Gambling

The Big Store

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I’m reading a book about con men. Ben Marks was one of them. His specialty was three-card monte, hustling cattlemen and miners and soldiers in the streets of Cheyenne.

Marks was good. He’d regularly make $5, $10, sometimes $25 by fleecing some greedy passerby on the street.

Marks made a living. But it was hardly a business. The streets of Cheyenne were too busy and too crowded and there was too much competition. Saloons offering booze. Hotels offering gambling. Brothels offering love.

So Marks hit upon a novel idea.

Why not open his own establishment? Get people to come to him? Do away with the competition?

It’s a concept that became known as the Big Store.

The Big Store became a key part of the big con. A fancy gambling club, or a brokerage house, or in Marks’s case, The Dollar Store — everything for a dollar, including some very attractive and expensive goods, displayed colorfully in the store windows.

But when a prospect stepped inside The Dollar Store, he’d see several lively monte games already in play, with Marks’s shills and “sticks” in place of real gamblers.

The new prospect forgot about the attractive merchandise.

He left The Dollar Store some time later, not having bought anything for $1. But he did leave behind a wad of cash nonetheless.

I’m not encouraging you to grift, conning, or crime of any sort. But I do tell you the above because:

1. The basic idea is usable in non-criminal ways also. Think, how can I get them to come to me? How do I do away with the competition and other distractions?

2. “Get them to come to you, instead of going to them” might sound like a simple, familiar, or even trivial idea. But it’s not one you should dismiss. Marks’s Big Store was the innovation that created the big-money confidence games that netted $75,000 or $100,000, instead of $25 hustles in back alleys and on train cars and street corners.

Do you wanna see a Big Store in action? Here’s a clip (no spoilers) from The Sting, one of my favorite films:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYjyFQS3DWM

Super Bowl 2022 wager update

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I was finishing up my workday today when an email landed in my inbox and made my heart freeze. The subject line read:

“The Best, Funniest, and Cringiest Crypto Ads from the Super Bowl”

“Oh God,” I gasped, “the Super Bowl… I completely forgot!”

Super Bowl 2022 is kind of a big deal in my life. Because last week, I made a wager in this very newsletter.

The bet was for readers to write in and pick this year’s Super Bowl winner.

The prize was a 50% discount on my upcoming Copy Zone offer.

The outcome was being proven wrong twice:

1. Having a stake on the outcome of the game didn’t make me watch the Super Bowl (or even remember that it’s on)

2. People on my list, and therefore me as well, overwhelmingly expected the Bengals to win

It turns out the Rams won, though it was close and tense until the end. (I watched the highlights just now.)

Anyways, if you bet on the Rams, I will send you a separate email with a 50% discount code. You can use this code, if you want to, during the Copy Zone launch later this month.

If you didn’t bet on the Rams, I would like to send you home with a consolation prize. Something in the form of a direct response idea you can profit from.

But unfortunately, since I’m writing this email late in the day… much later than I normally do… I don’t have my usual direct response idea primped and ready.

Fortunately, “the best crypto ad” from this Super Bowl, at least according to that email I got, is actually a direct response ad.

Shocking, right?

Apparently, the response to this ad was so high that the website hosting the landing page crashed.

Even so, according to some back of the envelope math, it’s unlikely the ad recouped the $13M cost of the 1-minute Super Bowl slot.

So can you learn anything from this ad? Perhaps how not to do DR advertising. In case you’re curious:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zLsUhOCqyU

Let’s see if I can make you watch the SuperBowl

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A few days ago, I was listening to an old episode of the James Altucher podcast, and I learned this curious fact:

A person who bets any amount of money on a game is 11x more likely to watch the game.

I’m not sure if this means that you can get people to watch a game, just by getting them to bet. But I’m willing to find out.

Because there’s an old marketing idea that I’ve long thought is super clever.

As far as I know, nobody today in the DM world is using it, at least not online. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you can correct me.

Here’s the idea. It comes from direct marketing legend Joe Sugarman, the guy who made BluBlocker sunglasses into a $300M brand.

Joe once wrote an ad promoting a computer. He ran it around the time of the SuperBowl.

The ad basically said, if the Bears win the SuperBowl, you get this computer at 50% off. If they lose, the price stays as it is. And here’s the outcome, in Joe’s own words:

“There was a lineup of people — we had a retail store — there was a literally a lineup of people all the way around the block waiting to pick up their computer that they were getting for 50% off. The funny part about it was that we were making a nice profit on that as well.”

Like I said, I’m willing to test this idea out.

So I just checked. The Superbowl is in 8 days.

And I happen to be working on a new offer. It’s called Copy Zone. It’s about succeeding in the business part of copywriting — getting started, finding clients, managing clients, performance deals, upleveling.

I am planning to get Copy Zone out by the end of this month. And I’m planning to sell it for $150 to start. But I’ll make you a wager:

If you pick the winner of this Superbowl right — Bengals or Rams — you get my Copy Zone offer for 50% off, or for $75, during the launch window.

Of course, you gotta buy a ticket if you want a piece of this action.

Fortunately, the ticket to play this game is free. But it is time-limited.

So if you want to play this game of chance, you’ll need to get on my email list first. Then just hit reply to my welcome email and pick this year’s SuperBowl Winner.

Bengals. Or Rams.

You have time to enter until I send out my email tomorrow, Monday, Feb 7 2022, at 8:24 CET.

​​Call — or rather, email — now. Our bookies are standing by.

Ready to win? Then gamble on reading this post

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If you ever wonder why you do strange and possibly self-destructive things to yourself, or if you have doubts that you’ve made the right decision in an important moment, then I’ve got a riddle that might help.

It goes like this:

“SNACK ROUTE. Newest and most profitable snack machines are opening up hundreds of new locations. Seeing is believing. Earnings can exceed $1,000 weekly. Part time. All cash business can be yours for as little as $5,600. Call 1-800-“

This is a successful classified ad that sold a business opportunity back in the 1980s.

Do you notice anything strange about it?

To me, the strange thing is that this is a classified ad… totaling 7 sentences and 37 words… and yet, the $5,600 price is revealed right there.

This goes against much copywriting and marketing wisdom. 37 words? Not a lot of space to build up desire, overcome objections, and justify such a high price.

So my riddle for you is, why is the price revealed in this classified ad, and why was the ad successful nonetheless?

Maybe you say the high price kept away the masses of low-quality prospects who might respond otherwise. I’m sure there is some of that.

Maybe the price actually acted as proof that this is a real opportunity, and not some kind of bait-and-switch. I’m sure there is some of that, too.

But I think something else is going on also. It occurred to me last night as I read an old advertising book, in which the following headline popped up:

“I gambled a postage stamp and
won $35,840 in 2 years”

This was the headline for a direct mail sales letter that mailed profitably for years. And to me, it’s got the same structure as the bizopp classified above.

Fact is, in certain environments, spending money is a thrill, not a burden.

Some people, specifically of some genders, tend to shop for a thrill.

But others prefer to gamble.

And that’s ultimately what I think is going on with classified ad above.

For the right prospect, it kicks off the part of the brain that likes gambling. It gets the greed glands going. The prospect starts to think about big money, and the thrill of action.

Of course, some people like penny slots (“I gambled a postage stamp”).

Others like the high-stakes poker table (“… for as little as $5,600”).

But all of us have the instinct to gamble, in some form and to some extent. And a few words can be all that it takes to kick that instinct into action. Even when we’ve been burned by it before.

So do you think you won by reading this post? If not, don’t worry. More opportunities to win will appear tomorrow and the day after. If you want to take advantage of them, here’s where to go.

The direct response casino

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Today I read a fascinating review of the book Addicted by Design.

I normally don’t talk about reviews in these posts. Instead, I like to go to the source and talk about that. I’m gonna break that rule today for two reasons:

1. The topic is too damned interesting to put off.

2. The review is so well written. It might in fact be better than the book itself, if the few quotes from the book are any indication.

So here’s the gist of what I got from this review:

1. Casinos and slot machine makers have gotten incredibly sophisticated at gaming human mental and emotional quirks. They’ve got lots of invisible tricks, including “losses disguised as wins”, “reel mapping”, and “teaser strips”.

2. Most gamblers are not looking to win. Rather, they are looking to be in the “zone”, a kind of flow state in which the cares of the world are replaced with a feeling of optimism and control.

3. Like the NRA, the gambling industry spends a lot of money to pump the idea that their products are neutral tools. It’s all about how you use ’em.

This last point reminded me of what I call “direct response apologists.” These are industry insiders who like to say that direct response techniques are neutral tools. It’s all about what you use ’em for.

The parallels run deeper:

Casinos actually go to a good bit of trouble to make it seem like they are giving gamblers a choice. They provide addiction interventions, counseling, and pre-programmed spending limits. And yet they invest heavily in making the most addicting slot machines possible.

This reminded me of one sophisticated direct response marketer. He repeatedly told his audience not to fall for the overwhelming lures of social proof when making buying decisions. And then he put his other hat on, and ran a campaign to that same audience, made up mostly of testimonials.

The other two points above also map well to world of direct response:

Direct response marketers have certainly become very good at gaming attention, desire, and belief in the process of sucking out money from customers.

And like I’ve written before, the majority of DR customers are not really looking to win. Instead, they are looking for the momentary rush of buying, where they are filled with optimism and a feeling of control.

So where does that leave you?

Maybe you’re left. Maybe you don’t buy the “neutral tool” argument of direct response apologists.

Or maybe you’re right. Maybe you’re just in the business of gaming human mental and emotional quirks for a living, and you’re looking for the best new tips and tricks from related industries.

Whatever side you’re on, of if by chance you’re on both, I think you will profit by at least scanning this book review. If you wanna give it a try, here’s the link:

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-addiction-by-design