That’s a pretty dry title for this post, about as aptly dryas Colin Jones’s “The 21^st-Century Card Counter.” But the movietitle’s better than the book’s. “Holy Rollers”—not just a play on words, butalso an oxymoron that Hollywood loves. Remember that moment when the Preachergunslinger swaps his clerical collar for a pistol in Pale Rider? And nowNetflix has brought us Warrior Nun. It’s very entertaining watching theostensible pacifist using violence to attain a righteous end.

Christians, who are presumed to have an aversion togambling, take on the House, trying to stick it to the Man (meaning the casino,not the big G). The result is high drama, and subsequently a blackjack factoryat blackjackapprenticeship.com [to which I have no affiliation].

But is there really anything anti-Christian about gambling? Inhis autobiographical book, CJ mentions the pushback he got from his “Christian”friends. I would point out that a person entering the AP world as a career willget pushback from non-Christian family and friends, too. If you need mycredentials for empathy with CJ, I will mention that my dad was an ordainedminister, both my parents had PhDs in theology, and I was once caught playingmah-jongg with friends in the basement of the local Methodist Church onChristmas Eve. The minister barked at us and scowled, like a sweaty pit boss,but compounded with some fire-and-brimstone apocalyptic warning about thisbeing neither the time nor the place to be doing what we were doing.

There isn’t really any anti-gambling agenda in the Bible,but church-goers seem to have a kneejerk assumption that if society at largeattaches some stigma to an activity, then the official Church policy would haveto be politically to the right of that. Since society pretends to view gamblingas a vice, then the Church would have to condemn gambling at least as strongly,right? Ignore the haters, CJ!

But what is gambling? What is its defining characteristic? Randomness?The bible mentions casting lots as a decision-making method for a group, andthe statistician’s “fair coin” is fair because it makes an egalitarian choiceknown to be free of any nefarious motive. Quantum theorists wrestle with theidea that there might be randomness embedded in the structure of the universe,even deeper than simply our inability to measure things. Einstein’smisinterpreted quote about God playing dice was not meant to cast any moral judgmenton randomness itself. And perhaps the nature of divine knowledge is not dicecontrol or foresight of the outcome of dice, but knowledge of the odds of theuniverse’s dice.

APs are not the only ones with random incomes. A food servergets variable tips each night. An investment banker gets a variable bonus atthe end of the year. A law firm can’t predict what clients will come throughthe door, or what the jury awards and billable hours will turn out to be. AnUber driver can’t exactly predict the fares that will pop up on that littlescreen. Last I checked, the amount of cash thrown into the collection plate atSunday church is unpredictable! (And don’t some churches have casino-nightfundraisers and run bingo games???) The Bible doesn’t condemn random financialrewards; rather, it condemns the love of money.

Early in my own career I thought about the definition of “gamble”in another context. With my American BP, I would say the word “gamble” tosignal that I didn’t have any hole-card information. Two Chinese brothers who sometimesjoined our table would say “gamble” when making a play such as doubling A8against a dealer’s known hard 16. At first, I thought that their use of theword “gamble” was very different from mine, until I realized that both of ourteams were using the word “gamble” to mean “to do something risky or dangerous.”To them, doubling A8 is risky. To me, playing a hand of blackjack without knowingthe hole card is risky!

In society at large and the English language, there is anegative connotation to the word “risk.” But for all the pessimists who see arack half full, I see a rack half empty. Evolution actually rewards a specieswhose members are willing to take personal risks. Risk-taking involves apositive externality, meaning that the group benefits from a risk taken by anindividual. The astronauts who went to the moon might have died, but theirsuccess benefits us all. A person who tries a new food or experimental medicaltreatment advances science, but takes a personal risk.

I don’t see anything morally reprehensible about randomnessor risk. Then what is so bad about “gambling”? CJ nails it on page 24 when heasks “Is card counting even gambling?” What we are doing in the casino iscompletely different from what the degens are doing. It’s a different activity,which is why Stanford Wong used to call it “short-term investing”!

Looking at degenerate gambling, do we see greed? Check.Sloth? Check. Envy? Check. In fact, let’s double-check that one, since some ofthe games have an “Envy Bonus”!

Three sins out of seven ain’t bad. During my last casinovisit, I saw security guards eject a gambler who was cursing out the dealer. Wegot Wrath in the house! And looking at the CWs and party-pit dealers and go-godancers (have you been to the new Circa?) makes me think that Lust is a no-brainer.And did you see the line for the seafood buffet? Definite Gluttony.

And you don’t have to go far into the pit or online to finda guy who boasts about betting 2x$15000, or making $50k today sitting in hisunderwear, or using Wong Halves or RevereAPC. Pride’s an easy check, FTW!

Though the Seven Deadly Sins aren’t mentioned in the Bible,most church-goers buy into the doctrine, and Vegas marketing itself as “SinCity” doesn’t help CJ’s cause. But within the seven, Greed and Pride areconsidered the big two. To win some obscene amount of money that was unearnedgoes against the Western/Christian/capitalist ethic that people should get whatthey deserve. A lazy person who buys a lottery ticket does not “deserve” to getrich. (Last I checked, people get lucky all the time in other businesses, butwe’ll worry about our own house.) Every degen who sets foot in a casino ishoping to get rich, and some of them even expect to win, despite playing a mathematicallynegative game.

Successful APs are willing to put in the time working ontheir game, and Greed is not a pre-requisite. The AP does not ask to winwithout effort, or win more than EV. Sure, the AP tries to make money from hisactivity, but are the people stocking shelves at Walmart volunteers? All those “Christians”giving CJ grief are in the real-estate business building glass houses.

The smug Pride of the rookie counter who thinks he knowseverything about the game usually goes out the window when the first 100-hourlosing streak comes, at least for the ones who go on to become successful APs. Godloves everyone, but more-so hard workers who constantly try to improve! Godhates squandered gifts. Pope Francis would back me up on that interpretation ofChurch doctrine. (We called him “F Money” when he used to BP for us, and he wasso smooth, except I thought his hat didn’t really blend in.) So I think CJ canrest easy on his career path in general, except …

What does God have to say about splitting Tens? Omg, that’sjust plain Greedy!