Our neighbor Michael

 This is something that you’re going to have difficulty believing, but it’s true.  One of our neighbors, whose name is Michael, is a friendly fellow.  For some unknown reason he has always been willing to chat with me.  What I’m going to tell you isn’t some information I gathered in one brief meeting.  Instead, it’s an accumulation of facts, regarding Michael, that come from notes I’ve kept for more than two years.

 At first I thought he was merely trying to be impressive, as if he wanted me to, somehow, believe he is one of the super wealthy.  Michael is an unmarried widower whose wife was killed in a terrible car crash.  The details of that crash are too awful to talk about here.  This is about how Michael seems to have created a cash-cow, and his source for the money is not about to dry up soon, and I’ll tell you why.   The home he purchased a couple of years ago, is on the other side of our street.  It’s about three years old and was marketed when its previous owner moved into an assisted living facility.   Michael visits his home here only occasionally.

Probably I won’t ever understand why he confided in me, but he did. Like I said, for a long time I thought he is merely a boastful person until I did some checking.  I performed a simple search on Realtor.com and discovered that Michael already owns four houses in this housing tract.  All of those houses, except for the house in which Michael resides part-time,  are rentals and they are managed by a local real estate management company.  I was amazed too to discover that Michael  owns five other houses in two other senior housing communities situated in this local area. All of those properties are mortgage free. 

From time-to-time Michael will show up at his home here.   He always arrives by Uber after landing at Ontario Airport that’s 45 miles West of here, and he stays for about a week each visit.  He keeps a Bentley, as well as a pickup truck secured in his garage.  We became a bit more than mere acquaintances one day while fetching mail from the block of mail boxes situated  about a hundred yards East of here.   As it happened, that day,  we both were fetching mail at the same time - it’s an easy walk, those one hundred yards.  As we shared the sidewalk on our return trip north we chatted.  That was the beginning of more in-depth conversations that replace the typical wave-of-the hand acknowledgement of existence that most of the Four Seasons dwellers share.

Perhaps he found me a bit different from the other neighbors in that I didn’t merely make dumb comments about the weather.  Instead, I asked him about his visits here and why he’s a part-time local resident.  He said “why don’t you come over and have a beer?  We can talk.”

Of course I’m off the suds, however, I responded with “sure, I’d like to get to know you.”

That day was mid-month and my mailbox was empty.  So, we walked back toward Michael’s house, and talked.   He was as willing as me to share personal information.  We discovered that we both attended San Jose State College although I finished there about 15 years ahead of Michael.  Also, we both majored in accounting and pursued CPA licensing.   So, I will just tell you about Michael’s background since you already pretty much know about mine.   After graduating from SJS Michael was employed at Price Waterhouse for about 5 years during which time he became CPA licensed and also completed a law degree through Golden Gate University.   

Following the bar examination Michael left Price Waterhouse and joined a small law firm in Oakland where he did some criminal defense work as well as some personal injury litigation.  That lasted about three years.   Neither public accounting nor legal work seemed particularly thrilling to him.   He says that public accounting turned out to be much more profitable than the law industry.  I thought that contingent fees would be much more lucrative than fixed salaries.  Not so, according to Michael, particularly when you must split those contingent fees several ways with other law firm members.  

He terminated his position at the Oakland law firm to move to his parent’s home in Reno, Nevada. That move occurred about three years ago.  Michael’s father was circling the drain with lung cancer and requested Michael’s assistance in coping with that horrible disease.  Terrible pain accompanied the dad’s disease and Michael was determined to help restore his father’s comfort.   Michael’s mother had passed many years before and as the only child he seemed to feel duty-bound to help his dad.  

Michael was already tuned into alternative remedies and believed in the power of holistic medicine.  Also, Michael is aware of the power that altering one’s subconscious mind could achieve.  He told me he practiced self-hypnosis regularly.  He uses self-hypnosis to speed the daily following-to-sleep process.

By the way, don’t give up on me, I will get to the part about making money soon enough.  In order to understand how it happened you really should know how his background led to his current money-making situation.  

Anyway, during his residency in Reno, Nevada Michael aggressively pursued familiarization with hypnosis.   He was able to sneak into a psychology class at the medical school at University of Nevada Reno.  The essence of that psychology class was clinical hypnosis.  He augmented his hypnosis education with a series of lectures purchased from an on-line hypnosis education company in Florida.  The video lectures that were most useful were those that explained hypnosis techniques that could be used to alleviate pain and discomfort.   He told me how beneficial hypnosis is for helping a cancer patient achieve true restful sleep as well as pain relief.

All of that was interesting, but my curiosity with respect to hypnosis was piqued when Michael began discussing how a person’s subconscious mind can be manipulated into sensory enhancement.   He explained how, through hypnotic training, a person can learn to accomplish extraordinary feats.  I’m not talking about physical accomplishments, but, instead, mental accomplishments.   

While attending class at UNR Michael became well acquainted with two other students of clinical hypnosis and the three of them launched a research project that had as its ultimate goal to cause their mutual lives to be much better off.  Those three persons began sharing hypnosis sessions wherein they focused on enhancing each other’s ability to see things more quickly and vividly.   It happened like this.  While in a hypnotic trance the subject was shown a series of flash cards on each of the flash cards were numbers and colors. Each of those three would alternate assuming the role as “subject”. Through the process of developing an ability to instantly identify each number the hypnotized subject’s subconscious mind was trained.   After about a dozen each twenty to thirty minute sessions each of the three participants was able to instantly identify a number or a color in less than 1/100 of a second’s exposure to the flashed visual image.  

Through similar sessions of hypnosis they all enhanced their abilities to instantly, and astonishingly, accurately estimate speed and relationships.  You probably see where I’m going with this by now.  

So, once all three of those subconscious minds were adequately trained through seemingly endless exercises of reinforcement their newly developed skills were tested in a mock environment.   That environment turned out to be a mock casino with a regulation size roulette wheel.  The goal of their training was to be able to accurately identify, with at least 60 percent accuracy, where the little white ball would drop onto a spinning roulette wheel and end up in one of the 38 numbered slots. 

Michael carefully explained how a typical “training” session progressed. The first act was to immerse each participant into a deep somnambulistic hypnotic trance.  Roles were shared by group members, the same as above,  so that everyone benefited from the subconscious mind training.  During the trance the hypnotized participant was directed to observe the spinning roulette wheel concentrating on its speed of rotation.  After many sessions of wheel-spin observation each of the group developed the keen ability to instantly recall the speed at which the roulette wheel was spinning. 

Similarly additional hypnosis sessions focused each participant’s subconscious mind on the other elements of roulette that included the speed at which the little white ball is tossed by the dealer as well as the relationship of those tosses with the number slot that was immediately below the release point of the white ball.  

Since a roulette wheel contains 38 slots into which the little white ball can end its journey there are too many individual possibilities to consider.  Therefore, the wheel is divided into five zones of 8 numbers each.   Of course I asked Michael “what about the total of only 38 numbers?”   He reminded me that all that was necessary was to correctly identify the landing zone about 60 percent of the time in order to amass a huge payoff, and for conversational purposes it’s easier to talk about five zones regardless of the fact that two of those zones would contain only 7 numbers rather than 8. 

Success was achieved when the correct landing zone could be identified by the entranced person at least 60% of the time.  That occurred at about two months into the training program and it coincided with a general attitude of “we’re getting tired of doing this stuff”.   

The practical application of the training sessions was this.  One of the three was designated the observer - the person who would watch the spinning wheel and subconsciously determine its rate of rotation.  Simultaneously that observer would see the relationship between the little white ball and the spinning wheel at the moment the ball was released.  The observer’s subconscious mind is also trained to accurately identify the velocity at which the roulette dealer tosses  the little white ball.  Subconsciously all of that information is evaluated and a landing zone is determined.  Through rigorous training that landing zone identification happened so quickly it couldn’t be timed.

Here are the aspects of betting and payoffs on those bets.  If the bet each roll of the little ball is $5 per number in the targeted zone of 8 the total one roll bet would be $40.  During 100 spins of the wheel the total bet would be $4,000.   If one of the target zone numbers is the number on to which the white ball ended the payoff for that spin would be a net of $135 ($175 total payout minus the $40 bet).  If the correct landing zone were identified only fifty percent of those 100 spins, the net payoff would be $4,750 ($17,500 X 50% = $8,750 minus the $4,000 total bet).  

The concept sounds too difficult to believe and that’s what I told Michael.  He explained that it takes an enormous amount of training and subconscious mind reinforcement in order to sensitize a person’s subconscious mind sufficiently to be able to predict the correct landing zone.   The three participants in Michael’s project dedicated about 900 hours each to the conditioning process.  

The “regulation” casino quality roulette wheel that was used for training purposes was spun many thousands of times before sufficient confidence was established to venture into a live gambling situation.   They conducted about a dozen live familiarization sessions with one dollar bets before they stepped up to the $5/number amount.  Michael provided the seed money and his return was 40% of each actual gambling session while the other two team members each walked away with 30%.

This is how each live session proceeded.  Before arriving at the target casino each person would be assigned a role.  There are simply three roles to be assigned and one is to be the player - the person actually placing the bets.  One person is the observer 

who watches the spinning wheel and the launch of the white ball.  The third member of the trio is designated as the controller.   The controller’s role is to relay the zone call to the player in the event that the observer is not within clear view of the player.  

Also prior to arriving at the target casino the observer is deeply induced into a hypnotic trance.   The observer is directed by the controller to “open your eyes, but remain in this deep relaxing trance”.   So, the hypnotic state continues, but the observer is also able to safely walk without stumbling.   Through many hours of practice and reinforcement the observer’s subconscious mind is able to adequately communicate with the controller so that walking through a casino does not pose any difficulty or interruption of the trance.

The player takes up his position at the roulette table near the center of the field where reaching all of the 38 numbers is easily accomplished.   The observer’s position is close to the spinning wheel where both the wheel and the dealer are easily within view.  The controller stands in such a position where he can see signals from the observer and quickly relay those signals to the player.  

At the moment the white ball is released from the dealer’s hand the observer signals the observer by holding up fingers of one hand that correspond in-count to one of the five zones into which the little white ball is expected to land.   The controller relays that finger count to the player who quickly places the bet.

From the foregoing description of the procedure you should be able to understand the basics of the plan.   Of course I’m not aware of all of the details of the happenings in those nearly three thousand hours of preparation.  Those three persons obviously became quite skilled with the process.  Then, their training and reinforcement was enhanced even more during the application of the process in live-casino play. 

I admire those three for having the courage to not abandon their endeavor.   There was no instant payoff, but once the training was completed - nearly three years ago - the cash began to roll in.  

There are more than 450 casinos in Nevada and all of those equipped with roulette wheels have been exposed to Michael and his cohorts.  In order to not be identified  by casino security the team would spend only about 20 to 30 minutes at a roulette wheel before moving on to their next target.  During those 20 to 30 minutes the average payoff was between $10,000 to $15,000.   In an evening of applying their skills the three person team typically accumulated over $50,000 as they moved among casinos.  

By alternating roles among the three attention wasn’t drawn and they moved from casino-to-casino unempared. 

Michael didn’t explain to me whether or not income taxes were paid on the gambling winnings, but I’m pretty sure he knows the money is taxable.  Also, Michael has not disclosed to me what his total income from the scheme might be, so far.  He did ask me to promise to not disclose to anybody what he and his friends are doing.  I don’t think anybody reads this blog so I’m just recording this information as a journal entry like all of the other stuff I write.