Risk Takers Podcast - Ep 129 - Richard Munchkin

Podcast Release Date: 2025-11-12
Podcast Link: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0QLIl5p59V0UXmGzuvXTVU
hagrinBPR Review Date: 2025-11-21
Rating: 8.00

Notes:
Ep 129 - What Sports Bettors Can Learn From Casino APs w/Richard Munchkin

Bias - Have listened to basically every GWAE episode so very familiar with RM.

3:00 - Background: Grew up in Chicago, grew up playing all types of games, grandfather has a poker game, wins $5 playing poker as a kid and he's hooked. Gets introduced to the book "Playing Blackjack as a Business". 21st birthday goes out to Vegas, can't count cards yet, but knows basic strategy and wins $200. Moves to Vegas, gets a job dealing Blackjack at the Golden Nugget so he could practice counting cards 8 hours a day (wild). Also playing Backgammon and meets Alan Woods ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Woods_(gambler) ), who stakes RM $20k to go play blackjack. Goes on a 167 hour losing streak, takes a few month break and gets back to playing and starts making more money than working and the rest is history. (A few other names that RM mentions are Puggy Pearson and Mike Svobodny for those that needed the names spelled).

15:05 - GP asks an interesting question here - "Do you think this is a lost skill something that our generation (meaning younger) that has a visceral aversion to ever having the worst of it?". RM mentions Svobodny getting access to games other high level players couldn't because he *was* willing to take the worst of it sometimes. Very interesting question.

21:30 - Blackjack: 22:00 - Using Disguises - most APs will use/try disguises and then give up not worth the trouble. 22:40 - Tells the story of his partner Darryl (believe he's talking about Darryl Purpose?) and "skin tinting" and plays as a black man. Then, goes to rent a car, skin tone doesn't match and the car rental place calls the police. 25:15 - Makeup artist does a disguise for his friend playing in Korea because winning money in Asia as a non-Asian is very difficult.

29:00 - Networking/Teams: Actually starts off talking about how the teams got too formal, too big and it felt too corporate, too much like a job. Says that happened in the 90s with cards, happened last year with sports. Likes the smaller teams and just splitting/cutting the proceeds. "Lifestyle choice sometimes a greater more important choice than the money."

33:00 - Travel: 1983, Darryl's team comes to RM's team and asks for an investment in shuffle tracking toe computers! Wanted to start in Europe to test this device, before using this stateside. RM goes to Europe with Darryl as his first trip. Retires after that trip to get into the film business. Unretires, heads to Curaçao and Antigua in search of single deck games, never finds the one new casino in Antigua (and the guy who did makes $300k). Alan Woods calls him in 1986, Woods backs the entire team and that's the Korea trip. 40:55 - Russia was the only place where he really didn't feel safe (went twice).

46:00 - "How Much Pain Can They Take?" - Trial and error, sort of by feel. "How do we win and put them at ease?" Tells a story about keeping a blackjack edge alive for 16 months by giving the casino very little to evaluate. Mentions that he believes they rarely believe that when they back them off that the casino "doesn't know what happened". 55:00 - Tells a story about opening up a Fanatics account, betting 2 EPL sides, a parlay for a total of $5k, lost all 3 bets and they still closed the account right after.

Misc casino edge talk - Shuffle tracking, hole cards, the advent of carnival games like 3 card poker, talks about how the casino just not knowing the game well or the dealers miscalculating payouts was enough to make money (wild). Talk about attacking these games that the public may have this massive negative edge, but attacking these games was actually profitable because "for you to make money, the casino needs to be making money" (pretty good parallel to SGPs here).

1:04:50 - Sports Betting Talk Starts: Darryl gets him into bonus churning. Immediately gets immersed, but realizes this isn't what he wants to do staring at a screen at 6am. Dialed way back to only the bigger edge stuff. New tax law going to change his betting behaviors. "Slower than blackjack" which is something I never thought about. Mover = "Gorilla BP" in blackjack. (So I know nothing about blackjack, I quickly saw a thread on Gorilla vs BP and I'm still not sure I understand the actual difference or the combo of Gorilla BP). RM doesn't like this role, finds it uninteresting (I agree!). The parts that do interest him - moving the screen / Circa, market manipulation, etc. 1:14:40 - Why does he keep unretiring? "Still in love with gambling, I'm still that obsessed teenager, I walk into a casino I still feel that energy".

1:17:30 - Media: Book came before other media. Was reading "Market Wizards" and thought "gamblers are way more interesting than these guys" (lol). Talks to Bill Benter who declines, but says "ask Alan Woods" and he says sure. Gets Billy Walters too. Podcast was Bob's idea in 2011, tried it with a different partner. Tries it for 6 months, looks for a new partner and two other gamblers suggest RM. Started as live radio, they would record and post as a podcast, turns into a podcast when the radio show dies. 1:23:00 - GP asks a great question here - "how did you think doing media would affect your AP career?". Since audio only thought it would be neutral only, didn't realize the tremendous upside / opportunities. Has to be a mute in casinos as people recognize his voice.

1:31:30 - "The one thing about gambling is it is much more limited in how much you can make than in some other areas." (Absolutely - context, this was in response to a question the difference between guys who stick around for long periods vs the people who make a ton and flame out and RM states most of these people who make a ton just usually end up moving on to something else and the quote is why). 1:33:30 - "There are guys who aren't degenerates that just spend more than what they make." (this is something I mention a lot, a lot of people gloss over the other side of the equation of "how fast it comes in vs how fast it goes out").

1:39:05 - Listener Questions: RM mentions testing and prying around how the online casino play might affect the sportsbetting part of the account. 1:45:20 - Tells a story about a slots player playing multiple player cards, but a guy has been charged in Ohio federally and the FBI was brought in so be very careful doing this now. 2:02:25 - RM ends the show with Madonna peeing in the shower story and it's a perfect ending.