Gambler Richard Marcus is by far the greatest casino cheat of all time. For more than 25 years he cheated casinos all over the world for millions of dollars every year. We talk cheating in casinos, the life of a Professional Casino Cheat and the one move casinos never figured out. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Best Excuses.
Richard Marcus: 01:16
Pointless: 29:56
Top 5 Excuses: 45:53
Interview with Casino Cheat Richard Marcus
Nick VinZant 0:00
Hi welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant Coming up in this episode cheating at casinos, and the worst excuses,
Richard Marcus 0:21
all their equipment, all their cameras, all their surveillance, all this security. And we just went in there with with balls just you know, pull their pants down and stole their money. If you see somebody betting correctly 100% of the time over a series of bets for surveillance right away, because you have a cheating team. And the move was so good that I actually used surveillance unknowingly help helping me cheat,
Nick VinZant 0:46
I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, subscribe, leave us a rating or review. We really appreciate it, it really helps us out. If you're a new listener, welcome to the show. If you're a longtime listener, thank you so much for all of your support. So our first guest is widely considered to be the biggest casino cheat of all time. This is Richard Marcus, how did you get started doing that
Richard Marcus 1:18
kind of happened through my progression through the generative gambling. Throughout my childhood, I was gambling from eight years old, starting with flipping baseball cards for keeps. To make the long story short, I, when I was 18 years old, I bought a brand new convertible Mustang drove out to Vegas, I had $20,000 in it in the bat in the trunk, I gambled it and lost and found myself living in the street in Las Vegas. And eventually, I realized I had to do something in order to survive. So I, I became a deal and a casino. And just looking to get enough money to go home back back to back from New York. And I just could never get the money together was always paying rent in a small apartment. And finally, one night in my Chino I walked into the casino. And it turned out he was a very well known International to cheat. And we started to talk and he said to me, Well, you know, let's meet after your shift. I met him. We clicked you know, I have a good instinct, but whether or not I can trust people, I trusted this guy and you he he's 20 years older than I am. And he proposed that him and I team up together and start cheating casinos. That's how it happened.
Nick VinZant 2:49
So when you started like what were you doing, like how do you? How did you cheat casinos in the beginning, I
Richard Marcus 2:54
was still in a game called Baccarat. And I figured out a way to actually set up the carts in the car chew that they would be dealt out so that the players would win. And I figured out how to do that. And that's the first cheat I ever did. That particular scam that I did. It's called a false shuffle scan, where you where you're shuffling the cards, but you're not really shuffling the cards
Nick VinZant 3:20
now was it just baccarat
Richard Marcus 3:23
that particular scan was just Baccarat. But then after that scan was over, I joined up with Joe and he had two other people on his team. So we became a four a four person cheating team. And we went all over the world for well 12 or 13 years together. And then after that Joe retired, and then I took over the team for another 12 years. So I was actually cheating for 25 years professionally and doing all kinds of scams, but they're the other scams are all based on manipulation of chips, we would make our bets after the decision was already known. It's called past posting. So I'm basically considered to have been the best professional casino cheat of all time.
Nick VinZant 4:15
How much do you think that you got all together?
Richard Marcus 4:18
There's a difference between how much I got and how much I made over 25 years. You know, we actually cheated casinos out of say $25 million. In the winter we'd be working the you know, the Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, we're all living a rowboat. These are places where there's going to be a lot of people and the casinos are going to be busy. In the summer we would be in Monte Carlo or South France or South America. And then the rest of the time we would be working in Las Vegas and Atlantic City and the rest of the American or Canadian casinos. So the expenses, you know added that 25 million we probably spent 40% of but just on traveling and eating and hotel expenses when
Nick VinZant 5:03
you look at kind of other people who are professional casino cheats, right? Is that kind of par for the course in that sense like is that generally
Richard Marcus 5:12
speaking, that statement is correct. Now there have been a few, one shot stamps, all in Baccarat. Because Baccarat is unique in that once the cards are dealt and put into the card shoe and they come out, the player decisions cannot affect the order of the cards. And blackjack that's different, the cards are shuffled, but you can never know the exact order of the cards throughout a whole deck or a whole six or eight deck shoe. Because the players decisions affect the order of the cards. So people have come up with ways to film and record the order of the cards, therefore they would have knowledge of the whole eight tech show. So these scams have grossed, you know, nobody really knows for sure. But between 50 and $100 million. Were in one particular sitting one to one particular night in a casino. They've got more than a million dollars in one night. I mean, most I ever got in one night was maybe 120 $150,000. Okay, so we're talking, you know, much larger stuff. But the difference between me and them is they all get caught. I never got caught. So I rather have a few million and not have any problems, then get the, you know, 40 or 50 million get caught and then have to give it back and maybe go to jail.
Nick VinZant 6:39
How did you never get caught?
Richard Marcus 6:41
The basic reason is that I knew what to stop and I wasn't great. You know, I know when I had a lot of heat. There was one point in time in Las Vegas when I'm known for this particular move called Savannah, like Savannah, Georgia, but it was actually named after the stripper in a in a titty bar, who was actually giving us lap dances when we thought of the move, but we just knew cuz I was doing that particular Savannah move and there was a lot of heat on me. Because everybody in the surveillance business, all the Gaming Commission in Las Vegas gaming control board, they all knew I was the one cheating, but they couldn't figure out what I was doing. Now it's kind of like rubbing their nose in it. And the move was so good that I actually used surveillance filming me to inadvertent they were unknowingly helped helping me cheat. But it was the best move of all time because it never got caught the casinos never figured it out until I revealed it in the book. And through that, through that, Nick I became a what I'm doing now I became a consultant to casinos I now work for casinos all over the world, training them on how to protect themselves from people like me to make it short. I would bet $10,000 on the Roulette Wheel and chips if I won, I got paid if I lost I just took the bet back and they never saw so you
Nick VinZant 8:20
never got caught but this move the savannah like can you just kind of describe what is it like
Richard Marcus 8:25
this was a kiss move keep it simple, stupid. Which cuz you know, it's I always think when you're taking millions of dollars from them that you have something that's really sophisticated, it was actually the simplest move ever, you know, if you have a grandmother, a great grandmother or grandfather that's, you know, just in his or her 90s or hundreds, I could teach them the whole move in five seconds and take them into the casino and do it as long as they're capable of just lifting two chips off the auto layout and, and putting two chips down like making a bet. That's all it requires. And what it was is I would bet now this chip here this white chip represents $5,000. This red chip is $5. And in in most casinos in Las Vegas, the $5,000 chips and the $5 chips are the same size. So I would make the bet on on roulette, I would bet the $5,000 and $5 on top and the $5 chip on top would be jotted out slightly like this. So it's jutted out, pointing toward the dealer. Now when the dealer looks at it, the dealer sees that there is a $5 chip on top and also sees that there's a chip on the bottom, but the dealer cannot see the color of the chip on the bottom. Therefore, the dealer assumes that what what he or she is looking at is a bet of $10 It's they psychologically are manipulated into thinking that it's a $10 bet, okay? Because and they never step out of the box to like, you know, to look down at the BET, because it's all the way down at the bottom of the layout. So what's the bet actually, is the $5,005, just like that. So what happens? It's spent on an outside Column Bet, which pays two to one, there's three columns on the on the Roulette layout, where you bet each one page two to one there at the bottom of the layout. If one of my columns wins, I just go yes. I wonder bad? Yes, there it is. 10,000 bucks, winner, yes. Now the dealer doesn't know what the hell I'm talking about it was the dealer thinks that it's a $10 bet like this. But it's really a $5,005 bet. Like this, right? So they do what they do or thinks like, I'm some kind of not, what's this guy getting all excited about? He wants $10 or $20? To for one, right? But I have a $5,000 chip underneath there. And then finally, I have to say to the dealer look, look at it, because the deal was saying No, sir, you only have $10. So I said, Look, come down and look at it. I'm pointed to it like this, look at it, and then the deal would calm them down and look at it, and then boom, see it and they get bitten us? Because there's a $5 $5,000 chip sitting on there. It's a $10,000 payoff, and that's a huge payoff. Right? You know, and, and we only did this in, you know, heartbreak casinos where they had that kind of a maximum where you could bet up to 5000 and get paid 10,000. So the dealer would then tell the supervisor, look, the guy had a $5,000 chip onto there. And the supervisor would say like, Why didn't you call it out, because they have to alert the pit, to these big bets like that, before they spend the wall, but obviously the dealer, it's not calling out the best coach there. They wouldn't see it. So then they get suspicious and what to do, Nick, when they get suspicious, they call surveillance and surveillance couldn't run it, run it back. Right? And, and they can run it right back. And within seconds they can get they can see what happened, was it a legitimate bet or not. And they run it back. And sure enough, they see it's legitimate, that I made the bet well before the deal responsible, and they have to pay it, and $1,000. But what happens when I lose? Now, there's five, there's $5,005, over there, on the top of the wheel is my partner, and my partner is concentrating on the where the when and on what number the ball drops, and my partner being right on top of the wheel has actually a better angle on the wheel, I can actually see it, see where that ball drops a fraction of a second before the dealer does. So if he yells, shake your head or whatever, because people yell and scream in casinos all the time. That's my signal that I gotta take that off the layup, right? Because, you know, I'm not going to let them take that they take it that's $5,000 that are gone. Right? So and, and it's not like I had to go out and grab it and you know, do some kind of, you know, violent move to go get the chips back, all I had to do was sit very softly, just pick it off. Now you would think to deal with would catch me every time. But the dealer only actually saw me pick the chips up one of every five pipes. I mean, we kept records. So we know it's about 20% of the time, the deal would actually catch. So if the dealer didn't catch me, and I just gently picked up the bet. Right? And it disappeared in my pocket. Right? It was all over with, you know, they that's it, it's done. But when the dealer did catch me, right, it was like, they didn't react kindly because it's a flagrant violation when you pull off a losing bet, before they can take it and they they would say, hey, put that back. And then as soon as that happened, right, I would immediately I had a glass. Well, not a coffee cup. I would have a cocktail glass in my hand. And I would immediately go into a drunk routine like this. What happened? What would happen and the dealer is yelling and screaming, you know, put that backpack. Oh, so what do I put back? Do I put back the $5,000 bet with a $5 chip on top? No, I put back and dollars you know usually a supervisor or pit boss would come running into the pit because the deal was string on the pitfalls are to know why to deal with screen and the dealer explains Yeah, he tried to pick up his bat after it last. And I'm like this Hey, Mr. Popo, how's it going? What's up video we're gonna go out drinking after this comeback, I'm drinking with me, right? And it's only about $10. So they don't ever call surveillance to see what happened. They don't care. It's just $10. But when it winds when it wins, it's a legitimate bet.
Nick VinZant 15:16
But you could only do that though, once you won, you had you'd leave the table, you'd have to go to another place.
Richard Marcus 15:25
Absolutely, absolutely. Not only not only that, but even if the bet lost, I would have we would have to leave the casino, or at least at least come back on a different shift. Why? Because, let's say at, let's say some pit boss decided, or somebody in surveillance decided that after they ran the the captain the video back and they saw it was a legitimate bet, right? What happens if they decide? Well, let's see if this guy was in here. Before? How long has he been here? Right? Because it's still a suspicious thing that nobody saw the back at me. And then I figured out and I never gave them that chance. We were smart enough to know that one bet win or lose and we don't forget Vegas, you got 6070 casinos where you can do this.
Nick VinZant 16:10
Are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions?
Richard Marcus 16:13
Absolutely. So
Nick VinZant 16:16
easiest game to cheat at hardest game to cheat that
Richard Marcus 16:21
easiest game to chew that roulette. Because there's so many hands out there all the time. There's so many people betting. And most importantly, the, the angle between the angle and distance between the dealer and the artist player away in distance at the bottom of the wheel is greater than in any other Casino.
Nick VinZant 16:41
What about the hardest one what's
Richard Marcus 16:43
craps? Because you have it's a big table, but you have three employees on it, you have a stickman. And you have what's called a base deal, or on each side that that takes the dice, excuse me that pays the bets takes the bets and the stickman pushes the dice to the for the day shooter. And sometimes you're gonna have a box man who sits across from the set man and watches all the action. So and in order to the actual physicality of the moves are harder on a craft table than on any of any of the other games,
Nick VinZant 17:19
like what usually tips you off to achieve the acting
Richard Marcus 17:23
weird and doing strange things would apply to high tech cheating. Because they've got gadgets, and they've got a they've got to constantly test and touch their gadgets, especially around games like electronic roulette and slot machines. You know, that would that would be a giveaway on the regular standard cap table games, it would be very hard to detect before they do anything to cheating. Unless they're acting really nervous or they're craning their heads to see other people's cards. But what I teach is there are some real subtleties about how casino surveillance or even table games people can catch on to IT professional cheeky is by the way they bet the chips they have, they bet their chips in a certain way. So they do or to ever have to touch the chips, or have a second look at their chips. And the way they do that is by betting betting their chips always perfectly straight, and one on top of the other. Not slanted off like I was showing before we don't move perfectly straight. Because nobody bats that way. People when they're bending their chips, especially in games like roulette, when people are making multiple bets, they're betting on all the numbers, you know, they're moving around, and they don't pay attention to their bets, they just put the chips down and they don't care how they land. They don't care if they're in the center of the number or if they're not stacked up one on top of the other, but a professional casino GDP, they're all the series of bets that they make. And in roulette, a lot of bets are necessary in some of these advanced scams, that they they make sure if they make six or seven or eight bets on the Roulette layout, let's say six or seven numbers, their bets are always perfectly placed in the middle of the number which is in the middle of the box, and perfectly stacked one ship on the other. So I always say and the dealers are spending a lot of time on The Game fixing up all the messy bets on the layout, so they never touch or look at the bets that are perfectly placed. So I warn them, which kind of seems contradictory, but it's never nevertheless true. If you see somebody betting correctly, perfectly correctly 100% of the time over a series of bets call surveillance right away because you have a cheating team.
Nick VinZant 19:57
How How prevalent is cheating in it So, you know, is this something that's happening every day in every casino? Or is this something that is happening occasionally? Like, how prevalent?
Richard Marcus 20:08
Does it happen every day in a casino? Every casino that's, you know, got 30 or 40 or 50 tables or more? Yes. To the extent of what it happens of what cheating occurs? Is it major cheating? Is it something that could take the cheating for 1000s of dollars 90% 95% of the time, not that somebody's you know, maybe trying to add a quick $10 to their winning bet, or somebody trying to pull a losing bet off for $10. Much more common now than the actual cheating is what we call advantage play. Which means that intelligent people who gamble and will have the patience to look at certain games that that there could actually be a mathematical advantage to them, instead of to the house, like I'm sure you've heard of card counting. So now with all the gaming and the casinos going on, you know, more than ever more, more, more anywhere now in the United States and anywhere else. There's, there's, there's a big cheating scam going on somewhere, you know, every week for sure, like a major scam going on every week. Sure. But when you compare, you know, when you analyze that, taking into account of how many casinos there are, you know, it's it's not that much.
Nick VinZant 21:32
Do you think are more people doing it now than they have in the past? Yes.
Richard Marcus 21:36
More genius going on now. For a lot of reasons. One is when you talk about the advance, the advances in technology, the cheats, and a hacker isn't all that they they utilize it and adapt to new technology most fast, much faster than casino still. So and now the small time cheats, know that casinos are more interested in the big time hacking and technology so that they think well now we're just a little we're just little cheats in here looking for make, you know, a couple $100 a day. So they go in and they feel they have a better a better chance of avoiding getting caught because of the increase in overall cheat.
Nick VinZant 22:23
It's the last one did cheats, no other cheats? Like did you know other people? Oh,
Richard Marcus 22:29
he's low. It absolutely did. Uh, we were, like I said before, we cheated every game, but we really liked to work let the most and we would travel the world. So if we're in Reno, Nevada, one weekend, and we're playing roulette. And we noticed a couple of guys in the Bahamas. A week later, who were also on the wheel on the left table while we were in Reno, Nevada. You get very suspicious. And then if you see him two weeks later in London on a roulette wheel, you know, their work, you know, they're doing stuff. You know, they're not they're not just traveling around. Damn. Right. So what one, one really great story is, I'll tell you very quickly is we were in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. And we were on our we were on the roulette table. I say on the wheel, I mean on the Roulette. So we were on the wheel getting ready to pass false $100 Chip straight up on a number underneath the dolly. You know, when when you when the dealer Yeah, see, so would they put a dolly on top of it, right? So we were there to put $100 underneath that Dolly, after we already know what the number was to get paid 3500, right. And we're all ready to do the move. And at the right time when the when the mechanic that's the person who switches the chips or puts in more chips. At the at the moment of truth on the mechanic when our mechanic is getting is preparing to do the move, his hand shoots out, shoots out to where the chips are like this to try and switch on right. And then another hand shot out from the other direction and the two hands collided like this and the chips went flying all over the place. Right. In other words, the the our mechanics Han and another hand collided. And the dolly went flying and the chips went flying. And it was a it was an embarrassing, but we know who that we know. We knew what they were doing and they knew what we were doing which was basically the same thing. So the guy Joe who was my mentor and all this, he had the immediate presence of mine so immediately spill a drink all over a layout to get everybody's attention off what happened and create chaos until nobody really even complained about it. The deal never said anything about it. So we cleaned it off. But then we had a problem because we Do we had another team working in in Lake Tahoe while we were and we were getting in each other's way. So we had to settle this somehow. So we left the table, they left the table, we started walking around looking for them, they started walking around looking for us. And we met up with up and another casino in a bar. And it turned out, they were from Italy. And most of the professional passports thing, or relationships are Italians. And the difference between our analysis in Italy it's a generational thing. And most and most of the professional casino cheating thieves in Italy, mafia people are actually part of mafia families. Yeah, we, we knew that. So you know, we had to be careful with these guys. So make the long story short, we made a truce with them. We were at the time on the south shore of Lake Tahoe, there were only four casinos to on one side of the street to on the other side of the street, we made a truce with them, that's okay, you guys stay here. And you guys, and we stay here and we don't get in each other's way. And it was fine. And then three years, you know, for the next 10 or 15 years, every time we ran into them. We ran into them several times, like six or seven times, we would we would sit down and forth. And we would discuss Okay, you guys can have these casinos. And we'll take these casinos. And and you know, besides them over the years, you know, I recognized other people's cheating other professionals. But you know, you know, I see, I see, you know, amateur cheats all the time. But now I also don't want to cover work for casinos looking for cheats. And I see these amateur cheats all the time that are just taking a shot for 20 bucks, 50 bucks or something like that. I see them all the time. And once in a while I will I see. professional team that I know can do that.
Nick VinZant 26:54
Did you ever feel bad about it?
Richard Marcus 26:58
Absolutely not. You know what, Nick, after a while, because I said in the beginning of the show, I said that I was a degenerate gambler, which was really what led me to cheat. And even in the first years of cheating, I would go out and make 20 $25,000 in a night cheating. And then I would go gamble it three hours after I finish shooting and lose it all and then go back to the cheating. And it became like a like a cycle. I was I was cheating, risking my s cheating. This happened for six months. Whatever I made, I just went gambled and then because I always knew I could cheat. So you know, I finally learned to stop that and I finally started keep money. So we made so once I started to keep the money, I accumulated a lot of money quickly. And then after a couple of years, to be honest, it became more about the adrenaline. It was so much fun. You know, it was just so much fun. It was like David against Goliath, right? But it was it was just, it was just, you know, what, all their equipment, all their cameras, all their surveillance, all the security. And we just went in there with with balls, just you know, pull their pants down and stole their money. You know, it was it was it was just like the adrenaline rush. You got off that. And I people ask you that question all the time. You know, do you you know? Do you regret what you're doing? Do what you did, and I'm never gonna I'm not gonna bullshit people say, oh, yeah, you know, now, you know, I I found Jesus or somebody and I realized, you know, I did something wrong, Elena, I loved it. The best part of my life was Casino.
Nick VinZant 28:43
That's all the questions I guys anything, anything that we missed? Or how can people get a hold of you? I know you mentioned a book, what's the name of it? Where can people find
Richard Marcus 28:50
the name of the book is American roulette. In the UK and Europe, it's called The Great casino heist. And the easiest way to get it it's right on Amazon, or any other online bookseller. And it's, it's really an entertaining story. And my website is now called global table games. protection.com global table games protection.com.
Nick VinZant 29:19
I want to thank Richard so much for joining us if you want to connect with him. We have linked to him on our social media sites. We're Profoundly Pointless on tik, Tok, Instagram and YouTube. And we've also included his information in the episode description if you want to see some of the tricks that he does, because while he's talking about the savannah move, he's actually demonstrating it so if you want to see that the YouTube version of this interview will be live on February 22 at 12:30pm Pacific. Okay, now let's bring in John Shaw and get to the point pointless part of the show? Have you ever told a really big lie? Like something that would get you fired? Or ruin a relationship or something like that? No,
John Shull 30:11
I'm a pretty honest person. I don't I don't think I've told the lie that is that bad? No.
Nick VinZant 30:17
Okay, on a scale of one to 10, with 10 being the worst and one being like the least. How big of a lie? Would you say that you've told?
John Shull 30:26
Probably five, maybe six.
Nick VinZant 30:28
I've never told a lie that would get me like straight up fired. But I've told a couple that if like there was an accumulation, they would probably fire me. When
John Shull 30:38
I talk to somebody. I feel like they're almost as lying anyways. Like, why would someone tell me the truth about something?
Nick VinZant 30:47
Oh, yeah, I would say that probably. At least half of what people say is probably some sort of lie or an exaggeration. How many
John Shull 31:00
lies a day do you think you you tell a day? Probably
Nick VinZant 31:04
less than five? I would say I tell less than five lies slash exaggeration. A day's? Yeah. And probably mainly zero, or one, but usually less than five. How about you?
John Shull 31:17
I mean, for instance, you know, say or, you know, you're getting your morning coffee somewhere. And the person goes, how are you this morning? And you go fine, good. When you really just want to go? And I'm not okay. I've had a shaved morning. Yeah,
Nick VinZant 31:30
but there's most of the time when I lie to somebody, it's a lie of convenience. So that like, I don't have to deal with a situation that doesn't really matter. Right. Like, like you said, like, how are you doing? Well, pretty bad. Actually pretty low today. But yeah, just be like, I'm doing good. Just because I don't want to have that conversation.
John Shull 31:50
But like, what if we What if you start a trend, that for the next week? You answer those questions, honestly, I wonder what what reactions you would get from people that probably like, Oh, God didn't ask for this?
Nick VinZant 32:04
Oh, I think that society has to have a certain level of bullshit in order to operate smoothly. Like we've all got to kind of lie to each other. In order for all of this to work, I would actually make an argument that not only do we have to have a certain level of BS, we have to have a pretty high level of BS.
John Shull 32:23
But do you have to have a good BS detector? I think it's more important.
Nick VinZant 32:28
No, not really, I don't think so. I think people are pretty good at telling when somebody's telling when someone's lying to them about something important. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that, in order for society to operate, functionally 75 to 80%, of everything that we do has to just be BS.
John Shull 32:49
Wow, that is a I mean, we could really break it down to one and spend the entire hour talking about this. But
Nick VinZant 32:57
But think about it in this way, right? Like, how many times do you ask somebody how they're doing, or have a conversation that you're really not interested in? Or do a job that you really don't care about and pretend like that's important, or do other things that like, Oh, this is really big deal? We got to really focus and like, No, you really don't.
John Shull 33:15
On a daily basis, we do less things of importance that actually matter than we think now if that's lying, or an over exaggeration. I don't know if I know the difference. But I definitely think I agree with you to some extent. I just don't know if you're flying as included in that.
Nick VinZant 33:31
Yeah, I don't know if I would go so far as to say it's a lie. But I think that you kind of have to just put up with a certain amount of BS I asked the audience. Have you ever told a really big lie? How many people do you think have said said yes. How many people do you think said no? Oh,
John Shull 33:46
I would say it's an eight out of 10. Right? Or, you know, eight to eight out of 10 ratio probably at 20. That I've told the big lie. 62%
Nick VinZant 33:54
said yes. 40% said no, I would have thought it would be a little bit higher. No, that people have always said a big lie. But then again, they might be lying about the fact that they've never told a
John Shull 34:05
really big lie. They Might Be Lying about the fact of the choice they make on the pool. That's what you're saying.
Nick VinZant 34:11
I think that you do have to just accept the fact that all of life is a certain amount of Bs, and then you just move on. And if you can't accept that, you're never really going to be happy.
John Shull 34:21
Here's the thing, if everyone was if honestly, it was just naturally born into our, you know, way that we look at life or act in life, then it wouldn't be one of the best traits we talk about. Alright, let's get to some shout outs. All right, Jeremy Foley, and then Frosinone and I know I screwed up that last name terribly, but whatever. I like Evans, so that so that's why it's in there. Sean Conley, Caden Berg. Don't hear a lot of Caden's out Alfonso Chavez, Matt Teague, Ricky Rick, that can be real. Or maybe it is Jonathan Alexander quarry, Midland Luigi, Misa din. I like Luigi, right.
Nick VinZant 35:16
Yeah, that's a good name. You don't really hear it that much because you're gonna get too much crap.
John Shull 35:22
Jack Heaton. And we're gonna end here with just a simple old, good old American name of Ben Thomas.
Nick VinZant 35:30
Who do you generally like more Shawn sh a wn or Sean S E A N. Oh, all right.
John Shull 35:43
I'm going to say it's from personal experience. I'll go with s HAWNU. Like an
Nick VinZant 35:49
sh a wn. Shawn more than an S E A N Shawn.
John Shull 35:53
Yeah, I think so.
Nick VinZant 35:56
I don't I don't know if I agree with that. I don't know if I would agree with that. My name is Sha Sha
John Shull 36:03
wn.
Nick VinZant 36:04
Okay. To me though. I would say that S E A N Shan does seem a little bit more shifty than an sh a wn. Shawn.
John Shull 36:15
But or you could have an S H A UN. The burly blow your doors off. No, I
Nick VinZant 36:21
don't think that that that's that's just too much. That's doing too much. What's up, man? My four year old just came in Riley say Hi, Uncle John. Hi. You got candy your mouth? We got
John Shull 36:37
all right, let's see I got 10 things here for you do rapid fire. I'm still trying to think of a good like title. But no one has a good title for this. I just I'm
Nick VinZant 36:47
just impressed that you have gone from basically like a two minute introduction of this to getting it down to like, under 45 seconds. Like eventually you're just gonna get to it. You're not a man who gets to the point.
John Shull 37:00
Which is funny because I feel like that's all my job is is quick decisions of getting to the point but yeah, you're right. I do like to tell a good story and can
Nick VinZant 37:09
elaborate for you. Anyways, details. Alright,
John Shull 37:13
so picked out 10 random ass things. Nick's gonna give us first thoughts on them. And we'll see if I cut them off and keep moving on here to make this quick and expedited. Alright, for First off. High beams.
Nick VinZant 37:26
Oh, I love high beams. I love a chance to put on my high beams. It's awesome. I love it.
John Shull 37:33
For those of you that may not know what high beams are. They're basically your bright lights on your headlights. And I'm gonna go the opposite way around. So they're quite annoying. And I'm not even entirely sure that they should even be on vehicles. But that's just me. Oh, it's
Nick VinZant 37:46
essential. You're not a man who grew up in the Midwest. I grew up in Kansas and you would put on your high beams at least once a week because there wasn't that many people on now. I miss it. I miss not being able to put on the high beams. Blind people.
John Shull 38:00
Well, this holiday just happened. But Presidents Day.
Nick VinZant 38:06
What is that? Why is that a holiday? I mean, I'm grateful for having the holiday off. I like it. But I'm always like, which one are we celebrating? We hear about them enough. They got enough credit. Okay.
John Shull 38:18
Alright, Pop Tarts. Heated or not?
Nick VinZant 38:23
I will eat them cold that appear laziness, but they do taste better heated. I'd rather heat them up in general, I would rather heat things up.
John Shull 38:31
I said this to somebody the other day they didn't believe me. I don't think I've ever taken the time or been presented with a pop tart out of a toaster oven.
Nick VinZant 38:43
Oh, you got to try it. It's fantastic. It's it's better. I'm not going to go ahead and say it's that much better. The problem is it's good enough cold that you're like I don't feel like I feel like to have this.
John Shull 38:56
Alright, gloves without fingers. Why
Nick VinZant 39:00
I'm an adult. Mittens should be banned past the age of 10. You don't mittens past the age of 10. So suck it up. Unless you're climbing Everest or you're under the age of 10. You should have gloves with fingers. Show me somebody wearing mittens. I'm gonna show you an idiot I don't like use your damn hands. Because then you gotta you as an adult have to use your hands too much to be wearing mittens and then you got to take them off. You got to put something else on so wasted time you're an adult get rid of the mittens.
John Shull 39:39
Just for the record. I don't agree with you but I'm gonna keep moving.
Nick VinZant 39:42
How many pairs of mittens do you have there? mitten man.
John Shull 39:45
I actually don't have a pair of mittens. I'm not against mittens like you though.
Nick VinZant 39:49
I'm against him. I firmly anti mitten.
John Shull 39:53
I'm okay with me. Like I'm okay with mittens. I'm not. I actually think a you know whether you are interested in men or Women, I think that your partner can look very cute and a pair of mittens.
Nick VinZant 40:04
Oh, so your wife has mittens and you like it?
John Shull 40:07
Yeah, she wears nice little hat like goes along with the mittens. It's a cute little look on her.
Nick VinZant 40:11
I'll accept that women can wear mittens. Men cannot wear men's men cannot wear mittens. Men should not have mittens. Throw them out. Okay.
John Shull 40:27
Sorry, I wasn't expecting to go off like that on that one. All right, coming back here. Car air fresheners.
Nick VinZant 40:32
I've never had one. I've never had a car air freshener. If you have a bunch of car. If you have a bad bunch of air fresheners in your vehicle, you are telling me that you do not maintain either your hygiene or your cars cleanliness. All right, Valentine's
John Shull 40:45
Day. Chocolates. Valentine's
Nick VinZant 40:49
Day is the biggest sham holiday. Nobody wants to be doing this. Men, women, whatever. Nobody wants to be doing this. But you also can't be the one person who doesn't do it. So we've all got to go along. Have you
John Shull 41:04
ever been in that situation where you are the person who fails on Valentine's Day? No,
Nick VinZant 41:11
although I have had relationships in which the girlfriend or wife drawn if you're listening didn't wish me a happy Valentine's Day. And I was a little upset about it. I was a little hurt.
John Shull 41:26
Were you a little hurt a little bit?
Nick VinZant 41:29
Only because I did something and they did it. Right. It'd be like any, but I think that's the same thing.
John Shull 41:33
All right. Q tips. Oh, I
Nick VinZant 41:37
love them. I use a Q tip in my ears pretty much every day, I'm gonna go ahead and say that the feeling of putting a Q tip in your ear is second to if not better, than having relations of a physical nature. That feeling of getting like whoa, I would almost like it's closed. Now. I've been married for 10 years. So I've you know, I've been there. I've rounded the bases many a time. And if somebody was like, would you rather round the bases are cleaning your ears with a Q tip when they're itchy? Oh, I might just clean out my ears with a Q tip when they're itchy. It's better than sex.
John Shull 42:15
Man there is like if you have a little bit of wax buildup in there and you get like where you go around a couple of times, but it kind of like you said kind of itches in there who? Who give me the goose pimples? Do you say goose bumps or goose pimples? What do you say
Nick VinZant 42:31
goose bumps because I'm a normal person that I've met if I had those pimples, if I sound like we've got a terrible thing log in. That
John Shull 42:40
would be the poll that I asked. That's what I know. That's fine. All right, getting getting to the end of the list here. Animals held in captivity, like animals at SeaWorld.
Nick VinZant 42:55
I don't like it when they're at an amusement park. I don't like it when it's there. I think that there's something that's a little bit off about that. But I think being in a zoo, is maybe that's not the best thing. But I also think that it raises awareness for the animal as a whole. I'm not going to use the word necessarily evil. But I'm going to go ahead and say that like look that raises awareness about that animal and probably does a lot for protecting the animal overall, but I don't really think that they should be at theme parks. That's a little bit like hey, wait a minute. How did you Why is this here?
John Shull 43:29
I agree with you. i This is probably an unpopular thought. But I think zoos are actually good. Because I think it gives people who can't go on safaris you know can't go underwater. And look at sharks you know, in, in in non zoo settings. It gives you a respect of the animal that's safe for you. And the animal so I'm I'm all in on zoos. I like zoos. I
Nick VinZant 43:54
like zoos. I think it's probably overall a good thing.
John Shull 43:58
All right, last last thing here face cream.
Nick VinZant 44:02
Oh, you got to moisturize man. You got to take care of skin.
John Shull 44:04
Do you face cream course? Of course.
Nick VinZant 44:09
I don't know the difference between face cream is the same as moisturizer but I'm gonna put on some sunscreen and moisturizer. I put on sunscreen every day. Even if we're not going outside.
John Shull 44:18
Are you? Are you serious?
Nick VinZant 44:20
Yeah. Why wouldn't you?
John Shull 44:21
You put sunscreen on when you're not even going?
Nick VinZant 44:25
It comes in the little thing you can get like lotion with sunscreen and I put on some lotion after I get out of the shower.
John Shull 44:32
Okay, okay that I okay that's why the like this.
Nick VinZant 44:35
That's why I look like this and I'm 65
John Shull 44:39
You're gonna have skin like a leather belt.
Nick VinZant 44:42
Yeah, right main moisturize your face. Take care of yourself. I don't understand that. I think that this was the thing you and I are old enough to remember when like being a metro sexual was an insult. Like what are you doing over there taking off and putting on sunscreen? That's weird putting on sunscreen. Have you run in taking care of your heart? Like you're getting their hair cut? Like, remember that? It's
John Shull 45:08
quite incredible to see. You know, the change of thought the thought process of people from that time to even where we are now like, you know if you're if you're not mid 30s, early 40s If you're much younger, you know it's wasn't always like
Nick VinZant 45:26
that remembered I forgot completely about that. How you would be people will be like, Look at this metrosexual comb in his hair. Yeah.
John Shull 45:35
Well, I remember even if you were a boy and you use hairspray, you would get picked on for hairspray. Like,
Nick VinZant 45:42
oh, yeah, but I remember being made fun of his like, Look at your hair. You got hair? Jelena like no, I don't. It's just hair. Okay. Is that your thing?
John Shull 45:51
That's it. Let's move on.
Nick VinZant 45:53
So our top five is top five best excuses. Whether it's a personal thing, work thing. Top five best excuses. What's your number five.
John Shull 46:05
So number five is pretty bad. I mean, a lot of mine are pretty basic. But this one's really basic. And that's just having some kind of appointments that pops up the morning of the day of work as if you don't schedule appointments, weeks out most times, you know, and we have all the ample things now a calendar on your phone, everything else to let you know ahead of time. But I always love when people are like, Yeah, I have a doctor's appointment. Like in 10 minutes. I'm not gonna be able to come in today.
Nick VinZant 46:35
That's a good one. I always like the last second doctor's appointment. My number five is computer issues. Let's call him having computer problems.
John Shull 46:46
I think that is basically a work from home problem now but you know, because I just go into the office then.
Nick VinZant 46:55
Yeah, we haven't computer problems man gotta fix it here. Can't get my login. Computer issues are a great things like all the downloads not working had to read down like all computer had to restart. That's why I was 20 minutes late to this meeting. Number four.
John Shull 47:13
Like those like a family member getting sick, or ill, but it's like your employer or your boss or your co workers have no idea who that family member is like all my Aunt Sarah got into a serious car accident. I gotta go visit her in Indianapolis. I'm going to be gone for three days.
Nick VinZant 47:30
Like my cousin's best friends, former roommate, my minor four simply I forgot. Because I don't think people can really argue with you that much. You're like, Look, I just forgot. Like, well, I forgotten stuff too. Like he kind of it's kind of over. It's like somebody's saying that they're sorry. It's kind of done. Like, see,
John Shull 47:49
I don't have that one. Or like that I overslept on here. Because to me, those, those aren't really excuses because I get it. Like I get it on 100% Because we've all we've all done it no matter what stage you are as a professional or what you do. You know, you've either have overslept, you know, or you just have forgotten like it happens. Okay, number three. So this might be like a region specific thing, but it's always on days where we're gonna get snow or rain, or something where someone always goes, Yeah, I'm not gonna be able to make it in weather's bad. And then you look up like where they live. And it's like, Tony, you do have power. I'm looking at your house right now. And it says you have power. No, I really don't have power. Right? You want to work today?
Nick VinZant 48:38
Car trouble is a really good one. Car trouble could be a really good one. I didn't put it on the list. But car trouble should be on the Honor mention. Mine's a little bit related to that. My number three is traffic. Traffic's bad. Nobody in a big city is going to argue with you about traffic.
John Shull 48:53
They listen so as so as I've told people before that have told me that I said, Okay. Well, you get here when you get here. And then you can just hear the deflation in their voice like, like, they want you to say, okay, don't worry about coming in, then just go and turn around. Like, you know what, we'll see you tomorrow, like, no, if you're already in the car, get your butt to work.
Nick VinZant 49:13
My number two, I think is the best sick excuse that you can have, which is stomach. Because everybody knows that that's like that can happen at anytime. You're generally pretty sick, and you can also recover from it pretty quickly. It's like the perfect illness is a staggering stomach bug. Because that can be like 12 hours, and
John Shull 49:34
you'll find out what goes on my number one not to cut you off. My number one is pretty much the same thing. But it's more specific. And that's food poisoning. All
Nick VinZant 49:43
food poisoning is a great one. Right?
John Shull 49:45
You don't feel better now. And you can't really prove it right? You can't you know, it comes in and goes pretty quick. And it's just like, you know, first of all, why are you call you you're supposed to start in 10 minutes. You sound like you just woke up or you've been throwing up for the last three ours, get the fuck out of here. John,
Nick VinZant 50:02
is it Aryan who has heard many excuses in his life? I don't know why you didn't put this in. But I think this is the ultimate excuse and possibly a reason for having them in the first place. I could justify it solely. I know, you're gonna say, Yeah, Kid kids, kids are the best excuse you could ever have. Maybe justifying having kids. Because if you tell someone with kids, that your kids are the reason you can't do something that is the end of that conversation, and there's no questions being asked.
John Shull 50:26
So actually, that's one of my few honorable mentions as kids, I didn't put it on the list, strictly because that is probably the only reason why I call in sick or don't show up to work are my kids, like, I get it? If you have kids, I mean, it's not an excuse. Kids ruin everything, and their disease vectors. And it's just yeah, they, if you have seven sick days for the year, you're gonna use seven of them on kids alone.
Nick VinZant 50:54
What's on your honorable mention?
John Shull 50:57
So these two are really hyper specific, but in my time of working as professional, I swear that I've heard these will say three I'll break the one down into two but back injuries back and shoulder injuries specifically. Like it's hard to argue against those.
Nick VinZant 51:16
Yeah, I can't really argue with back I would agree with that, like hurt my back.
John Shull 51:20
And then it's and then it's always like house issues like my furnace went out, or my basement flooded. I'm
Nick VinZant 51:27
perfectly okay with people lying to me about not coming to work. You have anything in your auto mentioned, the only thing I had would be car trouble. Okay, that's gonna go ahead and do it for this episode of Profoundly Pointless. I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, leave us a quick review. We really appreciate it. It really helps us out and let us know what you think are some of the best excuses. I really think kids are the ultimate excuse because there's just no questions afterwards. But let us know what you think are some of the best excuses out there.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai