Repeat Until Rich, Josh Axelrad
Repeat Until Rich, Josh Axelrad
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Repeat Until Rich
A Professional Card Counter’s Chronicle of the Blackjack Wars

Author: Josh Axelrad

Narrator: Josh Axelrad

Unabridged: 7 hr 19 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/12/2019


Synopsis

A deliciously wry, edge-of-your-seat memoir of making a fortune with card counters across a wide swath of blackjack in AmericaAt twenty-four, Josh Axelrad held down a respectable and ominously dull job on Wall Street. Adventure was a tuna fish sandwich instead of the usual turkey for lunch. Then one night, a stranger at a cocktail party persuaded him to leave the nine-to-five behind and pursue an unlikely dream: the jackpot. The stranger was a blackjack card counter, and he sold Axelrad on the vision of Vegas with all its intrigue, adventure—and cash.Repeat Until Rich is Axelrad’s taut, atmospheric, and darkly hilarious account of ditching the mundane and entering the alternative universe of professional blackjack. Axelrad has one thing in common with his team: Jon Roth, the leader and a former options trader; Neal Matcha, a recovering lawyer; and Aldous Kaufman, a retired math PhD candidate. They all thrived in the straight world, found success boring, and vowed to make life more exotic. Axelrad adopts Roth’s philosophy—“repeat until rich”—and from his strategy and skill spring hasty retreats across casino floors, high-speed car chases, arrests on dubious grounds, and the massive cash paydays that make it all worthwhile.Along the way, he unveils the tactics and debunks the myths of professional card counters. In team play, he’s either the “big player,” who bets the big money, or the “controller,” who subtly coordinates the team’s betting while wagering only the minimum himself. Counting is not illegal, and it’s less intellectually daunting than its MIT-level mystique suggests. With clarity and wit, Repeat Until Rich proves the old gambler’s maxim that “if you can tip a waiter, you can count cards.” But it also proves how zealous, even forceful, casino bosses can be in “backing off” counters—seeing past their undercover methods and banning them from the tables. Josh soon grows to love all this trouble, and he discovers, more than the money, what he needs most of all is the rush.Filled with actual bad guys, chase scenes, and high stakes, Repeat Until Rich offers an intoxicating, unprecedented view of the dangerous allure of living off the cards and one’s wits.

About Josh Axelrad

Josh Axelrad played blackjack professionally for five years and poker unprofessionally for one. A graduate of Columbia College, he languished briefly in investment banking before he turned to cards. His personal win as a card counter, at $700,000, has left him eighty-sixed from the finest casinos in Vegas and around the United States.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Josh

When prose suggests a real man lurking somewhere in back of the page, you go to your knees and clasp hands and mouth "thank you" and you cry.......more

Goodreads review by Meri

I sincerely wish I had read this one before Bringing Down the House. This book tells a similar story, but with much more depth. Josh Axelrad talks about the excitement of card counting: throwing tens of thousands of dollars in cash around, comped suites, being chased out by security, and traveling a......more

We found this funny, eccentric, and strangely insightful. We never even thought about what goes on in the head of a casino employee until we read this book! Check out the rest of our review here: [URL not allowed]......more

Goodreads review by Keith

The story was interesting enough, but the writing was just hilarious. The author wasn't trying to be funny. It was clear he was trying really hard to write articulately and sound impressive, but most of it just made me laugh. The people around me ended up hearing me quoting him throughout the book.......more

Goodreads review by Joel

Started great. By the end I just wanted to punch the author in the head.......more


Quotes

“Fascinating…A fine portrait of the highs and lows of the gambling life.” Booklist