[ChrisV]

It depends what kind of game he was playing (i.e. single deck or shoe, favourable or unfavourable rules). While there are some games where you can get it, 0.05% is an extremely low house edge to claim. The house edge of my local game is over 0.6%, so over $1,000 worth of betting he would lose more like $60 in that game.

The claim that it's all about EV is wrong. I would not bet my life savings on a bet which was +$1 in expectation. It can be rational to pass up EV if your risk of ruin is too high. Risk of ruin is a function of two things - bet size and bet frequency. $1,000 could represent quite a lot of money to your friend - for instance, if his net wealth were $10,000 - but if he only makes the bet once, he is right that it's all about EV, since his risk of ruin is still zero. If he proposes to bet $1,000 50 times though, that's a different thing entirely. So it depends whether $1,000 is a lot to your friend and whether he does this sort of thing very often.