In today's episode, you'll hear how to get to financial independence via Blackjack (wait, what?). Yep, that's right. Cody and Justin are joined by Colin Jones from Blackjack Apprenticeship. Colin got an education in mathematics and started out as a teacher. A buddy introduced him to card counting and changed his financial path forever. He turned a couple thousand dollars he and his wife had saved and tried his hand at the card tables. That small amount of seed money would lead to millions in earnings, a team of prolific card counters, a documentary and his website where he looks to train the next great card counters. Listen and read below to hear this incredible story. Episode Summary Colin's upbringing led him to be frugal He really just wanted to be in a band and wasn't interested in college His parents urged him to go He decided he'd rather go to school than go out on his own Colin ended up studying mathematics which was a great foundation to card counting When he was 22 a friend gave him a book about card counting to win at blackjack Colin then talks about his practice schedule went After his friend started ramping up his earnings to $80 an hour, Colin decided to give it a real try He took $2k of the $6k he and his wife had saved to seed his efforts For the first few months, he wasn't really making much His friend got picked up by a national card counting team Then, later on, that same friend transferred all that knowledge to him and that really upped his game After a bit, they realized they could make $200+ per hour if they had $100k in money to play with For his career-high, he earned $434 dollars per hour It took them 6 months of 30 hour weeks to get to six figure earnings After a couple years they had formed a team that was making $500k per year Colin opens up about how his profession was viewed by his family which were missionaries Then Colin talks about the legality of card counting at a casino Spoiler alert: it's perfectly legal Colin also gives us a brief overview of how card counting works One interesting thing is Colin has never put money into the stock market He prefers to invest in real estate and grow his online business His online business is Blackjack Apprenticeship The site has online forums, software, and training videos to help you learn card counting yourself On top of that, he does three or four live events where he helps polish fellow card counters' skills Colin signs off by challenging everyone to question why they want to be financially independent Key Takeaways Money can be made everywhere: This is just another example of the limitless ways you can earn money in today's world. Easy money is hard: Colin can repeatedly walk into a casino and earn money but it took countless hours of hard work and practice. Tombstones: We absolutely loved his statement about the goal isn't to have financially independent on your tombstone. Life is bigger than that. Call to Action Write out five things you envision you'll do in retirement and then elaborate on why you actually want to do those things Join the Community We’d love to hear your comments and questions about this week’s episode. Here are some of the best ways to stay in touch and get involved in The FI Show community! Sign up for our exclusive newsletter Join our Facebook Group Leave us a voicemail Send an email to contact [at] TheFIshow [dot] com If you like what you hear, please leave a rating/review! The FI show on iTunes The FI show on Android   Connect with Colin: Via his website Blackjack Apprenticeship Also, check out his book 21st Century Cardcounter Documentary Snippet   Learn More About Your Hosts: Fly to FI (Cody’s Blog) Saving-Sherpa (Justin’s blog)