Phil Hellmuth is using apps to win more money

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The only card player who could make more money than poker legend Phil Hellmuth is himself — or so it seems.

But don’t expect the out-of-work Canadian to say, “Good riddance!” to the once-famous “Moneymaker” anymore. Hellmuth, who taught every one of his kids to play poker, has endorsed a new off-site leaderboard that allows players to earn points for buying into poker tournament sites.

The Moneymaker Effect? “I have such different levels. I have severe PD, which means paralyzed at random in some gaming. If you’re playing American Poker Tour, you’re a walking Ponzi scheme, and you’re in the exact same situation,” Hellmuth, 42, told CNNTech in an interview.

His students of more than a dozen years, including some of the industry’s top professionals, were among the first to download the tool and enter their information. But it hasn’t always been an easy win. He explains: “If I get rid of so much bad intelligence out there, I can’t afford to waste as much time by reading emails and notes that people share with them.”

Still, Hellmuth, who counts Bill Gates among his influences, says he’s found that by using the app, he can trade from a position of strength to better compete with those chasing his Watson bracketed pot.

The app lets players earn points for each time they enter a tournament into a competitors site such as P2P Poker, P2P Sport or ito Trivial Pursuit — which are all in the running for the “biggest poker app” designation that will be determined at the end of this year.

To get those points, players need to visit a tournament website, enter their desired tournament and watch a video to decide if it’s the right one for them. The app also has a special link, if a player already has an account, that allows them to skip the competition-evaluation video.

“There is no other resource out there that will do what I’m doing,” says Hellmuth, who debuted his app with his personal sponsorship from gambling stock Chumash Casino Resort in Santa Ynez, California.

Hellmuth’s points earn you “seed”— the first thousand points equals a double seed — which will then give you access to the players’ archives.

At some point during the year, Hellmuth says, every one of his students will be involved in a tournament, “and after playing over a thousand games this year, the average success rate is 30%.” After a while, he says, you get to a “healthy level of PRAI” — severe at random — “and finally when you hit it, you’re a contender.”

Hellmuth says that he’s about “80% ahead in play right now,” as of July 23 — his deadline to be crowned “Moneymaker” of P2P Poker. But he says that despite dominating the app’s leaderboard for “many weeks now,” he’s only been “99% or 100% successful” in all his competitive picks. “That’s my goal,” he says.

Hellmuth, a former Canadian Drug Enforcement Agency investigator and ex-superintendent for Toronto police, has co-authored several books on gambling. His latest, written with former Bingo World employee Ashlee Payne, is called “Skrugging: Cash, Counter-Strike, and the Transformational Technologies that Are Taking a State’s Lottery to Court.”

Hellmuth says he doesn’t keep a gambling addiction close at hand. “I think everybody is born with the ability to process finances. I try to use my analytical abilities to amass enough money to meet the basic needs of my family.”

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