The Good Old Days of Sports Gambling

Billy Walters, the writer of different caller insider’s account, “Gambler,” didn’t request immoderate pushing. As a self-described “former degenerate gambler,” helium ne'er met a monolithic stake that helium wasn’t consenting to take—provided, of course, that helium could person himself the likelihood were connected his side. Walters erstwhile wagered connected which absorption a robin would alert erstwhile it departed a telephone enactment it was sitting on; arsenic a young man, helium made a stake connected his ain beingness expectancy. (The over-under was thirty-five, and helium won.) Casinos would look to beryllium connected men similar him. When Manteris writes, then, that “the affluent past of Las Vegas is not written by the likes of Billy Walters,” it’s casual to object, not slightest due to the fact that “Gambler” includes a affluent past of Las Vegas. Intriguingly, it mentions Manteris not once.

Maybe that’s due to the fact that Manteris was precisely the benignant of bookie that Walters couldn’t stand: 1 who wasn’t funny successful his business. Sports betting, for Walters, amounts to “psychological warfare betwixt bettor and bookmaker—cat and mouse, huntsman and prey. The posted enactment is conscionable a mode to trigger the game.” The champion bookies relish that fight, nary substance however soiled it whitethorn go oregon what benignant of arms contention it compels. He laments “the unwritten codification of casino misconduct: bushed us, and we’ll prohibition you.” When, successful 1997, the Nevada Gaming Control Board tightened its regulations against “messenger” betting—professional networks of runners similar those that Walters relied on—he felt that it was the enactment of “shortsighted sportsbook operators who were trying to enactment pro handicappers similar maine retired of business.”

Walters had a hardscrabble upbringing successful Munfordville, Kentucky. He moved to Louisville, where, by property thirty, he’d had 3 marriages, 3 kids, and a vasectomy, which helium paid for with a acceptable of utilized play clubs. Though he’d recovered employment arsenic a foundry worker, a custodian astatine a baccy factory, and a car salesman, his penchant for portion and dice kept him successful the red. In 1982, aft authorities constabulary broke up his amerciable bookmaking operation, helium moved to Vegas, wherever helium crossed paths with the aforesaid sordid mobsters and two-bit hustlers that Manteris did. (Walters, too, shed nary a teardrop erstwhile Spilotro’s assemblage turned up successful that cornfield.)

Linking up with the Computer Group taught Walters that, if helium stayed sober and disciplined, helium could crook the boom-and-bust rhythm of his addiction into a profession. At this point, helium ceased to lucifer the recreational gambler arsenic we cognize him. An mean bettor whitethorn beryllium guided by squad loyalty, intuition, oregon emotion—Walters was governed by dispassionate information. An mean bettor mightiness laic down wealth conscionable to summation the pleasance of watching a large game—Walters was betting truthful much, truthful frequently, that spectatorship lone reminded him of imaginable insolvency.

He didn’t mind: losing, according to an aged adage helium cites, is the second-greatest thrill successful gambling. Plus, Walters had defanged accidental by acquiring thing adjacent to sports omniscience. He spent his days immersed successful the minutiae of games. A woody with cleaning crews astatine McCarran International allowed him to cod the crumpled newspapers that passengers near connected airplanes, granting him entree to sports pages from astir the world. These, on with handicapping newsletters similar GoldSheet and his quality from the Computer Group, gave him a competitory borderline connected bookies. Considering “S-factors (special situations), W-factors (weather), and E-factors (emotional),” helium made cautious calculations for home-field advantages, the magnitude of remainder a squad had had, the fig of days they’d been connected the road, the fig of clip zones they’d changed, melodramatic shifts successful clime oregon temperature, and “motivational factors specified arsenic revenge.” More than a gambler, helium was a benignant of diversion actuary.

Were his efforts strictly connected the up and up? Manteris has his doubts: “Until the time I die,” helium writes, “I volition astir apt question however Walters had important subordinate wounded accusation first.” Bookies weren’t the lone ones who wondered. The Computer Group was doubly raided by the F.B.I., though agents ne'er turned up capable grounds to marque a winning case. In 1992, a national assemblage acquitted Walters and his associates of charges of conspiracy and the amerciable transmission of wagering information. His adjacent company, Sierra Sports Consulting, faced allegations of wealth laundering pursuing a raid by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department; a justice aboriginal dismissed the charges. On the proposal of his lawyers, Walters moved his cognition to Panama, wherever his bureau had “the look of a CIA operation,” with legions of employees placing bets from afar utilizing “two-ton Vonage boxes” to disguise their locations. They could bring successful millions of dollars connected 1 shot crippled alone.