How Colin Jones Built Blackjack Apprenticeship After Winning $4M by Counting Cards at Casinos

I won about $600,000 beating casinos. And then my buddy and I went on and started a team that beat casinos for close to $4 million over the course of about 7 or 8 years.

Do you want to impact the world and still turn a profit? Then you're in the right place. Welcome to Growth Everywhere. This is the show where you'll find real conversations with real entrepreneurs. They'll share everything from their biggest struggle to the exact strategies they use on a daily basis. So if you're ready for a value-packed interview, listen on. Here's your host, Eric Siu.

Before we jump into today's interview, if you guys could leave a review and a rating and also subscribe as well, that would be a huge help to the podcast. So if you actually enjoy the content and you'd like to hear more of it, please support us by leaving us a review and subscribe to the podcast as well. Thanks so much. All right, everybody. Today we have Colin Jones who runs Blackjack Apprenticeship, which allows you to practice your card counting skills and improve your game. Colin, how's it going?

It's going great.

Yeah, so I guess why don't you tell us a little bit about kind of who you are and what you do over there at Blackjack Apprenticeship?

Yeah, totally. So, um, kind of how I got into this whole thing is about 15 years ago I graduated from college with a math degree and I was working at Red Robin waiting tables and I had absolutely no ambition. And then I met my wife And we decided to get married, quit our jobs, and had no, no income. And I convinced my wife for me to take $2,000 of our savings to try card counting. A friend had loaned me a book. I read it and I thought, hey, I'm a math guy. I think I could do this. And I didn't want to have to work evenings at a restaurant or anything or become a teacher or something I thought I'd probably hate. So I tried my hand at card counting. It worked and turned it into successful living for about 10 years playing myself. I won about $600,000 beating casinos. And then my buddy and I went on and started a team that beat casinos for close to $4 million over the course of about 7 or 8 years. And somewhere in the middle there, we thought, let's put this on the internet and behind a paywall. And when I got sick of running a team, I started focusing on Blackjack Apprenticeship, where we train others how to legally beat blackjack with card counting.

Wow. Okay. What was the team called?

So we were called— it was kind of a tongue-in-cheek name, but we were called the Church Team because we had friends from our churches that would ask us if we would train them how to play blackjack and if they could play on our bankroll. And so it was a friend of ours who said, what is this, the Church Team?

Huh, that's funny. I actually just read something earlier about it's not called like the Holy Something. Or a little documentary.

Yes, there's a documentary about the team that we ran called Holy Rollers: The True Story of Card-Counting Christians. So my oldest friend was living in LA trying to make documentaries, and he said, hey, can I film you guys? And we said, yeah, as long as you don't put it out till we give you permission. And he followed our team around for a couple years, and it's kind of fun.

Cool. Is it on Netflix or anything?

It was on Netflix for a couple years. I think now it's on Amazon. iTunes, stuff like that.

Got it. Cool. So, you know, if the rest of you want to know the exact story, you can dive into that. So you guys, I mean, you beat the casinos for $4 million. What, I mean, why did you guys decide to stop?

That's a good question. I mean, when I got into it, I was 22, 23, and I wasn't thinking I was going to do it forever. And it actually lasted a lot longer than I anticipated.

How long?

But over time, it just seemed to kind of run its course. I got sick of running it. And, you know, kind of the core group of players, myself included, we had all kind of run our course as far as like the best blackjack games that we could play around the country. And it wasn't as profitable in the last, you know, year or 2 as it had been in the first 5 or 6. And I decided just to take the plunge and move on to something else. And I don't regret it.

Got it. All right, well, let's talk about today's business. I mean, you know, uh, what do you guys do exactly? Uh, you know, how do you guys make money?

Yeah, so there's kind of two halves to it. One is, uh, primarily a membership, uh, and the membership has a video course that's like incredibly, uh, you know, it just goes everywhere from beginner all the way to kind of the advanced stuff that a professional card counter would want to know. There's a forum where people can get questions answered and share stories and know, intel, all that stuff. It also has a bunch of training drills, and we even have a thing that's like Yelp for card counters, so you can scout out games before you go to a new city. Um, so that's half the business. The other half is what we call Blackjack Boot Camps, and these are live events that we host in Vegas, and I get a handful of, you know, professional card counter friends to come and help, uh, do hands-on training with, with a group of people. We just had one this last weekend.

Awesome. And so how much— I mean, how much is membership?

It's $250 to $350. We're going to raise our prices soon, but it's an annual thing. So about $300 a year.

Great. And then is there a different price for the boot camps?

Yeah, the boot camp is $3,000 for 2 days. So it's a lot more expensive, but it's kind of like the holy grail of card counter training.

Awesome. Great. And I mean, how many customers or members do you have today? And, you know, what do revenues look like?

Yeah, as far as the membership side of the business, we've got about 500 members, and so that's about $150,000 a year. And as far as the boot camps, it's looking like it's going to bring in about— also about $150,000 this year, maybe a little less.

Cool. So all in, I mean, you're basically approaching $300K a year on, you know, teaching people about your passion, right?

Yeah, yeah, it's great. I mean, I get to see people have success with it and I, you know, work about 2 to 3 hours a day and have a small team of, you know, part-time friends that help with it and it's a good gig.

Great. And so how are you acquiring customers right now? What's like the most effective thing?

Yeah, so Google doesn't allow any sort of AdWords and so to date it's been 100% organic. I had to basically go from knowing nothing about internet marketing to become kind of an SEO expert, and it's worked. It took time, but we're now number 1 for all the big keywords related to card counting.

Wow, awesome! How long did that take you, and what were you doing there?

Yeah, gosh, I was just kind of flailing for the first year, trying to figure out what I was doing. I was fortunate I had a friend that actually owned a small SEO firm and I had him take a look and he was like, Colin, you've got a conversion problem here. Like, I don't even know what you want me to do when I show up at your website. So through that, it kind of just got the wheels turning and I started reading, you know, like Moz and Neil Patel's blogs and stuff like that. But what I was doing, it's taken some time, but initially It kind of created a bunch of pillar content around the big phrases I wanted to rank for. And over time, I kind of adopted the skyscraper technique. So a couple of pages have been hugely successful. It always drove me nuts that I couldn't rank number one for the phrase how to count cards, because that's exactly what we're about. And gambling-related stuff is actually fairly competitive because there's lots of people that just want plaster online casino ads on their site. And so a lot of Um, you know, kind of SEO experts, especially black hat people were ranking really well back in the day. But for how to count cards, I finally just said, okay, I'm going to create the world's best page on how to count cards. And I, you know, I spent, I don't know, 10 hours writing it. It's, it's incredibly thorough. I took pictures with my DSLR camera and, um, you know, put it on the internet and, uh, reached out to some people and nothing happened. And then 6 months later, I realized I'm number 1 on Google for it and I've stayed number 1 ever since. So then I did the exact same thing for even bigger phrases like blackjack strategy that I never thought I could be number 1 for. I thought, hey, if I could get in the top 10, that would be huge. But now we've been number 1 for about a year for even bigger phrases like blackjack strategy.

Got it. Wow. And so what— just for everyone in the audience, I mean, what does the skyscraper technique mean?

Yeah. other people were doing that were outranking me for something like how to count cards. And some of it was frustrating because it was like Wikipedia. But other people, you know, they had a decently written page that was pretty thorough. And I realized I didn't really have that. I was trying to get my homepage to rank for it or just kind of mediocre content. So I looked at what other people had and I decided mine's going to be better. Mine's going to be more thorough. It's going to— it's going to have You know, kind of a better user experience, everything better than the competition, that there should be no excuse for mine to not rank number 1 other than perhaps link profile, then, you know, I've done a good job of reaching out to people saying, hey, we have this resource and we think it would be valuable, you know, people that are linking to similar resources and, you know, getting enough links. And honestly, I think for me it's been more about the user experience than the content, but enough positive signals to Google that, that they've rewarded us.

Great. And what has— I mean, what has card counting taught you about business?

Oh man, that's, that's a great question. Honestly, most everything I learned about business was from being a card counter and then running a blackjack team. Um, there— so one example is the, the, the foundation of, of card counting is this idea that's called expected value. And so expected value means, you know, you could play a hand of blackjack and win or lose $100 if you bet $100, but there's a mathematical value to that hand. So if you're not a card counter, that hand is probably worth $0.50 to the casino. As card counters, if we do the right decisions, then we have these swings of hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, but we're actually creating value pennies or dollars at a time. So for business, it's all about figuring out what's going to add value and implementing it, not worrying about the short term, just, just how can I create more value for my customers? How can I do the right things over and over and trusting that it's going to pay off? And that's the way I think through all of my business decisions.

Great. Okay. And I mean, diving into the card counting a little bit, I mean, what's like the typical house advantage and then what kind of advantage do you gain once you start card counting?

So, um, if there's a thing called basic strategy, and it's like the proper way to play every single hand of blackjack, and, and it was, you know, some MIT people figured this out with very, very early computers, um, in the— in, I think, in the very early '60s. Um, if you play that way, the casino has half a percent advantage over you.

Mm-hmm.

So that means if you bet $100, the casino is expecting to make 50 cents off of you. on that hand. The average gambler plays at about 2% disadvantage because they're not playing properly. So we as card counters, we actually— we play this proper way, but then we also know how to bet. We basically know when we have the advantage rather than the casino because blackjack is the only game in a casino that if cards have been played, those cards won't be seen again until they shuffle. So every other game, craps and roulette, the past decisions have no impact on future decisions, but gamblers think that they do, but it doesn't. So for card counters, we know when we have the advantage basically, and we bet accordingly, and we get about a 1% to 2% advantage, which isn't that huge, but based on your betting, I averaged $300 an hour for my career as a card counter. I have friends that have averaged even more than that over— I'm talking thousands of hours of play.

So when you're— I mean, just to put things into context, when you're averaging $300 an hour, I mean, per session, you know, how much can you expect to win on average and how much can you expect to lose?

Yeah, so if you're averaging $300 an hour, this goes back to that expected value thing. You're not going to win $300 an hour. You're going to win and lose, you know, thousands and tens of thousands. But, you know, for— I would generally bring a minimum of $25,000 to the casino with me. If I'm going on a trip to Vegas for 4 days, I'm gonna bring, you know, $70,000 or $80,000 with me just to make sure I have enough money to weather any sort of losing streak I'm gonna have, because it's all about the long run, like playing, you know, hundreds or thousands of hours and letting the math work its way out.

Great. So I mean, what would be like an average kind of winning number per session and an average loss?

Gosh, I mean, $10,000 or $20,000.

$10,000 or $20,000.

That's not odd to win or lose $20,000. My, you know, my first time to Vegas, I dropped $40,000 in a few hours.

Wow.

My biggest win was in Topeka, Kansas, and in the course of a day, I won about $50,000.

Wow, great. And you know what's interesting? I mean, the only time I haven't done card counting much, because I— the only time it's gonna work for me is if maybe I'm like on Adderall or something. And literally one time I was on Adderall, uh, at a bachelor's, uh, bachelor's party, and they all went They basically all wanted to go to a strip club. I just wasn't interested. So, I was playing blackjack and then I was down, but then all of a sudden, it kicked in. And then I was like, holy crap, now I can focus on everything. Whereas before, usually in my normal mode, if they deal too quickly, I can't count, right? I just can't.

Yeah.

Because I haven't been trained by you. So, anyway, I just started— once the count became, I don't know, positive, I just I think I was just being reckless and I got lucky just because I thought there's this magical number in my head. So I was, you know, clanging in bets of like $2,000 or $3,000 even though the bankroll was only like, you know, $1,000 or $2,000.

Wow.

And I ended up winning like, you know, $10,000, $15,000. Now, you know, how— I guess my question is, you know, how do people know like when they're actually— what they're doing is correct versus like it's just complete luck versus— because what I think I did was complete luck, you know.

Yeah, yeah. And that's a really big issue because it's something that you have to be perfect at. And I always say, you don't know what you don't know. So you think that your game is strong, but— so we've developed a bunch of training drills that are really to help people know if they're making mistakes. If you can't play perfectly at home on your computer, or we have an iPhone app, if you can't play perfectly on the iOS app, then you're not playing perfectly in a casino. But honestly, why a lot of people are willing to drop $3,000 to come to Vegas and get trained by us is to find out exactly where their game is because there's real money to be made or, if nothing else, it's a fun, profitable hobby. But it's not going to be profitable over the long haul unless you really are perfect at it.

Right. How many hours do you think you were spending on blackjack a year when you were actually playing?

Yeah, I played— I mean, my first year, I probably played 1,000 hours my first year. I'd play 20 to 30 hours a week. I think the average pro, 500 hours, um, a year is, is kind of professional level.

Great. Yeah, so I'm just doing the math right here because obviously, you know, like full-time job is 2,000 hours or so, uh, a year. So that'll be, you know, $626K, right, at your $300, uh, an hour. But then, you know, basically everything evens out, uh, yeah, you know, if it's $1,000, uh, or $1,000 hours— $1,000 hours, uh, I should say. So anyway, um, yeah, I mean The— how do you prevent, like, yourself from getting caught?

Haha. Uh, well, there's one sense that there's no professional card counter that doesn't get asked to no longer play at casinos. It's called a back-off, where, you know, they'll say, uh, you know, Mr. Jones, your game's too good for us. You're welcome to play any other game in the casino, but, but no more blackjack. That is normally what they say, something like that. Um, there are things you can do To kind of throw them off your scent, so to speak. I think the best way is just how you handle yourself, how you act, not looking suspicious and shifty-eyed and having a good time, stuff that normal gamblers are doing. But it's also how you bet. The number one giveaway is if you're betting small and then all of a sudden you're betting huge. That's also how we make the money, so you got—

Mm-hmm.

I basically tell people the way our We approached it is be fearless. You know, like I wasn't in casinos for fun. I was there to make money. And so I just went in there. I didn't worry about if the casino was going to ask me to leave. And if they did, I went on to the next place.

Got it. All right. Well, I want to jump back into the business cause I can talk about gambling all day. Um, so tell us about one big struggle you faced while growing this, let's call it an education or membership business.

Yeah. So early on when I didn't know what I was doing, we actually, We got lucky. We started the website just around the time 21 the movie came out.

Mm-hmm.

And we got lucky. We got the number 1 YouTube video for how to count cards. We just kind of rode the wave of 21 the movie. But then that died down and we kind of decided— me and the 2 guys I started it with— we decided to try more freemium because that's what everyone was doing. Basically, we gave all the value away for free. Um, and it took me about a year to figure this out, but, um, when, when I, I kind of overhauled the home— when I figured out, I think this is the problem, um, I overhauled the homepage to make just one clear call to action. And I went from giving 80% away for free to giving 20% away for free. And overnight, um, sales quadrupled. And it was actually good for the customers too, because when it's free, no one values it.

Right.

When people are paying for it, they were taking it seriously. And that was really the difference between— we had this little site that, you know, made a little bit of money, and I don't think anyone took too seriously to it being a legitimate business where I could really serve customers well.

Got it. Okay. Well, great. I mean, what's next for the business?

Yeah, I mean, I've got— I honestly spend more time with my wife and kids these days. I've got 6 kids and my wife of 15 years. I feel very fortunate that I fit the business around my family's goals. But that being said, I'm always looking to see more people become successful card counters and to grow the business in terms of revenue. I mean, we're overhauling our training drills to make them more valuable, and we're looking to add more software, like betting software for professionals, things that— We'll have everything card counters need, but that's kind of it.

What's one big change you made in the last year that has impacted either you or your business in a big way?

Yeah, so I overhauled our lead magnet. I had a business partner for a number of years and then I kind of bought him out about a year ago. He'd moved on and he wanted to keep the ebook that he'd written that was our lead magnet. I used it as an opportunity to really think about, um, who our customer was, I actually, I used, uh, Ryan Levesque's ASK methodology, and I surveyed our audience, and from that found, you know, the language they use, what they want. And, uh, are you familiar with StoryBrand?

Uh, yeah, I've heard of it before. Yes.

So that's Donald Miller's thing. Um, anyway, he has kind of this framework of, of mapping out your customer story. So, so by really getting to understand my audience, I overhauled our lead magnet. So first I did an ebook just to kind of test the idea, and basically doubled our opt-in rate. And then when I was— I knew I was onto something, I thought, hey, if this is a video course that we're selling, you know, let's turn it into a video mini-course as the lead magnet. And just launched that maybe 3 months ago, and again doubled our opt-in rate. So that's, you know, that's a 4x opt-in rate. That's had a big impact. on the business. And it was just from really trying to understand our customers and what they wanted and give them exactly that, you know, give them a lot of the why and the what for free, and then they can pay for the how.

Great. And what's one new tool that you've added in the last year that's added a lot of value for you, like Evernote?

Yeah, I moved over to ActiveCampaign. And I've been really digging that, like the automation stuff. And like I said, I kind of was getting to know the audience better and realized I have 2 very distinct personas. One is like who I was, a young, ambitious card counter that wants to do this professionally. The other is actually a little bit older, has good money, and really just wants a fun, sexy hobby. And I want to communicate to those people very differently. And so using marketing automation has been a really fun way to map that out and try to communicate specifically with, with the different audiences.

Awesome. And what were you using before ActiveCampaign?

Uh, GetResponse, which, which has marketing automation stuff. It just was a little, uh, clunkier.

Got it. Okay. And what's one must-read book you'd recommend to everyone?

Yeah, that's, that's a good question. So this is less of a, kind of less of a business book, but I strongly recommend every entrepreneur to read the book Integrity by Dr. Henry Cloud. Kind of the premise is that there's no shortage of bright, gifted business people, but he's worked with a lot of CEOs and executives where businesses are having a lot of problems not because of business training or business coaching or even business giftedness, but much more from kind of character issues or personal deficiencies. And that book was very eye-opening. I was able to kind of see flaws in myself or a lot of, you know, business things have gone awry. And our mutual friend Drew even once said to me that every major issue he's seen in, um, kind of the business networks he's in are relational. Um, so that book Integrity is awesome. I want to reread it every year or two.

Great. And is Drew the one that recommended that book?

No, no, but it's, it's kind of along that He and I talk a lot about that kind of stuff, the personal, the relational stuff. Great.

Love it. Well, Collin, this has been awesome. What's the best way for people to find you online?

They could check out blackjackapprenticeship.com if they want to learn about card counting. Otherwise, I don't know. Look me up on Facebook or something. I'm not super great at social media, but if they want to learn about card counting, they can check out Blackjack Apprenticeship.

All right, Collin, thanks so much for doing this.

My pleasure.

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