Speaker 1: Pushkin. Michael lewis here, Welcome back to Against the Rules.
Speaker 1: You might have noticed from the early episodes of this
Speaker 1: season that I've got a weakness for the old school
Speaker 1: sports gambler, the kind who found a hard way to
Speaker 1: make an easy living and then somehow made it even harder,
Speaker 1: who screwed up and lived large, and took crazy risks
Speaker 1: and eventually found some edge. No one screwed up quite
Speaker 1: so much, or live quite so large, or found such
Speaker 1: a sharp edge as Billy Walders. He's maybe the most
Speaker 1: famous sports better in American history. He was born poor
Speaker 1: in Kentucky and betting on anything that moved before he
Speaker 1: was old enough to drink. Then he started drinking and
Speaker 1: bet even more. He's been a car dealer, a poker champion,
Speaker 1: and also an inmate at a federal prison after he
Speaker 1: was convicted of insider trading. President Trump pardoned him back
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one. But let me let him tell
Speaker 1: you about himself. Here he is reading from his memoir
Speaker 1: titled Simply Gambler.
Speaker 2: I'm a gambler, but not just any gambler. My wager
Speaker 2: has ran the spectrum, pitching pennies and dingy racetrack bathrooms,
Speaker 2: hustling pool and back road shanties, betting thousands of dollars
Speaker 2: on a single putt on golf courses, and losing millions
Speaker 2: in Las Vegas casinos. And that does include betting billions
Speaker 2: of dollars collectively on every American sport.
Speaker 1: Billy Walters has a lot to say about the life
Speaker 1: he's lived in the state of legalized sports betting in
Speaker 1: the US today. He knows where the bodies are buried,
Speaker 1: and only narrowly escaped being buried there himself. So I
Speaker 1: wanted to devote a whole episode to our conversation. I
Speaker 1: know you'll enjoy it. When did you first realize I
Speaker 1: like to gamble?
Speaker 2: From the second I was introduced to the I don't know.
Speaker 2: I was around five years old. Probably my grandmother started
Speaker 2: leaving me my uncle's pool room when I was four.
Speaker 2: I know for sure the time I was six, I
Speaker 2: was playing penny nine ball. But the first time I
Speaker 2: did any type of gambling, it was like, you know,
Speaker 2: a child being introduced to sugar.
Speaker 3: I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: Why do you think you enjoyed it? You wouldn't have
Speaker 1: put it into words when you're six years old, But
Speaker 1: when you look back on it, What do you think
Speaker 1: you liked about it?
Speaker 2: I think even at that age, although I never consciously
Speaker 2: thought about it, I got a rush out of it.
Speaker 3: I think there was. I think there was a rush.
Speaker 3: I think there was, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, who who doesn't like to win? From as
Speaker 2: far back as I can remember, I've been competitive, But
Speaker 2: the gambling part, I think the main reason is.
Speaker 3: The rush from it. You had that rush right away,
Speaker 3: Oh for sure.
Speaker 1: I kind of want to fast forward to this transition
Speaker 1: in your career where you go from being what you
Speaker 1: described as a degenerate gambler to an edge player.
Speaker 2: When I lived in a small town in Kentucky, Muffordville,
Speaker 2: I became a pretty good pool player. And then when
Speaker 2: I got out of high school, I wanted the automobile business,
Speaker 2: and I started making more money than I'd ever imagined.
Speaker 2: And as a result, I had access to more money
Speaker 2: and started betting sports and started playing poker. And really
Speaker 2: I had no reason to have any type of an age.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm using a goal sheet and picking all
Speaker 2: games out of that. I mean, I wasn't better on
Speaker 2: my favorite teams. I wasn't dumb enough to do that.
Speaker 2: But I was probably even dumber. I had a goal
Speaker 2: sheet and thought I knew something about it, and that's
Speaker 2: how initially started betting sports and then golf from day one.
Speaker 2: Though I was never really a sucker when it came
Speaker 2: to match it up playing golf because it was a
Speaker 2: lot like pool, So I didn't take any of the
Speaker 2: worst of it playing golf.
Speaker 1: Ever, where did you take the worst of it?
Speaker 2: I took the worst of it betting sports. And this
Speaker 2: is the reason that I have concerns about, you know,
Speaker 2: the potential addiction in the way things are going with
Speaker 2: legalized sports betting. There's a tremendous amount of addiction out
Speaker 2: there that exists.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I was one of those people. That's the reason I
Speaker 2: can talk about this. The only person that doesn't have
Speaker 2: a place at the table right now is a player.
Speaker 2: You know, you've got regulators, you've got operators, and regulators
Speaker 2: don't know anything about it. They've been told what to
Speaker 2: do by basically the lobbyists who were either ex regulators
Speaker 2: or ex politicians who the operators have hired. So essentially,
Speaker 2: the operators have created a vironment where it's you know,
Speaker 2: it's very very conducive to their business into them but
Speaker 2: it's not in the long term best interest of legalized
Speaker 2: sports betting, you know. And I got introduced to sports
Speaker 2: betting and I had money, and uh, you know, it's
Speaker 2: the same old story. You know, you get loser, and
Speaker 2: you tell yourself the story. You know, as soon as
Speaker 2: I get even, I'm gonna quit. Well, two things either happen.
Speaker 2: You never you never get even, or you do get even,
Speaker 2: you think, well, I got to figure it out. Now
Speaker 2: I'm going to beat them, and you still don't quit.
Speaker 2: And uh, you know, you're you definitely have a mathematical
Speaker 2: disadvantage if you're just picking bowl games with no information whatsoever.
Speaker 2: But as I got access to more money, I got
Speaker 2: invited to go to Las Vegas, and uh, and you know,
Speaker 2: clearly that was an eye opener. I mean it's like
Speaker 2: you know, a wild dog in a meet house. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm in Louisville, Kentucky. The games were always too small,
Speaker 2: nobody would ever play for a lot of money. But
Speaker 2: when I got to Las Vegas, I was different. And
Speaker 2: of course I'm playing games I had a mathematical advantage in,
Speaker 2: but the limits were they were much higher. So, man,
Speaker 2: Las Vegas, I love that, But my problem during that
Speaker 2: period of time was drinking. When I didn't drink, I
Speaker 2: was a really tough guy to beat down his money,
Speaker 2: you know, whether it was poker, whether it was golf.
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, I was a winning player.
Speaker 2: But the problem was a drinking and I didn't think
Speaker 2: I had a problem with it because I didn't really
Speaker 2: drink that often. You know, I would drink, and when
Speaker 2: I did drink, I would get hammered and the dumbest
Speaker 2: decisions I were made. I mean I made those while
Speaker 2: I was drinking, But once that night was over, I
Speaker 2: didn't drink again for like three weeks months sometime.
Speaker 3: Huh.
Speaker 2: So I never dreamed I really had a problem of
Speaker 2: drinking until after a number of years. I kept looking back,
Speaker 2: and every problem that I ever created for myself, whether
Speaker 2: it be financial or personal, they all came from drink.
Speaker 1: When do you cease to be a degenerate gambler and
Speaker 1: when do you become something else?
Speaker 2: When I moved to Las, say yes, my money management
Speaker 2: skills were blow average. I had a difficult time going
Speaker 2: to bed loser regardless of of you know, whether I
Speaker 2: had the best of it or not. But anyway, once
Speaker 2: Chip became my partner. He probably was as good a
Speaker 2: manager with managing money as any gambler I ever met
Speaker 2: in my life. And I think there were times probably
Speaker 2: that he was a little too conservative, but overall, at
Speaker 2: the end of the day, looking back at it, I
Speaker 2: think he made the best decisions of anyone I've seen,
Speaker 2: and by being his partner, you know, after a period
Speaker 2: of time, I saw what he was doing was right.
Speaker 1: What kind of things was he doing that you weren't
Speaker 1: doing well?
Speaker 2: As example, I mean, if we had eight games to
Speaker 2: bet on a Sunday, if we were to go one
Speaker 2: in seven and we had one play left, we didn't
Speaker 2: bet any more any less on that game than what
Speaker 2: we were supposed to bet, or if we had no
Speaker 2: plays left, we went to bed. What I was doing
Speaker 2: is if we'd gone one in seven, there was one
Speaker 2: game left, whether I had a better or not, I
Speaker 2: was going to bet on it. And then the other
Speaker 2: thing I would do, if it was a small, I
Speaker 2: would end up playing it as a large or something
Speaker 2: such as that. So that was Those are the main
Speaker 2: things that he was doing that I wasn't doing.
Speaker 3: He was rule based very much, so yes, yes, you
Speaker 3: weren't not in the least no, but anyway, so after
Speaker 3: a very short period of time, I saw he was right,
Speaker 3: and then I became le based on everything that I
Speaker 3: did until I drank. And then, you know, as the example,
Speaker 3: I accumulated a million dollars and I went out one
Speaker 3: night again drinking, got drunk, lost the entire million dollars.
Speaker 3: Once another two thousand dollars. I did that again, only
Speaker 3: the next time it was a two million dollars. And
Speaker 3: then finally there was an incident that came up that
Speaker 3: made me decide that I was never going to drink again.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break. Then hear all
Speaker 1: about that incident. I'm back with Billy Walters talking about
Speaker 1: the sensational turn his gambling life took back in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty seven after he quit drinking.
Speaker 2: I had a good friend. His name was Freddie Ferris,
Speaker 2: his nickname was Sarge. He was a poker player in
Speaker 2: Las Vegas, very successful poker player, and he had been
Speaker 2: diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor and lung cancer. And
Speaker 2: I was a smoker at the time, and I went
Speaker 2: out that night with another friend. I was really depressed,
Speaker 2: started drinking. I went to the horseshoe started gambling and
Speaker 2: had an incident with one of the owners, Ted Benyon,
Speaker 2: and really made a fool of myself. I got up
Speaker 2: the next day and I felt so bad about, you know,
Speaker 2: the incident, so I called up.
Speaker 3: Check Benion, his older brother.
Speaker 2: Apologized, He accepted my apology, and I decided that that
Speaker 2: day that look, I'm not going to make a fool
Speaker 2: of myself anymore. This will be the last call I
Speaker 2: left to make and make this apology. So I quit
Speaker 2: drinking and I quit smoking the same day. I knew
Speaker 2: at that point in time that smoking was harmful. I
Speaker 2: was addicted like everyone else was. But when Sarage, when
Speaker 2: he was diagnosed, you know, that was a final deciding
Speaker 2: factor for me.
Speaker 1: So you are probably a rare person who went to
Speaker 1: Vegas and shed himself advices.
Speaker 2: True, very rare, because at the time I was also
Speaker 2: a professional poker player along with betting sports, and I
Speaker 2: had just won the Super Bowl of Poker that year
Speaker 2: I think it was in eighty six. And when I
Speaker 2: decided to quit smoking, I decided to quit playing poker too,
Speaker 2: because the court rooms at that time.
Speaker 3: Were full of smoke. So I quit playing poker.
Speaker 2: And basically quit playing high stakes, golf, and I really
Speaker 2: focused on nothing but sports betting. I was doing sports
Speaker 2: three hunder and sixty five days a year. Baseball, basketball, golf, hockey, tennis.
Speaker 1: Was the sports at that point consistently profitable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very much.
Speaker 2: So what happened with me in the sports is Michael
Speaker 2: Kent was the first guy who had written a software
Speaker 2: program to handicapped sports. Up until that point, everyone was
Speaker 2: doing sports with a pencil and piece of paper, and
Speaker 2: Michael really revolutionized the way that handicapping was done. He
Speaker 2: was a mathematician, but he also loved sports. But I
Speaker 2: realized after we became associated within a couple of years,
Speaker 2: that he eventually was going to lose his entire competitive
Speaker 2: advantage if he couldn't continue to find things that others
Speaker 2: didn't recognize. So I started recruiting other people with similar
Speaker 2: skill sets, and I also started recruiting people who knew
Speaker 2: the qualitative side of the sports business very well. And then,
Speaker 2: of course, you know, I've been doing it for some
Speaker 2: time and have become pretty good being able to manage
Speaker 2: a market of it. So I was essentially taking a
Speaker 2: consensus of what these people were doing and then factoring
Speaker 2: in both their strengths and weaknesses, and then factoring in,
Speaker 2: you know, a gambler side of the thing that they
Speaker 2: didn't understand. And and and that's what I was doing
Speaker 2: betting sports.
Speaker 1: Is that is that the computer group.
Speaker 3: The computer group was Michael Kent.
Speaker 1: Whi's the first thing you see where he has predictive
Speaker 1: power that you can put to use.
Speaker 2: Before I came to Las Vegas and Kentucky, I was,
Speaker 2: I was betting sports, and I was booking sports, and
Speaker 2: I was handicapping sports myself. I didn't do anything at all
Speaker 2: about computers. I did everything with pencil and paper. I
Speaker 2: was I had power ratings, and of course I had
Speaker 2: player values. I had all those things. But I'm betting
Speaker 2: sports and I'm booking, and I'm shading my numbers based
Speaker 2: upon my opinion. And then uh, there's a guy that
Speaker 2: I knew that was betting me from Pittsburgh, and uh,
Speaker 2: the guy was consistently went and I saw after about
Speaker 2: three weeks, I said, this guy's a showy. The money
Speaker 2: was coming from Kent, the so called computer group, and
Speaker 2: take their bets. I would adjust my numbers accordingly, and
Speaker 2: then I would get rid of their bets and go
Speaker 2: with it.
Speaker 3: And then.
Speaker 2: As the more successful that they became, that they needed
Speaker 2: more market, and they all had market in New York
Speaker 2: and in Las Vegas. I basically had the rest of
Speaker 2: the country. And so they approached me about, you know,
Speaker 2: giving me the order instead of betting me and I
Speaker 2: would move the order and share the order of them,
Speaker 2: and I agreed.
Speaker 3: To do that.
Speaker 1: This is really interesting to me because it's the birth
Speaker 1: of something new in gambling.
Speaker 3: It's like the sand wedge and golf. It is.
Speaker 2: It really was, and there's no question about it. It
Speaker 2: was like the sand wedge and golf. As you know,
Speaker 2: when you really think about sports, how many things have
Speaker 2: happened in regards to sports as far as handicapping sports
Speaker 2: are concerned. That truly make a difference. But as you
Speaker 2: noted earlier and very correctly, so, you know, it's computer
Speaker 2: and software are worth nothing. The information is the only
Speaker 2: thing that's inside of that software that has any value.
Speaker 2: And you know, when I wrote the book that I wrote,
Speaker 2: I put everything in the world in there that I
Speaker 2: know about handicapping sports. I also put everything I knew
Speaker 2: in there about basic betting strategy, which frankly, between you
Speaker 2: and I, I think that's more important.
Speaker 1: Giving me example of a betting strategy that doesn't naturally
Speaker 1: occur to people when they enter a market.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm going to explain to you what probably ninety
Speaker 2: plus percent of these new betters are doing. They have
Speaker 2: one account. Someone paid them a bonus. They have one
Speaker 2: account at the very most. They have to you know,
Speaker 2: they have no ideas for strategies concerned in regards to
Speaker 2: which way the line is going to move or isn't
Speaker 2: going to move, and they probably really don't understand the
Speaker 2: value of certain numbers. Well, if a game six and
Speaker 2: a half and you're looking to take seven, why it's
Speaker 2: so important to wait and try to get some of
Speaker 2: them instead of taking six and a half. Most of
Speaker 2: them don't have any money management system at all. So
Speaker 2: the basic betting strategy I put in there was real simple,
Speaker 2: get as many accounts as you can that are illegal,
Speaker 2: and you feel like some you know, you get paid.
Speaker 2: It's just like any any type shopping. I mean, if
Speaker 2: you decide you want to buy, you know, a pair
Speaker 2: of shoes and a brand name pair of shoes, you
Speaker 2: can go up on the internet and there's probably one
Speaker 2: hundred places you shop for for you know, for different sizes, colors,
Speaker 2: and prices. With sports vetting, basically they've created one operating
Speaker 2: the United States. You've got a handful of companies to
Speaker 2: control the entire thing. So what they've done as a result,
Speaker 2: as situations I've described with the average new better, they've
Speaker 2: got one account maybe two of the most. Okay, if
Speaker 2: there's better numbers out there, they're completely oblivious to that.
Speaker 3: They have no.
Speaker 2: Clue about how the money line compares to the point spread.
Speaker 2: The other thing is a betting strategy, the importance of numbers.
Speaker 2: You know the value of three, the number of the
Speaker 2: value is seven, six, ten. Okay, some numbers are a
Speaker 2: lot more important than other numbers are. If you don't
Speaker 2: understand that when it comes to betting strategy, you know
Speaker 2: you could be making some huge mistakes. A lot of
Speaker 2: times you're better off betting on a money line than
Speaker 2: you are the point spread, because you know they offer
Speaker 2: money lines out there. Okay, let's say the line on
Speaker 2: the game I use three as the example is three. Well,
Speaker 2: if you're betting on the underdog, you may be able
Speaker 2: to take a money line price. This equivalent to taking
Speaker 2: three in a quarter, three and a third, or even
Speaker 2: three and a half sometimes, But if you don't know
Speaker 2: how to compare those two the true value of those
Speaker 2: how would you know, right, Because there's there's no legitimate
Speaker 2: place that you can go to that's accurate. If you're
Speaker 2: not a handicapper, you're not anything.
Speaker 1: When you first meet Michael Kent, what you're bringing to
Speaker 1: the table is both access to markets and betting strategy.
Speaker 2: Access to market and betting strategy is correct because when
Speaker 2: it became the betting strategy, he was an office himself,
Speaker 2: and you know, the things, the things that I could
Speaker 2: do was you know, was not only the betting strategy,
Speaker 2: but I could bet you know, larger, much larger amounts
Speaker 2: of money than he could ever bet.
Speaker 1: But he had a superior ability to predict what was
Speaker 1: going to happen in the games.
Speaker 3: No question at the time, at the time I met him,
Speaker 3: and for a period.
Speaker 2: Of uh I would say four years, he was an
Speaker 2: illege of his own.
Speaker 1: You know, in your book, where it gets to me
Speaker 1: especially interesting in them in the insights that you all
Speaker 1: generate is when you're telling me things about the sport
Speaker 1: that I didn't appreciate that you know, for example, Josh Allen,
Speaker 1: Buffalo Bill's quarterback is better in warm weather than in
Speaker 1: cold weather, or Aaron Rodgers is the reverse. Was there
Speaker 1: a lot of that kind of stuff early on, like
Speaker 1: player tendencies, how teams performed in certain in different environments,
Speaker 1: the kind of this is the predictive stuff.
Speaker 2: It's just well, I've kind of generally I've known that
Speaker 2: since the early eighties. It's you know, it's all gotten
Speaker 2: better over the years, and that information is than a book,
Speaker 2: you know. Yeah, it goes back to the seventies. I mean,
Speaker 2: so you're talking about information that's been collected over a
Speaker 2: period of fifty years, and it's been as the world's changed,
Speaker 2: as players have changed, have changed, as stadiums have changed.
Speaker 2: That's all been refined accordingly.
Speaker 1: Another break here. When we come back, it'll be to
Speaker 1: find the FBI knocking on Billy Walters front door. I'm
Speaker 1: back with sports gambler. Billy Walters described for me, just
Speaker 1: pay me a picture of the difference between the illegal
Speaker 1: and the legal sports betting markets.
Speaker 2: Is there any difference, Yeah, there's a master difference. There
Speaker 2: was a master efference back in those days. The legal
Speaker 2: betting markets to Las Vegas, you could bet a lot
Speaker 2: more money in the early eighties and you can bet
Speaker 2: there today. Frankly, who you talk to in Las Vegas,
Speaker 2: they'll tell you it's been very bad for Las Vegas.
Speaker 2: You've got four or five companies have created a monopoly
Speaker 2: in Las Vegas. So in the early eighties, you had
Speaker 2: say thirty casinos and they all had sportsbooks, and you
Speaker 2: had thirty thirty different you know, business men entrepreneurs running them,
Speaker 2: and they were competing against each other. And today you've
Speaker 2: got four or five and they've got a monopoly. The
Speaker 2: illegal sports betting world. Up until things got regulated in
Speaker 2: other parts of the US, I would say you could
Speaker 2: probably bet twenty times as much money.
Speaker 3: As you could bet in Las Vegas. Oh yeah, maybe
Speaker 3: twenty five times back then. Yeah, And even today you
Speaker 3: could bet probably five times as much money and the
Speaker 3: illegal market as you could bet. You bet more than that.
Speaker 2: You can probably bet ten times morning and the illegal
Speaker 2: market than you could. You look at it, I mean
Speaker 2: so called legalized sports betting in the world. Today, you've
Speaker 2: got Fandel, You've got you've got Caesar's, You've got MGM,
Speaker 2: and you've got DraftKings.
Speaker 3: You got basically four of them to control the entire market.
Speaker 1: How did the FBI mistake. The Computer Group is a bookie.
Speaker 2: First of all, there never been any there never been
Speaker 2: any organized group of sports betters ever. Okay, So if
Speaker 2: you're an FBI agent, the only thing you've seen up
Speaker 2: on this point in time that the people that were
Speaker 2: organized were bookmakers and the mob. Okay, and and and
Speaker 2: you know major metropolitan cities, you know the bookmakers were,
Speaker 2: you know they were. Everybody says they were part of
Speaker 2: the mob. I can tell you what part of the
Speaker 2: mob they were. They were being shut down and they
Speaker 2: didn't pay them. Mob they kill them. So if you
Speaker 2: want to make them part of the mob, that makes
Speaker 2: them part of the mob. So Computer Group comes along
Speaker 2: and in Las Leg it's a time we probably had
Speaker 2: thirty thirty five people and we're betting millions of dollars
Speaker 2: on sports. And then on top of that, the guy
Speaker 2: was one of the original members of the Computer Group
Speaker 2: was Ivan Mendelein, and unbknownst to anyone in the group
Speaker 2: at the time, he was doing business with an organized
Speaker 2: crime figure, the guy named Dominic Spinelle and Ivan Mendelein
Speaker 2: had opened up a sports betting account at the Startust
Speaker 2: hotel in Dominic Spinelli's name and he was betting on
Speaker 2: sports on that account.
Speaker 3: And what Ivan.
Speaker 2: Mendela was doing is is he in an agreement with
Speaker 2: the computer guys that basically going to be ran like
Speaker 2: a a corporation. You know, they were going to make
Speaker 2: their bets. Each person had a certain percentage, but they
Speaker 2: weren't going to bet outside the group. They weren't going
Speaker 2: to do you know, they weren't allowed to do that. Well,
Speaker 2: he was cheating. He was doing that and one of
Speaker 2: the people he was doing it with was this guy,
Speaker 2: Dominic Spinelle. When FBI sees this, they begin an investigation,
Speaker 2: and then they learned that he's also associated with Michael
Speaker 2: Kent with me, with others, and then they see all
Speaker 2: these people. They see millions of dollars and they'd never
Speaker 2: seen a group of legalized sports betters before, so they
Speaker 2: begin their investigation. That part I totally understand. I get it, okay,
Speaker 2: But here's the part that you know, you can't understand.
Speaker 2: After that, they put war taps on our phones. For
Speaker 2: sixty days, no one ever took a bet. There were
Speaker 2: only bets made, and it was extremely obvious. No one
Speaker 2: in the group knew Dominic Spinelli, not one person or
Speaker 2: there was no one in the group associated or affiliated
Speaker 2: with any kind of an organized crime figure. Well, then
Speaker 2: after the sixty days of gathering that information, they decided
Speaker 2: the whole mass raids sixteen or seventeen of them throughout
Speaker 2: the United States and January of eighty five, and they
Speaker 2: confiscated all kinds of records and information. Thinks such is
Speaker 2: that when they looked at that, it confirmed again we
Speaker 2: were not bookmakers, no one was associated with organized crime.
Speaker 2: And then the case was essentially dropped for almost five years,
Speaker 2: just before the statute of limitations right now. And then
Speaker 2: there was a guy who wrote a book. It was
Speaker 2: called Interference. And in this guy's book, there was a
Speaker 2: chapter that he wrote about the Computer Group, and Peach
Speaker 2: said the Computer group was super successful, that it had
Speaker 2: won eight twenty five million dollars in one year, and
Speaker 2: it referred to this case. And he inferred in there
Speaker 2: that the government never pursued the case was because one
Speaker 2: of the members of the group, a guy the named
Speaker 2: merv Adelson, was married to Barbara Walters, and that Barbara
Speaker 2: Walters was Nancy Reagan's best friend. And essentially that's the
Speaker 2: reason they never the case. As if there were there
Speaker 2: was a fix in which wasn't true. But as a
Speaker 2: result of that book, Uh, and from what I understand,
Speaker 2: it went back to Kansas City at the time, I
Speaker 2: think was making the decisions on indictments in regards to
Speaker 2: the strike Force, and there was a fellow back there
Speaker 2: who read this book and said, bullshit, there's there's no
Speaker 2: fixes in the strike force and ordered the case to
Speaker 2: go forward.
Speaker 1: Huh, it's when all this is happening. Is there any
Speaker 1: sign to you that other people are trying to imitate
Speaker 1: or copy the Computer group?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: No, there were other groups out there that were betting,
Speaker 2: that clearly organized, that were that knew what they were doing.
Speaker 2: I mean they they weren't as good as we were.
Speaker 2: They weren't remotely as good as we were, but you
Speaker 2: know they they weren't ady.
Speaker 3: It's either.
Speaker 2: But you know, there were other groups out there that
Speaker 2: had started betting that I never used in some type
Speaker 2: of you know, computerized data thinks it's just that. But
Speaker 2: mostly those people were specialists. They would bet on one sport,
Speaker 2: or they would bet you know, within one sport. They
Speaker 2: would bet on like only maybe on two, two or
Speaker 2: three conferences. But I saw no one out there that
Speaker 2: bet all the sports. Kent didn't bet all the sports either.
Speaker 2: I mean I have the right I bet all the
Speaker 2: sports because I had so many different handicappers. You know,
Speaker 2: Kent can only he bet on college football, college basketball,
Speaker 2: pro football for a period of time. But he really
Speaker 2: never bet on baseball. He never bet on golf, never
Speaker 2: bet on no one, never bet on hockey. He never
Speaker 2: been on tennis. And you bet on all those yes, sir,
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 1: Are you still doing it?
Speaker 2: I'm not betting on all those sports. I still got
Speaker 2: on football. I bet on football because I'm one. I
Speaker 2: love sports. Number two, I'm still very good at I
Speaker 2: still beat it, and if I didn't, I would quit.
Speaker 1: What's the different skill set required to be a really
Speaker 1: good book either as a really good sports candler.
Speaker 2: Well, it's really kind of the same thing. I mean,
Speaker 2: you have a built in advantage. You're getting eleven to ten. Okay,
Speaker 2: So okay, that's number one. Okay, number two. If you
Speaker 2: want to write as much business as you can possibly
Speaker 2: write at good prices, you could have the sharpest numbers
Speaker 2: in the world. If you don't write any business, you're
Speaker 2: not going to make any money as a bookmaker.
Speaker 3: On the other hand, you could write.
Speaker 2: Billions of dollars or the business with bad numbers, you're
Speaker 2: not going to make any money, So you want to
Speaker 2: be able to do both. And I would say ninety
Speaker 2: percent of people who are out there betting today, they're
Speaker 2: giving their money to you. They can't win. Let's say
Speaker 2: there's ten left that okay, to some degree, you need to.
Speaker 3: Factory in what they're doing. Okay.
Speaker 2: So if you're a bookmaker and let's say you got
Speaker 2: Billy Walter's betting you, okay, the key with that is
Speaker 2: number one, you would want me betting you because you
Speaker 2: would want to know what I'm betting on. Then you
Speaker 2: need to be able to take the information that you
Speaker 2: got from me betting you and then make that useful
Speaker 2: to you. And the way you do it, you would
Speaker 2: move your line accordingly. And the real key is you
Speaker 2: want to get the bet as early as you can.
Speaker 2: Early the bet you get, the more time you have
Speaker 2: to get actions back the other way. The later you
Speaker 2: take the bet and you're frozen with it, you're gambling,
Speaker 2: which is stupid and smart bookmakers the only profession that
Speaker 2: I've seen, Michael that has regressed in the last twenty years,
Speaker 2: or bookmakers. Bookmakers twenty years ago were much much smarter
Speaker 2: and much better at book making than the guys you
Speaker 2: have today.
Speaker 1: Why has the book making regressed?
Speaker 3: Or give an example, especially today with the dissemination of
Speaker 3: information the way it is today with Twitter, with all
Speaker 3: these different things out there. Let's say you have an
Speaker 3: injury with a sports team. Literally the betting public knows
Speaker 3: about it in a matter.
Speaker 2: Of you know, seconds. And let's say you're sitting there
Speaker 2: and you're running a sports book and you don't know
Speaker 2: about it in a matter of seconds, and you don't
Speaker 2: change your line or you don't take your game down
Speaker 2: off the board, you're going to get bet by a
Speaker 2: number of people that know about it. And the only
Speaker 2: thing they know is okay, Well the quarterbacks out okay,
Speaker 2: But they got no sense to know that that that's
Speaker 2: a good player and that's winning bet betting on those
Speaker 2: type situations. Well, that sportsbook corporator sitting there, he's sleepy,
Speaker 2: he had moved his line, and so he gets nailed.
Speaker 2: He gets a bet from one of these people. Well,
Speaker 2: automatically he throws the guy out for betty. Well, he
Speaker 2: shouldn't tell the guy, that guy that made that bet.
Speaker 2: Ninety nine percent of them are going to lose their
Speaker 2: money because they're going to bet on other games they
Speaker 2: don't have any information on.
Speaker 3: It's going to happen.
Speaker 2: But the only reason he got bet is because he
Speaker 2: was sitting her sound asleep. If he had been paying
Speaker 2: attention to the business, or had people paying attention to
Speaker 2: his business.
Speaker 3: He wouldn't have got bet. He wouldn't have.
Speaker 2: Had a coal line. That's what do you call a
Speaker 2: coal line? When when you got a dumb bookmaker or
Speaker 2: a lazy bookmaker that hasn't adjusted his numbers. The smart
Speaker 2: bookmakers of the world, the guys are on top of
Speaker 2: their game. You could never bet them on a game
Speaker 2: like that. Hell, they'd have a game scratched before before
Speaker 2: the information ever came out, or when it came out,
Speaker 2: wellin two seconds that be scratched. Okay, So you look
Speaker 2: at CIRCA. Okay, you got a join in downtown Las Vegas.
Speaker 2: The only people they have there are tough guys. All
Speaker 2: they've got are guys that are you know, that eat
Speaker 2: sleep and breeze sports three hundred six five days a year.
Speaker 2: Professional betters, professional gamblers. They don't get any of that.
Speaker 2: Walk in traffic out of the strip where you got
Speaker 2: suckers come into town or just giving you your money.
Speaker 2: They got nothing but the toughest business in town, and
Speaker 2: they beat it. They beat it because they know how
Speaker 2: to book.
Speaker 1: It's a kind of a relationship to information. They want
Speaker 1: the information one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: You want the information instead.
Speaker 1: Of dodging it. All right, I got one last question
Speaker 1: for you that I'm going to let you go. Sure,
Speaker 1: kid walks into your knocks on your door and says
Speaker 1: mister Walt, as I followed your career, I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: a career in sports gambling. What do you tell them?
Speaker 2: I wouldn't do it as as a professional better. Clearly,
Speaker 2: if you want to get into the book making side
Speaker 2: of it, you want to get on the marketing side
Speaker 2: of it. Whatever you want to get in, you know,
Speaker 2: if that's your passion, man, go for it. Because I
Speaker 2: think it's a business is going to grow and I
Speaker 2: think there's going to be a lot of opportunity in it.
Speaker 2: But as far as the sports better is concerned, I
Speaker 2: would not do it. Why Well, I was successful for
Speaker 2: I mean, if you read my book, you realize, I
Speaker 2: guess if there's one theme in my book, it's resiliency.
Speaker 2: And when you look at the situation you got out there.
Speaker 2: Now in the United States, you're going to bet on sports.
Speaker 2: A taxation is a joke here. Also, the operators came
Speaker 2: in and they got all this legalization done. But you know,
Speaker 2: you got an underlying thing out there with taxes that
Speaker 2: the people betting on sports aren't even aware of it.
Speaker 2: But in this country, any money you win, you're subject
Speaker 2: to federal and state tax, and a federal tax you're
Speaker 2: paying tax on ordinary income. It's the only thing in
Speaker 2: the entire United States tax code you can't carry forward
Speaker 2: or loss in one year to the next.
Speaker 1: Well, that just kills it as a business.
Speaker 3: Well, it totally kills it.
Speaker 2: I could easily see where you could really grow this business.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm talking about wealthy, smart people with bet
Speaker 2: sports because number one is so much fun. It's number two,
Speaker 2: it's addictive and now it's so.
Speaker 3: Easy to do.
Speaker 2: If they could pay twenty percent tax on whatever money
Speaker 2: they want, they could care for the loss in one
Speaker 2: year or the next.
Speaker 3: Like you do with stocks.
Speaker 2: You'd have all kinds of people who aren't putting sports.
Speaker 2: They would bet sports, and they would bet, they would
Speaker 2: play sports high and you would see a tremendous amount of.
Speaker 1: Growth if you remove tax considerations and the young person
Speaker 1: is there saying, should I pursue a career in sports gambling.
Speaker 3: Well, then that's different.
Speaker 2: If it were to be taxed fairly, then yeah, I
Speaker 2: think you can beat sports, and I think sports can.
Speaker 2: It's going to be way more work than you ever dream,
Speaker 2: and ever dream. The market's going to be much smaller
Speaker 2: than you can ever imagine.
Speaker 3: It's it's not. It's mini school compared to the stock exchange.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of wondering, is if you think it's been
Speaker 1: a good way to go through life, Well.
Speaker 3: It's been.
Speaker 2: It's been a great way to go through life for me. Clearly,
Speaker 2: I've had issues with it. As you know, I've been
Speaker 2: indicted five times. When I look back over my life.
Speaker 2: Would I do this again if I know what I
Speaker 2: know now, Yeah, I probably would, because look, I loved
Speaker 2: every day that I did this, Michael. You know, I
Speaker 2: got up being able to do something every day that
Speaker 2: I absolutely enjoyed doing.
Speaker 3: I loved doing.
Speaker 2: It, and it so Yeah, from my perspective, yes it was.
Speaker 1: That's my answer.
Speaker 2: But if I were a young guy and I were
Speaker 2: going to become a handicapper. I would specialize in fantasy
Speaker 2: sports is what I would specialize and the reason I
Speaker 2: would do that. I think ninety percent of people who
Speaker 2: bet on fantasy sports have no chance. They're just giving
Speaker 2: their money away. I think I think you got ten
Speaker 2: percent of people betting on fantasy sports are going to win,
Speaker 2: win all the money. And whereas betting on sides, it's
Speaker 2: a lot tougher, a lot more competitive. The handicappers have
Speaker 2: a much bigger advantage, and in fantasy sports they don't care.
Speaker 3: So if I were going.
Speaker 2: To be a young handicapper and I were going to
Speaker 2: start all over, would become a professional handicapper with fantasy sports.
Speaker 1: Thank you for your time, Thank you, and joined the
Speaker 1: visit a foreign to meeting you one day. Billy Walters
Speaker 1: has written a book about his life. It's called Gambler
Speaker 1: Secrets from a Life at Risk and it's great. Next
Speaker 1: week we hear from some of the old school Vegas
Speaker 1: bookies on the other side of Billy Walters. Bets Against
Speaker 1: the Rules is written and hosted by me Michael Lewis
Speaker 1: and produced by Lydia gene Kott, Catherine Gerardeau, and Ariella Markowitz.
Speaker 1: Our editor is Julia Barton. Our engineer is Sarah Bruguier.
Speaker 1: Against the Rules is a production of Pushkin Industries. To
Speaker 1: find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
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