Headkick,
With people like Daniel Madison becoming incredibly popular in our community, the idea of a card cheat has been increasingly glorified. Despite Madison's murky past and absolutely no real evidence that he has ever cheated anyone out of any money during a game of cards, he claims to be a "rehabilitated" card cheat. It is hard to believe such claims when the man demonstrates sleights plagued by bad habits, and clearly (to anyone with experience with cards) he was trained as a magician and not a cheat.
I have been a card manipulator for over a dozen years. Many times I have "cheated" friends during a neighborhood game of free money poker. Could I then claim to be a card cheat? Many times I have won propositional bets for money from my friends using a deck of cards. Does that make me a card cheat?
To come out and say, "I am a card cheat and have been for three years; I have won money by cheating people. Does anyone else have a similar experience?" screams, "look at me!" much in the same way Daniel Madison's ridiculous story of his past does. To come out and say such things, to me, implies that you do not know what you are talking about.
Cameron