Frequently Asked Questions

Below Andrew W Scott answers the questions he is frequently asked about becoming a winning BlackJack player. Click on the question to read Andrew's answer.

1. What is your history and how did you learn to win at BlackJack?
2. Have I seen you in the media?
3. I heard you were an accountant. Is this true?
4. I’ve heard that professional BlackJack play and card counting is illegal. Is this so?
5. If you teach me, won't I get banned or restricted?
6. When did you start teaching professional BlackJack?
7. Why do you teach professional BlackJack?
8. If you teach everyone how to win, won’t the casinos change the rules?
9. How have your previous students gone?
10. I hear you have a FREE repeat privilege. What is that about?
11. What guarantees do you provide?
12. How long does it take to master professional BlackJack?
13. What ongoing support do you offer?
14. I'm not ready to do the course now, but can I keep in touch and ask you questions about BlackJack?
15. What are continuous shuffling machines? Don't they stop skilled players?
16. Why do some casinos offer games that are great for skilled players, while some don't?
17. What happened with your court case against Crown casino?
18. Won't the casino notice that I am winning and ban me?
19. What about other players on the table? I've noticed that it seems I can't win if the other players play badly!
20. Don't the casino try to plant their own people into your courses in order to identify your students?
21. Why did you close the Southbank office?
22. Why don't you teach the Professional Course (sessions 1 to 10) by weekend seminar anymore?
23. Do you have any plans to stop teaching BlackJack?
24. Are casino BlackJack winnings really TAX FREE?
25. Do I have some way of privately talking with you guys so you are able to help me through my queries once I purchase the course?
26. Do you send DVDs or video cassettes with the home study kits?

If you have a further question or query that has not been covered above then email Chris Martin, our Student Support and Business Manager. Chris' email address is chris@blackJack-mAsters.com. Your question may well end up being included on our FAQ page!

1. What is your history and how did you learn to win at BlackJack?
During the 1980s I lived in Hobart, Tasmania in Australia. Hobart is home to Wrest Point casino which opened in 1973, the first of Australia's thirteen casinos. I started going to Wrest Point casino in 1986. I was a typical casino gambler and as such was destined to lose in the long run.

I felt BlackJack might be a mathematically beatable game and I wrote some computer programs to mathematically analyse the game. After a lot of work on the computer I discovered how to win at the game. At that time I was not aware that components of my work were a repetition of work undertaken in the US from 1956 to the 1970s. Several years later I did discovered this, and was encouraged to see that my conclusions agreed with those of US based mathematics professors and BlackJack experts.

I started as a winning professional BlackJack player in 1987 and since then I have continued to study the theoretical mathematics of the game as well as playing overseas and teaching BlackJack on a regular basis.

Once I changed myself from a losing player to a winning player I won quite a lot of money at Wrest Point.

Unfortunately, due to my inexperience at the time at creating ‘cover’ I was identified as a professional and banned from that casino indefinitely.

I went to other casinos around the country and the story was the same wherever I went, since I continually came across staff who knew me from Wrest Point casino.

To this day I am instantly recognised and banned from playing in Australia’s casinos (as well as several in the Pacific). I was restricted by Crown casino in Melbourne on 4 July 1994 (four days after opening) and then formally re-restricted on 7 May 1999. Star City casino in Sydney restricted me on its opening day, 13 September 1995 and has since banned me completely.

2. Have I seen you in the media?
I have appeared in the media on numerous occasions. There was a story on A Current Affair in April 1994 about my unfair treatment by the casinos.

In March 1995 there was a feature story about me on the Channel Nine Today Show. I was interviewed live on the Midday Show in September 1995 and I appeared on Today Tonight in February 1996 and on several occasions throughout 1999. I was interviewed live on the Today Show in May 1999.

In May 1999 I lodged a legal challenge with the Victorian Casino and Gaming Authority against the rules Crown casino uses to frustrate my BlackJack game, and this resulted in significant media exposure

In August and October 1999 I lodged submissions with the Federal Government Productivity Commission’s national inquiry into Australia’s Gambling Industries. I also presented information to the Commission in its public hearings as the representative of skilled BlackJack players in Australia.

In November 2002 I received further media exposure when I helped found the Responsible Gaming Association (RGA), a non-profit organisation dedicated to minimising harm caused in Australia due to problem gambling. I am the RGA's founding President.

I have been interviewed on radio on many occasions and also appeared in numerous magazine and newspaper articles throughout Australia since 1994.

3. I heard you were an accountant. Is this true?
Yes, that is correct, I am an accountant by profession. I have a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Tasmania and I worked as an accountant for five and a half years for a firm of Chartered Accountants. During that time I was responsible for the preparation of financial reports such as balance sheets, profit and loss statements and so on. I specialised in the fields of taxation and audit. Many of these skills have been useful while playing and teaching skilled BlackJack.

4. I’ve heard that professional BlackJack play and card counting is illegal. Is this so?
Absolutely not. Firstly, card counting is just one aspect of professional BlackJack play, and is not disallowed under any rule. In fact, the Victorian Casino and Gaming Authority held an inquiry into professional BlackJack play in late 2001 and early 2002. This inquiry held that counting cards presented no threat to gaming in the casino being conducted honestly . Sadly, there is a rule in the rules of BlackJack that allow casinos to restrict play for absolutely no reason whatsoever! It is this rule that casinos use to stop people who they have identified as skillful winning players. Skilled players are not banned or their play restricted for counting cards, it happens simply because they are winning. To learn more about avoiding detection by the casino read FAQ 5 below. Sometimes casinos perpetuate a myth that card counting is "cheating", "dirty", "unethical" or even "illegal".

It’s not surprising that casinos will push this line, since card counting and professional BlackJack play is a "problem" to them. The problem is that the casino loses money! When this occurs, they call it "cheating"! Professional card counters simply use the information that is freely available to all players, but process this information in a more profitable way.

Professional BlackJack play is no more illegal than being a good golfer or bridge player. It is a skill that simply involves intelligent thought processes. Clearly a process which is merely an intelligent type of thinking can not be deemed illegal or even cheating.

5. If you teach me, won't I get banned or restricted?
Almost definitely not. I have taught many students and less than 3% of my students have ever been identified.

So why am I so well known to the casinos? My problem when I first started playing professionally was that I was very young and inexperienced. I wasn’t aware of the fact that the casinos were going to act in the way that they do. In fact, to win at casinos you need to be able to play without the casinos being aware that you are a professional. By the time I discovered that, it was too late for me.

Avoiding identification by casinos as a skilled player is called camouflage or cover. I have learnt a lot about cover (the hard way), and it forms an important part of our teaching. You will get the benefit of my many personal experiences (and those of my previous students) and I will teach you what to do and what not to do. This will greatly reduce the chance of identification by the casino.

6. When did you start teaching professional BlackJack?
I taught my first students in late 1993.

7. Why do you teach professional BlackJack?
I can’t win serious money playing BlackJack in Australia, however I do travel overseas and the bulk of my money still comes from actual playing. But I live in Australia and I still want to be involved with the game in Australia. This is why I founded blackJack-mAsters in 1993.

I must also admit there is an element of revenge against Australian casinos. They thought I would be not be able to establish such a school. I take pleasure in knowing that I have succeeded in this, taking players who would end up losing and turn them into long term winners. And I’ve made many friends and changed many lives over the years since establishing blackJack-mAsters.

Also, running blackJack-mAsters over the years has allowed me to develop an information sharing network of skilled professional players around the world. This information assists me to identify excellent profitable gaming opportunities around the world and my students are always happy to share this information with me since I have assisted them so much in their lives.

8. If you teach everyone how to win, won’t the casinos change the rules?
The number of people I have taught (and the number of people I will ever be able to teach) is minuscule when compared to the number of losing gamblers that go to the casinos. Star City casino and Crown casino combined, get millions of visits each year from losing players. It would be impossible for me to turn even 1% of them into winning professionals.

The game has been established for so long, and is such a money winner for the casinos from 99.9% of players, that they would be very unlikely to seriously tamper with it now.

In fact, the Victorian Casino Gaming Authority held an inquiry into the possibility of changing the rules as a result of professional BlackJack play and it was determined that no changes in the rules were necessary.

9. How have your previous students gone?
Since the establishment of blackJack-mAsters in 1993 our enrolment continues to increase and our methods have proved successful for thousands of BlackJack players across the country. We only teach mathematically proven and statistically valid methods of winning at BlackJack.

We keep in touch with many of our students once they complete the course. I have had the personal happiness of seeing many of them become independently wealthy from their professional BlackJack careers. Some of our best students now travel the world playing BlackJack all expenses paid as the high rolling guests of the casinos. Others choose to play less BlackJack and use it to simply augment their existing incomes.

10. I hear you have a FREE repeat privilege. What is that about?
blackJack-mAsters has for many years offered an exceptional FREE repeat privilege. The format of this free repeat privilege has changed over the years. When we used to offer the weekend seminar format (for more details see FAQ 22 below), we would allow course participants to repeat that course indefinitely into the future forever absolutely free of any tuition fees.

Now that the course is only offered by the home study program or by personalised tuition, the format of the free repeat privilege has changed. Once you have undertaken our Professional course, you may receive download new editions of the Professional home study course indefinitely into the future forever absolutely free of any fees! Each time we publish a new edition of the Professional Course, we will make it available to our students to download for free in the student support section of the website. Alternatively, if you wish a new hard copy of the home study kit, we will only charge you a very small fee which merely covers the costs of printing and postage at the time. Once you have undertaken our Advanced course, you may attend future advanced courses absolutely free of any tuition fees.

11. What guarantees do you provide?
The blackJack-mAsters course is founded on mathematically proven and statistically valid methods that have stood the test of time. In fact, we give you two guarantees.

Firstly, we have an unconditional 100% money back satisfaction guarantee. If, after your first day’s training at blackJack-mAsters you are dissatisfied in any way, just return your course manual to us and we will refund your course fees in full.

Secondly, we offer our bankroll based guarantee. If, after passing our post course table test, you lose your starting bankroll, we will gladly refund your course fees in full. To date no student has ever claimed under this guarantee!

12. How long does it take to master professional BlackJack?
Becoming a professional BlackJack player is like learning a trade or profession. I find that it takes an average of three to four months from starting the course before the student is ready to play professionally.

13. What ongoing support do you offer?
We offer heaps of support, including:

1) The resources on the student support section of this website (free to students and graduates)
2) The online forums on the student support section of this website (free to students and graduates)
3) Our table test program (charge applies)
4) Our ongoing review program (charge applies)
5) Ongoing email support (free to students and graduates)
6) Telephone support (free to students and graduates)
7) In-person consultations (charge applies)

For more detailed information about each of these types of support, please click here Course Information  

14. I'm not ready to do the course now, but can I keep in touch and ask you questions about BlackJack?
No problem! Since we provide our students with ongoing support indefinitely into the future we are very busy here at blackJack-mAsters. We always try to focus on helping our students first. However, once that is done we love to help the public. We have provided a public forum where you may post questions and comments. I visit the public forum and make posts there to assist members of the public. This forum provides a great opportunity to get to know us over time.

15. What are continuous shuffling machines? Don't they stop skilled players?
Continuous shuffling machines (CSMs) underwent a bit of a resergence in Australia a couple of years ago, but this is beginning to be reversed. For example, Crown Casino trialled CSMs for just under a year from May 2004 to April 2005 and then removed the CSMs. They weren't sighted for a couple of years, but are now being trialled yet again on some of the lower denomination tables.

The reality is these dreadful machines come, then go, then come back, then go, then come back, then go, etc, etc, etc. Remember they are nothing new. These machines have been around for almost 20 years now, and even in their current form for about 10 years. I think their existance is really nothing to do with stopping skilled play. It is about money for the manufacturers and the secret deals that are done behind the scenes. Each one of these machines represent a lot of money for someone (or several someones). The machines cost a fortune, and come with ridiculously expensive service and support agreements, so there is a lot of money being made. The reality is noone likes them (neither players not dealers), and they cost more than they save. Pressure gets exerted on the casino to get them (kickbacks no doubt ensue), then after yet another "trial" that seems to last 6 or 12 months they get removed for the same old reasons. You will never see them on the higher stakes tables in Crown, where the real money is being made by skilled players. In summary, CSMs are an annoyance on your way up, but once you get there they are just a dim memory.

Continuous shuffling machines (CSMs) are not to be confused with automatic shuffling machines (ASMs). ASMs operate in many casinos without hampering the skilled player at all. When an ASM is in operation, the machine simply shuffles one set of cards while the dealer is dealing another set (for example, one eight deck shoe is being shuffled by the machine while the dealer is dealing a shoe with the another set of eight decks). These ASMs actually increase the winnings of skilled players, because there is no downtime while waiting for the dealer to shuffle.

CSMs are a completely different matter. When a CSM is in operation, the dealer will take the cards just dealt from a round, and insert them directly into the shuffling machine (which is actually an extension of the shoe). These cards then are re-shuffled back in to the shoe almost immediately. It is theoretically possible for the same card to come out on two rounds in a row if a CSM is in use.

This negates the effect of traditional skilled play at BlackJack, and renders the game unbeatable by using traditional methods. There are methods for beating CSMs which vary from machine to machine, but these techniques are not taught in the professional course and can only be learnt once the traditional methods for beating BlackJack are mastered.

So you may well ask, why don't casinos install these machines on all their tables? On the surface, that would seem a logical idea, but if you examine the CSM a little further you will see why they are in fact unpopular with well managed casinos. The casinos that do persevere with them are usually the less well managed casinos.

The one and only advantage of CSMs from a casino's point of view is that they stop most skilled players from winning at BlackJack. Studies have shown that the claim that CSMs speed up the game is false (the shuffling time saved is almost equal to the extra time spent feeding cards into the shoe).

On the other hand there are a multitude of disadvantages:

• CSMs are very unpopular with regular gamblers:
  • Gamblers feel they can't exercise any skill on the game if a CSM is in use, and the predominant attraction of BlackJack is that it is perceived (quite correctly) as a game of skill.
  • Some gamblers feel that CSMs somehow electronically rig the game against them.
  • Gamblers can't see all of the cards out of the shoe at once and therefore are sceptical whether all the correct cards are in play.
  • Gamblers intuitively feel any new development would only be introduced by the casino if it were bad for the players.
• CSMs are very unpopular with the gaming staff:
• Dealers are forced to swing their spine through nearly 180 degrees after every round (perhaps 100 times per hour) instead of after every shoe (perhaps 3 to 4 times per hour), thus massively increasing the strain on their bodies.
• It is cumbersome and awkward to have to move the cards from the discard rack back to the CSM after every round.
• Dealers are forced to listen to the gamblers complaining about the CSMs all night!
• CSMs can cost the casinos a lot of money:
  • CSMs are extremely expensive and are usually subject to compulsory ongoing lease arrangements with the supplying company (I have heard prices ranging up to US$15,000 per CSM).
  • CSMs often jam, ruining cards and causing significant downtime and arguments at the table. If a CSM jams and chews up cards, it may mean that the table will have to close for a significant period of time, perhaps 30 minutes. It can also lead to player disputes at the table over the next card which can be time-consuming and expensive to resolve, and lead to considerable ill feeling.
  • Since the players don't like CSMs, those tables with CSMs tend to be emptier than non-CSM tables thus leading to lower turnover for the casino and therefore lower profit per table on CSM tables
  • CSMs are heavy, bulky and cumbersome. This presents issues for their safe transport and storage.

16. Why do some casinos offer games that are great for skilled players, while some don't?

This is a very logical question, and again on the surface it would seem logical for casinos to offer games with conditions that are terrible for the skilled player. But once again, the issue is a little more complicated.

It actually turns out that the better the game is for the skilled player then the better it is for the casino! This is because of the issue of downtime. Most "anti-skilled player" techniques involve lessening of turnover and slowing the game down. While this certainly lessens the amount of money the skilled players win from the casino it also lessens the amount of money the casino wins from the ordinary unskilled gamblers. Since the unskilled players outnumber the skilled players by thousands to one, casinos are much better of offering free flowing open games with great conditions for skilled players.

Historically, casinos that have done this have fared very well since the additional amount they have lost to skilled players has been covered hundreds of times over by the additional amount they have won from the unskilled gamblers.

17. What happened with your court case against Crown casino?

First of all, it actually wasn't a court case. In May 1999 I lodged a submission to the Victorian Casino and Gaming Authority to amend the rules of BlackJack in force at Crown casino (Melbourne, Australia). Primarily, I wanted to remove the casino's power to indiscriminantly restrict players for no reason. I also wanted to remove the casino's ability to perform discriminatory shuffles.

This submission was dealt with within a legal framework. A number of hearings of the VCGA were held to consider my submission. As these hearings progressed it become apparent that my probability of success was getting higher and higher. My legal team won several key issues and Crown casino did not win any. I spent $18,000 on our case and I understand Crown spent in the vicinity of $150,000 in legal fees. After one particularly significant victory in the process, Crown introduced CSMs into an entire pit and then shortly thereafter into a second BlackJack pit.

Crown casino management had an intense dislike for me because of the inconvenience I was causing them, and it became obvious to me that under no circumstances would Crown casino allow me to be able to play skilled winning BlackJack. Even if I won the case, Crown would simply introduce CSMs throughout the entire casino (thus losing a huge amount of money, but being able to claim the victory of stopping professional players).

If I won the case, it would have been a pyrrhic victory. I would have won the right to play an unbeatable game, and I would have on my conscience the fact that I had ruined the game for all my successful students who were currently playing and winning in the casino undetected.

For these reasons, I withdrew my case.

18. Won't the casino notice that I am winning and ban me?

If you are in one of the smaller casinos and you are on a high stakes plan, then possibly yes. That's why we don't recommend high stakes in small casinos. In the larger casinos you can win quite large amounts of money without being noticed at all. Especially in a casino with a lot of action like Crown, daily wins around the $5,000 mark or so hardly raise an eyebrow. While it is the casino supervisor's job to keep track of how much money you are winning or losing, in practice this can be very difficult for casino staff to do when the casino is busy.

19. What about other players on the table? I've noticed that it seems I can't win if the other players play badly!

It is a very common misconception that if you are playing with other players on a BlackJack table, and your fellow players are not playing well, then it is difficult (or even impossible) to win! Whilst the game of BlackJack does give that impression to the unitiated, highly skilled players know better. It is true that bad decisions by other players can, on individual ocassions, cause you to lose a hand you would have otherwise won. However, it is equally true that such bad decisions can also cause you to win when you would have otherwise lost! In fact, over the long run, these "wins when you would have lost" and "losses when you would have won" all cancel out, leaving your own skill level to determine your long term results.

It is very common for players to remember the "losses when you would have won" much more than the "wins when you would have lost". This is simply human nature and a function of selective perception. When another player makes a bad move which leads to a "loss when you would have won", most players remember that situation and can even harbour resentment to the bad player which can simmer away for some time. On the other hand when the opposite situation arises creating a "win when you would have lost", the players on the table breath a collective sigh of relief and quickly forget the incident!

I, and our students, have won literally millions of dollars over the years, and these winnings have almost all been won whilst sitting on tables alongside normal unskilled players, some of whom play extremely badly! Our students have been playing and winning since 1993, and over these many years their actual win has been almost exactly the mathematically expected win amount. Whether the other players on the table are skilled or unskilled has made no difference to the final result.

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20. Don't the casino try to plant their own people into your courses in order to identify your students?

This is a question often asked of us here at blackJack-mAsters. In order to understand fully the answer to this question, we need to explain the history behind how blackJack-mAsters came to exist. I started playing BlackJack as a skilled professional in 1988. Over the next five years I won a substantial amount of money from Australian casinos, but had little idea how to properly disguise my skill from those casinos (I've since mastered those techniques and our students now get the benefit of those disguise techniques). By around 1993 it became impossible for me to play in Australian casinos and this led to the creation of blackJack-mAsters. Since then, I have offered on numerous ocassions to close the school and take on no new students (naturally while honouring my obligations to our existing students), simply if the casinos would allow me to once again play BlackJack on their tables.

Time and again the casinos across Australia have refused. I can and do play BlackJack in other casinos around the world, and in fact that has been how I have made my money over the years, by playing rather than teaching. However, I am Australian, I like to live in Australia, and I enjoy continuing to operate the school. The casinos seem to take the attitude that the best thing to do is to completely ignore our school. I believe the existence of blackJack-mAsters is in fact an embarrassment to them, since many casino executives told me privately in the early 1990s it would be impossible to establish such a school. In fact we have been thriving since 1993 and have created many successful students. Because of casino executive embarrassment, they tend to understate the threat we create to their income streams. It's a pride thing with most casino executives, who I suspect are silently jealous of our success. If you ask the average casino executive about blackJack-mAsters, they will generally make some derogatory comment and move on in their conversation. That's fine by us!

If the casinos seriously wanted to stop our activities, rather than trying to infiltrate our courses, they could simply allow me to play. I am only one person, and couldn't possibly win as much as all the future students I teach will. But casinos simply can't bring themselves to do this, because it would mean admitting defeat. So casino executives tend to downplay the threat to their superiors.

Even ignoring the above, what if a casino did infiltrate one of our courses? So what? It would only be one course, and they would need to take photos of each person at the course. Then they would have to compare those photos to the thousands and thousands of people who frequent their casinos everyday. Even then they still have to make a judgement on whether that student was implementing what I had taught him correctly! It simply isn't practical to go through this process. We know casinos do not bother to do this because only a very, very tiny percentage of our students are identified by the casinos as winning players.

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21. Why did you close the Southbank office?

After being at our Southbank Office since 1 February 1999, we closed the office on 1 June 2004. Of course the school continued on as usual, but we found that we were using the office less and less. In 1999 and 2000, we would see students in our office almost every single day. In 2004, with the rise of email, our website and the internet almost all of our student communication became online or perhaps on the phone. Through 2003 and up to June 2004, we had been seeing students only on Mondays, and we had been doing substantial amounts of work electronically from remote locations while travelling. Additionally, all our weekend seminars were always at hired venues anyway. For these reasons, we decided that it was no longer efficient to have the office at Southbank.

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22. Why don't you teach the Professional Course (sessions 1 to 10) by weekend seminar anymore?

The advantages of the home study program are that you can go at your own pace and it includes more learning materials than the weekend seminar did, such as our custom made DVDs (also available in video cassette format). Also we are able to offer the home study kits cheaper than the weekend seminar was. Another advantage of the home study kits is that you can begin your study immediately, you do not have to wait for the next weekend seminar to come around as you did when we taught that way. We've also found in this day and age of the internet and email that students want their information here and now and like to interact with us electronically much more than they previously did, so the immediacy of the home study kits lends itself well to this.

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23. Do you have any plans to stop teaching BlackJack?

I have been teaching since 1993 and scaled the business back a little in June 2004 by changing offices to a students-only private venue and scaling the staff back. However, we are as keen as ever to take on and assist new students. We have no plans to close the business, we enjoy interacting with our students and we have plans to expand the website with much more functionality in the future.

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24. Are casino BlackJack winnings really TAX FREE?

As you might imagine this is an issue of some importance to winning skilled professional BlackJack players. It is also an issue I have researched thoroughly and taken legal advice on.

Let me preface my answer by saying two things. Firstly, my answer only applies to Australia, not other jurisdictions around the world. Secondly, while I did work as an accountant specialising in taxation for five and a half years, I do not hold myself out to be an expert and what follows is not professional taxation advice. You should consult your own taxation professional about the circumstances of your own individual case.

It has long been established that gambling winnings in Australia are completely free of tax. The only scope for gambling winnings to be considered assessable is if the gambler is considered to be in the "business" of gambling. The word "business" is not defined in the taxation legislation. Whether one's gambling activities constitute a "business" or not is to be determined on a case by case basis by the Taxation Office and is subject to appeal to various Tribunals and Courts. This very issue was examined in detail by the Federal Court of Australia in three separate cases in 1989: Evans v FC of T 89 ATC 4540; (1989) 20 ATR 922, Babka v FC of T 89 ATC 4963; (1989) 20 ATR 1251, and Brajkovich v FC of T 89 ATC 5227; (1989) 20 ATR 1570. In the first two cases, the gamblers won substantial amounts of money and the Taxation Office was trying to levy tax on those winnings, arguing that the gamblers were in the "business" of gambling. On both occasions the Court refused to characterise the taxpayers activities as a "business", even though they exhibited some elements which could be characterised as business-like. In the final case, the taxpayer lost substantial amounts and was trying to claim a deduction as a "business" expense, trying to argue that he was in the business of gambling. Once again, the Court refused to characterise the activities as a "business".

As a result of these cases, the Commissioner of Taxation issued an income tax ruling about this very issue, IT 2655. Although this ruling specifically dealt with racing not casino gambling, the ruling held that "...it will be rare for a taxpayer with no connection with racing other than betting to be carrying on a business of betting or gambling." It seems a logical conclusion that at the very minimum an inference could be drawn that the same might apply to the casino industry, i.e. it would be rare for a taxpayer with no connection to the casino industry other than betting would be deemed to be carrying on a business of betting or gambling in casinos. In fact to take it even further, while it could be argued that connection with the racing industry other than as a punter (e.g. as a jockey, trainer, owner, etc) might give a person some kind of "inside information" which would allow their systematic and business-like betting to be considered a business for tax purposes it is much harder to draw a similar conclusion in the casino industry. Odds in casinos are governed by pure objective mathematics as opposed to the racing industry where the true odds of a horse winning a race are difficult to define. Inside information in racing might allow a punter to know about a horse injury or a time trial that the general public does not, but what inside information about BlackJack could one obtain by being connected to the casino industry that is not available to the general gambling public? Everyone knows that there are 52 cards in the deck. Everyone knows when the cards will be shuffled.

Income tax ruling IT 2655 also noted that "There is no Australian case in which the winnings of a mere punter have been held to be assessable (or the losses deductible)."

Even more relevant to the issue of the tax status of BlackJack winnings was the Administrative Appeals Tribunal case 49/96 held on 22 August 1996. In this case it was held that "It would be virtually impossible to carry on a business of gambling (in the sense used in taxation cases) at the casino by the method of counting the cards at blackjack."

It is quite clear that winnings from counting cards at BlackJack are not considered assessable income in Australia. As a practical matter there are two other reasons which make it unlikely that the Tax Office would ever try to levy tax on a casino player's winnings. Firstly, there is the difficulty of establishing the amount won, and secondly if the Tax Office were ever to levy such tax, it would open the floodgates for high rolling losing gamblers to claim that they are in the business of gambling and therefore to claim a deduction for their losses.

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25. Do I have some way of privately talking with you guys so you are able to help me through my queries once I purchase the course?

The answer to your question is a definite YES.

There are four ways to communicate with us as you progress through the course and improve your skills:

1. By internet forum
This is the most common way students keep in touch. Once you have purchased kits 1 and 2 you choose an anonymous username for yourself and we then immediately issue you with a password. This username and password give you access to our online forums. You can make posts (i.e. leave messages) on the forums. Andrew peruses these forums very regularly (generally every day) and answers questions left by students, and often makes other comments to expand on the issue or subject the student has raised. Another great advantage of these forums is that other students and graduates of BlackJack-Masters regularly interact on the forums. Some of them are graduates of many years’ standing, even advanced course and master course students, and these people like to help the new students coming through.

2. By email
Should you want to leave a message or ask us a question directly, without it being visible by other students, you are welcome to send an email at any time. We check our emails multiple times daily irrespective of where we are in the world and we endeavour to get back to you as soon as possible. Because we all travel the world extensively playing BlackJack, email is a great way of communicating with us since we can receive and reply to our emails no matter where we are in the world.

3. By telephone
You are also welcome to call us and speak to us in person at our office number which is 1800 788 999 in Australia. If the office is unattended you can leave a voice message at this number. However, as explained above, the office is sometimes unattended for lengthy periods of time due to our extended world travel.

4. In person
From time to time both Andrew and Chris conduct in-person consultations for our students. Andrew charges $550 an hour (including GST) and Chris charges $220 an hour (including GST). You are welcome to book in for one of these consultations if you are one of our students. The consultations are held in Melbourne. Also, since Andrew travels the world extensively, if he happens to be in your home city, there is the possibility of arranging a consultation there.

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26. Do you send DVDs or video cassettes with the home study kits?

When we first produced the home study kits, they were only available with video cassettes. They are now available with DVDs, and that is the format we normally send the kits out in. If you want your kits to include DVDs, you do not need to do anything special. If you want your kits to be in video cassette format, simply contact us to let us know at the time of placing your order. The simplest way of doing that is to email Chris Martin, our Student Support and Business Manager. Chris' email address is chris@blackJack-mAsters.com.

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If you have a further question or query that has not been covered above then email Chris Martin, our Student Support and Business Manager. Chris' email address is chris@blackJack-mAsters.com. Your question may well end up being included on our FAQ page!

If you are ready to start your exciting new career as a professional BlackJack player then enrol for our course.