The scenery is amazing out there this time of year, We should all donate to a fund to keep tracer on these runs because the story of getting there is always enthralling. Maybe I'm bored, but I look forward to the posts from these runs.

BTW, the mountains are pretty in those pictures, but that lotlizard really lacks something!:rofl:

Yeah, I thought all Canadians had beards like Grizzly Adams????? Your slackin Tracer LOL

What were you rigging? What kind of a job was this?

Sounds like oilfield work. Lots of guys I have known missing teeth,fingers,eyes,limbs,etc from the oil patch.

I left the TA in Tooele, NV at 6 am local time, when it was still pitch dark and headed west on I-80. It was cold but because the interstate ran parallel to some spooky frozen lake, a dense fog hang in the air. I drove cautiously and noticed there was a truck behind me and the driver was cautious too. He passed me only when the fog disappeared and it became light. The truck was a Peterbilt and he was pulling 2 short single-axle pup trailers with the FEDEX logo on the side. I drove at 59 MPH; the Pete did close to 75, but over the next 100 miles he had to pass me 3 more times!

When we got across into Nevada, the flat terrain was replaced by big hills. Even though I was driving much slower I was catching up to the Pete in the middle of each big grade even though he was almost a mile ahead of me BEFORE the hill. I didn't want to pass him, I climbed the hill in Gear 7 keeping the RPM between 1200 and 1300. But the guy was doing 25 MPH going up!

When he passed me for the third time on the flat ground, I saw the driver reach for the CB mike, so I turned my CB on and said, "What's that?" The driver of the Pete said, "See you at the next hill." At this point we were both laughing and I asked him what the problem with his truck was. Because his trailers were single axle, he shouldn't have had more weight than me. He said the truck belonged to a contractor he drove for, and this contractor didn't want him to drive too fast? Which didn't make much sense because he WAS driving pretty fast on the flat ground. The driver said the truck had 1,000,000 miles on the odometer, so maybe that was the problem.

After he passed me for the last time I saw a Flying J truck stop and pulled off the highway to get a bite to eat. I hadn't seen that Pete again.

I got lucky with the time: there was a time zone change when I was a few hours away from Golconda, NV and now I was on the Pacific time... This gave me one more hour and I took Exit 194 off I-80 around noon. My directions told me to follow the local highway north but the road I saw ran back east - parallel to I-80! I looked in the distance and saw the highway in question did turn to the north a few miles back east. I followed it for 12 miles and then the pavement ended and a dirt road began. I was afraid it'd be full of potholes but actually it was quite decent. It looked like a very old asphalt pavement and in a couple of spots I think I even saw some markings.

After 15 miles on this dirt highway among open fields and big hills, I finally came to a security post with a couple of gates. No mine or office in sight. There were some smoke stacks on the horizon, but nothing more than that. A sign pointed to a 3' by 3' booth and it said, "All visitors register here". I parked the truck and stepped inside this unmanned 'telephone booth'... The instructions on the wall told me to read the Safety booklet and take a 1 page test on the safety procedures. Then I was to call a number from the phone on the mini-desk which I did and I reached Security. They asked me for my Bill of Lading number and then told me they were sending an escort to take me down to the mine.

I sat in the truck for 10-15 minutes and then a dusty Ford F-150 with a 10 ft whip and a red flag on the end of it showed up. I remembered the Safety booklet I had just read said all light vehicles driving inside the property were to have these flat whips... It also said all traffic behind the gate was left-handed and I wasn't quite sure what that meant.

Until my escort who was driving ahead of me started edging towards the LEFT shoulder leaving the right hand side of the road open. What the heck? I kept to the right not sure what was going on... Then I saw him look at me in the rear view mirror and what I read in the booklet just clicked LEFT-HAND TRAFFIC!!! Holy smokes, they were not kidding :)

It felt weird driving on the left especially when other vehicles were coming towards me on the 'wrong' side of the road. I relaxed when I saw they were indeed staying on their side and didn't seem to drift into my lane :)

It was another few miles behind the F-150 escort and finally I was at the warehouse. A cute girl in her 20ies rolled out of the roll-up door on a huge forklift and proceeded to unload the 8 skids from truck. She was wearing safety boots, a hard hat over a girl style multi-color hat with tie-down strings, and safety goggles. When I told here the load came from Quebec, Canada some 3,000 miles away, she said, "Cool!" I don't think she actually knew where Quebec was because when she was done unloading me she asked, "Are you driving back to Canada tonight?" :)

I called the Landstar agent to say I had delivered the load and the last thing I had to do in relation to this 3,000 mi 'project' was to scan the signed bill of lading, the customs invoice and the IFTA mile report and then email them to Landstar. If everything is okay with the paperwork, I should get paid for this trip next Wednesday.

It WAS a long trip. I looked at the IFTA report and check out how many states I crossed:

State Miles
NL 562
NS 259
NB 239
QC 492
ON 460
MI 276
IN 47
IL 157
IA 308
NE 458
WY 404
UT 198
NV 245

That's 4,105 miles from the drop in St. John's NL to Mont-Joli QC and then to the consignee in the middle of nowhere, 30 miles north-east of Golconda, NV. Is this an exciting job or what?

Graintrain, I think you need either stronger glasses or stronger medication, or possibly both ROTFL

That wasn't a frozen lake...it was salt flats.

Aha ... that's why I saw ocassional tire marks on there. But it didi look weird in the dark. If I knew I was getting an extra hour due to the switch to the Pacific Time Zone, I'd have waited till it was light before turning the key. 'Hate driving at night, especially through mountains and near water.

hey tracer you should write a book or do a dvd very interesting story good to see you able to drive on our side of the road lol

I was thinking of writing kind of a blog in a form of a e-book or paper book, but there's not that much demand. surprising as it may sound, but very few people want to drive long haul for a living. I don't get them ;) I also shoot short movies ocassionally ... See Tracer's YouTube channel. I did a few trucking movies there but I found my video review of a TomTom XXL 540 GPS garnerned most attention! So far it has been seen by ... 9587 people. As soon as I get a new camcorder, I'll be definitely shooting more "how-to" movies. Speaking of driving on the left side of the road, the most difficult thing to do was to figure out how to position the truck on turns! I came to a stop sign and the escort turned left FROM THE LEFT LANE, so you know ... in a truck with a 48 ft trailer ... you have to adjust quickly. Otherwise your trailer wheels will be running over flower beds and people's toes and what not :)

All right ... let the games begin. I'm looking at the load board and there's 22 loads within 500 miles of the freezing cold McDonald's in Winnemucca, Nevada where I'm sitting right now. The funniest load is this one: an LTL from Idaho to Northern Ontario (2,000 miles) and the load is 20 ft long, weighs 5,000 lbs and pays a whopping ... $1 per mile. I was getting bored so I sent the Special Agent in Charge this message:

"If you don't find anybody to do it as LTL, I can move it from Idaho to ON for $6,400. I'm in Winnemucca, Nevada."

My thinking was this: it's 2,857 miles from my location to the shipper to the consignee in the tundra of Northern Ontario and then from there to my home. So I counted ALL miles (including the deadhead on both ends) and multiplied by 2.25. If they say 'yes' that'd be something :) But it does deliver in a desolate place. There's no loads out of there period.

I wonder how big a hurry they're in to move that load? With all the weather they've had out there and also the delivery location they might consider that offer. Don't imagine there's alot of demand to go to nowhere, grab an LTL, and go hundreds of miles to another nowhere to deliver, plus its going to cross the border, and that disqualifies some.

I was buying coffee at the Winnemucca NV Flying J/Pilot truck stop and the clerk was nearby preparing fresh coffee. I said, "No offense, but the Pilot coffee you guys are selling now tastes much better than the one Flying J had before it went bankrupt." The clerk said, "I'm not offended. I like this (Pilot) coffee better myself." I added, "Why was there all this foam all the time with the Flying J coffee?" She said, "I guess they didn't have this policy where you have to drain the jug and refill it with fresh coffee after a certain time..." I asked, "So that's what produced that foam on top of the cup?" She replied, "Yes, they just let it sit there till it was empty." There you have it: just one more thing the Flying J had been doing wrong. There's only so much bad coffee you can sell :)

What might help is that the load is described as AUTO PARTS, which means it probably goes to a conveyor somewhere. Sooner or later they WILL be pressed for time ;)

That's the way I do it. You'll turn down alot of loads that way.

Glad to hear u made it safe and sound. Hopefully you will be able to find something that pays good. I'm stuck at the TA in Ganado, TX till morning myself due to a line shutdown at the chemical plant that they forgot to call me about. My empty won't be ready till the morning so here I sit doing nothing and getting paid. God bless America LOL

It's Day 2 for me in Nevada. This morning found 15 Canada-bound loads posted within 500 miles of me (Winnemucca, NV). The best one is an LTL (6 ft by 6 ft by 6 ft) that pays $1.07 per mile for $2,770 miles from California to Canada. It's 300 miles away from me but needs tarping. With such a small size I could put it on the upper deck of my step and then pick up a full load somewhere in IA, NE or IL. It'd be perfect! I emailed the Agent asking if I can use one of those disposable WalMart tarps or move it without tarps... and am waiting for the reply. Out of the 15 loads by the way only 3 go to Ontario, Canada: 2 are LTLs (the one I just described and the other one I made an offer on yesterday, the one that goes to Northern Ontario). The third one is a 45,000 lb load that pays $1.55 per mile (!) and picks up 2 weeks from now. Yeah ... right! All the other loads are heading to Alberta Canada. Well, it's still early... someone might post a load a bit later. If not, I'll be here till Monday. The good news is there's casinos all around and I'd have a chance of making some money over the weekend ;) NOTE: all the rates are GROSS, to Landstar. So, if it's $1.07 per mile, it'd probably be 76% of that to the truck (100% of fuel surcharge + 73% of the freight bill).

tracer:

"re: your load from oregon to ontario, canada

If it can fit on a 48 ft stepdeck and does not need tarping, I can move it for $7,000 with a pickup on Saturday or Monday, and deliver in Brampton, ON 5 days later. I'm in Winnemucca, NV, 500 miles away from the shipper in oregon."

agent:

"are u crazy u will never get a legal load for 2.80 out of there"

tracer:

"i'd be crazy not to try. you'd be surprised how often rates are negotiable. for me to do this load would mean to cover 3,122 miles from where i'm at now. take care."

agent:

"be safe"

:)

...................................
By my calculations, I'd need:

$1,000 - just to cover the fuel to deadhead all the way back to my home in ontario, canada
$4,400 - just to break even and stay current on all the bills
$5,000 - to cover all the bills and make a small profit

it's 2,189 miles from my current location to my home in ON, all the way to the east, via Chicago, IL. My Nevada Gamble continues ...

Start searching loads along 80. I can almost guarantee that there is something in or around the Chicago area you could grab and take home and it will prob pay the same as a load you will get out west. Just look at it this way, say u find a load in NV that pays $1.40 (good luck out there) you could fund a load in say Iowa or Chicago that pays $2+ and make the same amount, with better fuel mileage due to you going halfway empty.

You may be right. If I start moving now I'd be near Chicago on Monday. In the past I also saw Ontario-bound loads in NE (near Omaha) and in IA. If I don't find anything till the end of today, that probably what I should do - deadhead to NE or IA or IL. I emailed one idiot who has a good LTL from California and called him twice and he said, "I emailed the customer's Blackberry and he should get back to me shortly". That was 4 (!) hours ago. This 'customer' probably dropped his Blackberry in his pants' back pocket and is sitting somewhere in the bar sipping beer and he forgot to turn on the 'vibe' mode :) I suspect by 'customer' Agent 1 means not the shipper but another load broker he got this load from. That's what happens when you have too many middlemen. If we shoot every second one, the rates would go up and many drivers would be much happier, including this one. These guys should learn to get off their a**es and find their own loads.

I got tired of sitting at the McDonald's and staring at the computer screen... So I went for a walk in Winnemucca NV trying to find some kind of an eatery. Found 20 hotels, 10 casinos and 2 restaurants. One of them was Pizza Hut. What the heck... So I stepped in and while waiting for my order to arrive I booted my computer again and logged on to the Landstar Load board. It's the end of the day on the East coast so someone can post a new load - you never know. Well, guess what - there WAS a new load posted! $2.69 per mile, all legal dims, no tarp (as far as I could tell) and it was going 3000 miles (!) into Eastern Canada. It loaded 400 miles away from me and the note on the load said, "must load today". Just my luck ... I sent the Agent an email anyway, "if you don't find anyone to pick it up today, I can be at the shipper anytime over the weekend or first thing Monday morning."

tracer
"re: your ltl load from cali to ont, canada

I called twice before about the Cali to ONT load (LTL). Have you heard back from your client? I'm the stepdeck guy in Winnemucca, Nevada, 4 hours away from the shipper."

agent

"I have called and emailed my customer and he has not responded. I will call you as soon as I hear something."

tracer
3.5 hours later

"Has it been over 24 hours since you talked to your broker? If yes, we might need to call 911 and report him/her missing. I'm eating pizza at the Pizza Hut in Winnemucca NV and there's a TV with CNN Headlines on the wall next to me. Nothing about a missing freight broker and stranded Canadian trucker on the news yet :) "

agent

"Quite funny and yes my customer seems to be missing. I don't understand this as I have known him for 20+ years!"

I wish I was making this up :) All this is about a good-paying LTL I have been trying to get since early since early this morning!

If u haven't heard back from either of them by now, I'd start heading east.

start that book it get rid of your boredom and make you sum $s ,i buy 1st copy

LOL Tracer they never run out of lies man.

Here is my story from 2 weeks ago. Dec 23 I call on a posted load from the Port of Baltimore to Guelph.

DEC 23:
Broker: 1pc of steel plate x 10w x 20L x 4"T x 33,000 lbs, no tarp, pays 1600 TWIC req'd. I have 9 loads ready to go now.
Me: If I give you 2 step decks on the 27th can I get $1700 per truck?
Broker: Yep.
ME: I may have a 3rd truck available but I will call you back on that one.
Broker: I will get you the confirmations this afternoon.
Broker calls me back: Any news on that 3rd truck?
ME: I have alot of DH in it.
Broker: How about if I guve you $1800 for that truck?
ME: OK. 3 trucks then. How are your coming on the rate sheets? It's getting close to Christmas and I'd like to get started on my permits.
Broker: before I go home you will have them (they never arrived).

DEC 24:
ME: Hey, what happened to my rate sheets?
Broker: I never heard back from my customer, but the loads are mine to give don't worry. Today for sure.
ME: (later in day)Still no rate sheets?
Broker: No. Customer just wants to spend time with his family on Christmas eve.
ME: So? You are the broker right?
Broker: Yes.
ME: So what's the problem?
Broker: No problem. Dispatch your trucks, don't worry

Well, I have to ship these loads because I have customers waiting so off we went on DEC 26. I get unloaded at 10:00 on the 27th and still no word from ding bat so I log into DAT and I see my loads posted by another broker so I call.

Broker2: Yes I have 9 loads available.
ME: I was supposed to load 3 trucks today for LOSER Brokerage INC, but the deal fell through.
Broker2: Oh that was you? Yeah, I was talking to the customer about that. Loser Brokerage was trying to get him to pay in advance for the trucking and he wasn't interested. I have the loads because he is my neighbor and I'm giving him credit.

I brought all 3 trucks home empty and later moved 4 of the 9 loads with broker 2.

lies, lies, lies.

It's called what truck stop are you at tonight....

From what I've seen California has some good-paying loads going to ON and QC in Canada. I'm thinking of moving WEST to Reno, NV so that I'm close to CA Monday morning. If another good load shows up there, I'd be ready to jump on it. If I start going east now, I'd probably have to go all the way to IL or IA. That's 1,400 miles empty.

I'd be afraid to drive empty without having a load confirmation with my rate. Even at Landstar I always ask the agents to email me something before I start moving.

It's Saturday and I'm at my laptop again trying to figure out which way - if any - I should move my empty truck. The idea is to park close to an area where some good loads might pop up on Monday, Jan-10. I've looked at the Landstar board and on Friday there were 7 loads going from here to ON and QC in Canada. I don't want to go to Alberta because I'll be stuck there for a month or will have to take a $1/mi load to get back to North-East. So, I'm really only interested in something that goes to ON and QC (I'd take something else but as Canadian I'm only allowed to move shipments from US across the border). Anyway, according to Google Maps - and I don't think they're mistaken - Nevada where I'm stuck right now borders on only 4 states: California, Oregon, Idaho, Utah and pensioner-friendly mafia war Arizona. According to the Landstar board, there were 3 loads in CA, 2 in OR, 1 in ID, 1 in UT and 0 in AZ (which is a good thing - I don't want my tires to be shot out by Mexican snipers). I checked my distance and from Winnemucca it is:

433 miles to Load 1 in CA
291 miles to Load 2 in CA
256 miles to Load 1 in ID
354 miles to Load 1 in UT

I didn't include the loads in Oregon because there were extremely cheap, and when I suggested a higher rate the agent called me 'crazy' and said I'd never find something like that out of OR. So, screw OR! My gamble is on CA, UT and ID.

I called the Agent who posted the high paying load in CA on Friday and surprisingly a guy answered the phone! Clearly he wasn't in the office but talked to me on his cell phone (he didn't sound too pleased). He said they didn't have anything for Monday yet and asked me to call them at 8 am EST on Monday which is 5 am local time.

So, right now I'm not even sure I should move the truck at all. I have enough fuel to go about 500 miles and there's a TA in Mill City, NV - 30 miles west from me on I-80. There's another TA in Sparks, Nevada; near Reno. That would put me closer to California but then I'd be too far away from Salt Lake City, UT. There's actually a good load posted out of Utah that I can sign for right now but it picks up only on Jan-14th! I hope I'll be able to find something sooner than that. But I'm keeping this load as a kind of a fallback option...

So, what do you guys think? Shall I move to the TA in Sparks, NV? That's only 17 miles away from the border with California but 500 miles from Salt Lake City, Utah. California seems more promising but it's all a gamble. There may be no new loads at all on Monday.

Here's some pictures from around the Flying J truck stop in Winnemucca NV. See how on the fuel price sign they broke the Flying J logo to get it replaced with the Pilot sign.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]659[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]657[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]658[/ATTACH]

I didn't get any feedback regarding the deadhead to Reno (Sparks) NV, so I grabbed a double espresso at the McDonald's in Winnemucca NV and headed west on I-80. The weather was beautiful, the temperature sitting just above freezing and I hardly saw any snow anywhere. This being Sunday I saw very little traffic. So I set my cruise to 60 MPH and 1,280 RPM and it took 2 hours and 45 minutes to cover the 161 miles from Winnemucca to the TA truck stop in Sparks, NV (X. 19 off I-80). I spent the time listening to the audiobook by Lee Child about another set of adventures of the former military cop Jack Reacher. Some bad guys are threatening the Vice President of the United States and Jack is asked to 'audit' the effectiveness of the Secret Service protection. I'll start looking for a load on Monday and I hope something will show up in California that I can take back to Ontario or maybe Quebec. This TA has an interesting collection of firearms that are displayed on the walls in the hall, from the early rifles and revolvers to hand grenades and even mortars used in the WWII, plus a case of relatively modern automatic pistols.

DIESEL PRICES at SPARKS TA, NEVADA

Cash: $3.39 per gallon
Landstar: $3.17 per gallon (after discounts).

That is Sierra Sid's casino, the one i was talking about I won all that money at last year Tracer....... Play the dollar slot next to the door by the fuel desk (Double Diamonds, like 4-5 machines in a row)

As for your trip, i still think you should have come East. You know for sure there will be loads out of IA and IL on Monday, and the rates will prob make them pay just as good as the loads out of CA. For your sake tho, i hope you catch a break sometime, you deserve it man.

Keep up the log as it IS very fun hearing your stories and you got a gift at telling them. My version would be more like " I picked up my tank, I drove down the road, 4-wheelers pissed me off, I dropped my trailer off"

Don't get discouraged early, Monday is not the best day for freight, and from experience most CA freight comes in after noon and loads next AM. Check the weather before you go over Donner, and have your ducks in a row for the Truckee scale.

Thanks. I"m going to try my luck tonight. Appreciate the kind comment about my story-telling abilities. The truth is I never thought I'd be writing. My Russian literature at high school would be very surprised. But when I moved to Canada, I ran into an interesting book called IF YOU CAN TALK YOU CAN WRITE by Joe Sugarman. This was an eye opener! The gist of the book is that any person who can talk, can write. All you have to do is put your words on paper. We are all creative.

I discovered CAD now has a Blog section. I might start a permanent thread there after this trip.

A couple of loads I saw on our Board out of CA on Friday paid 8 grand gross (76% to me). I was too far away to grab one. It had to load before 6 pm local time. Loads in NE, IA, IL don't pay that much. The best one I saw was a DD out of Chicago that paid $4/mi on 500 mi to Toronto, ON. It was my legal height (thanks to my deck being 36" off the ground) and only 10'6" wide. If nothing big shows up here, I"ll look for an LTL and then load the rest in Mid-West.

I have been to Brampton ON and delivered, reloaded in Detroit and delivered in Lone Star TX, reloaded in Houston and now I am camped at the Flying J on I-75, north of Tampa FL, waiting to deliver tomorrow evening in Lakeland FL. All since you picked that load up to Golconda.

I am at $7,770 (line + fsc) on 4135 actual miles, before demurage, intransit heat and
steam service fees, fax service fees, out of route mileage, border crossing fees, delay of dispatch, and pump charges. Once those are added....I will be glad I wasn't dragging a deck around. Not blazing money for 11 days work....but not bad either.

Winnemucca has a well-known Basque community. Next time, skip the Pizza Hut and pop into one of their dinner houses.

I don't gamble but tomorrow's my birthday... So I decided to act on the Steel Cowboy's tip... An inspection inside my thin wallet showed I had 3 twenties and 5 singles.. I figured I can afford to lose 20 bucks. So I went inside the truck stop and got me a cup of tea. Then I walked around the casino till I was sure I found the machines the Cowboy wrote about. The casino has quite a few 'double diamonds' but most are 25 cents a play... I found a 'triple diamond' machine at $1 a play and the unit numbers on the front added to '10' (the day of my birthday). So as far as I was concerned, this was the one!

I slipped in a crispy twenty-dollar bill and started playing single coins ($1 per play).

Coin 20 Loss
Coin 19 Loss
Coin 18 Loss
Coin 17 Loss
Coin 16 Loss
Coin 15 Loss
Coin 14 Loss
Coin 13 Loss
Coin 12 Loss
Coin 11 Loss
Coin 10 Loss
Coin 9 Loss
Coin 8 Loss
Coin 7 Loss
Coin 6 Loss
Coin 5 Loss
Coin 4 ................

With only $4 left inside the machine, I was totally prepared to finish the play and go back to the truck. But when I pressed "play" all of a sudden I heard music and the numbers on the Credit window started rolling up. Each time they went up, a ding sounded. I turned around but no one seemed to pay any attention. Getting a bit excited (Have I really won something?) I looked at the Rule board trying to figure out what the maximum win is - and all this time the electronic numbers in the Window kept rolling up. 50 ... 100 ... 150 .. 200 ... 250 ... 300... All right! ... They stopped only at 364! I won 364 bucks!

I pressed the Cash-Out button and huge coins started rolling out into the bay. They kept rolling out for 5 minutes making quite a racket. Finally the din stopped and I loaded the 2-inch coins into my hat and went to look for a cashier's office.

When I found it some old gal lingering nearby offered to help me. She had plastic bowls in her hand. "Let's put them in these, this way it'll be easier for the cashier to count the coins," she said. I got suspicious so I asked her, "Do you work here?" The woman became fidgety and started looking for her badge... She finally got down to Layer 3 in her clothes and there was an official looking casino employee badge with her name. So I figured I can trust her with my 364 bucks. I started loading the huge coins into the plastic bowls and the woman said, "Oh... I thought they were quarters...". She disappeared again and came back with some red plastic containers that had slots for these particular size coins. Each container had 5 slots and each slot could hold 20 one-dollar coins. So, one container equals $100. We loaded 3.5 containers, took it to the window, where I gave the lady a $1 coin for the help and I walked away with my $363 win.

I think this is the biggest win I ever had at a casino. I know some of you guys would probably have kept playing till they lost everything .... but with 40 bucks left in my wallet I didn't want to risk losing 363 bucks. I'm quite happy with what I've got: it's a decent birthday present.

Tracer out :)

Told you buddy.... those $1 machines hardly get played. Gald i could help in making your birthday a good one!!!!

BTW, I went to the casino boat here at home tonight and won $275 for only 20min of play at the 3-card poker tables. I am just lucky I guess as my GF lost my other $100 at the blackjack table LOL

OMG that is so funny. $364 without even turning a wheel. You need more loads to NV!

Yep. 0 diesel cost, 0 time behind the wheel. It took probably 5 minutes for me to lose 16 bucks and then win :) But I know you cannot do it as regular source of income. I once won 200 bucks on a boat with a casino, and then went in again and lost 400! That's why I stopped as soon as I hit the jackpot yesterday. "Ask and you shall receive" kind of thing and no more than that.