About the Wizard of Odds
Last update: May 15, 2008
Wizard of Odds is run by two
guys:
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Michael Shackleford,
The Wizard of
Odds
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Michael Bluejay,
The Wizard de la ADS
(I can't call myself the "Wizard of Ads" any more
because there's another Wizard of Ads
who threatened to sue us.)
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Who is the Wizard of Odds?
The Wizard of Odds is Michael Shackleford, A.S.A., a professional actuary who has made a career of analyzing casino games. He runs the numbers on new games for casinos and game developers and has helped design many of the popular slot machines on the Internet. He is currently an Adjunct Professor of Casino Math at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, a former contributing editor to Casino Player magazine, and the author of the book Gambling 102, recently published by Huntington Press. The Wizard's landmark research into the actual returns of slot machines on the Las Vegas strip garnered international attention in 2002, and he has appeared numerous times on national television as a recognized expert on gambling strategy.
About our site
Our goal is nothing less than to be the best
gaming site on the Internet. Here's what we mean by best:
- A ton of content that is original, exclusive,
and high quality. We offer stuff that's really
useful and that you can't get anywhere else. (Well,
we've allowed a few other sites to reprint some of our
articles, but most of our stuff is available only
here.) The Wizard provides the mathematically correct
strategies and information for nearly every casino
game in existence. We are the most recognized
authority in the world for accurate playing
strategies.
- An excellent experience for the reader. We
take quality seriously. We don't have popup windows or
animated ads, and we don't spam. The net is littered
with cheap gambling sites that seem to want nothing
better than to give you an epileptic seizure. We're
trying to set the standard for a quality gambling
site. We hope others will follow.
We're picky about who can advertise here. The Wizard
himself personally reviews all potential advertisers
before they can buy an ad, and he turns down about half
of all applicants. The Wizard won't advertise a casino
unless he feels it's a safe and honest place to gamble,
and promises to act
as an arbitrator if a reader has a problem with an
advertiser that they can't resolve on their own.
About gambling itself, our philosophy is that if
you're going to gamble you should have the best
information possible so you can have the best chances of
winning, and can minimize your losses if you do lose. We
don't actually encourage or promote gambling, and we're
not just saying that to cover ourselves -- we simply want
to provide readers with the opportunity to be educated
gamblers if they're going to gamble anyway. In fact, if
you read the site thoroughly, the inescapable conclusion
is that with very few exceptions, there is no way to beat
the house.
You can contact us or read
our terms and conditions (which
includes our privacy policy).
About the
Wizard
What I do
I write most of the content for this site,
drawing on my training in mathematics and actuarial
science. This site started out as a hobby, then as it
grew and became more popular I moved it to its own domain
and had it professionally designed. I'm proud to have
built something that's used by thousands of people every
day and is known around the world for providing quality,
authoritative information.
In addition to writing for this site, I am an Adjunct
professor of Casino Math at the University of Las Vegas
where I teach students how to do the kinds of analyses
you find on this site. I also do consulting for game
developers and land and Internet casinos. Here's
more about my consulting
services.
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The Bodog girls and I at a Monday Night Football party. Click here for larger image.
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My Life Story
I was born in Pasadena, California in 1965.
Shortly after that my family moved south to Orange County
where I grew up and lived off and on until 1992. My
interest in computers led me to a computer science major
at the University
of California at Santa Barbara. In my sophomore year
I switched majors to math/economics and graduated with a
BA in 1988. After I graduated I put my mind toward the
actuary exams.
If you don't know what an actuary is please visit this
explanation
by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. While working at the
exams I stumbled into a job as a claims adjuster for the
Social Security
Administration. With my background in Social Security
and having passed a few exams I moved to the agency
headquarters in Baltimore in 1992. In my capacity as a
Social Security actuary my main responsibility was
estimating short-range costs and benefits of changes in
Social Security law. Some of my work can be found at the
Office of
the Chief Actuary web site. The most fun part of my
job was tabulating the most popular baby
names. My lists of the most popular names have been
featured in almost every major newspaper or news magazine
at one time or another. You can also find my lists at
BabyCenter,
Babynames.com, and many books including Beyond
Jennifer & Jason, Madison & Montana,
The
Very Best Baby Name Book, and the 2000
edition of the World Almanac.
After I finished with the actuary exams and became an
associate in 1995 I put my mind toward analyzing casino
games. This was just for fun and I never expected it to
lead to anything. After I went through the trouble of
analyzing about a half dozen games I put up the
information on my home
page. Although I didn't advertise at all people
starting wandering to the page which encouraged me to
keep making additions and improvements. Eventually this
led to work doing analysis of new games and a regular
column in Casino Player magazine.
In early 2000 I decided to take the leap from a
non-profit page to accepting advertising. The combined
income from private consulting and advertising allowed me
to leave my job with SSA on April 21, 2000 and devote
myself full time to this website and to gaming
consulting. I made it my goal to become the most
known and trusted name in gambling advice for the whole
gamut of casino games. In February, 2001, I moved from
Baltimore to Las Vegas to be at the center of the
gambling business.
In early 2003 I split with my old partners who had
taken care of the design of the site and ad sales, and I
brought my friend Michael Bluejay on board to take care
of the web administration. The first thing we did was to
get rid of the popup windows and a lot of the gratuitous
advertising. With full control over the site again I
became very picky about who could advertise here. To this
day I personally review all potential advertisers before
they can buy an ad here. I turn down about as many as I
approve.
I didn't turn the ad sales over to Bluejay until a
year later in 2004, and when I did the site changed
significantly. He got rid of the blinking banners but
still managed to find advertisers who were willing to
have static ads. He also added some small text ads to the
site and made other various improvements.
Gambling has always been a major interest of mine.
Before turning 21 I mainly played poker, acey-deucy, and
guts. When I reached legal age I developed a strong
interest in blackjack. I started with the basic strategy
and then moved to card counting. Other than gambling my
hobbies are chess,
computer games, juggling,
unicycling,
and license
plate collecting.
Here is my short bio.
Interviews, Reviews
More pictures
I have more pictures here.
About the Wizard's
Apprentice
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Notice my good luck charm in my shirt pocket,
Mr. Boo Boo.
Don't be dissin' Mr. Boo Boo. He may be small
but he'll MESS you up.
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Michael Bluejay, the Wizard of
ADS
Yo, yo, yo! Someone's gotta provide some
balance to the Wizard's cold calculations, and that's me.
I edit a lot of what he writes to reduce its sedative
effect and I spice up the newsletters
too. I'm also in charge of advertising
sales, and that's actually most of what I do. I was
the one who got rid of the blinking banners by the way,
I'm the one you thank for that. The Wizard didn't think I
could find advertisers willing to pay for ad space if
their ads didn't blink. Huh! He forgot he was dealing
with Michael Bluejay. I used my super vegan powers and
not only got advertisers but pulled in more ad revenue
than he was making before.
I live in Austin, Texas but I make frequent trips to
Las Vegas to hang out with the Wizard and incite riots.
For a math guy the Wizard is more fun than you might
think. We went to Wet & Wild! And we saw Penn &
Teller. I have my own site about Vegas, Vegas
Reference, with special sections about:
When it comes to gambling math I can't calculate my
way out of a wet paper bag but despite that I'm proud to
say that I've beaten the Wizard at every single game of
chess we've ever played, except the two we were wagering
on. Lest you think he was sandbagging me, in one game I
had only two minutes to his ten, and in the other game,
well, everyone gets lucky once in a while. It's the
Wizard's curse, he only wins when I've got money riding
on the game. He gets mad when I win and I tell him, "You
know how to fix that, all you have to do is bet on the
game and you'll win, like you've done every time before."
But he declines.
Besides working for the Wizard (and for the weekend) I
run a number of my own sites, such as:
Rather than bore you with my bio here, I'll bore you
with it on my
home page.
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