My next iPhone app was A Blackjack Card Counter.  I made this app because it was very simple.  Basically 2 buttons, + and - and a running tally.  Well that was my first version anyway.

I also thought it could do pretty well.  A lot of people are into gambling and blackjack, and it hadn't been done before.

But sales again started slow.  Hitting the store in mid October 2008 I was making around $20 Australian dollars (AUD) a day profit.  It was then I decided that helpful apps were not what people wanted.  They wanted silly games and entertainment style apps.  So I decided to create Crazy Smilies.  More on that next time.

A Blackjack Card Counter stayed at around $20 a day until January 2009.  Over this time I'd been receiving some fairly good reviews, it seemed like something people wanted, I was getting requests for lots of new features.  I was working on other apps at the time so it took me a while to get to them.  I wasn't sure if there was much point updating it.  But eventually it became an app that had several card counting methods, an adjusted count, and the "stealth mode" that allowed people to use the app while it looked black.

Each time an update went though I was a little surprised that Apple approved it, given how picky they had been for some apps.  I was a little nervous about the legality of the app so I made sure I included plently of warnings about not using it in a casino.  I couldn't see how people could think they could get away with it in a casino anyway.  To me it seemed like too big a risk.  But I was in contact with a casino employee who was giving me tips on how to improve the app, so I figured it was legal to make and sell.

Mid February a story was picked up by a small Las Vegas newspaper and sent out via reuters.  The story was that the Nevada Gaming Board had sent a warning about my app to the casinos.  The first I heard of it was an email from Abbi Tatton from CNN who had done this story.  For me all hell broke loose.  I was receiving emails and phone calls from journalists from all over the world.  It was exciting but also scary.  I was still worried about the legal ramifications, so I called a lawyer.  The only thing he was good at was taking $500 from me.

I also talked to a PR person who kindly drafted an email and sent it out as if from my email address.  It was therefore written in the first person and made me look like a real dick.  I decided to do my own PR from then on.

So trying to milk this thing for all it's worth but also cover my ass, I was stressed out.  Initially I jacked up the price, and made about $2,500 AUD the first day.  It cracked the top 100 so I dropped the price to $0.99 USD trying to get it into the top 10.  It turned out to be a bad idea.  It wasn't sustainable, as the media died down so did the sales.  But I had made about $10,000 AUD in a week.

Around mid March Apple had gone off the idea of a Blackjack Card Counter and refused to accept any updates.  However they left it in the store.  I rasied the price to $4.99 USD as I realised without media coverage it's just a niche market.  This made around $30 AUD a day profit.

It was removed from the store by apple a few weeks ago.  I'm now waiting for an update to be approved, that removes the stealth mode from the app.  Be interesting to see if it's still popular without it's most controversial feature.

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