If you’re not familiar with Flip The Switch contributor John Mehaffey, he has a rich and colorful history with gambling and being a writer around various casino topics. We asked him to share a bit about his history and how he became the expert he is today!
Today, I am a Las Vegas resident known for my casino expertise. It took decades to get here. All forms of gambling, except charitable bingo, were illegal in my home state of Georgia until 1992, when the state lottery was approved by voters. That was the first election I was old enough to vote in and I supported the lottery to help fund education.
I started gambling in my teens. It started with a gift of being able to memorize cards I discovered when my grandmother taught me the card game Spades when I was a small child. The adults quickly wanted to partner with me. Around the same era, I learned how to play blackjack on a TRS-80 computer. The game was so old that it loaded on a cassette player into the computer. Its goal was to teach people how to count a single-deck game. It had a punchcard to cover the cards seen. I can still see that punchcard to this day.
Poker Was My First Focus
A few years later, Intellivision was released. While it was a game system aimed at children, its free cartridge with the system was “Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack.” The poker games were five-card stud, seven-card stud, and five-card draw. I played this game more than any other.
I started playing quarter poker with friends in my teen years. I delivered food for work and took an order to a poker game that was big money to me at the time. It was $2 to $20 spread-limit hi/lo. Most were based on Omaha or seven-card stud. A few were made up by the group.
The players joked about me joining the game. I took them up on it. That poker game became a source of income for me for years. I supplemented it with restaurant work. Poker rooms near Biloxi, Mississippi, became my home away from home. I played regularly at Grand Casino in Gulfport and at President in Biloxi. Neither is around today.
I stopped going to Mississippi when I got married in 2002. However, my wife Kristina had no problem with me playing the home games as she saw how profitable they were.
Online Poker Came Along and Changed Everything
I first started playing online poker in 2001. Most games were Texas Hold’em. That was not my strong point. Omaha and stud games were later added, and that is when I thrived.
I was a prop player for several poker sites in the early 2000s. That paid 100% rakeback or more. Rake is what the house takes out of the pot for running the game. I did not pay any and sometimes got paid more than I put in the drop.
In 2004, I created an online poker information site. I worked in that industry until 2011, when the federal government shut down most online poker rooms. That was called “Black Friday” in the industry.
We Lived Near Deadwood, South Dakota, for Five Years
In 2006, an online poker company offered me a full-time job to replace the website I had sold. They were based in Rapid City, South Dakota. Kristina and I decided to buy a house in the Black Hills, about 15 miles west of town. The community is called Johnson Siding. Its population is around 700 people. The company was sold after seven months. That left me with a lot of time on my hands in a place I was unfamiliar.
Deadwood is about 30 minutes away from where I lived. It is a small casino town in western South Dakota. It was the third U.S. market with casinos behind Nevada and Atlantic City. Having lived near Atlanta for my first 32 years, this was the first time I lived near casinos.
Deadwood casino operators were not great at math. Many promotions returned well over 100%. The best one was triple points days on Mondays and Wednesdays at a casino that gave a car away every two weeks. Twenty keys were awarded between drawings with free play ranging from $100 to $500.
Triple points day put video blackjack, a game that never should have qualified, at around 100.6% payback. Once a month, there was a seven-times-points day, which put the payout around 101.8% on a game with a $99 maximum bet. I never won a car but I hit many keys with free play attached. The casino eventually caught on to what I was doing and ended the video blackjack inclusion in the promotion.
This was one of many advantage play opportunities. The poker games were also great on weekends, including a weekly 5/10 Omaha hi/lo game and 2-10 spread limit seven-card stud hi/lo and dealer’s choice games.
We Moved to Las Vegas in 2010
In 2010, we moved to Las Vegas to help an online affiliate company build a brick-and-mortar poker directory site. That all came crashing down after Black Friday. We only lived in Las Vegas for a few months, and the economy was in shambles. I decided to try something new.
I played live poker for a while. It is too slow for me. I started playing blackjack and memorizing each casino’s rules. It became apparent there was a demand for this information. I supplied this data to others for a fee. Later, I added other table games.
Kristina helped me organize the data. It became a team effort. We co-own Vegas Advantage.
We started on the Las Vegas Strip and downtown. By 2018, all locals casinos with table games were added. That is the same year Vegas Advantage launched.
At first, Vegas Advantage was just a blog. In 2020, we sold our last blackjack survey to a third party. In January 2021, we moved the Las Vegas Table Games Survey to Vegas Advantage. It has stayed there ever since.
Kristina and I have covered Las Vegas casinos for 15 years. Our efforts have become mainstream. Vegas Advantage has been mentioned on hundreds of websites. In May 2023, the Wall Street Journal ran an article on its front page that featured our data. The story covered how Las Vegas’s game conditions have deteriorated. We spent the afternoon walking the Las Vegas Strip with the journalist. Many other outlets have also featured our work. We have been on several major podcasts and a Fox Sports Radio Show.
Living in Las Vegas burned me out on most games. The advantage plays are not what they used to be.
I only play tables when friends or family visit. Blackjack became a cat-and-mouse game of trying not to get noticed. I lost at other table games, and it became unfun. Today, video poker is the only house game I play. It must have a good paytable, and I only play in lower denominations. If I am playing over $0.50, I must be on a heater, even though I will be the first to tell you there is no such thing.
It is impossible to know what the next opportunity may be. Vegas Advantage went from a blog to a Las Vegas authority site. We will keep operating it and see what comes next.
