Scarne on Cards

My parents bought this book for me in the mid-70s ... apparently they believed I had potential to be a gambler or loved card games, or both.

Turns out I enjoy statistics. And this book had a story in it that resonated with me in the 70s and the story sticks with me in my day job in 2025.

The author talked about playing a poker game in a casino. Each of six players starts with $100 (the specifics are likely different). At the end of each hand, the dealer would take $2 from the pot as the "house cut", the winner earned everything else. After fifty hands, $100 has been removed from the players. After one-hundred-and-fifty hands $300 has been removed from the players, leaving just $300. Assuming everybody had equal odds of winning, it meant that each player had $50 of their original $100. Everybody was losing money. If somebody was winning, it meant other players were broke.

His advice? Don't play games where the house gets a consistent and repeatable cut. You can't win. 

There are times when I look at the profit-and-loss statement of a brand and this story comes to mind. You know the company, they spend 25% of net sales on marketing expenses. Those are dollars going out of the pot, a cut to the house (Google, Facebook, etc). They get money, Shopify gets money, Listrak gets money, your favorite AI vendor is about to get a slice of your pie. In the catalog ecosystem, it's worse, because everybody in the e-commerce ecosystem gets a cut PLUS the paper people get a cut, your printer gets a cut, the USPS gets a cut, your boutique catalog agency gets a cut.

Is it any wonder that I tell you that you need ORGANIC orders, orders that don't happen because of marketing ... and when I tell you that the vendor ecosystem comes-a-fightin'???? They're the casino when the 1-800 number tells the gambler to stop gambling!

I'm not stupid (on this topic). You have no choice but to develop clever stuff that doesn't cost anything. That's your job! That's how your p&l works. That's how ownership keeps things going. That's how your Executive Team earn bonuses. That's how your Manager and Director make a credible living. That's how the analyst gets enough experience to eventually work in a Leadership role. 

Profit funds everything.

Think about it this way. You have a $50,000,000 brand that employs 125 people ... 75 of 'em are essentially earning $35,000 a year and the remaining 50 earn an average of $100,000. Multiply that out and it's around $7,600,000 in salary. If your brand is paying 25% of net sales in advertising costs, it means the vendors figured out how to get $12,500,000 while the actual employees ... the very ones who pay the vendors ... are only getting $7,600,000.

On what planet should your "trusted partners" earn 60%+ more than your employees earn? You're the one paying THEM!!!

Your job is to generate ORGANIC orders, orders that happen without the aid of marketing / advertising. Your co-workers depend on you to do that. So does ownership.