Misc WizardOfVegas Forum is Dying

That helps explain the price. Those articles and videos all have copyrights that, even after first use, generally revert to the author.

 

I am pretty sure traffic is paramount in the equation. It isn't just about getting a cut from those who sign up. Whether people sign up or not, casinos have their logo brand "out there" on high traffic web-sites, there is a cost associated with that.

It is the same when other sites like GamblersGlen for example when it used to carry advertising for online casinos, board owners get paid for carrying those ad's. Same with LCB, they will get paid for carrying ad's, plus a bonus for anybody who signs up, how much they get paid for having an ad on the site is dependant on traffic, the more people coming through your door, the more you charge advertises, doesn't matter if they buy or not, or in this case click through.

No different to Nike or Adidas paying more for kit sponsorship to a team which participates in the Champions league than to one that doesn't. plus both teams also get a cut of shirt sales on top.

 

Came close to buying Wiz?? Being pretty kind there (IMO) MrV.

In the AP community there are many, especially the hardcore AP's that play for a living, that lost respect for Mike with the Venetian situation. That's not to say the didn't still respect his mathematical abilities, but there was a feeling that he couldn't be trusted....that he wasn't one of us. This is similar sentiment that is directed towards Eliot. Professional level AP's are not very forgiving or objective. There is a "your either with us or against us" mentality....right or wrong. Probably because it hits home to where and how we make our livelihood.

I am in the minority of this group, in that I like to look at things as objectively as possible. I like to try to look at things from the other persons "shoes". And I like to try to give some 'leeway' to someone making the choices to best support themselves and family. So unlike many others in the AP community, I cut some slack to both Mike and Eliot. But I don't think many of us will give him the opportunity for a strike three.

 

Huge difference between Jacobson and Shackleford. Jacobson goal is to put an end to AP all together, Shack isn't. If both saw you playing, Jacobson would rat you out and Shack wouldn't.

 

There are many in the community that do not share your certainty on this issue.

 

Then why not just rat out guys like Axel? He's certainly met them and know what they do. It's guys like Max Rubin I would never trust.

 

Agree completely. I fairly confident BOTH would rat me out.

 

It would be appreciate if you could provide some detail / context on this.

I knew the Wiz worked briefly at the Venetian but never really understood what went wrong, why he left.

Was he fired, or did he leave voluntarily, and why?

 

Thread 4-18-12- "The Wizard of the Venetian".

Blog by Skackleford 9-14-12- "Down and out at the Venetian".

Here's a manboy quote from the thread: "I have three kids in expensive private schools and lost at least a half a million dollars, including my bankroll, in the Vegas real estate meltdown". I wonder if his wife had to pick up extra shifts back then. Him and money...very likely that history will repeat itself.

By the way, Mr Transparency won't say why he was suddenly canned...some lie about a non disclosure agreement. Yeah right.

 

BeachedWhale suspended Keyser again. Why?

Because she can't suspend me. I quit.

She's pissed because no man will ever fuck her, and because she hasn't seen her pussy since 3rd grade.

She is fat, angry, and ugly as fuck. She can't get to me, so Keyser is the target.

 

Has nothing to do with his exit from Venetian, for which I have no idea of the details. It has to do with his signing on to begin with. THAT is just not received very well throughout the AP community. Never has been, dating back to Lawrence Revere, who played both sides. It effects some reputations more than others. JBS mentioned Max Rubin. It definitely effected Max's reputation, although long-time AP's seem to be more forgiving. Maybe because they have mostly moved on from the AP world as far as fulltime AP activities. Another respected AP that suffered minimally is Stanford Wong. I think Stanford was able to keep his consulting with several casinos quiet for a while when and after it occurred and his reputation did not suffer as much.

I don't say this because I personally have lost respect for Mike, based on his decisions involving me on his site, but from the AP's that I network with most have a pretty negative opinion of Mike. Of course most are not WoV members either.

A good example of Mike's reputation in the community would be comments made by Norm Wattenberger about a year ago on Norm's blackjack site. This was in the time period after Mike sold WoO/WoV but before Norm's involvement feuding with me at WoV, for which Mike decided to side with Norm. At this point in time, Norm had not participated at WoV for better than 5 years.

So one of the cross-over members of the two sites, (I believe it may have ben RS, but don't hold me to that) made some kind of comment about a recent discussion at WoV and Norm replied with some kind of comment about how he could not understand how any of us (I was still a member of Norm's site at the time) AP's could participate at WoV. He made reference as to how he did not trust Mike after he consulted with Venetian, and even more so, now that he was involved with an online casino. And this from a guy who Shackleford considers his friend. LOL.

Funny thing about that story. I relayed that story to Mike during discussions in the aftermath of my banning. Mike's not only knew of these comments, but also advised me that Norm has said even worse things than that about Mike. That's one strange friendship.

 

Not based on visitors it's based on the number of people who DEPOSIT. They are probably capped out from LCB I'm sure they have whatever deal they have there for each place. I will say it again WOV is a hindrance to them. They might be profiting from it but it probably deters more people away, people who would have used WOO to sign up and deposit. But then they take a peek at WOV and say hell no.

If WOO is dropping that's bad however most gambling sites are dropping. A friend of mine has...Fuck it NVM.

What I'm about to say isn't about defending Mike or WOV. I just want to get some facts and give people who care something to think about.



I have no IDEA why anyone would cut any slack to Eliot?(If you only knew) He's probably the worst possible person for AP table game specialists. He's absolutely dangerous to not only AP but to the ploppies and the long term health of table games. There's someone(People can figure out who for themselves) who is just as bad for +EV VP/SLOTS/KENO/PROMOS etc. No, I'm not talking about Dancer, however he's not helping.

Can you please names some names of so called hardcore AP's that have made such statements about loss of respect for Mike? The only indication that this was the case was the fact that they didn't invite him to the Blackjack Ball an excuse was giving that because his employment at the V. IMO that's not the entire reason. If so, why would they invite Dance and so many others that have committed much more darkside crimes against AP?

(Mike wasn't there to out advantage play(ers). From my understanding they didn't like his objections to stuff like 6:5 BJ and the horrible odds they were implementing. )

If someone relayed that "loss of respect for Mike to you themselves... TAKE IT WITH A " BIG BAG FULL OF SALT". I have seen this before. It's like a bunch of yentas running around. If two of them are having a conversation and one of them starts learning the conversation in whatever manner, the other one will tell them what they think they want to here. Example: If I were to meet up with a WOV member and started saying how great KJ was, they would probably do the same (no matter how the actually felt) The opposite would be true as well.

If you take all the top public gambling figures who have websites, radio shows, books or whatever the case. Even though they are sometimes/oftentimes competing for the same customers, you will see it's a symbiotic relationship (Perhaps you got caught up in some of that). You'll rarely see them taking bad of one another since it's not financially in their best interests to do so. It's better for them all to get along and prop each other up, and refer, appear on their shows, website linking, forum sharing, talking about each other books, software and their individual expertise.

Obviously there's egos and competition so there's going to be some behind the back smack talking however Mike has never said anything bad about anyone to me or anyone I know.

I obviously don't like ANYONE writing about how to exploit casinos it's not good for me. I can figure it out myself and whatever I cant figure out myself I can find someone that can. No one AP knows about everything, it's not even close. There's stuff people will never talk about to anyone but their closest circle.

I don't like certain aspects of WOV and what Mike provides. I think he's helped casinos learn from his website and it's encouraged people to learn and play good stuff they wouldn't have otherwise. That takes money out of my pocket. Case in point: The 1/2 parlays he gave the data and formula along with providing the picks weekly. That's added many, many more people doing it. William Hill isn't to happy and they have reacted significantly.

I do know if you tell Mike something in confidence, even if he doesn't play it himself, he keeps it to himself. He definitely not a darksider IMO. Either is Anthony Curtis and a few other notable people in that group.

 

Well despite your initial disclaimer, it sure seems like your post is about defending Mike. But that's ok. You can defend him. I would even expect you to.

Can I name some names? Yes I could. Will I name some names? No I won't. I specifically referenced that I was talking about the opinions of some players that I network with regularly and I will not violate their trust by discussing private conversations. Haven't I done enough of that?

But in addition to private conversations there have been mentions of Mike concerning reputation on various (blackjack) message boards. I told you Norm's comments which are pretty well known and have been discussed before. There have been several similar comments expressed at BJ21 over recent years by various AP's. I am not a current member there, so I don't have the ability to go back and look and quote anyone, nor do I really want to.

It isn't my goal to continue any kind of feud with Mike, Norm or anyone, nor to continue to belittle either, nor try to divide the community, nor get anyone else to take sides.

I continue to not understand how and why either did what they did....shutting down the opinion of a known AP just because they didn't agree with it (I have since been proven right, but that is almost irrelevant). In Mike's case, he just chose sides in a feud that had nothing to do with him and that he knew nothing about. He allowed someone to bring a feud to his site, against an established regular member of the site and then chose sides. There was absolutely no reason for it and I will never understand it. I expected more from him.

But, honestly I am trying to move past all this, so no I am not going to name names and bring anyone else into, nor try to continue any feud. I am just stating that from my experience and discussions, Mike's reputation has been tarnished by his association with Venetian as well as his association with an online casino.

 

Oh and no I wasn't talking specifically about, nor referencing any of the BJ HoF type crowd. Those are mostly older guys (at least from my perspective) and huge egos are a part of that whole situation, as seem to be with much of the whole AP community. Everything is a big pissing match with most of these guys. The AP community is such a dysfunctional group of people.

 

As an outsider and with the little amount of time I’ve spent reading in different gambling forums about all this secret AP community stuff, I would conclude that Mike S. (WOO) is a proven misleading liar.

It seems he always is posting about losing money. A half million dollars in real estate, 10’s of thousands in Spain banks, getting fired from Casino jobs, etc. He begs for money donations under one pretense, then goes back and changes the record and claims he never did. That of course I proved in posts in this thread.

I’m sure Kewlj and many other posters describing his character base can’t be all wrong. You can’t make all this stuff up.

Gambling throughout my life was always viewed by others not involved with it as being on the dark side. It was something that most professional people that did gamble would keep to themselves and amongst their own group of friends. If you were a known gambler, you more than likely would not have been included in many business deals for lack of trust that followed the gamblers reputation.

Even though today Vegas and many other gambling destinations evolved getting rid of the mob (as far as we know) and are now considered resorts and recreational stops, anyone known to be doing it more than recreational still today has the dark cloud following them. Even though unproven for lack of any confirmed facts, the successful AP’s I’m sure will argue this truth that still exists.

It’s obvious the gangsters (organized crime) moved to and now control the online casino market. Except for the couple of USA regulated online casinos, it would probably take a couple decades yet to clean that entire mess up.

Gambling forums, watchdog sites, affiliate promoters, etc. all exist today for one reason…MONEY. How honest could the people that bought WOV be? Their promoting illegally transferring money from USA to foreign countries to gamble online.

Mike S. obviously has no problems with promoting USA residents to break the banking laws for the benefit of profits. His true character has endlessly been exposed.

These sites and forums are for the newbie gambling rookies who are green enough to be fooled by the endless bullshit being thrown around. There must be an awful lot of these young fools, considering the amount of money one shyster is willing to pay another for the rights to these obvious clueless minds.

All of these forums and sites are also controlling the content that’s allowed only in order to keep the foolish fooled and on board. It’s a business, and if anyone takes this nonsense serious you’re the perfect consumer they target and are looking for.

 

Why do people feel it necessary to offer opinions about things regarding which they know almost nothing? Yeah, most of what gets posted on forums is bunk; that's obvious. So we get Blackhole's personal take and caveat. That's great. Were you bored? Feel a need to wax eloquent today?

I know a little more than you do, and don't kid yourself. There were and are networks of CEOs and company presidents who talk with each other all day about this team or that, and this spread or that, and discuss their sports betting. They discuss whatever hired guns they have to handicap the games. Some of them know a lot more than me about who owns what shop in Panama or who leased equipment to offshore sports books in Nicaragua.

While some newbies try to figure out how to get $1000 offshore without the feds coming down on them, the CEOs and company presidents already know how to swing whatever money they need anywhere. So if you're so concerned with the morality of "illegally" moving money in and out of the country, it ain't the online casino users at 1K a pop you should be worried about.

Please don't make a blanket statement about "the dark cloud" following big-time gamblers. The statement is based on nothing but your anecdotal experiences, which are minimal, count for almost nothing, and would be considered hearsay in a court of law. In many other countries, there is no "dark cloud" associated with high stakes gambling. That "dark cloud" is primarily a Caucasian, American, Protestant thing.

As to the site stuff, I think you're mostly correct. Ninety-some percent of what gets posted is bunk. The problem is that you're not really qualified to discern the bunk from reality. Caveats are good, but much better from someone who has some perspective.

It's Sunday. I guess I should thank you for the Sunday school lesson. Very helpful (yes, Sheldon, that was sarcasm).

 

Why doesn't Mission come around here anymore? Anyone know?

 

redietz:

I offered my opinion on an open forum. Be it right or be it wrong, why do you feel the need to trash my opinions? Then in your next group of typed unproven words feel that your take and caveat is the correct one.

Personally, your view on illegal activities fits in perfectly with the gamblers desperate reputation.

You have no idea what I may or may not know, so stop talking like you’re someone special. Like me you’re nothing more than another idiot wasting time on these forums. Yes, I am retired and bored, what’s your excuse for being here? To keep the records straight and in order?

Shouldn’t you be busy on that other forum defending your alleged claims?

 

What is the fascination with "hookers and blow" at WOV. Is it just people trying to show how manly they are...or how childish? Dozens and dozens of references no mater the thread subject. Why is WOV dying? Tell me again.

 

Said by one self appointed professional gambler, which in itself is a oxymoron as there is no universal, official quantifier of what a professional gambler is. So everyone's caveats, including yours, King dietz is an opinion. And no more important than the next guys.