New York Post: He set them up perfectly. As if sitting in a basement poker game, Don Johnson played the pigeon, hoping to lull his competitor into a false confidence and a bad beat. But he wasn't playing his buddy from down the block, and this was no $5-ante Texas hold 'em game. He was up against a billion-dollar Atlantic City casino. The game was blackjack. And the stakes were huge. Wearing his humble hoodie and a baseball cap, the Bensalem, Pa., player rolled into the Tropicana Resort & Casino. He had called ahead to make sure they would reserve a table just for him. Johnson arranged to play in the high-roller pit, where minimum bets start at $100 a hand and the table limit is usually $50,000 per hand. Only months ago, desperate to lure high rollers, the casino had upped the betting cap from $5,000.
Over the course of 12 hours, he took advantage of all the freebies the casinos ply their gamblers with, especially alcohol. When the cocktail waitresses made their rounds -- clad in sleek, black bustier-like outfits, dark stockings and high heels -- Johnson drank, and did it liberally, insiders said. He played alone, surrounded by casino guards. Gawkers were shooed away.
Johnson faced off against the black-vested dealer, who shuffled from a shoe of eight decks. As the table's only gambler, he could play multiple hands. He had from one to three running most of the time, depending on the flow of the cards. Fortified with a massive bankroll, which proved unbreakable, Johnson bet as high as he could when the cards were with him, and went small when they weren't.
He also knew that if he wound up in the red when he finally called it quits, the casino would knock 20 percent off his losses -- an astounding perk he had negotiated with the Tropicana before making the trip there. He also asked for, and received, a $100,000-per-hand table limit -- a sum unheard of except for the biggest whales. With three hands going at once, the higher limit allowed him to bet up to $300,000 a deal.
Johnson had set the hook. And he was about to slowly reel in his $5.8 million catch.
The marathon session lasted 12 hours and contained all the ebb and flow of a typical blackjack game. Until, that is, Johnson was able to string together a streak of astronomical odds -- taking more than 40 hands in row, according to a source. The chance of winning that many consecutive blackjack hands are 1 in 47,217,280,736,393,700, said Michael Shackleford, a Las Vegas gaming expert who runs the Wizard of Odds Web site.
In the wake of Johnson's massive payout, the Tropicana fired CEO Mark Giannantonio, who had authorized the $100,000 table limit. But the damage was done -- that month, April, the casino posted a loss in its blackjack earnings. In the 33 years that gambling has been legal in Atlantic City, it was only the sixth time any hotel reported a monthly blackjack loss.
The Tropicana should have known to be wary of Johnson. He had already divested Caesar's Atlantic City of $4.23 million in December, and the nearby Borgata of $5 million in March and April. "There's no magic to this. I'm beating them with my own skills," Johnson told The Press of Atlantic City.
"A smart player could gain an advantage with even a 10 percent rebate in blackjack. It's just a mathematical fact that [20 percent] was very generous and very foolish," Shackleford said. A beginner blackjack player has only a 46 percent chance of winning any given hand, Shackleford said. Someone who plays "basic strategy" -- a statistics-driven guide to splitting cards, doubling down and playing every hand -- can boost those odds to slightly more than 49 percent.
In other words, a gambler playing perfect basic strategy will lose only about 50 cents for every $100 bet, according to Josh Axelrad, professional blackjack gambler and author of "Repeat Until Rich." But card counters -- gamblers who have a system for knowing which cards have been played and which remain in the deck -- can push their advantage up to 67 percent at times, according to the book. Johnson is adamant that he didn't count cards, but that doesn't mean he didn't have a system.
"Very experienced players, and smart ones -- and Johnson is known to be a very good player -- know how to ride out changes in cards," (Las Vegas gaming consultant Leonard) Benson said. "There can be clumping, for example, when all small cards come out or all high cards come out. If you see a clump, recognize and can capitalize on it, that's to your advantage. He would have had a very good sense of what cards were played."
The Tropicana says it's sticking with its policy of offering high-stakes tables to big players -- even though they got walloped again in early June by a player who walked off with $5.3 million.
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