1405: Steven Bridges | How a Card Counter Learned to Beat the Odds

Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker through long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, and performers, even the occasional arms dealer, hacker, astronaut, or extreme athlete. And if you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about the show, you can't. I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of some of our favorite episodes on topics like persuasion and negotiation, psychology, geopolitics, disinformation, China, North Korea, crime and cults, and more. That'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash start Or search for us in your Spotify app to get started.

Today on the show, casinos will happily help you lose your life savings. Start doing arithmetic and suddenly you're the problem. Today professional card counter Steven Bridges takes us inside a job that's less James Bond and more fake teeth. Secret signals and trying not to cry in a casino bathroom will unpack how you can play perfectly and still lose a fortune, what it takes to stay ahead of surveillance and security, and what the casino business reveals about our own capacity to fool ourselves. If you think being smart makes you immune to getting played well, this one's for you. Here we go with Steven Bridges. Your team went up. About ninety seven grand in Vegas.

In two or three days then. Before people clap. Lost a hundred and ten grand from that point. So during one thirty thousand dollar losing session, you go into the bathroom, you splash water on your face. And you're like, all right, compose yourself, right? Give yourself a little pep talk. And security's waiting for you outside the bathroom, which, by the way, creepy move.

We already have this episode, so unlocking it is cheap and permanent: the full transcript (98 minutes, 22,969 words), segment and word-level timestamps, and .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like, forever.

No account needed, we create one from your checkout email. With credits it is 1 credit; packs start at 10 episodes for $5, and monthly plans are cheaper still.