Step 1: Identify your competition in an area, what they look like, what games they’re aware of, etc.
Step 2: Take time to observe their schedules, figure out when they come in and when they leave.
Step 3: Come in earlier than them when you visit. If there’s so much competition that you can’t just beat them to the spot, then the busier the better as far as finding low hanging fruit.
Say for example you have a small locals casino where there’s two hustlers that you see regularly, occasionally you have other people come in, but not often. One of them works a regular job and isn’t off work until 5pm, doesn’t get to the casino until 6pm. The other one shows up to the casino periodically throughout the day to make the rounds, but never before 10am and not after midnight. Your best bet then would be to do a lap around the casino before 10am, if it takes you an hour to sweep the machines, then get there a little before 9. Then get there again at 5pm to make another lap before the guy on a normal schedule comes in. You just don’t want to get behind them and find yourself chasing their tail.
Here’s another example; This is a real-world example from years ago (2017-2018ish).You have a town with 3 casinos, there’s a shuttle service that goes in between all three in a loop. On a busy weekend, you can keep making laps through town and use the shuttle to deduce when someone else has just made a lap through that casino. If no other hustler is in line to get on when you pull up to the next casino, then you go and make a lap because there’s been enough time for plays to develop, if a hustler you recognize is getting on, you stay on and lap the next casino knowing that he’s checking the half you didn’t get to first. Then you get back on the shuttle, and he probably gets off at the next one, you wait and get on at the one you skipped before, take a little break, camp a little instead of doing constant laps, and when your competitor gets off the shuttle to come in there, you can stealthily get on the shuttle and now you’re back in front of him on the loop. Another option is using the shuttle to identify where people are going next and where they’ve been but using your own car to beat the shuttle to the spot.
“*Is there a formal term for this endeavor?”
I’ve always called it slot hustling.
Nickels
