Cathy "Cat" Hulbert (1950 – 2022) was an American professional

gambler Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three eleme ...

. She was one of the world's first professional female

card counters Card counting is a blackjack strategy used to determine whether the player or the dealer has an advantage on the next hand. Card counters are advantage players who try to overcome the casino house edge by keeping a running count of high and low ...

. '' Card Player'' magazine named her one of the top

seven-card stud Seven-card stud, also known as Seven-Toed Pete or Down-The-River is a variant of stud poker. Before the 2000s surge of popularity of Texas hold 'em, seven-card stud was the most widely played poker variant in home games across the United States, a ...

players in the world in 1996.

Life

Hulbert was born in 1950, one of six children of a truck driver and a nurse. She left school at 15 and put herself through college. She first developed an interest in gambling when investigating the industry as an assistant to the minority leader of the

New York State Senate The New York State Senate is the upper house of the New York State Legislature; the New York State Assembly is its lower house. Its members are elected to two-year terms; there are no term limits. There are 63 seats in the Senate. Partisan com ...

, took a course in

blackjack Blackjack (formerly Black Jack and Vingt-Un) is a casino banking game. The most widely played casino banking game in the world, it uses decks of 52 cards and descends from a global family of casino banking games known as Twenty-One. This fami ...

dealing, and in 1977, at the age of 25, moved to

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

. Hulbert became one of the first professional female card counters, a member of the Czechoslovakia team, and a companion to

Ken Uston Ken Uston (January 12, 1935 – September 19, 1987) was an American blackjack player, strategist and author, credited with popularizing the concept of team play at blackjack. During the early to mid-1970s he gained widespread notoriety for perfec ...

. She then moved on to 7-card stud and dated David Heyden. In 1996, ''Card Player'' magazine named her one of the top 7-card stud players in the world, the only woman on the list. The Game Show Network called her "the best female gambler on Earth". She taught poker classes for women. At one time, Hulbert employed people over the age of seventy to play casino slot machines for her. In 2016, she was named as one of BBC's 100 Women.

Personal life

Hulbert was diagnosed with

bipolar disorder Bipolar disorder, previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of depression and periods of abnormally elevated mood that last from days to weeks each. If the elevated mood is severe or associated with ...

in 1990. She has been married twice, both marriages ending in divorce. Since a bout with cancer, she had retired as a gambler and worked as an online casino consultant. She died on September 20, 2022 after her battle with cancer.

References

External links

Hendon Mob profileWSOP profile
1950 births 2022 deaths American blackjack players American poker players People with bipolar disorder Place of birth missing {{gambling-stub