's ninety percent management and ten percentluck. You can't be lucky in gambling
over the year. I know thatyou do. You do train people how
to do this and how to play, and I think people would be wondering,
(35:20):
if you know how to do thisand make money out of slot machines,
why would you tell anyone? Right, I can't cover the world.
I don't teach people how to doit in my area where I play,
so I'm happy to and also workstwo ways. People that I teach how
to play sometimes there are big jackpotsthat come up that they can't handle and
(35:42):
they need somebody to assist them toplay these things. So I've actually gained
by the people that I teach,joining partners with them in large shackpots,
so it's actually improved my And also, if I want to be on top
of this, I claim to bethe the pokey King or the slock King,
depends on where you are knowing.Through the people that I teach,
(36:06):
I get to know what the opportunitiesare in different places around the world,
so that certainly keeps me up todate and keeps you up to date with
the opportunities are them. Poke isbecoming more popular or less popular than they
used to be. In America,there's been more and more casinos opening up
in Australia. Of course, theregulations are starting to hit harder and harder,
(36:29):
so poker machine revenue I guess willdecline in Australia, but certainly with
the number of casinos in America that'scertainly expanding rapidly. Yeah, poker machines
are sort of an easy thing.I'm not sure what will replace them,
but I think they'll have a life. Switching gears a little bit. I
understand that you're a member of MENSA, which is the High IQ Society,
(36:52):
and that's MENSA Australia that you're involved. Is that right? Do you apply
to join? Do they approach you? Do you have to take your i
Q test? In what what happens? How do you How do you get
involved with them? If you're prettyquick with numbers and things like that and
you think that you you might bea potential candidate, you can apply to
do a practice test with them andyou can send it in and they'll they'll
(37:15):
assess that and say, well,you pass that, So that's a good
chance you'll pass the test if youwant to do the test. So that's
that's how you get to do it. Then when you get accepted. Is
there a ceremony do you get doyou get a gown? Do you get
a plaque? You get a pieceof card? You get a card that
says you remember. What's good forme with being a member of MENSA is
on their Facebook site. If you'vegot a question about anything, there's going
(37:38):
to be someone in there who knowsthe answer. Do you go to meetings?
They do have meetings, and theyhave social gatherings and so forth,
annual general meetings and what have you, And just what do you do with
the meetings? You talk to people. I think one of the good things
about people you talk to is youmight come up with a query or something
(38:00):
that you've been thinking about for quitesome time, and you don't have to
explain yourself twice. They sort ofunderstand what you're talking about. And they
may not agree with you that alot of people don't, but no,
it's been well worked well for me. I would certainly if anyone thinks that
they might be a potential candidate.I was certainly recommended. Peter. Have
you ever thought that with your mathematicalmind and the logic that you're able to
(38:25):
apply to these things, people thoughtthat you could have done something with that
different to making money off Fogy machines, for sure, I'm not sure what,
but yeah, I've always been goodat strategies. And when I was
a high school teacher, they hada thing called the sheer Market game.
I remember this run Australia. Whythere were hundreds of schools Australia. Why
(38:49):
but we wanted every second year,not that when you had to pick shares
that were going to win, butjust by strategy four stage you could buy
sol shares over before stages the stagenumber one. Half our teams will go
for shares that were volatile and wouldmove a lot if the sheer market went
up, and the other half wouldsort of whole ground. Okay, if
(39:13):
market went up, then those topshares would be in the game. The
other shares wouldn't, so then we'ddo the same thing again. So basically
it was just strategy. I'm verygood at strategies, and I do think
that that ability, that strategy ability, I feel in some ways I have
been wasted, Jamie, as humblyas I can say that, well,
(39:35):
I could have done something better thanbeing a posaton a. Look, it's
led you to live life on yourown terms. You don't have a boss
yelling at you in the office.You don't have a room full of snot
those kids that don't want to bethere. I mean, have you have
you made a very good living outof this. I made a better living
than if I had stayed as ahigh school teacher, had I stayed in
(39:55):
accounting, I think ultimately I probablywould have made more than I've made a
professional gambler. But I made itcomfortable living. Basically, everything that I
own that I spent, it's beenfrom poker machine earnings in the earlier days.
In fact, there was a pointwhere I went back to zero because
there was a fund manager in HongKong by the name of Michael Bastian that
(40:20):
I was recommended to invest in.So asuck as I was making money,
I was investing in this guy inHong Kong and he was getting thirty forty
percent returns a year. So themoney that I was making, which was
very very good, was I canadd another thirty to forty percent a year.
But unfortunately, I think it wasabout the year two thousand, he
committed suicide and took my money withhim. So basically I had to start
(40:44):
a game for it. Was therewas no backup, No one else had
control of the money. What wasall personally controlled by him. Yep,
personally controled by him. And thereare questions I should have asked in questions
such as what he licensed. Idid actually get to asking that question about
two weeks before committed suicide, andI was asking for my money back and
(41:05):
he was unable to pay. Well, it wasn't just my money. He
took about twenty six million dollars worthof other people's money, and a lot
of them sporting identities. I havebeen lucky enough to win two cars in
my life, not from pokey jackpots. One was a raffle and then another
one was a TV show. Sowhen I've won a car and I've approached
(41:28):
the dealership, they don't want togive you. And you think, oh,
I've won a sixty thousand dollars car, they should give me fifty thousand
for it. Right. I haven'teven driven it yet, I haven't taken
delivery of it. No, theymaybe they've just seen me coming and I've
never sold it back to them.But they've always said to me, we
really have to regard it as asecond hand trading. Is the cars that
(41:52):
I've won at the Gasuno. They'veall had about two or three hundred kilometers
on the thing. They might havebeen stration vehicles. So basically, look
the first car I tried to sellmyself, and I won't recommend that to
anybody. You get people come aroundand promise to come around, they don't
come around offer you nothing. Iwas so grateful that I built up a
(42:14):
relationship with the BMW don carsle dealer. I'd win the card, I'd bring
him up. Said how much hesays, I, you know, fifty
thousand, Thank you very much,No worries pick it up. He'll pick
it up, organize the whole thing. Yeah, much better than much better
than trying to sell it yourself.Oh, I've used Facebook marketplace. I
know trying to sell is a headache. Have you ever won any different prizes
(42:36):
other than cash or cars? Isit ever jewelry holidays? Yeah? One
of the prizes that I won wasa trip around the world plus the jackpot
of value, and the jackpop wasabout fifty five thousand dollars or something like
that. But nixt toime, I'llwalk past there. The jackpot was now
on one hundred and thirty thousand dollars, and I asked the manager at the
casino. I said, how come? He said, we closed down another
(42:59):
jackpot and put the jackpot value ontothis jackpot, So it was a trip
around the world plus one hundred andthirty thousand dollars. I did the numbers
and thought, this has cost aboutseventy thousand dollars. So we played that
for a couple of nights and afterabout sixteen thousand dollars were lost. So
I've got the trip around the worldplus one hundred and thirty thousand dollars,
(43:20):
and he took it. You wentnot the trip around the world, No,
I saw the bag of a wholesaleprice. The kind of people that
would that would want to learn howto do this? Would you say the
ideal person would be someone who doesn'tplay Pokey's or slots recreationally, people who
do best, someone who maybe who'sa card counter on blackjack, or if
(43:44):
someone's a gambler, like a madgambler, I won't take them. But
if they they've got a logical mind, if they look like they can understand,
if they look like they can controltheir bedding, yeah, I'm happy
to happy to teach them. ButI cannot convert a guard variety gambler into
a professional purely because of the completelydifferent mindsets. And if you have been
(44:06):
involved in sports betting, arbitrage betting, horse racing only through other people.
In professional gambling, you generally needto specialize in one area. You can't
spread yourself around. One of thepeople that I taught was actually a sports
better and a very good football better. Now, sports betting is particularly difficult
(44:27):
because if you're very good at it, you get very quickly closed down by
the betting companies. Out sports bettingis to not get closed down and use
other people. And one of histechniques was to use a person who was
a big better, like a biglosing better, and throw his bets in
with him. Now we're coming tohorse racing. What people probably don't realize
(44:52):
is that there were at least threeAustralian billionaires who made their money on horse
racing, mainly in Hong Kong.One of the big money earn us over
there is a thing called the treveltrio. So you can bet the first,
second, and third winner in threedifferent races and certain meetings, then
you win the jackpot. And ifno one does that, the jackpot goes
(45:15):
up again, and obviously more peopleare attracted because the jackpot's high. Now
that doesn't go off, the jackpotgets very big, and this is where
the professionals come in. So theydon't cover all the options in those three
races, but they'll eliminate certain probablywon't into the probably wills, and so
(45:37):
horse racing can be very lucrative.Do you think it's legitimate, I mean
races of this, I guess areputation of having been fixed, having horses
swapped out, having jockeys try notand try or not try so hard in
certain races. It probably does happenin the smaller races. But in Hong
Kong, I know some of thebig betters over there, it's very clean,
(45:59):
very clean. One of the reasonsis there's only two race courses over
there, and all of the bettersand so forth, the big betters,
they have the videos of all theraces, and if anyone, any jockey
tries to pull up a horse,they'll be seen. And also the jockey
club over there is very influential,and if anyone does the wrong thing over
(46:21):
there, they'll just find their visadisallowed and they're out of the country.
So Hong Kong is a very veryvery clean vetting area. But if you
get to some of the country racesaround here, maybe I don't know,
I don't know, just conjecturing,maybe they're not that's so good. So
what are you doing these days?How much of your time is split between
training people? And which countries areyou split between? And how much are
(46:44):
you're playing yourself? What do yourweeks look like at the moment? I
can't look, I can't say toomuch about what I'm doing at the moment.
As far as teaching people goes,probably only teach about two or three
people a year. I don't knowwhat else I can say about that at
the stage of the game, right, Okay, Well, this is on
the horizon for you, and it'svery secretive, and I can appreciate and
(47:05):
understand that. And I guess youknow your formulas and strategies for how you
beat the pokey machines. That's yourproprietary knowledge and it's very valuable to you,
and so it should be Thank youso much for taking the time to
have a chat with me here todayin the podcast. We've got the links
to everything below here, so makesure you do click on them, check
them out and look. If it'ssometime in the future that you're listening to
(47:28):
this, maybe Peter can tell usmore about the current project x I don't
even know what it is, soPeter, thanks a lot, mate,
Very impressed, Jady, very impressed. We know what you're doing here and
I hope it becomes big. I'msure it will. Do you have it,
Peter, Listen a guy who makesa full time living from playing the
Pokey's, the slot machines, whateveryou want to call them. That's just,
(47:51):
to me, a remarkable way forsomeone to make a living. Hey,
it was really nice what he saidat the end there about the podcast,
and if you want to give mesimilar warm and fuzzies, rate this
episode to the maximum stars that youcan on whatever platform you can find it
on. That would be great.Leaving a comment would help as well,
and make sure that you are followingand subscribe to this podcast so that you
(48:14):
get notified when new episodes drop.Thanks for listening to Jamie's Club.
Episode three of Jamie's Club. Herewe are and I'm still going strong and
having a great time. And Ihope that you've enjoyed listening to the episodes
so far. And if you haven'tlistened to the earlier episodes, what's wrong
with you? Make sure that youyou don't have to listen in order.
You're welcome to listen to this one, but make sure you listen to all
of them in time. Hey,today I'm speaking with a bloke that I've
(00:30):
known for a long time. Now. I've talked about Peter. Listen just
in social context when I've said topeople, oh, yeah, I know
a guy who plays the Pokey's fora full time living, and they always
say to me, what, No. People don't believe that it can actually
be done. But here is someonewho has cracked the code. Now,
(00:53):
I probably should say in Australia wecall them pokeys. They might be poker
machines. They might be slot machinesif you're in the US, whatever you
call them, they're all the samething. Now, he has worked out
a way mathematically and logically to makea full time living from them, and
he spoke about it in a bookhe wrote, and the book didn't exactly
(01:18):
tell you the formula and the secretto how he did it. It does
give a couple of clues there,but it's mostly his life story and the
different things that happened and the transitionfrom being a school teacher to a full
time gambler and then the things heexperienced there are just amazing and it's a
(01:41):
really good read. I do recommendit now. One stage, I was
playing a lot of live poker,the card game, and I was spending
a lot of time in casinos,and I heard so many different stories from
people about how they've trying systems andmethods to make a full time living from
(02:02):
the casino, and most of themare rubbish. You know. There's the
old fashioned Martingale system that's been aroundforever, and that's about doubling your bets
until you win. That's a systemthat theoretically works, but in the real
world doesn't work as well because itdoes require you to have an unlimited amount
(02:23):
of money to start with and tablesthat have no cap on the bet size,
and both of those things are nottrue for all of us, almost
all of us. I don't know. Some people I've spoken to talented sports
betters who seem to know when theodds are more in their favor. I've
(02:45):
spoken to people who do arbitrage betting, which is betting on both sides of
an event with different betting agencies,and I've been told that their margins are
usually pretty slim. We're talking likeone to three percent, maybe five percent
on the odd occasion. But ifyou can have a guaranteed return of even
(03:07):
one percent no matter who wins,I can see why you would do that.
Other people are very passionate about followingthe racing industry and knowing the trainers,
knowing the tracks, the horses,sometimes the dogs even And I've followed
people's hot tips sometimes in these racingthings with definitely mixed success. But I
(03:30):
think that there are people who canhave an edge over the competition when it
comes to betting on these racing events. But right now, this is Peter
liston the Pokey King. Peter,I've got a bit of flat for asking
people this, but I'm tending tospeak to people with some odd occupations.
(03:53):
And what is it that you sayto people what you do, being that
you are a full time Pokey's playeror slots player. But we'll say Pokey's
because we're both Australians. But doyou just be front up with people when
they say in a barbecue, whatdo you do for a living? Well,
it depends where I am, Jamie. If it's in an area that
(04:16):
I am playing in they asked mewhat I do, I usually tell them
I mental women's clothing. Usually shutsthem up pretty quickly. But yeah,
look, it depends where I am. If you tell somebody that you're a
professional gambler, that's okay. Ifyou tell them you make your money on
slot machines or poker machines, theylook at you as if there's something rather
(04:43):
strange about you. And the reasonfor that is, well, it's always
been considered that you can't make moneyon poker machines, and that's the first
thing people are going to say toyou. Yes, yeah, even now
I'm starting now people started to realize, yes you can, particularly in America,
Yes you can make some money onpoker machines now. But it's very,
(05:08):
very slightly starting to come around,which is good because the more people
who know how to do it,or know that you can make money on
poker machines or less money, I'mgoing to mate so it's been basically a
secret, which I've been quite happyto hold on to. In fact,
when I first started my children,was formed a secrecy. Once I realized
(05:30):
that I can make money on paganmachines, then it went from being a
bragging situation. At the high schoolI was teaching out to basically everyone basically
had to yeah, shut the mouth. I did have a mate, a
teaching mate, who helped me withmy first particular jackpot, which was a
(05:55):
luxury car. I needed to getabout four machines, and I've got three.
I got three fellow teachers and mysister to help me help me play,
so they sort of knew that Icould do it. But one of
my friends was a delivery man forDon Small Goods, and this was too
(06:15):
good a story for him, sohe he tell all these customers and so
forth, and I try and shuthim up. So I went very quiet,
and I didn't tell my friends oranybody else what I was doing after
that point in time. Because youhad quite a respectable job at the time,
right, You're a school teacher andpeople and a maths teacher, is
(06:38):
that right? So what you woulddo in high school now, before I
was a high school teacher. Iwas an accountant. People all think I'm
a maths expert, but I'm alot better at arithmetic that I am at
maths. And what I found inthis game, what's more important than mathematics
is logic. And a clue foryour listeners is this, I'm not a
(07:06):
gambler, so did basically how didI go from being a high school teacher
to a professional gambler? Well,the difference was from me to anybody else
in my state and possibly Australia atthat stage. The one difference was I
didn't have the answers, But theone difference was I asked the questions.
(07:28):
So when I went to Crown Casinoout of curiosity and looked around and felt
sorry for all the poor suckers playingthe machines and so forth, I noticed
the progressor jackpots rising. So questionI asked myself, which I don't think
anybody else in the land had askedthemselves, was we all know that poker
(07:51):
machines lose money, but if it'slinked to a progressive jackpot, as that
jackpot rises, it's got worth moremoney to you as it rises. Now,
the question I asked myself is couldthat jackpot actually rise to a point
where there's more value in the jackpotthan what you lose on the machine.
(08:13):
So that taught me about three monthsof mucking around and sorting around with adding,
subtracting, modiplying, and dividing percentages. Ultimately I thought I had the
answer, and so it came tothe time to check it out at the
crowd casino. So tried out mytheory on little three hundred dollar jackpots.
(08:35):
I had an expectation that if Iplayed it from the optimal hit point the
jackpot, the profit potential jackpot shouldhave been half the value of the jackpot
itself. So I tried about adozen three hundred dollars jackpots and my expectation
(08:56):
was to make about eighteen hundred dollarsout of that, less whatever action the
others have. So I made fourteenhundred dollars out of that. So proved
of the work. Approved of thework. So the next set was to
go a little bit higher, andwithin eighteen months I won a three hundred
thousand dollars jackpot in Perth. Soyou're all city, Yeah, I spent
(09:20):
some time in Perth and a lotof time in the casino there in the
poker room. But so you're tellingme that a lot of people know how
to do this. There is acommunity out there of people who are professional
players. Do you know each other? Do you see them when you're out
and about. Yes. In Victoria, I had this to myself for about
(09:43):
three years. Ultimately, something likethis if you're winning a lot of money.
And in the first eighteen months therewas a sign outside the crowd Casuino
that they've given away one hundred luxurycars lone one ten of them no way
come on really most mostly BMW BMW'sand I had a system where whoever was
(10:11):
playing for me, they had totake take ownership of the car. They
would then I would organize to sellit to the BMW dealers in Doncaster and
then they would pay the person whowas playing for me. Then that person
would would then transfer the money backto me and keep a keep a commission.
(10:33):
That's you're placing in someone you know. That's or trust is another thing,
and I was using ex students neighbors, relative relations, and basically people
come in two flavors. They comein. They come they come honest or
(10:56):
dishonest, and it's a bit likepregnancy. Can't be half pregnant, you're
rather honestly, you're dishonest. Andso those ex students, the neighbors,
family, family, extended families,no problem at all. Then it became
competitive. People started to realize whatI was doing, started to started to
(11:18):
copy me, and then my competitionin Victoria was mainly Chinese. Ultimately I
finished up with about thirteen families,thirteen Chinese families who are my competitors.
And in the old casino, initiallyI had one competitor who was Leberties,
(11:39):
but he was getting He was hiringpeople off the floor, off the casino
floor and paying them peanuts, andI was paying my people very good money.
So ultimately I had to dispense withmy good people and start hiring people
off the floor as well. Andthat was a bad move because cheap people
(12:00):
can be very expensive. And thenI found that the money that I was
making before, I was actually losingso much money through through theft that it
was almost not not profitable. Soyeah, that the answer is your question
is you trust people? Well,basically you find you find the first flavor,
(12:24):
the honest ones. Yeah, andif there's any doubt at all,
no, you can't be half.You can't be half trustworthy. Hm hmmm.
And so, Peter, is therea time that you're so you're working
as a teacher as you're sort oftransitioning into this role as a as a
full time gambler. Yes, uh, yeah, that was for about two
(12:50):
years. I was very reluctant togive away teaching because basically, I was
my ambition at that stage of thegame was to build up my super innovation
and have something to retire on,and I was very reluctant to give up
that super anuation. When I firststarted playing the pokeys, I was making
(13:11):
ten times as much as I wasas a teacher. It was all tax
free, whereas teaching was taxable.So I built up quite a bank role
and it got to the point whereI just couldn't afford not to be in
the casinos, and at that stagealso the hotels. The hotels was at
(13:33):
that stage starting to get a lotof a lot of poker machines as well.
So you're making, yeah, you'remaking ten times what you're making in
the classroom as a teacher. Isit like, was teaching your passion?
Did you love doing it or wasit just a job? I was an
accountant, and then I felt Iwanted to expand myself. So the first
(14:00):
few years the teaching were great.I was young, the students thought I
was pretty good. Then as youget older, the students start to think,
well, you're an old basard.You can't you've got nothing to offer
me. Actually, as time goeson, you actually get good. You
start to know what you're doing,but the kids don't relate to you so
well, so it gets harder.It really does get harder. And I
(14:24):
was looking forward. I was hangingout for the retirement, so it wasn't
the passion that it was. Ido love teaching, but you get a
class of thirty year nine's and theydon't want to be there, and I
let you know, it to bevery stressful. And it wasn't the only
(14:45):
thing I missed. Well, Isuppose the thing I really missed about teaching
was what I did leavers. Imissed the camaraderie, the Friday nights at
the pub because being a professional gamblersa very lonely job. It's the sort
of thing you don't go. Youdon't mix with anybody, you don't mix
with your competitors. You really tryto outgun them, if that's the right
(15:11):
word. So I've never really hada great social life since I've been a
professional gambler. I've been a professionalgambler now for twenty nine years, whereas
before when I was a teacher,had a great social life. So is
playing the pokey's playing the slots?Is that your passion? Is this passion
(15:35):
that was ignited in you? Orwas it just a game and you we
just wanted to beat the find away to beat the system. Initially I
wanted to beat it was just achallenge. I mean, I've always been
interested in challenges. Male teachers arevery competitive in terms of their ability to
make money on gambling. What thisis? The thing is that I've never
(15:58):
heard of this. Yeah, butwhen I actually started to make money on
gam me, that's my status inthe town grew tremendously. And what is
your passion? Then? The passionthat initially was not monetary, It was
basically a challenge, and I reallygot into the challenge. I thought it
could be possible. If these progressivejackpots rise, there must be a point
(16:22):
where they're playable. And it tookme about three months mucking around with the
numbers, trying to teach at thesame time, but my passion was purely
challenged, nothing at all. Thenwhen the best part of all wasn't the
big jackpots that I won. Thebest part of all was when I put
it to the test for the smallerjackpots and I won. In fact,
(16:48):
when I won that big three hundredthousand jackpot in Perth, that was a
frightening situation because I had three strangersplaying for me, old Dutch ladies that
I had met on the floor.I'd gone back to have a rest because
I had a supervise, and I'dgone back to a hotel to have a
rest. And now this was athree hundred thousand jackpot. The odds were
(17:11):
one point three me into one.The expected costs of that three hundred thousand
jackpot was one hundred and fifty thousanddollars, so there was one hundred and
fifty thousand dollars profited it. Theproblem was it's going to take a one
point three million spins at twelve spinsa minute. So I got these old,
three old ladies I hardly knew playingfor me. I loaded them up
(17:33):
with I think it was dollar coins. Back then, there were no note
accepts. I loaded them up withcorners and ultimately went back to have a
rest because this was going to bea twenty four hour day job for three
weeks, expected to take three weeks. As luck would have it, it
took two hours. So I gota phone call it was a hot day
and saying it the motel about twokilometers away. I ran, I believe
(18:00):
you, you know, just keepin mind, I think back now,
they could have claim they were perfectlyentitled to claiming the jackpop themselves. When
I got there, my favorite staffmember was there. She was happy for
me. The three the three ladieswere happy for me. The manager came
(18:22):
down side the check over to me, which was good. Then a couple
of days later, I took thethree ladies out at dinner and they had
a few drinks and one of themactually souvenir the Sultan pepper shakers off the
table. So I thought, well, there's a pitcher, sultan and pepper
shaker. But she had three hundredthousand of your money in her hands at
(18:48):
one stage and didn't didn't nick offwith it. But a Sultan pepper shaker
that was worth it. Now.The other story here, of course,
is you never use If somebody's wontedbig jackpot for you, you never used
them twice because they've had time tothink over the meantime. So unless they're
found me or something like that,that's okay. But if there's something you're
(19:08):
not too familiar with, you ultimatelythis sounds strange, but ultimately you have
to sack them, oh for beingtoo successful? Right? Yeah? This
is so. This is a teamexercise often, and I understand, like
from reading your book all about thiswas such a good read. The link
(19:29):
will actually be attached below here,so do I encourage anyone to read it.
It's so interesting being a team exercise. There are gangs that get involved
in this, and it can actuallyget quite hairy at times. I believe
that overseason someone threatened you and theysort of made implications that maybe your life
won't be too long and won't betoo pleasant if you keep on playing on
(19:52):
his turf. Yes, over overthe years things have been relatively good.
When I learn how to do this, of course I started to want to
do it everywhere else, so Iset up teams in Sydney and Perth,
and I went over to Auckland asthe JACKPI came up there, which I
won. There's no competition. Ileft that for a bit that I went
(20:15):
back there about four years later,and in the meantime, a Chinese family
had had moved, had discovered howto do this, and they were starting
to reap a lot of money outof this. So when I came over
there and set up my own team, of course they weren't very happy to
(20:36):
see me and the guy. Theguy the head of the team, I
was mum and dad, him,his wife and his sister. The head
of the team quite a nasty pieceof quite a nasty character, and he
did make it didn't make death threatsto my workers. He'd also made a
(21:00):
threat to one of the staff membersas well, because they tried to kick
him out of the casino, theAuckland Casino. And then it become quite
an interesting court case whether or nothe was entitled they were entitled to kick
him out because he applied to theHigh Court. The High Court upheld the
casino's right to kick him out.He was then going to go to the
(21:22):
Privy Council and on the basis thatwhether or not a casino is a public
place, and an public place,we're entitled to that they don't have the
right to kick you out unless you'vebroken in certain rules. Anyway, the
casino figured they might lose that case, so they invited him back in.
(21:44):
He finished up being a headline thecrump page headlines of the local Auckland Auckland
newspaper. Do you think he wouldhave really harmed you or killed you?
I don't think so, but heyeah, he certainly. He certainly made
the threats. So as I saidbefore, he was a nasty piece of
works. And did you leave histurf after that and just stay away?
(22:07):
What happened for me was I hada Basically I couldn't be everywhere, so
I had to see him over therein a lady in charge. That lady
was actually pinching more money than whatshould have been a lucrative I mean a
lucrative exercise. Over there, Iwas actually losing money. So I had
(22:30):
to let that go. Oh that'sa shame. So casinos would be privately
owned businesses, I would have thought, like any other they could rescind your
invitation to be a patron, justlike any shop can. Well that's what
the creat casino did to me initially. When after about three years I had
(22:52):
a competitor startup who was hiring peopleoff the floor, and they were on
a commission basis, so they werepretty keen to get me machines when jackpots
got high, and they were ascourteous to the clients who are citty on
the machines as they should have bomSo that become a headline in the Herald's
Sun, a front page headline inthe Herald's Sun. I hadn't broken any
(23:14):
rules at that stage of the game, and because of the publicity, they
came to me and said, youknow, we're just going to have to
exclude you. They said, we'vehad Buend's counsel advice that we can take
away your license to enter the premises, which I believe is wrong. Now
I believe that they can because therewould be considered to be a public premise.
(23:36):
So anyway, they excluded me forwhat turned out to be six months.
Yeah, but basically, the differencebetween professional poker machine play and things
like card counting and other types ofprofessional gambling is you're not actually taking money
from the casino because what you're doingis you're playing the jackpots when they get
(24:00):
high, and the money in thejack boss belongs to the players. In
fact, when professionals come into play, they actually they actually contribute money to
the casino because they make the jackboss go a lot quicker. They put
a lot more money through, Socasinos can actually benefit from a professional poker
machine player. So ultimately they're notkeen to They're not looking to exclude poker
(24:25):
machine players, whereas a blackjat player, his wins are at the expense of
the casino, So if you're countingcards, you can expect to be excluded.
So is that to say that casinosin general do want you there and
do smaller venues welcome you just thesame or is there a pattern? Well
(24:45):
they I mean, if you dothis correctly, they won't know that you're
a professional. So you bleaned inwith other players, they're really not aware
that you can make money on pokermachines and you're not a threat to their
bottom line. So provide you don'tupset the other players, there's no loss
to anybody. I thought that asmaller venue might be thinking, we want
(25:08):
our locals to win this that havebeen contributing, not just some blowing it's
just walked in. Yeah, thatcan be the case, but it's not
as if you're going to the localvenue week after work after week. You
spread your net fairly widely, soyou might only visit one venue maybe twice
(25:30):
a year, so they won't theywon't remember you. You might be visiting
twenty different hotels, for example.You might only be playing so once a
week. So yeah, so youshould not be that familiar to them.
So I want to give back tosomething you said earlier too, that all
of that money's tax free? Isthat? Is that? Because is that
(25:52):
under taxation law it's like considered tobe winnings in a game of chance or
something. Yeah. There were threeHigh Court cases in nineteen eighty nine and
basically they said, that's the elementof chance. Because of the element of
chance, it's not taxable. Whathappened was there were business people who were
(26:17):
making money, but they were claimingthat they were making money on the gaming
was very much doubt right because theyknow what they're doing. So the taxation
department decided that they would say,okay, well you're running your gambling in
a business like manner, then we'lltax you. The three High court cases
(26:37):
threw that out. In fact,one of the judges said to the tax
department. You really don't want towin this case because if you do,
then you'll find people will start toorganize their gambling in a business like manner
and then they lost their losses againsttheir Yes, that could be a net
loss for the tax department. Ican see that. But Australia is pretty
(27:00):
unique in that, isn't it.I know when I played when I was
playing poker over in Vegas, Ihad to pay tax on any jackpots that
I won, and as a nonUS citizen, I got a higher tax
rate than what everyone else did towhich was fairly disappointing. Yes, America
is certainly a taxable. In fact, any jackpot you win over twelve hundred
(27:21):
dollars you've got to pay tax.I think it's about thirty percent. If
you to record your losses and yourexperienses and so forth, so you can
you can reduce that down a fairbit. But Australia and New Zealand,
and I believe England no tax ongambling winds. There are not many ways
(27:41):
these days that are legitimate to earnmoney tax free. No, that's certainly
a benefit, not just the factyou don't have to pay tax on it,
but The other benefit, of course, is you don't have to record
and you know all the paperwork andthe red tape and everything else. So
that's one of the benefits of whatI do is there's no no huge red
(28:02):
tape involved. So do you actuallyenjoy sitting at poking machines at the slots
playing them? I can't think anythingworse sitting there pressing a button as as
fast as you possibly can. It'smind blowing, mind blowingly. But for
other people to do that for me, but sometimes they have to do that
myself. Some people enjoy I've hadarties, not on my side, but
(28:29):
on the ex wife's side, artistswho you know, they do eight hour
shifts. They love it. Imean there were every sep they're looking and
hoping and wishing and there's not amoment that they don't like it. Worse
for me, I know exactly what'shappening. I know to every dollar that
I put through, I'm going toget ninety cents back in the jackpot.
So I know how the whole thingoperates. And there's no joy if I
(28:52):
get a free spin and whatever.To me, it's just I wish it
goes off. I wish it goesoff. I wish it goes off.
Hurry up and go off. Sothen what brings you joy? Peter?
What are you into? What areyou passionate about? What do you love
doing? I do like I guessthe mental side of it. You might
be monitoring a certain number of placesto play. You've got to work out
(29:15):
when those places need to be checkedagain. Sometimes if it's a busy venue,
you can't wait until the jackpot reachesa certain point where you can sit
down and take the machine. You'veactually got to maybe take the machine a
little bit earlier. When you doit, the longest spin on the machine
that's before it reaches the optimal hitpoint, the more money you're going to
(29:37):
lose. All those sort of calculatingtype things I enjoy. That's the challenge.
Sometimes you might spend quite a bitof time on a machine and waiting
for it to reach the point whereyou're going to play, and then office
for quite a few hours. Itgoes off early, So that doesn't worry
me. If the final result doesn'tworry me, What would worry me would
(29:59):
be if something happened, if Ihadn't done the right thing, if I
mister jackpot or waited too long tohitch or something like that. If I've
done it, made a miscalculation,that would worry me. If I've done
all the right things and I've lostmoney, that doesn't worry me. In
the long run, if you havewhat we call ev expected value, if
(30:22):
you have a profitable expectation, inthe long run, you'll make money.
And I've never had a losing year. I'll have losing days, the occasionally
losing month, but never losing yearbecause i have a positive expectation. So
you said before, you don't haveto be some sort of maths genius to
be able to do this. Youcan. Anyone is able to do this
(30:45):
if they've got the proper information.Is that what you're telling me, Well,
you need to understand arithmetic, Butthe most important thing is you need
to ask the question. You've gotto ask yourself the question. And I
guess I'm not trying to turn peopleinto becoming professional gamblers, but there are
opportunities out there for people in businessand if you want to make some money,
(31:10):
if you want to make some seriousmoney in your business area, ask
questions, Ask questions that other peoplehaven't asked. And if I can,
if I can do the impossible,which is to make a living out of
playing poker machines using only arithmetic.Well, imagine what you can do.
Data is power, isn't it.That's it. Well, not data,
(31:30):
not the answers, not having theanswers. That's having the questions. Okay,
yeah, from the other side ofthat, having the questions and then
hopefully eventually the answers. Well,if you've got the questions, you can
find the answers. That I mean, there were certain things I couldn't do
myself, which I found other peopleto do, the difficult mathematics that was
on certain things like kino returns andthings like that. No, I should
(31:55):
just digress for a minute that playingprogressive jackpots is not just about poker machines.
There are progressive jackpots in quino likeClub Kno, there's progressive jackpots in
lottery systems. There's a movie outnow which is very good. It's called
Jerry and Marge Go Large. Ihave seen this. This is an amazing
(32:19):
film. My kids saw it ontheir flights and it's on some of the
airlines and I said, this isDad over. There's an old basket.
He's retired and it's really good atnumbers, but a real boring old far
And and then he just by chanceon a lottery the local lottery finds that
they've got a loophole, which heexploits to the tune of I think over
(32:44):
nine years, I think he'd madeabout clean about seven million dollars. But
the story is very, very similar. But he was just one person,
one person who looked at the system, and there was millions of other people
who play the play the thing.He just looked at it and asked the
question, well, could you makemoney out of this? My book is
(33:05):
not a how to do it ashow I did it, but I have
done it, and I lived exclusivelyoff poker machine earnings for the last twenty
nine years. And if anybody wantsverification that I know what I'm doing,
they can go to my website PeterListen dot com. Okay, And there
(33:27):
was in two thousand and nine TodayTonight program they did a thing on me.
They wanted me to come in thinkingthat I'm a fraud. You can't
make money on poking machines, Andat that stage I was teaching some people
how to do it. Anyway,I refused to go on camera. But
(33:51):
they did some research and I hadpreviously been a British documentary, so knowing
that they would rubbish me, Ileft a copy of the documentary disc with
the Channel nine and I said,don't use any of that of course,
which of course they used bits andpieces of it. They then had some
(34:12):
idea of what I was doing andbecause of that they knew well, because
of the British documentary, they knewthat I was actually making money. So
they went to a Melbourne University professor. It was his name Jackson, Alan
Jackson, and he said that basicallywhat I will do is get the modol
machine when a jackbot's ready to gooff. So it's all about, Look,
(34:35):
you can't make money on a pokermachine by itself. They're designed to
pay money to the government to paymoney to the casino. And when the
linked progress for jackbots, then thatopens up the window for you. Peter,
is luck a real thing? Doesluck exist? Well? In dambling?
Your success is ninety percent management andten percent luck. The short term
(35:00):
it's ninety percent luck and ten percentmanagement. At the end of the year
it's ninety percent management and ten percentluck. You can't be lucky in gambling
over the year. I know thatyou do. You do train people how
to do this and how to play, and I think people would be wondering,
(35:20):
if you know how to do thisand make money out of slot machines,
why would you tell anyone? Right, I can't cover the world.
I don't teach people how to doit in my area where I play,
so I'm happy to and also workstwo ways. People that I teach how
to play sometimes there are big jackpotsthat come up that they can't handle and
(35:42):
they need somebody to assist them toplay these things. So I've actually gained
by the people that I teach,joining partners with them in large shackpots,
so it's actually improved my And also, if I want to be on top
of this, I claim to bethe the pokey King or the slock King,
depends on where you are knowing.Through the people that I teach,
(36:06):
I get to know what the opportunitiesare in different places around the world,
so that certainly keeps me up todate and keeps you up to date with
the opportunities are them. Poke isbecoming more popular or less popular than they
used to be. In America,there's been more and more casinos opening up
in Australia. Of course, theregulations are starting to hit harder and harder,
(36:29):
so poker machine revenue I guess willdecline in Australia, but certainly with
the number of casinos in America that'scertainly expanding rapidly. Yeah, poker machines
are sort of an easy thing.I'm not sure what will replace them,
but I think they'll have a life. Switching gears a little bit. I
understand that you're a member of MENSA, which is the High IQ Society,
(36:52):
and that's MENSA Australia that you're involved. Is that right? Do you apply
to join? Do they approach you? Do you have to take your i
Q test? In what what happens? How do you How do you get
involved with them? If you're prettyquick with numbers and things like that and
you think that you you might bea potential candidate, you can apply to
do a practice test with them andyou can send it in and they'll they'll
(37:15):
assess that and say, well,you pass that, So that's a good
chance you'll pass the test if youwant to do the test. So that's
that's how you get to do it. Then when you get accepted. Is
there a ceremony do you get doyou get a gown? Do you get
a plaque? You get a pieceof card? You get a card that
says you remember. What's good forme with being a member of MENSA is
on their Facebook site. If you'vegot a question about anything, there's going
(37:38):
to be someone in there who knowsthe answer. Do you go to meetings?
They do have meetings, and theyhave social gatherings and so forth,
annual general meetings and what have you, And just what do you do with
the meetings? You talk to people. I think one of the good things
about people you talk to is youmight come up with a query or something
(38:00):
that you've been thinking about for quitesome time, and you don't have to
explain yourself twice. They sort ofunderstand what you're talking about. And they
may not agree with you that alot of people don't, but no,
it's been well worked well for me. I would certainly if anyone thinks that
they might be a potential candidate.I was certainly recommended. Peter. Have
you ever thought that with your mathematicalmind and the logic that you're able to
(38:25):
apply to these things, people thoughtthat you could have done something with that
different to making money off Fogy machines, for sure, I'm not sure what,
but yeah, I've always been goodat strategies. And when I was
a high school teacher, they hada thing called the sheer Market game.
I remember this run Australia. Whythere were hundreds of schools Australia. Why
(38:49):
but we wanted every second year,not that when you had to pick shares
that were going to win, butjust by strategy four stage you could buy
sol shares over before stages the stagenumber one. Half our teams will go
for shares that were volatile and wouldmove a lot if the sheer market went
up, and the other half wouldsort of whole ground. Okay, if
(39:13):
market went up, then those topshares would be in the game. The
other shares wouldn't, so then we'ddo the same thing again. So basically
it was just strategy. I'm verygood at strategies, and I do think
that that ability, that strategy ability, I feel in some ways I have
been wasted, Jamie, as humblyas I can say that, well,
(39:35):
I could have done something better thanbeing a posaton a. Look, it's
led you to live life on yourown terms. You don't have a boss
yelling at you in the office.You don't have a room full of snot
those kids that don't want to bethere. I mean, have you have
you made a very good living outof this. I made a better living
than if I had stayed as ahigh school teacher, had I stayed in
(39:55):
accounting, I think ultimately I probablywould have made more than I've made a
professional gambler. But I made itcomfortable living. Basically, everything that I
own that I spent, it's beenfrom poker machine earnings in the earlier days.
In fact, there was a pointwhere I went back to zero because
there was a fund manager in HongKong by the name of Michael Bastian that
(40:20):
I was recommended to invest in.So asuck as I was making money,
I was investing in this guy inHong Kong and he was getting thirty forty
percent returns a year. So themoney that I was making, which was
very very good, was I canadd another thirty to forty percent a year.
But unfortunately, I think it wasabout the year two thousand, he
committed suicide and took my money withhim. So basically I had to start
(40:44):
a game for it. Was therewas no backup, No one else had
control of the money. What wasall personally controlled by him. Yep,
personally controled by him. And thereare questions I should have asked in questions
such as what he licensed. Idid actually get to asking that question about
two weeks before committed suicide, andI was asking for my money back and
(41:05):
he was unable to pay. Well, it wasn't just my money. He
took about twenty six million dollars worthof other people's money, and a lot
of them sporting identities. I havebeen lucky enough to win two cars in
my life, not from pokey jackpots. One was a raffle and then another
one was a TV show. Sowhen I've won a car and I've approached
(41:28):
the dealership, they don't want togive you. And you think, oh,
I've won a sixty thousand dollars car, they should give me fifty thousand
for it. Right. I haven'teven driven it yet, I haven't taken
delivery of it. No, theymaybe they've just seen me coming and I've
never sold it back to them.But they've always said to me, we
really have to regard it as asecond hand trading. Is the cars that
(41:52):
I've won at the Gasuno. They'veall had about two or three hundred kilometers
on the thing. They might havebeen stration vehicles. So basically, look
the first car I tried to sellmyself, and I won't recommend that to
anybody. You get people come aroundand promise to come around, they don't
come around offer you nothing. Iwas so grateful that I built up a
(42:14):
relationship with the BMW don carsle dealer. I'd win the card, I'd bring
him up. Said how much hesays, I, you know, fifty
thousand, Thank you very much,No worries pick it up. He'll pick
it up, organize the whole thing. Yeah, much better than much better
than trying to sell it yourself.Oh, I've used Facebook marketplace. I
know trying to sell is a headache. Have you ever won any different prizes
(42:36):
other than cash or cars? Isit ever jewelry holidays? Yeah? One
of the prizes that I won wasa trip around the world plus the jackpot
of value, and the jackpop wasabout fifty five thousand dollars or something like
that. But nixt toime, I'llwalk past there. The jackpot was now
on one hundred and thirty thousand dollars, and I asked the manager at the
casino. I said, how come? He said, we closed down another
(42:59):
jackpot and put the jackpot value ontothis jackpot, So it was a trip
around the world plus one hundred andthirty thousand dollars. I did the numbers
and thought, this has cost aboutseventy thousand dollars. So we played that
for a couple of nights and afterabout sixteen thousand dollars were lost. So
I've got the trip around the worldplus one hundred and thirty thousand dollars,
(43:20):
and he took it. You wentnot the trip around the world, No,
I saw the bag of a wholesaleprice. The kind of people that
would that would want to learn howto do this? Would you say the
ideal person would be someone who doesn'tplay Pokey's or slots recreationally, people who
do best, someone who maybe who'sa card counter on blackjack, or if
(43:44):
someone's a gambler, like a madgambler, I won't take them. But
if they they've got a logical mind, if they look like they can understand,
if they look like they can controltheir bedding, yeah, I'm happy
to happy to teach them. ButI cannot convert a guard variety gambler into
a professional purely because of the completelydifferent mindsets. And if you have been
(44:06):
involved in sports betting, arbitrage betting, horse racing only through other people.
In professional gambling, you generally needto specialize in one area. You can't
spread yourself around. One of thepeople that I taught was actually a sports
better and a very good football better. Now, sports betting is particularly difficult
(44:27):
because if you're very good at it, you get very quickly closed down by
the betting companies. Out sports bettingis to not get closed down and use
other people. And one of histechniques was to use a person who was
a big better, like a biglosing better, and throw his bets in
with him. Now we're coming tohorse racing. What people probably don't realize
(44:52):
is that there were at least threeAustralian billionaires who made their money on horse
racing, mainly in Hong Kong.One of the big money earn us over
there is a thing called the treveltrio. So you can bet the first,
second, and third winner in threedifferent races and certain meetings, then
you win the jackpot. And ifno one does that, the jackpot goes
(45:15):
up again, and obviously more peopleare attracted because the jackpot's high. Now
that doesn't go off, the jackpotgets very big, and this is where
the professionals come in. So theydon't cover all the options in those three
races, but they'll eliminate certain probablywon't into the probably wills, and so
(45:37):
horse racing can be very lucrative.Do you think it's legitimate, I mean
races of this, I guess areputation of having been fixed, having horses
swapped out, having jockeys try notand try or not try so hard in
certain races. It probably does happenin the smaller races. But in Hong
Kong, I know some of thebig betters over there, it's very clean,
(45:59):
very clean. One of the reasonsis there's only two race courses over
there, and all of the bettersand so forth, the big betters,
they have the videos of all theraces, and if anyone, any jockey
tries to pull up a horse,they'll be seen. And also the jockey
club over there is very influential,and if anyone does the wrong thing over
(46:21):
there, they'll just find their visadisallowed and they're out of the country.
So Hong Kong is a very veryvery clean vetting area. But if you
get to some of the country racesaround here, maybe I don't know,
I don't know, just conjecturing,maybe they're not that's so good. So
what are you doing these days?How much of your time is split between
training people? And which countries areyou split between? And how much are
(46:44):
you're playing yourself? What do yourweeks look like at the moment? I
can't look, I can't say toomuch about what I'm doing at the moment.
As far as teaching people goes,probably only teach about two or three
people a year. I don't knowwhat else I can say about that at
the stage of the game, right, Okay, Well, this is on
the horizon for you, and it'svery secretive, and I can appreciate and
(47:05):
understand that. And I guess youknow your formulas and strategies for how you
beat the pokey machines. That's yourproprietary knowledge and it's very valuable to you,
and so it should be Thank youso much for taking the time to
have a chat with me here todayin the podcast. We've got the links
to everything below here, so makesure you do click on them, check
them out and look. If it'ssometime in the future that you're listening to
(47:28):
this, maybe Peter can tell usmore about the current project x I don't
even know what it is, soPeter, thanks a lot, mate,
Very impressed, Jady, very impressed. We know what you're doing here and
I hope it becomes big. I'msure it will. Do you have it,
Peter, Listen a guy who makesa full time living from playing the
Pokey's, the slot machines, whateveryou want to call them. That's just,
(47:51):
to me, a remarkable way forsomeone to make a living. Hey,
it was really nice what he saidat the end there about the podcast,
and if you want to give mesimilar warm and fuzzies, rate this
episode to the maximum stars that youcan on whatever platform you can find it
on. That would be great.Leaving a comment would help as well,
and make sure that you are followingand subscribe to this podcast so that you
(48:14):
get notified when new episodes drop.Thanks for listening to Jamie's Club.
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