Gambling Wizards: Conversations

with the World's Greatest Gamblers

Richard W. Munchkin

Acknowledgments
I must thank the people who so graciously opened their homes
and their lives to me for these interviews. In addition, my heartfelt
thanks to:
Anthony Curtis and Deke Castleman, for tirelessly pushing to
make this a better book.
Jake Jacobs, for his notes on bridge and backgammon.
Max Rubin, who encouraged me by saying, "If I can write a
book, anyone can."
Abble Engel, who is a movie producer in mind, but a gambler
at heart.
Fred (whose real name is Andy), for putting the best eyes in the
business to work on the final edit.
Bill B., who provided me with the best writer's retreat an author
could hope for.

Contents
Billy Walters
Chip Reese
Tommy Hyland
Mike Svobodny
Stan Tomchin
Cathy Hulbert
Alan Woods
 Doyle Brunson
Index of Notes
Glossary

Introduction
Tommy Hyland lands at McCarran International Airport in Las
Vegas. A waiting limousine whisks him off to one of the grandest
casinos on the Strip. He checks into a huge suite. Chilled
champagne and a large fruit basket greet him as he walks in. His
host has made reservations for the gourmet room and given him
ringside seats for a championship fight. The casino pays for all of
this because he's a high roller. What they don't know is that Tommy
Hyland is a professional gambler.
Alan Woods sits in his penthouse apartment in Hong Kong
watching computer screens. Numbers roll by as he taps at the
keyboard. Across the room another screen blinks with the latest
Bloomberg quotes for the American stock market. The stock market
is where he does his "gambling." He makes his living via a reliable
job—betting on horse racing. He rarely ventures out of his
apartment. His life resembles that of an accountant or computer
programmer. But he, too, is a professional gambler.
Doyle Brunson sits in a poker room in Las Vegas. He studies
the people around the table, waiting for a crack in their game,
looking for a weakness. He'll sit, Buddha-like, for 10 hours, 20
hours, at a stretch, however long it takes to get the money. He just
sits in smoke-filled rooms waiting for a player to go on tilt. His style
and pace are different from Tommy's and Alan's, yet Doyle, too, is
a professional gambler.
Who are these people who fly around the world making millions
of dollars off their talent for playing games? What is it in someone's
character that allows him or her to risk hundreds of thousands of
dollars on a single bet? And what separates the professional gambler
from the losers and wanna-bes? Don't they all die broke? The
answers to these and other questions are what I set out to learn when
I decided to write about professional gamblers.
I've been fascinated with gambling and gamblers since I was a
child, and have been an avid backgammon and poker player since
high school. It was through backgammon that I first met some of
the people in this book more than twenty years ago. The idea for
this book came to me while in Hong Kong visiting Alan Woods. I
was watching him work and realized he was, without question, one
of the most successful gamblers in recorded history, yet nothing has
ever been written about him. Would he allow me to interview him?
Fortunately, he did.
I then decided to include a cross-section of gambling pros and
their specialties. After Alan, I focused on a sports bettor, a blackjack
player, and a poker player. These games are where the most money
is gambled and won.
I also included backgammon, another big-money game. The
biggest backgammon player in the world is Mike Svobodny, whom
I've known for twenty-some years. This guy lost a $100,000 bet to
a man who got breast implants—Mike was a "must-have" for the
book.
And, in order to completely portray this world and its
characters, I felt it was important to include a woman. Although
men dominate professional gambling, women have been gambling
for many years with great success, but have a completely different
perspective. Cathy Hulbert was the obvious choice because of her
experience as both a blackjack and poker player. From there, my
subjects helped me. Mike called Chip. Chip called Doyle. One by
one they fell into place.
In choosing my subjects, I took into account the amount of
money won, longevity, the respect of peers, and the stories they had
to tell. Every person in this book has been a full-time professional
gambler for at least 20 years. They're all consistent winners, because
they gamble with an advantage, and they have amassed great
fortunes doing it.
Even though I've been around the world of professional
gamblers for decades, the interview process brought many
surprises. For example, most professional gamblers don't gamble at
one game. One may start out as a poker player, but as he meets other
pros, he'll probably branch out into other games that give him an
edge. Stan Tomchin began as a backgammon player and later shifted
into sports betting. Chip Reese is considered one of the best poker
players in the world, but has probably made more money betting
baseball. Alan Woods was a blackjack player who now bets the
horses. Cathy Hulbert was a blackjack player who now plays poker.
I also found that although all serious gamblers look for a
mathematical advantage, the different games and personality traits
lead to very different working styles. Betting horses or sports is
primarily a job of computer analysis. You're up against an institution
and your opponent's personality is not a factor. These forms of
gambling do not require an awareness of human behavior. Poker, on
the other hand, can't be played without a fluency in psychology.
Blackjack players, like sports bettors, play against casinos, but have
the added problem of having to disguise their betting strategy, and
often themselves. A casino once barred Tommy Hyland dressed as
Santa Claus.
In blackjack, there's always a known correct play. In poker and
backgammon, where character is crucial to winning, players must
rely on their judgment, which can become clouded. Here, it's
important to face adversity and not go on tilt or start steaming.
Professional gamblers comprise a very small community. Although
I selected these eight people ahead of time, I found that all of them
have been interrelated at some point. Cathy Hulbert was on a
blackjack team with Alan Woods. Alan met Mike Svobodny when
he called him one morning at 4 a.m. to ask if Mike wanted to bet a
million dollars on a soccer game. When I interviewed Chip Reese,
Mike was playing klabiash (a card game) in Chip's living room.
 Many people assume that for gamblers to win consistently, they
must cheat. That's a myth. Professional gamblers live by their
reputations. A theme that comes up repeatedly in these interviews
is that gamblers consider their colleagues to be much more honest
than people in the business world, especially when it comes to
loaning money. It's not uncommon for one gambler to loan another
$50,000 or $100,000 with no note, no contract, just his word that it
will be paid back.
One of the reasons the public has the mistaken impression that
professional gamblers are cheaters is they've heard that casinos
frequently bar professionals from playing. Casinos are in business
to make money. Anyone who plays with what the casino bosses
perceive to be an advantage might cost the casinos money, so the
bosses are trained to pick them off and kick them out.
Sometimes this policy costs the casino, when a player is barred
from games in which he doesn't have an advantage. Doyle Brunson
relates in his interview that he knows very little about blackjack.
However, if he were to sit down in a Las Vegas casino and try to
play, the casino would stop him, simply because he's Doyle
Brunson. The bosses would assume that he wouldn't be playing if
he didn't think he had an edge. Bill Walters talks about casinos that
bar any sports bettor who appears halfway smart and bets a lot of
money. Tommy Hyland says, "All we want to do is play a game
according to the rules that a casino lays out. We'll either beat the
game, or we won't play."
It's legal to play poker in a card room and blackjack in a casino,
or bet sports or horses in a race and sports book. There are also
places to play these games illegally, but the professionals stay away
from them. True professionals have too high a profile to risk
gambling illegally. This doesn't mean that these people don't have
problems with the law. As Mike Svobodny points out, being
extremely successful is itself cause for intense scrutiny. Chip Reese
says, "Just because I'm not doing anything illegal doesn't mean I
won't have to defend myself someday." For the best example of a
legal nightmare, see the Bill Walters interview.
Who makes the most money? Horse bettors first, followed by
sports bettors. Then poker, golf hustlers, and blackjack and
backgammon players. The amount they can bet and the number of
bets they can make per year dictate—and often limit—their earning
potential. But for gamblers at the levels we discuss in these
interviews, it really isn't about the money. Mike Svobodny says that
there's a fine line between a degenerate gambler and a professional.
They both want to stay in action, but the professional also wants to
have the best of it. Chip Reese says, "I'm like a little kid. I get up
every day and say, 'What game am I going to play today?'"
That sounds like a great life to me.
See what you think.

Note: The world of professional gambling has its own lexicon.

Many gambling terms have meanings that differ from their real-
world counterparts. These terms are defined in a glossary that runs
through the book. The definitions are not repeated from chapter to
chapter; however, a complete glossary appears at the back of the
book. In addition, the "Notes" at the end of each chapter expand on
important gambling concepts referenced within the conversations.

Richard W. Munchkin
Las Vegas, August 2002

BILLY WALTERS

Billy Walters may be the biggest sports bettor in the world. On

any given weekend, Walters bets hundreds of thousands of dollars
using data generated by an exclusive and world-class crop of
computer programmers. He filters the data, then goes to work at his
specialty—getting the money down at the point spread he wants.
Born in Munfordville, Kentucky, Billy's father died when he
was a year and a half old. His grandmother raised him, and on her
way to work, she'd drop him off at a pool room owned by his uncle,
who set up Coke cases around the pool table for Bill to stand on. At
age four, Billy Walters began shooting pool. As Bill says, "More
skulduggery goes on in a pool room than anywhere. It's the greatest
place in the world to learn what life is all about."
After a short stint as a bookmaker and an arrest, Billy decided
that he had to go to Las Vegas. Since then, his gambling exploits
have made him a legend among professionals. In the early 1980s he
was part of the Computer Group, the first gamblers to successfully
use computers to analyze football. They bankrupted bookmakers
from coast to coast. In 1986 he won Amarillo Slim's Super Bowl of
Poker, the second most prestigious tournament at the time. In
Atlantic City he won $3.8 million in one day playing roulette. The
story goes that the casino sent the roulette wheel to NASA afterward
to be analyzed by their engineers for biases.
After following these incredible stories for years, I knew I had
to have Billy Walters in this book.
But there was also a dark side. In his early days, Bill was a self-
described gambling addict. More than any other, he's had to beat not
only the casinos, but the federal government, as well. As part of the
Computer Group, he was indicted for bookmaking, and he's been
indicted three times in Las Vegas for money laundering. Walters
keeps fighting them, because, he says, "There's a principle involved.
I've done nothing wrong."
Since 1988, Billy has spent most of his time developing and
operating his company, the Walters Group. He has six golf courses
and a hotel. He's built mobile-home and industrial parks, and filled
many subdivisions with houses. During my interview, Bill stressed
that business and gambling are no different. If you value something
at ten, then you're a buyer at eight and a seller at twelve. It makes
no difference if it's a piece of property or calling the last bet in a
poker game.
How does a man go from compulsive loser to being one of the
most successful gamblers in history? Billy told me, "I know what
every sucker thinks, because I used to be one."

When did you first start gambling?

I guess I was about five years old.

What were you betting on?

I was shooting pool, playing penny nine ball. The way I got
introduced to gambling was quite different from most of the people
I know.
As a youngster, I led two lives. My father was a professional
gambler, but he died when I was a year and a half old. My
grandmother raised me, and we were very poor. My grandmother
cleaned people's houses and washed dishes at a restaurant at lunch
hour. She was the most religious lady I have ever known. We lived
in a town of fourteen hundred people in Kentucky called
Munfordville. Every Sunday morning I went to Sunday school, and
church afterward. We had training union on Sunday night and
prayer meetings on Wednesday night. I was part of a Christian youth
organization called the R.A.s, the Royal Ambassadors.
My uncle owned a pool room. When I was four years old, my
grandmother would drop me off there while she went to work. My
uncle would put Coke cases around the back pool table for me to
stand on and I started shooting pool when I was four years old.
When I was five or six, I was racking balls in the pool room.
When I was eight I got a paper route. I worked seven days a
week, three hundred sixty-five days a year. I cut grass for people.
There were eight or ten people whose yards I kept. I hired out in the
summer with the farmers, working on the crops and things like that.
I remember the first time I lost an amount of money that had a
major effect on me. I was about ten years old. The town grocer was
a baseball fanatic. His name was Woody Branstedder, and he was a
Brooklyn Dodgers fan. I loved baseball and my heroes were Mickey
Mantle and the rest of the New York Yankees. I had saved up about
thirty dollars from this paper route and I bet the whole thirty on the
Yankees beating the Dodgers in the World Series. I think that's the
only series the Dodgers ever beat the Yankees. I remember it like it
was yesterday: that sick empty feeling I had the first time I got
broke. That was the first thing that was memorable from a gambling
standpoint.

When did you start playing golf?

I didn't start playing golf until I was about twenty. I didn't even
know there was such a thing as a golf course. Obviously, I wasn't
raised in a country-club set. The town I was in didn't even have a
golf course. My grandmother died when I was thirteen, and I was
forced to move to Louisville where my mother lived. I worked two
jobs there and played a lot of pool. I got a girl pregnant when I was
sixteen, so I got married. I continued to go to high school until I
graduated. I worked in a bakery in the morning and a service station
at night until I got out of high school. I eventually ended up in the
automobile business. Some guys I was selling cars with invited me
to play golf.

Did you have an aptitude for the game right away?

I thought I did, and I bet the first time I played. We played a

hundred-dollar Nassau.
 Nassau — The classic betting proposition in golf. A Nassau
consists of three bets for an agreed-upon amount. In a $100 Nassau,
$100 is won by the player with the best score on the first nine holes,
a second $100 is won for the best score on the back nine, and a third
$100 is won by the player with the best combined score for the entire
game.

Without ever having played before?

Oh yeah. Although my father was a professional gambler and I

was raised around gambling, I was addicted to it. I didn't realize it
then, but in retrospect I was totally addicted.
Even though I was married and had a child to raise, my typical
week went like this. I worked eighty hours a week selling cars. After
I got off work I went to a poker game. On Saturday I bet every game
on the schedule for college and pro football. Every. Monday a
parade of bookmakers came by to get paid. Four or five times a year
I would take a trip to Las Vegas and whatever money I had, or didn't
have, I would lose in Las Vegas. This went on for a number of years.
I made a lot of money in the automobile business, but never
accumulated any. We lived okay.

So you weren't out blowing the rent money.

Oh, no. But I had innumerable opportunities in the automobile

business. If I had stayed focused on cars, and hadn't gambled, I
would probably own three hundred automobile dealerships today.
But I didn't. My love, my heart, my mind were always on gambling.
In Kentucky, where I lived, there was gambling before anybody
ever heard of Las Vegas.

Newport?
 Yeah, Newport, and Louisville, too. Newport is better known,
because that's where a lot of the people who started Las Vegas came
from. But there was underground gambling in Louisville fifty years
before Las Vegas was ever founded. Louisville is not a city like
Chicago or New York or other major metropolitan areas. There's no
organized crime there, and there never has been any organized
crime. Everybody gambled and as long as bookmakers didn't mess
with any players, the police couldn't care less. We had walk-in
gambling establishments where you could shoot craps, play poker,
and get the call of the races at Churchill Downs. Gambling was a
way of life there. It was a wide-open town. When I moved there, it
made gambling even more convenient. I saw bookmakers that
couldn't read or write, driving Cadillacs.
In the late '70s I had a son who was diagnosed with a terminal
brain tumor. I had a marriage that was on the rocks. It was the only
thing in my entire life that I have been faced with that I couldn't deal
with. I've been shot at, I've been heisted, I've owed money that I
didn't have, I've been broke a zillion times, but I had never faced
any kind of pressure that I couldn't deal with. When I was told my
son had thirty days to live, I went through this tremendous feeling
of guilt. I was working eighty hours a week in the automobile
business and the rest of the time I was playing poker or playing golf
or doing something. Here is this kid who had thirty days to live and
I hadn't spent nearly as much time with him as I should have. The
girl I was married to at the time was having tremendous emotional
problems and our marriage was weak anyway. We got divorced and
I got out of the automobile business.
I was burned out on automobiles, I was defeated emotionally
because of the situation with my son, I had gotten a divorce, but I
was still infatuated with gambling. I looked at all those people I
competed against. I played golf once a week; they played seven
days a week and practiced. I'd go to a poker game at eleven o'clock
at night after working all those hours and I could hardly hold my
eyes open. I was up against guys that played for a living. I thought
to myself: If I could devote a hundred percent of my time to
gambling, I could be successful. It was something that appealed to
me and something I really wanted to do. So when I got out of the
automobile business, I decided I was going to become a bookmaker,
and that's what I did.
I started booking in Kentucky in '79 or '80, along with about a
hundred other people that were already booking. In no time I had a
lot of business, because I worked hard and I knew a lot of people.
Looking back on it, I was very naive. I lived there my whole life
and I'd seen all these people book and nobody ever had any
problems. Had I known the problems it would create for me for the
rest of my life I never would have considered booking, but I did it.
I booked there for a short period of time and the end result was the
same as what happens to most people that book. I wound up being
arrested. That was in September of 1982.

If the town was wide open, why you?

There was an election. The incumbent mayor was defeated and

a new mayor came in. He brought in a new chief of police and they
were going to crack down. I was the most visible guy, because I was
the biggest guy. Once I got arrested I knew I had to make a decision.
I could either stay in Kentucky, go back to the automobile business,
and completely get out of gambling, or I had to go someplace where
gambling was accepted—someplace where it was legal and I could
be a respected member of the community. That place was Las
Vegas; Las Vegas is the Wall Street of gambling.
In retrospect, the chances of me making it in Las Vegas were
about one in ten million. I've always been someone with at least
average intelligence and I've always had an incredible work ethic,
but back in those days I had two major leaks in my game. First, I
drank. And when I drank I was an idiot when it came to gambling.
I gave my money away. Second, I was a very poor manager. Even
when I was sober I wasn't a good manager.

money management (being a manager) — Considered by many

to be the cornerstone of professional gambling, it's the skill that
often separates the pros from the wannabes who drive taxis. Pros use
it to protect their bankrolls during extended losing streaks and to
maximize the advantages they find and exploit. Not to be confused
with money-management-based betting systems—no betting system
can win in the long run without a mathematical advantage in the
game.

When I moved to Las Vegas, most people [who knew me] gave
me little or no chance of being successful. I decided I was going to
devote a hundred percent of my time to becoming the best gambler
I could possibly become. And I remarried. I married the lady that
I'm married to now. We've been married twenty-three years.

What was her reaction to that decision?

A large part of the success that I've been able to achieve has
been because of the lady I married. Unlike the first girl I married—
who didn't like gambling, didn't understand gambling, and was
against gambling—this girl knew me and knew what I was. From
day one she's been totally supportive of me regardless of whether
we had a bag full of money or we were broke. She's been that kind
of wife and partner. She wanted me to be happy, and anything and
everything she could do to support me she's done since the day we
were married.

You're very different from the other gamblers I've

interviewed. From the beginning, they always wanted to have
an edge, whereas you had a lot of gamble in you and became a
professional later.

Yeah. I suffered a lot of disappointments gambling. Had most

people gone through what I went through, they wouldn't still be
gambling. At one time I was addicted. Back in the early years, I
probably had more gamble in me than any man alive. I'd flip a nickel
for all the money I had. If I got broke, it didn't make any difference.
When it came to gambling, money didn't mean anything. I wasn't
stupid. I looked for the best of it, but if I couldn't get the best of it,
I'd take the worst of it to get in action. As I said, I wasn't a very good
manager of my money.
On the other hand, I won a lot of money gambling. I probably
won more money gambling than anybody you know. The reason I
was able to win such large amounts was because I had a reputation
for being someone who would give a lot of gamble. In the gambling
world, if a guy has a reputation as a nut peddler, a lot of people won't
gamble with him. If a guy has a reputation as someone who gives a
lot of gamble, then people who won't gamble with other people will
gamble with him. But back in those days, because I wasn't a great
manager, I never accumulated any money. I eventually ended up
getting taken off.

giving (or having) gamble — The willingness to bet when you

may have no advantage.
nut peddler— Someone who wants to bet only on sure things. In
poker, an unbeatable hand is called "the nuts."
taken off— Usually, to be cheated. Also (and as used here), to be
beaten by other players.

What changed that? How did you change?

Several things changed it. Number one, I got older. Number

two, I became more mature when it came to being a gambler and
understanding the facts surrounding gambling. Number three, the
casinos had as much or more to do with my outlook changing than
anything in the world.
I started coming to Las Vegas in the '60s. I always believed that
it didn't make any difference whether you won or lost. If you gave
the casinos action, that was all they cared about. For many years I
was the most popular guy in Las Vegas, because I lost millions and
millions of dollars there. In the '80s I saw another side of the casinos
that I hadn't realized existed. When I started beating them, I found
out that my previous belief was incorrect. If you threatened to
become a consistent winner, the casinos not only didn't want your
business, but they would go to great lengths to create problems for
you. Once I saw this side of the deal, it had a chilling effect on me.
I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't do any more gambling
in casinos unless I was convinced that I had a mathematical
advantage.

action — Betting; when money is on the line.

Once you began operating this way, did they bar you from
play?

I didn't exactly get barred. For many years I'd won and lost large
amounts of money in casinos, but at the end of the day I was a big
loser.

Was this at all different games, or betting sports?

It was at table games. I played blackjack and baccarat.

So you were exactly the customer the casino wanted—you

were a player.
 I was exactly what they wanted, and again, back in those days I
drank. When I was sober I was a much tougher guy to beat. But
when I drank, I played really poorly. That's what they're looking for
today, somebody who has a lot of gamble to him and is willing, on
a continual basis, to belly up with the worst of it and lose his money.
In years prior to moving to Las Vegas I'd played in some of the
poker tournaments at the Horseshoe. Jack Binion had a golf
tournament every year. [Jack Binion was the owner of the
Horseshoe Hotel and Casino.] In those days it was pretty famous. I
say a golf tournament, but it was a bunch of guys from all over the
country who got together and sometimes four months later we
would still be out there gambling every day. Customers from the
Horseshoe and professional gamblers from all over the world came
and we matched up and played golf. Even before I was a successful
gambler, I won a lot of money back in those days playing golf. I
then lost that money in the casinos or betting sports or something
else.

How high were you guys playing?

I had some $100,000 Nassaus. Throughout those years I met a

lot of people. I met Doyle Brunson, Chip Reese, Billy Baxter, Sarge
Ferris, Puggy Pearson, and on and on and on [Chip Reese is
interviewed in Chapter 2; Doyle Brunson is interviewed and Puggy
Pearson is profiled in Chapter 8]. When I decided to move to Las
Vegas I was broke, but one of my associations was with a group of
guys who had developed a software program to handicap sports.

How did you get connected with them?

That's a real long story, but I was basically involved with them
in marketing their product. I was moving the money. They got
started and were successful, and they wanted to expand their market
share. They didn't have the means or the ability and that's how I got
involved. I got involved with them back in Kentucky before I
moved to Las Vegas.

moving money—Getting bets placed. As used here, betting with

many different bookmakers in order to get a large amount of action
without moving the point spread.

This was the famed "Computer Group"1?

Right. So when I moved to Las Vegas, Chip Reese was, if not

the best, one of the best poker players in the world. Chip was a much
better manager than I was, but at that time he wasn't the greatest
manager in the world, either. He made a lot of money playing poker
and screwed it off betting sports or something like that. He enjoyed
golf and he and I liked each other, so when I moved to Las Vegas
we formed a partnership. I tried to help him as much as I could with
his golf game and taught him what I could regarding sports. He
taught me about poker, backgammon, and gin rummy. We were
next-door neighbors and we did almost everything together. I look
back on those days as some of the happiest of my life. We even
played slot machines. When the progressive jackpot was out of
whack, we would put a crew together and play slots. Chip put up
the money and we were partners. All the money we won playing
poker, or backgammon, or betting sports went in a pot and we split.
That relationship went on for a couple years. We had a basketball
season that wasn't going very well and he decided to discontinue the
partnership. But I continued to bet sports.

crew—A group of gamblers who work together as a team.

In 1985 I had a controversy with the FBI, who had looked at the
Computer Group. There was an agent that had been out of the
academy for about two months. He didn't have a wealth of
experience and he thought we were bookmakers. He couldn't
fathom that we were mere bettors. To be fair, up until then anyone
involved in betting sports with large amounts of money and a large
group of people had always been a bookmaker. A group of people
making large amounts of money from betting was something that
neither he nor the FBI had ever seen before. In December of 1984
they put wiretaps on our telephones. In January of 1985 they carried
out simultaneous raids throughout the United States. They raided
several places under the pretense that this was a large book-making
network.
1
For this and subsequent numeric references 2-4, see "Walters Notes" at the end of this chapter.

The wiretaps should have made it obvious that this wasn't

the case.

That's right. When they listened to those wiretaps it should have

been very clear that we were doing nothing more than betting, but
[to them] it wasn't. We were raided and they seized quite a bit of
material and money. We felt that once they reviewed all the
evidence, they would come to the conclusion that we were bettors
and that would be that. After the raids took place, information was
submitted to the grand jury. It became very apparent to both the head
of the strike force and the head of the FBI in Las Vegas that we had
done nothing wrong and the case was put on hold.
During the next five years, two new strike force heads came in
and there were two new heads of the FBI here in Las Vegas. Then,
two or three months before the statute of limitations ran out, a book
was published, titled Interference. The book was about ninety-nine
percent fiction. It alleged that there were pro football games being
fixed by organized crime. This wasn't related to us, but to sports
betting in general. The book was all bullshit, but there was a chapter
that mentioned the Computer Group. The author said we were the
most successful sports betting group in the history of America. He
mentioned the raid that had taken place in January of '85, and
insinuated that the reason we weren't indicted was because one of
the members of our group was a fellow who was married to Barbara
Walters. According to this book, the reason we weren't indicted was
because Barbara Walters' best friend was Nancy Reagan, and there
was this so-called fix.
When the book came out, the principals at the Justice
Department read this and said, "What the hell do you mean there's
a fix going on?" There was no fix, but it got the case reborn. Four
years eleven months and two weeks after the arrest, we were
indicted. [The statute of limitations was five years.] We were
charged with— and listen to this, because nobody in the history of
America, to my knowledge, had ever been charged with this—
"being part of a criminal conspiracy, conspiring to bet." We were
charged with a violation of the travel act and a violation of 1084.
Fortunately, we were found not guilty of two of the counts. On the
other count, the jury voted eleven to one to acquit, and it was
dismissed.
The thing I learned first-hand from this experience is that the
vast majority of people in law enforcement are competent, and well
intended, but they're not perfect. What happened in the Computer
case, and what is happening to me today, is that people went out and
spent large amounts of money. They made representations and
public statements. When facts came out that didn't support their
representations, they were put in a position where they had to cover
their asses. That's when people become extremely dangerous.

It seems that the system is ripe for abuse.

These forfeiture laws are more abused than anything I can think
of. Congress passed the RICO Act and it was put in place to
confiscate ill-gotten gains from drug traffickers and such.
Unfortunately, they use that law to target people. Let's say a guy is
truly guilty of violating the law, and he has assets. What the police
do now is cut a deal with him. They let him plead guilty to a lesser
offense, the person doesn't do any jail time, and the money gets
forfeited into the police slush fund. The bottom line is, if you violate
the law, I don't care if you're rich or poor, black or white, you should
be held to an equal standard. Because of the way these forfeiture
laws are worded, you have police motivated to do one thing: Get
the money.

You think they target gamblers because of the amount of

cash involved?

Sure. I've had people in law enforcement tell me that gamblers

are the easiest targets in the world for them. From an administrative
standpoint, they invest little or no resources and the amount of
money they get in forfeiture is substantial. A lot of people in
gambling can't stand up and defend the thing as vigorously as they
would like because, let's face it, maybe some of them didn't pay all
the taxes they should have.
In Las Vegas I have a controversy with the Metropolitan Police
Department. Twelve years after the FBI thing, the Las Vegas
Metropolitan Police Department confiscated $2.8 million of my
money under the pretense that I was an illegal bookmaker. They
found out I wasn't, but that didn't make any difference. For the last
three years they've worked day and night trying to concoct a crime
that doesn't exist, so they'll have the legal right to keep my money.
Back in 1996 their offer was: I give them $500,000 and they give
me back the balance and it would all go away. I refused to give them
a penny, because I hadn't done anything wrong. I can account for
every cent of my money, and they basically bit into something that
they're unaccustomed to. That is, someone who has not violated the
law and someone who has nothing to hide.

They confiscated your money claiming it was ill-gotten

gains?

Yes. Any money that they seize from people in forfeitures goes
into a bank account. There is no accountability for the money that
goes into the account and no accountability for money that goes out.
We've been told, and I believe it to be true, that the police working
in this department are making as much or more money in overtime
as they are in base pay. They're traveling here, there, and
everywhere, supposedly doing investigative work. Why shouldn't
they be held accountable just like any other public agency?
The vast majority of people they do this to are somewhat dirty.
For these people, it's much more affordable to give the police the
assets than it is to hire an attorney and fight it.

In the long run it could cost you more than the $500,000 they
would have accepted.

Oh, it's already cost me far in excess of $500,000, but there's a

principle here. I don't know how well you know my background,
but in 1997 I was recognized as Man of the Year in Las Vegas, as
Philanthropist of the Year. I've donated millions and millions of
dollars to local charities in Las Vegas. There's a charity here called
Opportunity Village for which we were the lead donors. The dollars
have nothing to do with this case. It's the principle.

That aspect of the case surprises me. Las Vegas is a small

town, and you're a successful businessman and a respected
member of the community. It seems odd that they would target
you.
 If you were to talk to the majority of the people that make Las
Vegas what it is, I think you would find ninety-nine point nine
percent of them would feel just the way you do. The editorials and
articles that have been written in the paper have been extremely
critical of Metro and the Attorney General's office. The second time
I was indicted, the publisher of one of the newspapers invited me to
write an op-ed piece. Have you ever heard of someone who was
indicted being called up and asked to write an op-ed? Both
newspapers have published scathing editorials criticizing the
Metropolitan Police Department and the Attorney General's office
for this. Nevada is no different from any other state. There's politics
here.
There's a unique situation in Nevada regarding this, though. In
Las Vegas' Metropolitan Police Department there's a unit called
Intelligence. They target people through any means they can. They
go in and charge people with various violations of the law, and end
up bargaining and gaining vast amounts of money through
forfeitures.
When Metro's Intelligence unit got my money and I wouldn't
bargain with them, they said, "Look, we raided this guy under the
pretense that he was a bookmaker, but he's not. But we can still get
him for money laundering." They came up with some wild plan on
how to do it. I got in their cross hairs and they had to devise a crime.
They started with that theory that I've laundered money in some
way, and that's what this whole thing has been about for three years.
Twice these guys have indicted me. It's been thrown out of court
both times. They just re-indicted me for the third time for the same
charge.

Isn't that double jeopardy?

If the case is dismissed with prejudice they can't. The case was
thrown out of court both times, but it wasn't with prejudice so it
allows them to do it again. Now, you're right that in the real world
it doesn't happen. But these guys don't seem to have anyone above
them that either cares or has knowledge of what they're doing.
That's how they've been able to get away with this stuff.

How has your wife handled this?

I'll tell you a story about my wife. When I got indicted in 1990,
they indicted my wife along with me. The whole purpose of
indicting my wife was to pressure me into plea-bargaining, which I
was ready to do. I went down and met with my attorneys. They met
with the government and I was going to plea-bargain, actually plead
guilty to something I was totally innocent of, just because I was
afraid of what my wife was going to be subjected to.
My lawyers met with the prosecutors, but the deal they offered
was absolutely preposterous. My wife was right there, and I asked
the attorneys to explain the possibilities to Susan. The lawyer said,
"Look, you've done nothing wrong and we believe that you will
prevail in court. But, understand that with a jury anything can
happen." My wife said, "What could happen to me?" The lawyer
said, "You could go to prison." It was the first time in the whole
ordeal that it dawned on my wife that she could possibly do time.
Initially, her eyes welled up and she started crying. I said, "Honey
why don't we go someplace and talk about this." We left the
attorneys' office and went to a fast-food restaurant and ordered
coffee. I'll never forget this. I said, "Look honey, don't Worry about
this. I'm going to plead guilty to what they're offering us. Don't
worry about this at all." She got hold of herself and said, "No. We're
not pleading guilty to anything." She said, "These bastards are not
going to do this to you." In the twenty-three years I've been married
to this gal there was only one other time that I heard her use a curse
word. We went back to the attorneys' office and she said, "We're
going to trial." So we all got indicted, and I sat there in federal court
with her for fourteen days. We went through that ordeal together.
There aren't many women that are made like that.

You talked about the first time you realized that the casinos
didn't want you as a player if they thought you had a chance of
winning. Was there a specific incident that made you realize
this?

Yeah, there was. If you're committed to being a professional

gambler and you want to be the best you can be, you spend every
waking moment trying to figure out a way to beat the game. Living
in Las Vegas, as you can imagine, there are all kinds of theories that
gamblers come up with for winning. The vast majority of them don't
work. But some guys approached me with a theory about playing
roulette. This was not even something that they tried to keep secret.
It's something that many people have tried for many years.
Everybody has tracked roulette wheels, and in fact in Europe they
write all the numbers down on the wall, trying to seduce players
into playing the wheel because they think there's a bias.
So these people approached me with this method to beat
roulette. At the time, I shared it with all of my gambling buddies
that I played poker with and they all thought it was quite humorous.

Was it a system based on biased wheels?

Without going into details, let me say this: It was done from a
mathematical standpoint. It was absolutely one hundred and ten
percent above board. This wasn't even a gray area. This was
basically a situation [that took advantage] of casinos with old faulty
equipment that had not been maintained.

This was written about in Russell Barnhart's book, Beating

The Wheel.
 Right. So I started playing roulette. Up until that time I had won
and lost large amounts of money in casinos. Even after I moved to
Las Vegas, there were at least four occasions where I'd lost over a
million dollars playing blackjack or baccarat at the Horseshoe or the
Golden Nugget. The first time I won playing roulette, I started to
see that other side of the casinos. Without naming the establishment
or the owner, I won a large amount of money playing roulette.

When you say large, wasn't it seven figures?

Yeah. This boss took the position that not only did he not want
any more of my roulette business, which was fine, he didn't even
want his employees to associate with me anymore. He went out of
his way to ostracize me from the people who worked at his
company. Just as an added coincidence, I had the criminal
investigation division of the IRS investigating me for four and a half
years. I took a hundred percent of the proceeds in the form of a
check in my name. I deposited it in the bank in my name and paid
income tax on the win, and still went through four and a half years
of one of the most unbelievable witch hunts you can ever imagine.

I guess the casinos are pretty powerful in Nevada.

Well this happened in New Jersey, but it was a casino that was
represented both in New Jersey and in Nevada. A week prior to me
winning this money, I'd lost $1,047,000 in the same casino playing
blackjack. I paid it off like a man and that was fine. On top of this,
there were some [financial] incentives that had been promised me
by the casino and I got stiffed for that. The guy refused to pay. When
I saw this side of the casinos, I just got to where I hated them. I
couldn't lose a hundred-dollar bill in a casino now if my life
depended on it, unless I felt I had the best of it. It took me a while
to realize that the casinos operated this way, because I'd always done
the majority of my gambling at the Horseshoe. You couldn't do
business with any classier people than Benny and Jack Binion. If
you won or you lost, the treatment was consistent. They were nice,
friendly, and professional. I believed all casinos were that way.
When I ran into this experience with roulette, it was like a little boy
who finds out for the first time there's no Santa Claus. That incident
had as much or more to do with me becoming a good manager as
anything.

Sounds like they may have shot themselves in the foot. You
were a sucker who lost a million dollars in the same casino
playing blackjack.

And it wasn't any secret to the people who had the casino that I
thought I had this method [for roulette]. I told them, and they all
laughed at me. Then, after the fact, the boss said that there was
something wrong with the wheel. Okay, what was wrong with it?
He didn't know. Well, I didn't do anything to it. I offered to take a
polygraph test. If I didn't pass the test, I'd give them all the money
back. I represented the following: I didn't do anything to the roulette
wheel; I wasn't involved with anybody who did anything to the
roulette wheel; there weren't any employees who did anything to the
roulette wheel; if there was anything wrong with the roulette wheel,
I don't know what it was. And up until today I guarantee you the
casino doesn't know what was wrong with the roulette wheel.
A boss said to me, "Some of these numbers were biased." So I
asked him a really important question: "What if I had bet on some
of these numbers that were biased against me, that were about 70-1
against the ball landing on them? If I lost all my money and you
found out about the bias, would you give me my money back?" He
said, "No. There's no way I would give you your money back."
 The other casino owners had to hear about this when it
happened. But you got action in other casinos playing other
roulette wheels. You'd think they would have seen you coming
and said, "Stop all the wheels."

Well, in their defense, this wasn't like someone betting late on a

wheel. It wasn't like someone using a computer. Playing these
roulette wheels wasn't any cinch. I played a lot of wheels where I
lost money. We'd look at a roulette wheel and do a sampling. Many
times we believed we had an advantage. Sometimes we did and
sometimes we didn't. This wasn't a sure thing by any means.

What about when you were with the Computer Group and
you were massacring these sports books in Las Vegas? At some
point they must have decided to stop you.

For a smart bookmaker, I was the most preferred customer they

could have. Only a stupid bookmaker would try to avoid doing
business with me. I'll give you an example. You've heard of Bob
Martin.2
Bob Martin in his day was recognized as being the sharpest
bookmaker in the United States. What Bob Martin did was go out
of his way to create alliances and relationships with the smartest
bettors in America. He let them bet him first and he put them on for
large amounts of money. Many times he would charge them a dollar
five instead of a dollar ten. Other times he didn't charge them any
juice. But when Bob got finished, everything and anything those
handicappers knew, he knew. He did this on Sunday afternoon. He
put his line3 out on Monday morning. Bob Martin knew everything
he needed to know on Monday morning. He bought that
information. He paid for it. But he took the information and used it
to his benefit. He priced his product [the line] in such a manner that
it forced people on the other side. Many times he went out on
Monday and Tuesday and bet on the games himself with other
bookmakers.

juice—The amount a bookie charges to wager above the base

amount of a bet. Often 10%, a football better might bet $11 to win
$10. The $1 difference is the "juice." Also called "vigorish" or "vig."

When the hotels got into the sports book business, the guys that
knew the business couldn't get licensed. Either that or the hotels
didn't understand how important they were. They wouldn't pay
qualified people enough money to come in and run their books.
What they ended up with was a bunch of kids who were wet behind
the ears, guys that really couldn't even clerk for a good bookmaker.
When they got interviewed by the gaming bosses, who didn't know
anything about sports betting themselves, they knew you had to lay
11-10, and in the interview they sounded like they knew what they
were talking about. Plus, they would work cheap. So these guys got
hired and since day one they've run the sports book industry in Las
Vegas.
There's a guy who runs all the race and sports books for one of
the major casino chains. He's even written a book about being a
bookmaker. I don't mean any disrespect to the man, but the facts are
the facts. He doesn't know anything at all about bookmaking. He
knows that he doesn't know anything about it, so what he does is
put up a great front that he's knowledgeable. He has a Gestapo force
inside all the hotels that he's responsible for. Anyone who comes in
and doesn't look just right to him, or walks up and makes a bet using
the wrong lingo [sounds sophisticated], or somehow looks like a
professional, he'll throw them out and tell them not to come back to
his sports book.

He throws people out just from the vibe he gets from them?
 Yeah. My friend Gene Mayday used to own a casino called
Little Caesar's. It was the laughing stock of Las Vegas. He had this
little hole-in-the-wall sports book and he wrote more business than
Caesars Palace and the Las Vegas Hilton put together. This guy who
wrote the book on bookmaking used to send his own customers over
to Gene Mayday's casino in a limousine to bet teasers, because he
was afraid to book teasers. Gene Mayday used to sit back and make
millions of dollars and laugh at him. Yeah, if you walk in there and
he thinks you're any threat at all he will 86 you and tell you not to
come back.

86ed — To be thrown out. In some cases a player is politely

asked to leave; in others he's read the "Trespass Act," which states
that if he returns, he'll be arrested.

Las Vegas was built on, and continues today to thrive on, people
that we in the gambling business refer to as half-sharps. Probably
one-thousandth of one percent of the people that bet sports can win.
The rest of them are all losers. So all those people that went into this
man's sports books over the years that were half-sharps, he's thrown
out. If a smart guy goes into one of his books, he doesn't have the
advantage of knowing it's a smart guy and pricing his product
accordingly. Smart people are smart for a reason. If they can't go in
and bet directly, they'll get someone else who can. Instead of him
getting bet once or twice, he'll get bet four times on the sharp side.
The game will kick off and he still won't know it's the sharp side.
Whereas, a guy like Bob Martin wanted the smart guy betting him,
and when he did, Martin moved his line a point and a half. When a
sucker bet him he might not move the line at all. Bob Martin made
a lot of money.
The sports bettors over the years have become a lot more
sophisticated than they ever were. The good news for the bettor is
the bookmaker in the last fifteen years has regressed instead of
progressed. They're not as smart as the bookmakers were fifteen
years ago.

But they are in communication.

Yeah, but ninety-five percent of the guys booking today aren't

real bookmakers. They're frustrated players. They all want to bet.
The guys of the past era that made millions and millions of dollars
were guys who spent a hundred percent of their time booking. They
tried to become the best bookmakers they could be. Today, there
isn't one in ten that's a true bookmaker.
You have two kinds. You've got guys like the author of that book
who, if a guy looks like he knows what day of the week it is and
what two teams are playing, he wants to run him out of his casino.
Then you've got the other kind; if anybody bets him that he thinks
is halfway smart at all, then he runs out and tries to kick it out and
bet ten times as much money as was bet with him. I think there's a
tremendous opportunity out there in the bookmaking world.

I don't know how hard it is to get licensed as a bookmaker,

but it would seem that if a guy were sharp and became a legal
bookmaker in Las Vegas, he'd clean up.

The original purpose of sports books in Las Vegas was to attract

more potential customers for the casinos. The whole reason they
were created has been lost in the shuffle. If sharp bookmakers were
running the sports books in Las Vegas, you could have a national
football contest that would be second to none. You'd have people
from all over the United States traveling there every weekend to be
involved in the contest. The sports books could get together and pay
a fifty-million-dollar prize for the winner, paid out over time. If
done correctly you could bring thousands of extra people into Las
Vegas.
 Let's face it; Las Vegas has a monopoly on sports bookmaking.
When a customer comes into a sports book here and the employees
are customer-friendly, what's supposed to happen is they try to
develop that sports customer, and introduce him to a casino host.
That has never happened. It hasn't come close to happening.
Another thing is, the sports books in Las Vegas have not been that
profitable. The reason they haven't been profitable is what I pointed
out to you earlier: The people running them don't know what they're
doing.
Jails across America are full of people who were willing to take
a chance at booking because it was so lucrative. The point I'm trying
to make here is that if somebody can book legally, it can be one of
the most lucrative businesses in the entire world. Here's Nevada,
which has a monopoly on legal bookmaking. They have no
competition at all, but when you look at the sports books, they don't
make any money. When you look at these unlicensed bookmakers
throughout the world, they make millions and millions of dollars.
Why? The guys who are running the sports books in Las Vegas don't
know what they're doing.

It's amazing to me that they're not making money.

They make a small amount of money, but nothing compared to

what they should make, or what bookmakers traditionally make.
You look at what bookmakers make in England, Mexico, or in the
Caribbean and compare it to the percentages they hold in Las Vegas.
It's not even close.

How did the casinos manage to get this messenger-betting4

law passed?

The gaming industry in Nevada runs the state. If you're part of

an office pool and you make a bet in Nevada on behalf of that pool,
you're violating the law. You're a criminal and they can take your
money.

You won at least one major poker tournament.

Yes. I won the Super Bowl of Poker in Lake Tahoe.

Do you still play poker?

No, I quit playing poker about twelve years ago. When I had the
controversy with the FBI in the '80s, I ended up being indicted in
1990. In the middle of that, around '87 or '88, I decided that I was
going to reposition myself. I was going to continue to bet sports, but
I would discontinue a lot of other things in gambling. Poker was one
of those things. I became much more involved in business. I formed
a company called Berkeley Enterprises and I did a lot of
acquisitions and things like that. Since '88, I've made a concerted
effort developing and operating that company.

You own golf courses now?

I had ten golf courses, now we have six. In '92 we changed the
name of the company to the Walters Group. The Walters Group is a
holding company for several other companies. I've done a lot of
building and development. We own a hotel. I've built some mobile-
home parks, some industrial parks, and a lot of homes. I own some
commercial office buildings and some warehouses.

It's unusual to be both a successful gambler and a successful

businessman. A lot of gamblers try to get into business and end
up blowing their money.

It's all risk-reward. I experienced a lack of success as a gambler

early on because I didn't understand the necessary principles. When
I became a full-time professional gambler, I went through an
indoctrination period. Once I learned those things, I realized that the
same principles applied in both worlds. That is risk-reward, and
being able to evaluate things correctly. It's putting your money in a
poker pot with one [card] to come, knowing what the probabilities
are. What's in the pot? What are you risking? What are the odds the
pot is laying you? What are the true odds of your hand prevailing
over the hand you're trying to beat?
Or, it's buying a large piece of real estate, entitling it, improving
it, and then selling it. The businessman who buys and sells stocks
looks at current earnings, past earnings, the officers of the company,
what their growth prospects look like, what their competition looks
like, etc. He then comes up with an evaluation: This company is
worth ten dollars a share. Well he's a buyer at eight dollars and a
seller at twelve dollars. The guy who decides to play pool against
another guy does an internal evaluation of what that guy's skills are.
The sucker overvalues his own abilities and undervalues his
opponent's. The sharp successful gambler does the opposite, and
factors in about a twenty percent contingency.
Another thing is this: The amount of risk he takes is based
directly on the amount of return. You wouldn't take near the amount
of risk if you could win a hundred dollars as you would if you could
win a hundred thousand. I may play golf with a guy and give him a
lot more liberal game if I think I can win a hundred grand, than if I
think I can win only a thousand bucks. The same goes in a business
deal.

How do you rate the ethics of gamblers compared to

business people?

When I was five or six years old, I got dumped my first time in
a pool room. I took a friend for a partner and he dumped me. I was
playing penny nine ball. The pool room is the greatest place in the
world to learn what life is all about. More skulduggery goes on in a
pool room than anywhere.

getting dumped—To be set up by a trusted partner. Here, Bill's

partner intentionally played poorly, then took a cut of the money
won by their opponents.

In any profession there's good and bad, but from a percentage

standpoint, in my opinion, the professional gamblers of the world
conduct themselves with a much higher code of ethics than the
corporate leaders of the world that I have been exposed to. There
are exceptions to every rule. I have some friends in the corporate
world that I have the utmost respect for. Their word to me is better
than any contract. Still, I can think of only two of those. In the
gambling world, I know a lot of people who could call me up and
borrow a lot of money without signing anything and I would feel
confident about it.

What's the most money you've ever won in a day?

I won $3.8 million.

Was that betting sports?

No, that was playing roulette [the Atlantic City episode].

What's the most you've lost in a day?

Couple million.

Do you have any "greatest gambling moments"?

 I shared the one with you about losing the World Series bet
when I was ten years old. The largest bet I'd made on a sporting
event, at the time it happened, was when Bo Jackson was playing
for Auburn and they were playing Michigan in a bowl game. I think
the line on the game was Auburn by 5 or 6. I went out and made a
big bet on Michigan. Some tout service was on the other side of it,
plus Bo Jackson was playing for Auburn so the public was against
us. The line kept going up and I kept telling people [who were
betting for me], "Bet, bet." I got carried away with the moment.
People I thought would get a $100,000 down on the game turned in
their bets and had $200,000 or $250,000, because we had all this
opposition. [The bookies were getting so much action on Auburn
that no matter how much Bill's team bet on Michigan, the line didn't
go down.] I didn't know it until the kickoff, but I had $1,050,000
bet on this one game. I didn't have enough money to cover all the
bets if I lost, because I'd bet more than I'd intended to.

tout—A service that sells sports picks to bettors.

I was watching this game and Michigan should have been

leading by three or four touchdowns. They outplayed Auburn so
badly it was unbelievable. But with three or four minutes to go, the
score was tied. Every play Auburn was handing the ball off to Bo
Jackson. Auburn had the ball on Michigan's thirty-yard line. A
bunch of penalties were called and with a minute to go, Auburn was
on Michigan's ten-yard line. If they scored a touchdown I would
lose all this money, but if they kicked a field goal I would win. They
handed the ball to Bo Jackson every play and my heart was in my
throat. To make a long story short, Michigan finally stopped him
and I won the bet. I will never forget that one as long as I live. At
that time it was the biggest bet I had ever made. I'd worked for
several months to accumulate that money and I would have been
broke and had to borrow money to pay off the rest.
 Another very memorable moment I had came a little while after
I moved to Las Vegas. I'd worked very hard. For the first time I had
a million dollars. My wife and I went down to the Horseshoe to have
dinner. I started drinking, and after dinner I sent her home. I started
playing blackjack and blew all the money. I went home and told her
I got broke. She said, "Don't worry about it. Everything will be fine
and we'll get back on our feet." I never will forget that.
I know some successful gamblers, and I will assure you that
every one that has become a success has been through some
monumental failures on his way to getting there.

Chip Reese said that Las Vegas is a town of traps.

Chip is right, but for every trap in the gambling world, there are
ten in the corporate world. For every gambler that comes to you
with a proposition that's basically taking a shot at you, in the
business world there are ten of them. You almost get to the point
where you become paranoid.

take a shot—To try to take advantage of a person or situation.

They say that the nerds are going to take over the world.
With all these people with their computer models, have the lines
been getting better? Is sports getting harder to beat?

There's an intangible regarding sports. From a technical side, as

far as handicapping sports is concerned, yeah. I'm sure that people's
handicapping abilities are going to get better. Right now the
handicappers are ahead of the oddsmakers. With all due respect to
Roxy, he's got this reputation as being an oddsmaker. If you were to
put him in the world of professional handicappers, he'd finish in the
bottom tier. [Roxy Roxborough was the President of Las Vegas
Sports Consultants, a company specializing in setting odds on
sporting events and making the line for 75% of the casinos in
Nevada.] But, as bad as his numbers are, once they go up these
young handicappers are like a bunch of piranhas. They pretty much
have them flattened out in the first 24 hours.

flattened out— If a bookmaker puts up a bad line, the

handicappers bet against the mistake so fast that they force the line
to a point where there's no longer an edge to bet it. The line gets
"flattened out."

As long as there's a guy making a line and people are out there
betting, there's going to be an opportunity for the astute
handicapper. The guy that's making the line to book with has a
different goal than the guy that's creating the line to bet with. The
guy making the line to book with has to come up with a number that
will attract as much business on one side as the other. That doesn't
necessarily mean that that's the right number [in terms of gauging
the teams' relative strengths].
I'll give an example. Let's say Notre Dame is a powerhouse;
they won the national championship the previous year. Late in the
year they're playing Northwestern, which last year was one in
eleven and are one in seven this year. Let's say that the linemaker
does know the right line on the game, and it's Notre Dame favored
by 28. Well, he would know, or should know, that the public is only
going to bet on the favorite. So what he would do is jack the game
up to 30 or 31 to start with. If he put it out at 28, the bookmakers
would get clobbered with one-sided action. If he starts the line at 30
or 31, the public is still going to bet on the favorite. But now the
game is going to go up to 32 or 33, which will create enough value
for the professional handicapper to bet on the other side. Now the
bookmaker has a chance to get balanced out. For that reason, there
will always be opportunities.
 balanced out—To have approximately equal amounts bet on both
sides of a game. If a bookmaker can balance a game, he'll pay off the
winning bets from the losing bets and still have the 10% juice as his
profit.

The computer wiz kids who are involved in sports today don't
have a clue, and I mean a clue, about how to bet their money. They
don't have a feel at all for which way the line is going to move.
There's a big difference in knowing how to bet and when to bet your
money in sports. It's almost as important as handicapping is. When
the lines come out on Sunday night, I'd like to bet you a million
dollars that I can tell you where ninety-five percent of the games are
going to close on Saturday. Ninety-five percent of the time I'm right.
I see it all the time. There's a game that opens and the non-
professionals, the suckers, are all on one side. The game is moving
one way, and these idiots are going out on Monday or Tuesday to
bet; [the nerds] just can't wait to take the other side. For example,
Virginia Tech was playing Florida State. That game opened at 7.
Well, [the nerds] couldn't stand it. They all ran in and bet on Virginia
Tech. They bet the game all the way down to 4. The game still ended
up closing at 6,6.5. If they'd let that game alone, it would have been
seven and a half or eight. They could have bet all the money they
would have wanted at game time, but they couldn't help themselves.
On the other side, Notre Dame is playing Northwestern. The
game comes out 30. [The nerds] have a play for the favorite. They
should bet right away on this game because the public is going to
bet on that side. But that's a non-technical advantage that I have. I'm
not as smart as these kids today, and I'm not saying that they won't
figure it out, but I've got thirty-some years of experience in buying
and selling. Knowing which way the line is going to move on these
games is extremely important. Probably eighty percent of the time
I take a better number on these games on Saturday than these guys
took on Tuesday.
 So, do I think the handicapping is going to become better? Yeah.
But let me say this to you, I've been doing this for a long long time.
I've seen flashes in the pan. I've seen lots of guys that can win for a
year. Lots of guys win for two years. But when I look back, I don't
know anybody that has won year in and year out. It's a lot more
difficult than it appears to be. If it ever gets to the point where the
bettors do have an advantage, obviously the casinos will have to
protect their market. It will get to the point where bookmakers will
go to six to five or they'll cut limits back to where there's no profit
for the bettors.
For all these years I've bet sports, I've gone out of my way to try
to camouflage what I do. I don't want the public to know what I'm
betting on. If the public were to know what I'm betting on, then
everybody would end up betting on the same side, and the
bookmakers wouldn't get any two-way action. If I happen to be
going good, they'll lose large amounts of money and when that
happens, they'll cut back their limits and it affects the market.
Well, these new guys today, that doesn't even enter their minds.
The good news is, not enough have come along who know what
they're doing to have a real adverse effect on the market.
Now, the last three years, some guys have beat baseball. But
because of the way they move their money and because of the
people that have been involved with moving their money, they
basically burned up the baseball market.

Do you bet baseball?

No, just football and basketball.

I used to have some guys that moved for me in sports. We were
doing very well and the bookmakers got crushed. After a period of
time, I figured out this wasn't any good, so I devised ways to make
my bets and have a minimal effect on the market. I would
intentionally do things to get people who weren't dealing with us
directly to bet on the opposite side.
In order for the professional bettor to be successful for a period
of time, the casinos and bookmakers have to make money. If it isn't
a profitable venture for them, the professional bettor will be out of
business. So the professional bettor has to figure out a way to be
successful, but he also has to understand that the casinos and
bookmakers have to be successful, too. Now these idiots who come
along and don't understand that, all they're going to do is burn up
the market.
Marketing is the key. The most money I ever won playing golf
off one guy, I did by sloughing off $40,000 one day, which was all
the money I had. Then I made a three-day contract and beat him out
of $550,000.

In golf, psychological pressure on your opponent and on

yourself is a factor. This is much different from sports betting.

I've played golf for a long time and I've made bigger bets on
golf than anybody I know. The thing that I saw was, personal ego
took over more with golf than anything I've ever done. I've seen
some of the smartest people in the world, both from the business
and the gambling worlds, people who had no gamble to them at all,
get out of line on golf. Unlike poker or sports betting or anything
else, it all boils down to being able to perform under pressure to
whatever your abilities allow you to do. I was never the greatest
player at golf, and I can't explain why, but the more pressure, the
more heat I was under, the better I played. I played better than I was
capable of playing. Even back in the days when I wasn't a great
manager in gambling, in golf I've always been a real good manager.
I've always had a very good ability to evaluate my ability, and the
ability of others. The mistake that most people make in evaluating
golf matches is they consistently underestimate their opponent's
ability and overestimate their own talent.
 I beat one player out of a million dollars at golf. We were
playing poker and started talking about golf. This guy said he was
going to start playing. A bunch of players bet him that within a
year's time he couldn't break 90 at La Costa. He went down there
and got a place and started playing every day and taking lessons. I
went down there and started gambling with this guy. In no time at
all he was shooting 95 or 96. I started playing him $10,000 Nassaus
and gave him a handicap that, on paper, looked like he had the nuts.
But there's an intangible that he wasn't aware of, which was the
potential for dogging it.

dogging it— Choking or playing poorly under pressure.

I gave him eighteen shots playing match play and twenty in

medal play. Every day we'd get to the back nine with four or five
holes to go and I'd be about three down. He could make quadruple
bogey on every hole and still win. I beat him thirty-one straight
days. He'd get to the last four holes and collapse like an accordion.
The eighteenth hole was a par five with a little water in front of it.
There was not a day we played that he didn't make at least 10 or 11
on that hole. It was the most unbelievable thing I've ever seen.
All these other gamblers were there with their mouths watering
[hoping for a shot at the same player]. But on paper I was giving
him a game that looked like I didn't have a chance to win. If we
were to go out and play for no money, he would have shot 95 and I
would have had no chance. I decided that I was going to risk
$50,000 or $60,000 and if I lost it, I was going to quit. I knew him
well enough to know that if I beat him and got his nose open I could
break him, and that's what happened.

getting your nose opened— Losing badly. Often leads to

gambling wildly.
As far as card-playing ability, Stuey Ungar5 was a better card
player than anybody, hands down. I used to stake Stuey and sit
behind him. Gin rummy was his best game. He was at the Aladdin
one time and a bunch of thieves had him under a peek. Stuey was
such a good player that after four or five hands he felt it. He
continued to play and intentionally showed them half his hand. He
broke them.

under a peek—The cards are being seen. Usually, a spy hiding

in an adjoining room or a room above is able to see the cards through
a small hole drilled in the wall or ceiling and relay information to
another player through a wireless radio receiver.

He'd never played no-limit hold 'em in his life, but within a
year's time he was the best no-limit player in the world.
Management skills are just as important as ability, but he didn't have
those.
That's what's made Chip Reese such a great player. He's as good
a manager of himself and his money as anyone I have ever known
in gambling.

You were saying before that personal ego is most people's

downfall.

A lot of people are in denial. A lot of people have a difficult time

stepping back and doing a re-evaluation and deciding, I was wrong.
A lot of people want to continue on in denial until they're completely
broke.

So now it's just business and golf?

I continue to bet sports, and I play golf.

Do you ever play backgammon, poker, gin?

 No. I belong to this country club, and they've invited me to play
in poker games a few times, but I've never played. Not even once. I
have no interest in it at all. I still enjoy sports and that's why I
continue to bet it. I no longer care anything about playing poker. I I
got to a point where I couldn't stand being around smoke.
I was probably the fourteenth best poker player in the world, I
but I played with the thirteen best. In order to compete at that level,
it's a full-time job. It really is. That's one thing I learned from being
a sucker. You can't compete professionally in gambling and do it on
a part-time basis. If you're not a regular sharp and you get I in a
tough game, they'll eat you alive. Being a professional poker I
player and playing at a world-class level, man, you have to eat it, I
sleep it, and breathe it.
That's another thing that amazed me about some of the guys I I
played with. Stuey Ungar was a perfect example. I can say it now I
because Stuey's dead. He was so incredibly bright it was
unbelievable. But here was a guy who did drugs and everything else
in the I world. I never did drugs in my entire life. Competing in the
gam- I bling world I can just imagine what kind of chance I
would've had I if I had been addicted to drugs.
To compete at that level is like dropping a piece of meat in a I
fish tank full of piranhas. If you have a weakness or develop a I
weakness, you're gone. It's no different from the wildebeests you I
watch on the Discovery Channel. One gets old and slow and a little
blind. A lion cuts him out of the herd and eats him. That's what will
happen to you in the gambling world. It might be a little corny, but
that old song that Kenny Rogers had, "You got to know when to
hold 'em, and know when to fold 'em." You better know.
One thing about gambling is no different from the corporate
world or anything else. There's going to be change. If you can't
adapt, you will be gone. It happened to the dinosaurs, and it
happened to a lot of flashes in the pan in the gambling world. We
see it every day.

What would you tell someone with aspirations to be a

professional gambler?

Number one, don't even think about it unless it's something you
absolutely love and are really intrigued by. In order to become
successful, regardless of your IQ, you have to be incredibly
motivated. Is it a life that I would recommend to someone? It
depends on what you're looking for. You're going to meet a lot of
interesting, colorful, very nice people. There are going to be some
real peaks and real valleys. The old saying is true: Chicken one day
and feathers the next. A lot of people have a stomach for gambling
and lots don't. Are you willing to get broke? How are you going to
function once you're broke? I see a lot of people who, when
everything is going good, they're successful gamblers, but the
second they hit a bump in the road and run into some adversity, they
can't handle it. They end up on alcohol or drugs or they abandon the
principles that made them successful.
A lot of movies have been done about gambling. You've seen
the Cincinnati Kid and Jackie Gleason in The Hustler. It's all bullshit.
There's a lot of fun and, to a certain extent, there's a lot of glamour.
But when it's all said and done, you better have an unshakable will
and a commitment or you are not going to make it.

Are there any books that you would recommend?

Books that can teach you the basics. But I think the most
important things in gambling you're only going to learn by living
them, through experience. The good fortune I had, there was an old-
time pool player named Hubert Coates. They called him "Daddy
Warbucks." He was a friend of my father's and I learned a lot from
him when I was a kid. I had cousins who were professional poker
players. When I moved to Las Vegas, there was a guy named Fred
Ferris; they called him "Sarge." He and I became good friends and
he was like a father figure to me. He went out of his way to try to
school me. I learned a lot from Chip Reese and from Stuey Ungar.
I didn't learn a lot about management from Stuey, but I learned a lot
regarding card play. I learned a lot from Doyle Brunson. But the
majority of what I learned in gambling I learned the hard way. I got
broke.

Any advice to the guy out in Peoria?

If you got enough bark on your tree and you're that committed
to it, then fine. Anything short of that, don't get serious about it. And
forget the idea, "I'm going to double up and catch up, and when I
get even, I'm quitting." I know what every sucker thinks, because I
used to be one.

Walters Notes

l --The Computer Group

The "Computer Group" was one of the most well-known and
successful sports betting organizations in history.
In the early 1970s, a mathematician named Michael Kent was
working for Westinghouse. He had use of the company computer
and began compiling stats on his Softball team, which sparked an
idea. Could Kent apply his program to analyze college football and
basketball for betting purposes?
Computers aren't just magic boxes that spit out winning picks,
but they can analyze many things very quickly. Once a computer
has all the statistics from thousands of games, it can answer
questions. For example, is home-field advantage really an
advantage? If so, what is it worth? Do all teams play the same on
artificial turf? How does snowfall affect scoring? In a matter of
seconds the computer can look at 10,000 games and tell you. From
these variables, a "model" is built that determines how much weight
each variable is given. Then, the ultimate question can be
considered: When Dallas plays Detroit this week, who will win and
by how much? The computer gives its answer. For example, Dallas
will win by 7. Now the bettor must check with bookmakers to see
if there's a discrepancy between the computer's line and the
bookmakers'. The bigger the discrepancy, the more he bets.
For seven years Kent developed and refined his program. In
1979 he quit his job, moved to Las Vegas, and began his life as a
Professional gambler. He lost $40,000 during the '79 football
season, but then won $150,000 betting basketball. But this wasn't
the We Kent wanted. He was working eighty hours a week and was
in constant fear from walking in and out of sports books with large
amounts of cash.
Enter Ivan Mindlin. Mindlin was an orthopedic surgeon in Las
Vegas with a love of sports betting and an interest in computers. He,
too, had developed a computer program, but with two major
differences. First, his program was for baseball, and second, it lost
consistently. A mutual friend introduced them and Kent found a
kindred spirit in Mindlin. They decided to form a partnership—Kent
would handle the computer and Mindlin would bet the money.
Mindlin first called in Stan Tomchin (interviewed in Chapter 5)
and later Billy Walters to assist in moving the money. Tomchin
recalls, "When I used to move the computer order, we were betting
$3 million to $5 million on weekends. We busted bookmakers. We
just destroyed them."
On Super Bowl Sunday, 1985, the FBI raided 43 locations in 16
states, all affiliates of the Computer Group. The FBI thought they
were a network of bookmakers, rather than sports bettors (while it's
illegal to be a bookie, it's not illegal to bet). Five years later, one
week before the statute of limitations was to run out, 19 people were
indicted. The charges were eventually dropped, but the Computer
Group had fallen apart.

2—Bob Martin
The dean of Las Vegas bookmaking, Bob Martin moved to Las
Vegas in 1963 planning to bet sports for a living. In 1967 he was
offered a job at the Churchill Downs Betting Parlor and soon sports
betting in the United States revolved around Bob Martin. Martin set
the line. He was so good at it that for 20 years, bookies across the
United States used Martin's point spread, rarely having to adjust it
to balance their books. Martin claimed that in setting the line, he
tried to come up with a point spread against which he wouldn't know
how to bet himself. In 1975, Martin set up the Union Plaza sports
book, with was the first book in a major casino. For budding
professional sports bettors, Martin offered one piece of advice:
"Marry a rich wife." When Bob Martin died in March 2001, the elite
of the gambling world—from casino CEOs to wisest of the wise
guys—showed up at his funeral to pay their respects.

3—The Line
The "line" in sports betting means the point spread placed on a
game. If the line is 7, to bet the favorite you must give up ("lay") 7
points while to bet the underdog you get ("take") 7. When
formulating a line, the bookmaker isn't trying to predict the final
score of a game as much as he's trying to choose a number that will
cause the public to bet equally on both sides. A bookmaker charges
$11 win $10. This extra dollar on losing bets is called the "juice" or
"vie " If the public bets both sides equally, the bookmaker has no
risk- he'll collect from the losers and pay the winners, keeping the
extra 10% vig as his profit. When more money is being bet on one
side of a game, the line will be adjusted. For example, say Green
Bay is playing Chicago and the line opens at Green Bay -7. If money
pours in on Green Bay, the bookmaker would move the line to
Green Bay -7.5 or -8. The bookmaker hopes more money will now
come in on Chicago to balance his books.

4—Messenger Betting
In 1998 the Nevada Gaming Commission made it illegal to
place a bet for another person at a sports book in return for
compensation. This was in direct response to organized sports
bettors who used teams of people (sometimes called "beards") to
simultaneously place bets at books all over Nevada in an attempt to
get the most dollars bet before the lines were changed.

5—Stu "The Kid" Ungar

Stu Ungar was a gin rummy savant. He won his first gin
tournament at 10 years old while vacationing with his parents in the
Catskills. At 15, he won $10,000 in a tournament without losing a
single hand. At 23 he moved to Las Vegas and promptly won a
$50,000 tournament, which provided a bankroll (and easy-to-obtain
financial backing) that allowed him to play anyone, anywhere, for
any amount.
They came, they played, Ungar won. He began giving his
opponents bigger and bigger handicaps, but he still won. They even
Wed cheating him, to no avail. Within a year it was almost
impossible for him to find a gin game, so he turned to poker.
Ungar entered the no-limit hold 'em world championship event
W the World Series of Poker at Binion's Horseshoe for the first time
in 1980. He won. In 1981 he won again. The second largest
tournament of the time was the Amarillo Slim Super Bowl of Poker.
Ungar won that no-limit championship as well, making him the only
player ever to win championships in both the World Series and the
Super Bowl (he won both three times).
Unfortunately, Ungar's love of sports betting and horse racing
often busted him (he craved the action, and lost $80,000 the first
time he stepped on a golf course). He was a millionaire one day and
broke the next. After years of problems with alcohol and drugs,
Ungar made a comeback in 1997 and shocked the poker world by
winning his third World Series. In 1998 he was found dead in a
small hotel on the north end of the Las Vegas Strip. A combination
of narcotics and painkillers had triggered a heart attack.

CHIP REESE

David "Chip" Reese is considered by many to be the best all-

around poker player in the world. He was inducted into the Poker
Hall of Fame in 1991 at the age of forty—the youngest Hall of
Famer ever. Though he's semi-retired, when the really big guns
come out to play $2,000-$4,000 or $3,000-$6,000 limits, he finds
that it's worth his time to ante up.
Beyond poker, Chip is a big-money sports bettor. He bets
football and basketball, but it's baseball that has made him millions.
Using a computer program that simulates games, he and his partners
can plug in two teams and have them play each other thousands of
times. Analyzing the results gives them a better line than the
bookmakers put out, which has translated into enormous profits.
Chip grew up in Dayton, Ohio, and started gambling at five.
When a neighbor boy came to Chip's mother to tell her that he'd
been playing poker with the older kids, she thought he would learn
a lesson by losing all his baseball cards. Instead, Chip won them all
(the boy wanted to broker a settlement to get them back). In high
school he won his state debate championship. At Dartmouth he won
so much money playing poker that his fraternity game room was
dedicated the David E. Reese Memorial Card Room. He says he
"was programmed" to go to law school. But after being accepted to
Harvard, he didn't go.
After migrating to Las Vegas in 1974, Chip promptly went woke
playing blackjack and craps. Then he discovered poker and
everything changed. He entered a poker tournament at the Sahara
Hotel and won it. "I had a hundred grand and I was twenty-three
years old, having the time of my life. I had no intention of going
anywhere."
According to Chip, there's no politics in gambling. "You control
your destiny." There is nothing to keep you from the top if you have
talent, character, and a strong work ethic. "If you're the best, you'll
get there."

When did you start gambling?

I started gambling when I was a little kid. I learned how to play

poker when I was in kindergarten. The fifth and sixth graders who
lived in my neighborhood used to have a big game on one kid's front
porch. They played for baseball cards. My mother later told me
about one of the older kids next door, named Sherman. He came
over to the house one day and knocked on the front door. He said,
"Mrs. Reese, there's something you need to know. All the fifth and
sixth graders are playing poker for baseball cards and Chip has been
playing with them." She said, "I'm glad you told me that. You go
teach him a lesson and win all his baseball cards." He said, "That's
not why I'm here. He won all the baseball cards and we want to get
them back!" That was my first score.

score—A big win.

I had rheumatic fever when I was a kid. Now, I think, if you

have rheumatic fever they make you exercise like crazy. But back
then, they worried that you might have heart damage, so they made
you lie still without any activity for about a year. I missed the whole
first grade. I did it from my house, but I was stir crazy. I was an
active kid, and my mom stayed home to try to keep me down. The
only two things I did for a year were eat, which I love still and has
caused my weight problem, and play games. Monopoly, every board
game there was, she taught me. I got highly competitive in the first
grade with cards and everything. As I look back on it, I'm really a
product of that year. In my life, I'm like a little kid. I get up every
day and say, "What am I going to play today?" It's not like I'm going
to work. I've never gone to work. The hardest thing I ever did in my
life was school because I didn't really want to do it.
My grandfather was a big figure in the sports world. He started
the Mid-American conference with Miami of Ohio, Ohio University
and all those schools. He loved to play gin rummy. When I was in
grade school, he'd play gin rummy with his friends, and I'd watch
him play and he taught me.
In high school I played football. I was also in theater and debate,
but I still found time to play poker. When I went to Dartmouth I
wasn't wealthy, but there were a lot of wealthy kids there. My
fraternity brothers played poker all the time. That's where I really
started playing. It wasn't a lot of money, but I won all kinds of
privileges. Guys owed me money, and maybe they owned a car, so
I got to use it. I'd have people go for pizza runs and things like that.
It was almost a barter system from playing poker. That's where I
learned that I really liked it.

Where did you grow up?

Dayton, Ohio. I was going to go to law school when I got out of

Dartmouth. I'd never been to Las Vegas, but a friend of mine had
moved out here with his family. I came out to visit him and had four
hundred dollars. I lost the four hundred playing blackjack the first
night. His father worked at some land company, so I went to work
in the phone room to schedule leads for the salesmen.

Like a boiler room?

 Yeah. I needed money so I could go play. At first I didn't even
think about poker. Then I started playing. When it came time for me
to go to school, I entered a little poker tournament at the Sahara
Hotel and won it. So I had over $100,000.

Wow, so it wasn't that little a tournament.

I won about $40,000 in that off a five hundred dollar buy-in. I

started out playing $5-$107-card stud, which was my game at the
time. It was the only game I really knew how to play. I played a lot
in college, and in the summer I played in rake games in Dayton. I
didn't know it at the time, but they played very good 7-card stud1
back in Ohio, and very poor 7-card stud here in Las Vegas. They
didn't know how to play at all, because most of the big players here
were Texans. They played no-limit hold 'em.

rake — A fee charged by the house for dealing the game. The
house rakes a specified amount, often a percentage, from each pot.

I had $100,000 and I was twenty-three years old, having the

time of my life, and I had no intention of going anywhere right
away. I never left. I got broke a few times. Between the ages of
twenty-three and thirty I was probably a millionaire and broke four
times. This was back in the '70s.
I had a partner, a guy from Dayton named Danny Robeson. He's
a very good 7-card stud player and a very good gin rummy player.
Danny and I had moved up to the $30-$60 level. We had a bankroll
of about $40,000. Johnny Moss2 had the poker room in the
Flamingo Hotel. He only had about six tables, but the biggest game
in town was there. I was playing in a $10-$20 stud game waiting for
the $30-$60 game to start. Danny and I used to play in shifts and we
only played 7-card stud. I looked over and there was a game going
on, all black chips.3 It's Doyle Brunson, Johnny Moss, Puggy
Pearson, Nick Vachiano, who was a big player at that time, and a
few others [Doyle Brunson is interviewed and Puggy Pearson is
profiled in Chapter 8]. These were all the top players in the world.
They wouldn't let you very close to the table, but I looked and they
were playing high-low split. I played high-low split all the time in
college. I was playing in my game but I was watching them and they
were playing terribly. The buy-in for the game was $10,000, which
is nothing for a game like that. In $400-$800 high-low split, it might
last you two hands.
I called up Danny and he was asleep. I said, "This is the most
unbelievable thing I've ever seen. Here are all these world
champions and they're the worst players I ever saw at this game."
Danny said, "These are the best players in the world. What are you
talking about?" And I said, "Danny, believe me. I know what I'm
talking about." I convinced him to let me take $15,000 and get into
this game. So I get into the game and nobody knew at all who I was.
I was just some kid. It was true. They were awful players at this
particular game. In high-low split you just can't play high hands and
get away with it. They're playing two kings, and raising. The first
day I played about ten hours and won $66,000. It was like stealing.
Unbelievable. I started on a Thursday and I played the whole
weekend and won about $350,000. That's really where things sort
of took off.
1
For this and subsequent numeric references 2-4, see "Reese Notes" at the end of this chapter.

Was that the first time you had played for those stakes?

Oh yeah.

What was that like, going from $10-$20 to $400-$800?

It was almost like the jitters I got before a big debate or a

football game. But I'm a game player and I never had a problem
thinking about what those chips were worth. Once I got in the game
I was just playing. It never hit me until I was done how much I'd
won. Plus, it was so easy. I'm not one who goes back and rehashes
hands—I've played so many of them in my life—but there was one
hand I'll never forget, because it was so exciting. I had an A2346
made for low. A wheel is the best hand. In my low I had A234 of
hearts and then an off-suit 6. Nick Vachiano had a 6 and 5 and a
couple of big cards up. Puggy might have had an 87 low made. No
one could beat me for low. Johnny Moss had a flush and Doyle had
three of a kind. It was an unbelievable hand. I wasn't even the
aggressor in the pot. I was just calling. They're jamming these pots
and trying to jam me out. Puggy is jamming with his 87 because he
thinks Nicky is drawing to a 6. I'm just a stranger in the game and
when you're the stranger, they don't give you credit for anything. I
put my money in and the last card I caught the 5 of hearts. I made a
straight flush wheel and scooped everybody. I remember counting
the pot down and my profit on that hand was $29,000. It's like
playing in a $40-$80 game and winning $2,900 on a hand. It's
almost impossible to do. That was one hand I always remembered
because it sent me over the top.

jam—As used here, to bet aggressively. Also known as "ramming

and jamming," it often means big or fast action, as in "a jam-up
game."
wheel — In poker, a hand of A2345. The best hand when playing
for low; also called a "bicycle."

What about making the transition to playing no-limit? Is no-

limit really a different game?

It's a totally different game. In the beginning it was a big

transition. Now, I've played so much of it that I really don't care
what I play anymore.

Did they beat you up in the beginning? Was there a big

learning curve?

There was a learning curve, but I didn't get beat up because I

was very careful. I picked my spots and at no-limit I didn't jump in
and play with everybody. We started introducing other things. We'd
negotiate; like, we'd play one game for a half hour then a half hour
of something else. In the big games you don't have eighty billion
players waiting for a seat. I'd won all this money playing 7-card stud
and high-low split, and now everybody wanted to play with me. It's
hard to explain, but when you're young in this town, no one views
you as a talent until you've paid your dues. Now I see it happening
with other young players who are very good.
There was Doyle, Johnny Moss, Sarge Ferris. They were all
established guys in town and anybody who was young and a
stranger wasn't given any credit. It was really great because I got
hustled to do everything. I'd walk in the room and get attacked. Let's
play this or that. My partner and I were nicknamed the "gold-dust
twins." We were the talk of the town. I always got mobbed, because
all Danny ever played was gin rummy and stud, but I was willing to
play anything. So everybody was just attacking me to match up and
play something. It was fun.
Getting back to your question, I got to the point where
somebody would hustle me to play no-limit or something, and I
would say "I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll play a half hour of no-
limit hid 'em and a half hour of high-low split." I knew I was a
tremendous favorite in the high-low split, so the no-limit learning
curve didn't really cost me much.

Nick Vachiano—was he a pool player?

 Yeah. Nick was one of the few guys that never got broke. He
was a tremendous game maker. He wasn't the best pool player in the
world, but they always talked about how Nicky knew how to take
care of himself in a pool room or a poker room. He could make a
game and he could handicap a game. The only downside he had was
that when he was winning, he was a hit-and-run guy. He'd win a
little bit and if he lost he'd go for a number. Most of the time he
won, because usually, during the course of a session you get ahead
a little bit. So he booked a lot of winners and very few losers playing
cards, but when he did book a loser, it was a big one.

game maker — A player who arranges a proposition. A good

"game maker" is skilled at arranging favorable bets. To set up a
favorable wager in a contest is to "make a good game."
go for a number—To take a big loss.

I remember one time we were playing $300-$600 at the

Flamingo and Nick was losing about $40,000. Danny and I were
still young and getting started. The game had been going on a long
time and I quit. There were a couple other guys who didn't want to
play short-handed, so the game was going to break up. Nick says,
"Hold it." This is the kind of guy he was, and you had to love him
for it. He gets up and takes me down to the cage. He goes to his safe
deposit box, and he's got a big box. I only had a little safe deposit
box—I had about $300,000 in it and I was proud as hell. He's got
all these rubber bands around his wrist from packages of money he's
gone through. He had these little fingers that were very well
manicured. You could tell he hadn't worked a day in his me. He
opens this big box and he probably had a million dollars in t- He
says, "See this here. You know me. I always win and I leave. This
is the only time you got a shot at this money—when I'm going off."
He says, "Are you sure you want to quit?" You can tell when a guy
is in heat from gambling. I smiled and said, "You know, you're right,
Nick. Let's go back and play." He went off for about $200,000 in
that game. He talked me into staying and winning a bunch of money.

I've heard that back in the '70s there was a lot of cheating
going on in the poker rooms. How did they cheat?

A bunch of ways. There was a mob influence back then. Most

of the top players had trouble with that along the way.

You mean the mob wanted a piece of their action?

Yeah, and if you didn't give it to them, there was extortion.

There were a lot of problems in the '70s for me and for a lot of the
guys. There was an element around that was bad. The card rooms
weren't safe. They didn't have the cameras back then that they have
now to protect the games. The shift bosses sometimes would put
marked cards into the games. I was totally naive to that when I first
came to town.

How was it that they didn't bust you? Or did they a few
times?

They did many times. But you hear things; people come and tell
you things about what happened to you. The way I learned to protect
myself back in those days was to be a tremendous manager. I'd sit
down in a game with people that I knew I was supposed to beat, and
if I didn't beat them, I set a number for myself and that was all I
would lose. If I didn't beat them, chances were something was
wrong in the game. As I got more experienced I could feel it. It's
very difficult, if you're playing with marked cards, to see the marks.
You have to train your eyes for hours and hours to see marked cards,
and some people can never see them. So the way you learn to protect
yourself is to feel it. If a guy is playing and you never get to see his
hand, there might be a good reason for that: You're folding because
he's raising you when you have nothing, and whenever you have a
good hand, he folds.
Some of the cheaters were colorful figures who gambled, too.
They wanted to cheat you, but if they couldn't they'd play you
anyway. They were guys that everybody liked. If you got cheated
you didn't get that mad, because when they weren't cheating, it was
like you were cheating them—you were so much better than they
were. What happened with guys who were cheaters is they never
learned how to play. They only learned how to cheat and they were
bad players. It was a double-edged sword. You'd sit in the poker
room saying, I know I could be getting cheated here but if I'm not...
this guy is pumped up right now and I can break him. There were
many instances where guys were cheaters and I would break them.
When they got me, they would break me. But every time you got it
put to you, you kind of learned over time what it was [that they did].
Somebody always told you later on or something like that. The only
way you could really protect yourself was to set a number and quit
the game no matter how great it looked.
That kind of all went away after it got to a point where it got
kind of bad.

So that all ended when?

About 1979 or 1980. When I had the poker room at the Dunes,
I had run-ins with a lot of guys. A bunch of us decided enough was
enough. We made a pact to clean it up. Meanwhile, big players who
were cheats were older guys and they died off or drifted away. Now
it's totally clean in the casinos. In the casinos here and in California
the camera systems are good. Guys can't hold out. Occasionally you
have to worry about your shift bosses putting marked cards in or
something like that, but most of the established places are squeaky
clean. Then you have to worry about teams and playing partners in
the game. But if you have any experience at all you'll notice that
right away. In the big games we police ourselves. At that level it's
very easy to feel it when something's not right. It doesn't really
happen anymore.

holding out — Palming cards and taking them out of the game.
The cheat then brings those cards back into his hand when they'll
help him.

It seems that a lot of people play in games that are too tough
for them.

The Peter Principle—everyone rises to the level of his own

incompetence.

Wouldn't a lot of these players do better if they dropped

down one level?

It's the nature of the beast. It's hard to do. Once you've tasted
the grape, you can't go back.

Where is the big game now?

Bellagio, that's where all the big action is.

I used to hear these stories about guys winning hundreds of

thousands of dollars and then being broke a week later.

That's the way it was back in the '70s. The '70s were the most
fun times for me out here. I was naive, I was a kid, and so much was
happening. It was exciting. It was like being in the Wild West and
going into the Dunes every day with your gun on. You were either
going to win a lot of money or you were going to get broke.
 But your reputation is that you aren't one of those guys who
get broke all the time.

I matured. Seven-card stud was my game. I was a decent gin

rummy player, but at that time not nearly good enough to play at the
very top level. Now I'm not afraid to play anybody in the world at
gin rummy. But back then I was so young and reckless that I felt
like I could conquer the world in every game. I would sit down in
games that I really didn't know how to play. They'd play deuce-to-
seven lowball, they'd play razz ... they played all these games I'd
never played before and I'd just hop in. There was that cheating
going on back in the early '70s. So I'd get broke from that.
But I learned to play all the games, because I wasn't afraid to
play. A lot of guys who were specialists back then, really good
players, and had money, are broke now. The nature of the games
changed over the years. Sometimes you're playing stud, sometimes
deuce-to-seven lowball; the popularity at the top changes, and the
guys who know how to play only one game can play only when that
game is being spread. The knife-and-fork eats them up.

The knife-and-fork?

That's your nut. Your rent and everything come due and you're
out of action, because they aren't playing your game. It turned out
to be a blessing in disguise that I learned how to play all those
games. Of course, when you're twenty-three years old, getting broke
is no big deal.

Right. You don't have kids. You don't have responsibilities.

I ran the Dunes poker room. I went in to Morris Shenker at the

Dunes and introduced myself. I was twenty-eight at the time. I gave
him a sales pitch and told him I wanted to run the poker room. I
asked him what the poker room was doing in terms of figures and I
gave him all these guarantees that I would do this, this, and this. If
I did, he would have to give me more money. I did it and he liked
me, so for four years I ran the poker room. From that I started
playing big poker again and winning.
By that time I'd learned some of the traps of the town. This is a
town of traps. Back then, if you ever got hold of any money, people
were just gunning for you. Not just playing, but trying to figure out
ways to cheat you. If you didn't really know what you were doing,
you couldn't avoid the traps. I probably have a reputation for not
being one of those guys, because I matured quickly. But there was
a period of five or six years where I was as nutty as everybody else
was.

It seems that a lot of guys would make money at one form

of gambling, then blow it at another, like craps or sports betting.
They have to know they can't beat craps.

It still happens. A perfect example is this kid Archie (Karas).

Here's a guy who had no money, ran it into $30 million, and went
completely broke. It sounds crazy. You say to yourself: When he got
to $20 million, why didn't he put some of it aside? But who's crazy
enough to take all his money and run it into $30 million at the crap
table? Who's crazy enough to just keep betting it all, betting it all,
every chance he gets? I asked him one time, "What's your goal?" He
wanted to win the Horseshoe Casino. The mentality that's nutty
enough to get hold of that kind of money doesn't have enough sense
to hold on to the money. It's amazing to watch. A lot of these guys
have self-destructive tendencies. It's interesting to see how some
guys can handle having money and some guys can't. Some guys that
never had it before, they get hold of money and they just don't know
what to do. It's almost like they can't sleep at night until they get rid
of it.

I heard that Archie was playing all the best poker players in
the world heads-up, and beating everybody.

heads-up — To play against only one opponent.

I'll tell you what he did. You heard the whole story about the
pool game?

No, I didn't hear anything about pool.

He had $2,000 to his name and was sleeping in a 1978 van. He

went to the pool hall one day and saw a guy who used to be a very
good pool player. Archie said, "I'll play you a game of pool for
$2,000." Now they knew each other from poker and pool. The guy
said, "No, I'll play you a game for $5,000." Now Archie didn't have
$5,000, so he went to a guy and borrowed the additional $3,000,
and they went partners. The guy he was playing used to be a good
pool player, but he hadn't played in years, so he was rusty. Archie
started beating him. They went up to $10,000, $20,000, and when
Archie got up about $200,000 the partner cut out and took his profit,
leaving Archie with $100,000.
Archie starts playing $25,000 a game and beats the guy for about
$1.8 million. The guy didn't quit because he knew he wasn't playing
up to his game. Now the guy started playing better and won about
$800,000 back, and Archie quit.
Archie went down to the Horseshoe and immediately took the
million dollars to the crap table. The Horseshoe had the biggest
limits in the world at the time, and he was betting $20,000 on the
line and taking full odds. He started firing from the hip and won
about $3 or $4 million in the course of about a week. He wanted
them to raise their limits and he was playing every day. He was nuts.
He ran that into about $10 million. Now there was a poker
tournament going on, and he came around hustling everybody to
play poker.

Did anybody know him before this?

Everybody knew him. I've known him for twenty-five years. He

was a player who was always in and out of money. When he was
eighteen, he got off the boat from Greece. He's actually made some
big scores. He's had two or three hundred thousand many times in
his life. He's one of those guys who will take advantage of you if
possible, but he's great to play with.
He and I played [during his run], and probably no one has ever
played this high. I'll never forget it. We started at one o'clock in the
afternoon playing $10,000-$20,000 7-card stud for half an hour and
$10,000-$20,000 razz for half an hour. He thinks Razz is his game.
He had a run of cards like I've never faced before. We played from
one o'clock in the afternoon until five the next morning and he beat
me out of $2 million. Eventually I got the $2 million back and I beat
him and he quit me, and then he went back to the crap table.
He played a few other guys and won, but nothing that big. One
time I was playing him at the Mirage. Archie was not a guy that you
really gave credit to when he was broke. I had him stuck about a
million and he ran out of money. I've got him completely on tilt, and
he's firing off his money. Then he tells me his money is in the bank.
This was on a Friday morning and we'd been playing all night. He
said, "Will you loan me some money?" Now I have to think to
myself, am I doing the right thing? I know I'm going to win, but am
I going to lose a customer because he might not pay me? I made the
judgment that he would pay me. I decided to loan him up to a
million. So I loaned him the million and beat him out of that.

stuck— Losing money. Usually used in the context of a single

session.
tilt— Playing badly or wildly when losing.
firing off — Playing badly and with such reckless disregard that
the player loses all his money.

He called me at my house and said he was going to pay me. My

son had a soccer game, and I never miss his games. I said, Why
don't you meet me at nine o'clock at such and such a spot, and he
said okay. I got there early. I didn't mistrust him in this way, but I
just wanted to make sure there were no cars around and that I wasn't
going to get robbed. I got there about thirty minutes early and sat
back by some bushes and looked around. Here he comes, driving
really slowly like a little old man. It made me laugh. I'm sitting in
my car and I see him coming down the road like he's out for a
Saturday-morning drive. I pull out and he sees me and comes over.
He opens his trunk and he's got a million in cash. I take the money
and shake his hand and say, "See you Monday" or whatever.
Now, my son's soccer game is going to start and I don't want to
miss the game. I think to myself, what am I going to do with this
money? I figure, what's the price on someone robbing your trunk at
nine in the morning at a kid's soccer game? I just put it in my trunk
and went and watched the game.

price — The odds or line on a proposition.

Archie ended up playing other guys too, right?

He did for a while. Everybody beat him. After his roll, there was
a story about him in Cigar Aficionado magazine saying that he beat
everybody and he beat my brains in. I never disputed the story.
"You're the best," I told him. It was good for me, actually. I'm used
to taking heat the other way. Everybody knew I slaughtered him
after that.
 It must be a big problem dealing with that much cash.

It isn't for me because I've always paid huge taxes. I learned at

a very early age that if you ever want to own anything or have
anything, you have to pay income tax. You can't have a house like
this unless you pay the taxes on what you earn. If you're a gambler
living out of your pocket, you only have to pay for what they can
prove you spend. I'm very happy that for the last fifteen years I've
paid a tremendous amount of income tax.

Even if you pay your taxes, though, it seems that the

authorities confiscate money from gamblers just because it's
cash.

That has happened in sports betting a lot. I bet sports, but

fortunately I've never had that problem. I think one of the reasons I
haven't is because I'm a big taxpayer. Why confiscate my money?
They'll have to give it back with interest because I have legitimate
money.

Also, you don't have to fly with it. A lot of money gets
confiscated in airports.

That is a big problem now.

I've read stories about Doyle Brunson and Johnny Moss in

the old days hopping in their cars and driving around the
country wherever a game would pop up.

That's the way it was back in the '50s and '60s.

Are there still games like that?

 No, not really. The last really neat game we had was in Paris
with a guy named Francis Gross. Back in the early '70s when I was
a $30-$60 player at the Sahara, he and his brother would come
several times a year from Paris and play in the game. They had some
businesses in Paris, and they became a couple of the wealthiest men
in France. They would come to Vegas and we would play $2,000-
$4,000 limit. Francis was the big gambler, and he would come to
Vegas four or five times a year. I'd been to Paris one time maybe
fifteen years ago to visit him. I stayed in a hotel and we played there.
Maybe four or five years ago, Francis was coming to Las Vegas.
Right before he came, he called and said he couldn't come and that
he hadn't been feeling well. He was about fifty-five years old and
very health conscious. He went and got a physical and he had
pancreatic cancer, which is one of the deadliest. He wanted so much
to play, but he had to go for treatments every day, so he invited us
to come to Paris. A bunch of us went: Bobby Baldwin, Doyle
Brunson, Johnny Chan [all three are World Series of Poker
champions], and Jack Binion, whom he admired very much. Jack
didn't play in the game. Jack just went out of respect for Francis.
Right in the center of Paris was an apartment complex that he'd
bought and turned into a huge mansion. He had maybe a $150
million worth of art hanging on his walls. I'll never forget when he
was showing us around the first day, we went into this huge
conference room and sitting right in the center of his conference
table was a backgammon board. He loved to play backgammon.
So we played a big game: 7-card stud $3,000-$6,000 limit, and
pot-limit Omaha with a $75,000 cap, so you couldn't lose more than
$75,000 in any one hand. But $75,000 was nothing the way the
game was structured. He was a very proud man. He would dress up
for the game every morning. We played every morning from ten
a.m. to about one p.m. Then we would have lunch, and play from
about two-thirty to five, then he'd go for treatments at the hospital.
 Every day he would ask us what kind of cuisine we wanted for
lunch. Whatever we said, he had the finest chef in Paris come and
prepare everything. We'd break for lunch every day and he would
have these wines and fruit and breads, and it would be like a buffet,
all made by the most famous chef in Paris. It was like that every
day, and we stayed for two weeks. When we finally left he was fine;
he'd won about $600,000.

So he was a good player.

He was a dangerous player. In the long run he was a big loser;

he could win, though. It wasn't like you were stealing his money.
We left and within three weeks he died. His brother said that before
we came he was going straight down hill. When we got there, he
loved it so much that it rejuvenated him for those two weeks.

Poker therapy, I can see it all now.

It was the last fling in his life. The day we left he was so
gracious. We never talked to him about death. He put on a suit and
was going to the hospital. He very graciously said goodbye to each
of us. He knew that he wasn't going to see us again and we knew
we wouldn't see him. It wasn't anything flowery. It was, "See you
next time."

Are there big games in Hollywood?

There is a game, but I'm not allowed to play in it.

Because you're too good?

Well, yeah. They excluded several players. Eric Drache runs

that game, and I don't really blame Eric. He's played with us for so
many years and he's a very good player. One of the big jokes about
Eric comes from back in the '80s, when the first player ratings came
out. David Sklansky wrote an article in Poker Player magazine, or
some other magazine back then. He rated all the players in each
game and then he rated all-around players. Eric's game was 7-card
stud and he was rated seventh in the world at that game. David had
written a paragraph about each guy and he said the only problem
with Eric is that he plays with the one-through six-rated players
every day. That was kind of true. He had a fabulous job, but he got
himself in financial trouble. We all loved Eric.

I hear that Gabe Kaplan has a big game.

He used to. I used to play in Gabe's game. We had a lot of fun.

I'd go stay at his house for two or three weeks at a time. The first
time I ever played in Gabe's game, I was excited that I had an
opportunity to play. There were a lot of players in the game and we
were playing no-limit hold 'em. We would play from eight p.m. to
one a.m. and sometimes there was an after-game. Gabe has a
beautiful home in Beverly Hills. If the right people were stuck, we
had the after-game, which was usually short-handed—very fast, and
higher stakes. There were a lot of businessmen in the game who
wrote checks, and sometimes they had trouble paying for a week or
two due to cash-flow problems. The money was always good, but
cash was at a premium. Like any home game, getting paid right
away was good. The first time I went, I lost $200,000. There were
a lot of people I didn't know. I had a reputation but they'd never
played with me before. This was on a Monday. I said, "This was
really fun. If you guys can play on Thursday I'll go home and get
the money and come back and play again." Cash? They were all
eager.
I came home for a day or two, and now I was going to the airport
and I had $200,000 cash in a briefcase4. I was running late. I left my
house and raced to the airport. I was almost there when I realized
I'd left the money at the house. I wasn't that concerned because there
were other planes, but I thought, ah, maybe I can make it. I raced
back to my house and pulled into the driveway. I jumped out and
saw the briefcase sitting on top of my car.

Oh my God!

Yeah—$200,000 in a briefcase and it never fell off. That time I

realized, I'm a pretty lucky guy.

I would say so. Did having kids ...

Oh, it changed everything. I always wanted to be married and

have kids. I didn't get married until I was thirty-five or thirty-six. I
hardly ever play cards anymore.

Really?

Yeah. The only time I ever play is if the game is huge. I haven't
played tournament poker in years, because I bet on baseball. I'm so
rusty or out of stroke that I don't even know any of the players. You
can't play poker and do it right unless you play all the time. Aside
from learning what hands to play, poker is all about people,
especially at the top levels. To be able to read the players, you have
to sit down and put your hours in. It's like going into war. You
probably heard stories about "The Greek."

Nick the Greek?

No. There's a guy from Greece, and there are some huge games
when he comes to town. That's really about the only time I go play.
He comes for two or three weeks, and I take that time to go play
every day at the Bellagio or the Mirage. Since I got married and
have kids, I'm a full-time dad and husband. Luckily, I've done well
at betting sports. I can stay in my house and do that. I'll make games
with guys and bring them over here to play. I don't even go to the
casinos anymore and haven't for a long time.

Do you bet football as well?

I bet football, baseball, basketball.

Other groups have spent a lot of time building computer

models but have been unable to win at baseball.

Yeah, I think we're the only ones who've ever figured out
baseball. I was originally involved with the Computer Group when
it started back in the '80s (see "Walters Notes" ). Back then the
program did very well for college basketball and football. They
tried to do baseball, but they got slaughtered. There have been other
groups that have attempted to do baseball. The only other group
that's been successful is called the "Kosher Kids." They really
weren't computer guys. They were just really good at handicapping
baseball for several years. They've lost their edge now, I think.
There's never been another computer group that's been good at
baseball.

Do you use the same approach for football as baseball?

I don't even try to beat pro football. I have different computer

people that do it, but baseball is really the best for me.

It seems like a lot of people beat football.

There are ways to beat football. You can beat it by having access
to [information about] injuries. There are computer programs out
there for football. But a pro-football season does not constitute a
very big sample size. You can have a fluctuation over the course of
a season and get destroyed. Whereas in baseball, it lasts for six
months and there are a bunch of games every day. You have a lot of
fluctuations, but baseball is the best sport because you get a truer
reading at the end of the season. One baseball season might be six
or seven football seasons if you look at the number of events.

Aren't the casinos making it difficult for you to get money

down?

In baseball—yeah, this may be it for me. I don't really need the

money and it's become too much of a headache. I can still bet
baseball where I can make a lot of money, but I've reached a level
in gambling where I don't want to play for peanuts. I'd rather coach
little league and be with my kids. It's ridiculous. The casinos won't
let you bet. I remember several years ago there were a lot of $50,000
bookmakers. They'd take $50,000 on a game and $20,000 on a total.
Now if you got a guy who lets you bet $10,000, he's the biggest
bookmaker in the world.

game/total— In sports betting, the two most common bets are

wagers on the "game" and the "total." A bet on the game (sometimes
called the "side") means choosing a team against the point spread.
A bet on the total means choosing whether the total points scored by
both teams will go above or below ("over/under") a number made
by the bookie.

Aren't there a lot of Internet or Caribbean bookmakers?

There are lots of Caribbean places. They take $7,000 here or

$10,000 there. But I bet a lot of money on these games. Then you
have to put an organization together, which increases your chances
of getting in trouble. Even though I don't think I'm doing anything
illegal, it doesn't mean I won't have to defend myself someday. You
reach a point of diminishing returns. It's just not worth it with all
the hassle and risk involved.

How did the baseball project come about?

I was down at the Horseshoe at the poker tournament about ten

years ago and a guy came up to me and said, "You like to bet on
baseball don't you?" I said yeah. He says, "I've got this young kid
that plays in the $10-$20 game that tells us his baseball picks and
they always win. Would you like to meet him?" I said sure. I went
up to the Italian restaurant, which was closed, and we sat up there
from eleven at night to about six in the morning. The kid was a
graduate of Cornell. He put together a program that he thought
could beat baseball. The program was very raw compared to what
it is now. Now it's extremely sophisticated. Ten years ago the line
Wasn't very good either. We forced them to make a better line over
the last ten years. But as their line gets better, we do new research
in different areas and find new ways to improve our line. We stay
ahead of them.

Any game, I think, is like that. Mike Svobodny says that guys
who were considered great backgammon players ten years ago
can't play at all now (Mike Svobodny is interviewed in Chapter
4).

Well, computers have changed everything. They roll out a

position 80,000 times on a computer and they know the right answer
There's no speculation anymore.

How do you think computers and sophisticated analysis

have changed poker?

Same way. I really think it's interesting. Doyle wrote a book

back in the late '70s [Super/System: A Course in Power Poker]. He
asked me to write the chapter on 7-card stud. I really didn't want to
do it. I said, "Doyle, people don't have a clue how to play. If we
write I these chapters you're going to wake everyone up." It taught
everybody how to play. Since then, people have expanded on it.
Guys like David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth and some others
have I taken it to the point where every single thing is analyzed now.
In I that book, Doyle gave everyone the basis of how to think, for
each I game.
Imagine if Paul Magriel never wrote that book on backgammon
[Backgammon, by Paul Magriel; Magriel is profiled in "Svobodny
Notes"]. People wouldn't have a clue about how to I think. If
Magriel hadn't written that book, none of the great players in the
world now would know how to play backgammon really well.

But these computer programs still would have been written,

and I then people would have learned.

Yeah, eventually they would have, but still, the way of thinking
has to be there. In 7-card stud no one had a clue. The concepts I of
eliminating players, and playing different kinds of hands in different
ways. In Vegas, everybody played backwards. It's interesting,
because you'd think it would evolve, but it doesn't. If people I don't
have a point of reference to go to for the right answers, it doesn't
happen nearly as quickly as people think. They probably would
have learned, but now there are a lot of really fabulous poker
players. They're all over the place, even in small games, because
they've read every book. They know everything.
Of course there's more to it. You can take the top eight poker
lavers in the world and put them in a room for a month, and probably
the same guy is going to wind up with the money every rime It's not
just knowing how to play, it's character. It's [being above] all the
things in Las Vegas that created traps for people who had
tremendous talent, but couldn't win for one reason or another. I've
always maintained in gambling ... being what people call the best
player isn't what it's about. It's not about superstar plays. In
backgammon it's not about, oh, that was a genius move. Those
creative genius moves come up once in a blue moon, and what's the
difference between that and some other play? It's minuscule. It
might not show up again in your lifetime. It's the guys that do it
every day. Whether you're a hundred points winner or a hundred
points loser, you're going to play the same way. You're not going to
get flustered. You're not going to fire off your money when you're
stuck. Maybe you have a fight with your wife or your girlfriend;
you're not going to come to the poker room and just fire your money
off, or drink and shoot it off in the pit. It's like the game you're
playing is almost irrelevant. You learn the basics; you do your basic
training.
You take two guys on a football field. They're both 6'4" and 250
pounds. They both run the 40-yard dash in 4.2 seconds, or whatever.
They both bench-press 400 pounds. They both try out for a team
and one guy you never hear from again, while the other guy goes
into the Hall of Fame. They both have all the same talents and
potential. But there's something that makes some people win. It's a
will to win. It's ... I don't know how to describe it.

I think "character" was the right word.

When I think of character, I think of the word "adversity." It's

easy to have character when things are going well. It's like Benny
Binion said "It's easy to be honorable when you got plenty of
money. It s not so easy to be honorable when you're flat broke. It's
the same type of thing. It's easy to have character in gambling when
you're on top. You can look like a superstar.

We touched on fluctuation before. A top gambling writer

said that you could go for a full year in poker and book a loser
just because of fluctuation.

I don't believe it. Not in poker. I think there are [gambling]

situations where that happens, but I don't think poker is one of them.
I can't imagine it. I see that happen to people, but inevitably they're
doing something wrong. Here's what I've always maintained. Gin
rummy is a game that's hard to learn because you can't really watch
your opponent play. You don't see him play his hand. In
backgammon if you play somebody who's better than you, you can
see what's happening and learn. It's hard to learn to be a great gin
rummy player, because you have no point of reference to learn from.
It's a game of experience. It's not just reading a book about how to
play. You have to actually play and get a feel for it, but you can't see
hands replayed in a gin rummy game.
Knowledge creates character in gambling. When I used to play
gin rummy and lose because I didn't really have full knowledge of
the game, it affected my play. Every time you throw a card, the guy
needs the card and it makes him a meld. Or in blackjack, you double
down on 11 with a big plus count, and you get a deuce and the dealer
jams up a 16 and makes 21. It's a terrible feeling. But blackjack is a
finite game with a mathematical solution. No matter what you do or
what kind of fluctuation you have in blackjack, it's not going to
affect your play, because you know the right answer. In a game like
gin rummy, for me, when I was young, it affected my play. I fired
off a lot of gin rummy scores early in my life because I broke down
and played differently.
In poker I feel I have tremendous knowledge. Thanks to my
years of experience, there isn't anything anybody can do to me as
far as fluctuations ... as far as showing me the World's Fair for hours
and hours and hours ... that's really going to affect what I think the
truth is. If a guy outdraws me twenty-five times in a row, I'm not
going to think he's a good player. I'm watching the layout. I know
what's happening to me because I've been through it. I've been
through bad periods. But lots of guys in poker don't have that deep
knowledge, don't have the experience of twenty-five years. I can
give you names of guys who are up-and-coming superstars, who are
supposed to be great players. I see them when they play in the big
games and things go bad; you can't believe how they play. They
break down the same way I broke down at gin rummy.

showing me the World's Fair—A lucky run of cards; every hand

is a winner.

As far as your question about fluctuation; I don't believe it. I

think poker is too much a game of skill to have those kinds of
fluctuations [without other reasons]. I think people that have them
are doing something terribly wrong somewhere along the way.
Maybe they're quietly steaming, playing hands they shouldn't be
playing, and not telling anybody about them. There are a lot of
different explanations besides bad luck.

Then how long do you think you could lose?

The longest I ever lost in my life was about two or three weeks.

Really?

The worst streak I can remember, I had the poker room at the
Dunes and we were playing $150-$300 limit. I think we were
playing 7-card stud and limit hold 'em, half and half. I lost for about
three weeks straight and lost about $300,000, which is a tremendous
amount playing in that game. It drove me nuts in the sense that I
knew how unlucky I had been. The funny part was I think I got it
back in about six weeks. I got just as lucky coming back the other
way.
These guys that lose all year ... I'll stake guys, try to help out
players who used to be good, or I thought were good. There's just
something not right when they lose, lose, lose. I think in poker, you
get back what you are. You don't have to wait too long to get your
reward. If you really are doing the right thing in poker— playing
the best hand, not chasing, knowing where you're at in a hand,
getting away from hands when you're beat—it's hard to lose, that's
from my perspective. I'm sure people are going to say I'm crazy, but
that's for me. I just can't imagine going out and playing Poker for a
long time and losing. For me it's something to fall back on. I always
feel I can go out and win a million dollars a year playing poker if I
have to.

Is there always somebody weak in the game?

Not necessarily. It's a weird thing. There's a plethora of players

today, plus they're playing all these multiple games. At the Bella-
gio they're playing $500-$l,000 limit with six games. There are
probably thirty or forty players that play in these games. They're all
pretty good poker players, but they're not good poker players at all
those games. They're in there playing them all, and they all have
weaknesses. I'm not saying everybody; there are some very good
players out there. I think the overall talent in poker is way better
than it used to be, from books and everything. But as far as really,
really good players, I don't think there are any more than there ever
were.
You know, people make fun of Doyle, because Doyle is a great
action guy. Doyle will get in a game and give action, and some of
these guys think he's a bad player. Doyle Brunson is a great poker
player. He's always been a great player and, in fact, he's a better
limit player now than a no-limit player. Doyle's forte was no-limit
when I first started. Doyle has a way of marketing himself in a poker
game that makes him look like a fool, and he's great. In my mind,
of all the people I ever played with, in terms of longevity and being
a winner, Doyle is fabulous.

Do any of the young up-and-coming players impress you?

Who do you think will be around twenty years from now?

I think they'll all be around twenty years from now. I think

what's happened in poker is, because of publicity and tournaments,
there's a bigger base of players. There are a lot of people playing,
and there's a lot of money now. To win $100,000 back in the '70s
was a huge score. Now you can go in and win $50,000 or lose
$100,000 like it's nothing. They're all going to make a good living
playing poker. But if you take those people and put them in a room,
the people that merely make a good living would get broke if they
were playing with the people with real talent. It's kind of an irrel
evant consideration, because it's not going to happen.

Did you play gin with Stu Ungar [see "Walters Notes"]?

Oh yeah. Stuey is the one who taught me how to play gin. We

played for hours and hours and hours, and he was definitely the best
player ever. I don't think there was anybody who could shine his
shoes. Stuey was a genius in many ways, and an idiot in many ways.
He had a knack for, very early in the hand, being able to picture
what his opponent had, like no one I've ever played before. He had
tremendous imagination, and he taught me almost everything he
knew about gin. I couldn't beat Stuey.
When he was thirteen or fourteen years old he played some old
man in New York, in the goulash joints, who was a real good gin
player. He didn't play high and he had no reputation, but he was a
great player. He taught Stuey things about gin, and Stuey taught me
some of them. I know that one thing he didn't teach me is keeping
me from getting to the final level at gin. It has to do with the first
seven discards. It's a mathematical thing, and I've never heard
anybody talk about it. There is a way to memorize the first seven
discards of a gin hand in order and formulate a picture of the hand.
It's interesting to me. I don't play enough anymore to explore it, but
there's a missing piece that Stuey had that I don't think anybody else
has. I think this old man taught him, and it really separated him from
everybody else.

What do you think of guys like David Sklansky who are still
playing middle limits?

There's an interesting study, because David has always had the

rap against him that he can write, but he can't play. I've always
thought David was a very good player. I don't think David ever had
the, I think desire is the right word, to take his own money and go
in there and mix it up. He's a sensible guy, and he understands the
value of a dollar. He was never one of those guys who would play
m the game and not pay attention to what the chips were worth. You
have to have that certain recklessness or abandon to really be at the
top—to get in there and really mix it up, and whoever is left standing
is standing. That was never David's style. He doesn't choose ' that for
himself. He's comfortable staying at [the middle] level; he] never
really had the aspiration to move up. He's an intellectual guy and I
like him a lot. I've always been one of his big supporters. David
understands all the different facets of the game and I think anyone
who reads his books can learn something. He's a very good writer I
always learn something when I read his books. It gives me an idea
that I can incorporate into my game.

What about Mike Caro's books?

 I like Mike a lot. I think Mike has done a real good job of
marketing himself. I always thought the name "mad genius" was
appropriate.

Do you play a lot of golf?

I play in spurts. I had my knee operated on and can't play much

anymore. We gambled high on golf around here for twenty-five
years. In fact, it was one of the first ways I got broke. I was about
twenty-four or twenty-five, and Jack Binion and Doyle played Danny
and me. We played every day at the Desert Inn. Thirty or forty people
showed up every day [to watch], and we made games and played
high. We were a close match, and we would beat them on the front
nine every day. The way we played back then was to play for double
on the back nine. Coming down sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen we
would just choke. We would be in a position every day where we
could win $80,000 or lose $30,000, and we'd lose the $30,000. We
would be so disgusted that we didn't even want to go out. There was
a 7-Eleven store on the corner of Twain and Swenson, and we'd j go
there and get TV dinners or something. Then we'd go back to our
apartment, sit in the living room, and just look at each other and,
say, "How did we lose that match today? We should have beaten
them." We did this every day for the whole summer. We had about
$400,000 and we lost it all.
Golf has been on and off for years. Doyle was the big catalyst-
He's the one who generated all the big games. Doyle was not a guy
who would try to match up the nuts. Most guys go out there and if
they play their normal game, they're going to win by the they match
up. Doyle always matched up where he had to play well to win. It
was easy to make a game with Doyle, but he was a good player. He
kind of broke down with his leg to where he couldn't play golf
anymore. Golf is getting rejuvenated now. There are a lot of young
guys who are starting to play. There are a bunch of guys who are
out there making big games. In fact, Doyle came out of retirement.
Did you hear about that match?

No.

I have a summer home in Montana on Flathead Lake. About

four or five years ago I had an outing up there. I invited about thirty
or forty gamblers and we took over the whole golf course. They
came up for about a week and gambled. We'd play golf and went to
dinner at night. It's really pretty in the summer up there. Doyle
hadn't played golf in maybe ten years. We were at dinner one night
at this restaurant, on the patio overlooking the lake. There were
about thirty people and everyone was drinking, and they started to
make games. They started proposing games to Doyle. Now Doyle
knows where he's at on the golf course, as far as matching up a
game, better than anybody.

Even after laying off for ten years?

He knows when someone is offering him the nuts. He knows

how all these guys shoot, and these guys really don't have a clue
about how to make golf games. They're all rookies. So Doyle sat
there, and hey offered him about ten different golf games, and he
never said a word. Finally, they offered him a game where they were
going to it from the blue tees, and he was going to hit from the red,
and they were going to give him a stroke a hole. Plus, Doyle
negotiated to use a tee everywhere, and he didn't have to bend over
and put the tee in the ground. He could have a caddie put the tee in
for him. He walked with a crutch from the cart to his ball, and if he'd
had to bend over to the tee in the ground, he wouldn't even finish.
They bet $150,000 for a nine-hole match. Doyle won the first five
holes and the match was over. It was ridiculous.
 Cathy Hulbert mentions in her interview that she thought
Darin Robeson was the best 7-card stud player.

Danny was always the best 7-card stud player in the medium I
games, maybe the best ever. Danny never played enough in the I big
games to really test it, but he's a great player. But Danny is one of
those guys who figures out a way not to keep his money. He'll I
make great plays in a 7-card stud game, and I certainly know how I
he plays because we used to discuss hands when we were partners.
Back when we used to play $30-$60, there was nobody better! than
Danny. He could get people to call bets, and do things that I were
outside the game itself, like splitting pots and those kinds ofB
things. He was like a magician the way he mesmerized his
opponents. But in the big games it didn't really work for him that
well. He plays differently in the big games than he does in those
$75-I $150 games. He's got some great stories. He's been through
the ups and downs.

splitting pots — Deals are sometimes made to divide a pot

equally before a hand is over. A clever player can gain great
advantage by convincing opponents to split when he would lose the
hand if played to conclusion.

Do you have a defining moment? A greatest gambling

moment?

That's an interesting question.

Certainly the time you looked over and saw that $400-$800
high-low game was a turning point.
 It's interesting that you say that because I've had moments in my
life that are so huge, but they weren't defining moments. I've had
million-dollar decisions so many different days—win or lose a
million or two. That's a huge amount of money, and certainly it can
affect your life, but they weren't defining moments. Once your I
structure is in place, it's like a casino. You have a bad day, big deal-
Or a good day, big deal. I'm a casino, just like any other professional
gambler. You're the house, with the edge every time you make a bet.
Or at least you think you have an edge. The outcomes are really that
important anymore, because it's all part of the daily tine. They're not
defining moments, because your defining moments have already
occurred [to get you there].
That $400-$800 game is much more a defining moment because
it was exciting to me and it took me to the level that I'm at. It was a
quantum leap from one atmosphere to another. I remember it, it
must have been a defining moment. I have giant decisions every
day. I can tell you about days where I won thirteen out of thirteen
baseball games and won a million something dollars, or lost eleven
out of thirteen and lost a million dollars. Those are happy and sad
moments in a career, but not defining.

Your son is ten?

Yeah.

So if your son got out of high school or college and said, "I
want to be a professional gambler ..."

I'd have no problem with it. I really wouldn't. Here's a good

story. I'd been out here about seven years and I went through a time
with my dad where he didn't even speak to me. I didn't go to law
school, and that was kind of a sad thing for my dad. In high school
I did everything. I won my state championship in debate and went
to nationals. I was programmed to go to law school. I was accepted
to Harvard and didn't go. For me to wind up in Las Vegas doing
what I was doing crushed my dad. We didn't speak for two years.
Eventually, I had a nice home and I was doing real well, an my
parents came out to visit. My dad saw how I lived. We went around
to all the casinos and I knew all the owners, who were educated in
the hotel business. My dad realized that this atmosphere wasn't
anything close to what he'd envisioned. It wasn't seedy backroom
gambling. Professional gambler is a respected profession in this
town, and he learned to accept it. Then he started coming out more
and more and we got close again.
At one point I went through a phase where I'd made a bunch
money, but I was feeling almost like a parasite. I wasn't doing
nothing for anybody other than giving money to charities or helping
a few individuals. But I wasn't making any kind of contribution to
society.
Anybody who's educated, if he's any kind of human being I
grows up with some sense of service in his life. I felt I was living
kind of a pointless existence. I really didn't know what I wanted to
I do. The idea of becoming a lawyer certainly didn't thrill me, but
that's what I'd started out to do. I called my dad and said, "I'm]
getting bored with my life, and I'm thinking about calling Stanford
and seeing if I can get in." Do you know what my dad told me?
Here's the guy who didn't speak to me for two years, and he says,
"Are you crazy? All you can do in life is what you love. You've loved
this since you were a little kid."
When you reflect on it, my dad is right. He knows doctors
lawyers, every respected profession back in Dayton, and he says
every single one of them would like to be doing what I'm doing.
That says something. So I've figured out ways, as far as community
service and Little League, stuff at the school, things like that, to give
me a sense of contribution. It's getting easier and easier because I
do a lot less playing.
 Poker is probably the game I want to play least right now. I've
seen every hand. These young guys who want to talk about a hand;
this hand was really interesting. Interesting? I've been there and
done that a thousand times. It's so uninteresting to me.

Are computer nerds going to be the gambling superstars of

tomorrow?

I think the answer is yes.

Maybe, but so far it seems that the nerds need someone else
to get the money down.

They can't do it. I know a guy who's a genius. I think he can

analyze a problem as well as anyone I've ever met. He'll come up
with a solution and know whether it's valid. That's his talent. But he
has trouble betting five hundred dollars of his own money. There I
are a jillion guys like that. It's not just a question of skill in getting
the money down, but a question of heart for betting it at all in a lot
of cases. It seems to me most computer guys, even if they know
they have a cinch, would rather have a free roll of fifteen percent,
instead of fifty percent of the action betting their own money—
though they know the virtual outcome based on the corn-There' s a
lot of pressure in fluctuation, especially if you don't have an
adequate bankroll. It's interesting to me.

getting down — To place a bet.

lock—A bet that can't lose; also called a "cinch."
free roll—A proposition in which a person has no liability for
losses, but some portion of the win.

Getting back to your son being a professional gambler—

what would you tell him to do?
 I try to teach him even now. I would try to make him understand
the different areas. First of all, he'd have to have a tremendous
command of probability, but also understand all the different facets
of the life.
My biggest problem is a marketing problem, not a playing
problem. I beat so many people in so many different ways—heads-
up games, different things in poker—that even though I can sit
down in an eight-handed game, and they can't stop me from sitting
down, the real value is getting somebody to play heads-up or short-
handed. Stay up for two or three days, that's when it really gets
good. That's really the difference between the poker player today
and the poker player of old. Fifteen or twenty years ago when we
showed up at the poker room—I'm talking about Doyle, myself,
Sobby Baldwin, Johnny Moss [Baldwin was the '78 World Series
Champion, Moss won in '70, '71, and '74, and is profiled in "Reese
Notes']—it was nothing to sit for twenty-four hours. That was a
normal session. And whoever was there started the game. If Doyle
I were the two best players in the world at something and were the
first two there, we anted up and we played. It was that mentality, a
warrior's mentality. It was a neat, fun, romantic life.

short-handed—A game with few players.

Nowadays, there are too many computer guys around. They'll

say, I got the best of it against him, but this guy's maybe a lit better
than me, so I'll wait and take the eighth seat in this game. ] wait until
this game is just right for me. These guys cost themselves a fortune.
I know from experience that you're looking for drop-ins in poker
game. We used to start games. Just start them. If you had four guys
who were tough players, you just played. Eventually people hear:
The game is there, the game is there, and somebody would! come
and sit down. The game would fill up and last for three weeks and
you'd all wind up with money. People don't do that anymore.

drop-in—A player who is not a regular

Right now there is an older gentleman who plays at the

Bellagio. He's a really nice man who made a bunch of money [in
business], and he's not a very good player. The game is centered on
him. If he's not on the way in his car or not going to be there in
fifteen minutes, they won't even sit down and start a game. That's
very distasteful to me. It's rude. And there are a lot of players like
that around. Everybody has to figure out his own best way to make
a living, but it didn't used to be this way. It was a lot more fun the
other way.

You were saying that marketing yourself became a problem.

Yeah, eventually I got to the point where I beat a lot of guys

playing backgammon, even though I'm not the best backgammon
player in the world. I've won a lot of money in my life playing
backgammon, though. I beat a lot of guys playing gin rummy and I
beat a lot of guys playing poker. Eventually, I got a big reputation
even though I tried not to. It's almost like you run out of customers.
I don't play in tournaments, and I've never won the world
championship.

Don't you think some people want to play with you because
of my your reputation?

Some do. But more don't. With the lifestyle that I lead ... I spend
a I lot of money. I need to make a lot of money. I can't go and play
$200-400 or $300-$600.1 have to find other venues to make bigger
money. It just got to the point where the games were too small for
me. The game of poker is too small for me now. There just aren't
games every day where you win or lose two- or three-hundred
thousand. I can do that betting sports. I've always been, personality-
wise, very good at getting guys to sit in the chair with me and make
a handicap game, but you can only do it so many times. There is a
finite number of guys.

handicap game—A game in which the opponents do not start

equally. In golf this may mean that one player is given extra strokes.
In poker the handicap is often money odds. Example: A player agrees
to rebate 10% to his opponent if he wins.

And it's a lot of work traveling all over. If the action is in L.A.,
you go to L.A., and if it's in New York you go to New York. I can't
do that anymore. My son is in Little League and my little girl is in
ice-skating. I'm really involved with their schoolwork. If I'm gone
two days, I feel like I'm being a bad dad. It's just not worth it to me
anymore to do that. That doesn't mean that I won't play anybody in
the world.
There's nobody I won't play if the conditions are right.

For the guy back in Dayton right now who wants to be a

poker player, are there any particular books or software?

It s all good. A guy can read the books, depending on what his
game is, and come out here and let the Peter Principle take its
course. You'll find out how good you are.
People say, "I'm as good as those guys." If you are, you'll be
there. There's nothing to stop anybody. Start at $10-$20 and go to
H40, $40-$80, then to $80-$160. The games are there all day, every
day. The money is there to be made if a guy is good enough to make
it.

How tough do you think it is to beat those games?

 I think it's tougher now than it used to be. Most of the games are
games. When you're playing in a seven- or eight-handed game,
you're really limited in how you can play. You have to play by a
book. When games get down to four- and five-handed, with bigger
antes, which happens more at the top [higher levels], there's a I lot
more strategy involved. It's worth it to win the antes. You can I
maneuver and change speeds and play the players. When you're
playing in a seven- or eight-handed game, it's hard to key in on any
one player, because somebody else is going to have the hand You
can't play the worst hand in a seven- or eight-handed game You just
have to play solid poker.

ring game — A full (or near-full) table. In hold 'em a ring game
would consist of nine or ten players. In 7-card stud, it would be eight
players.

One of the nice things about being a professional gambler is that

there's no politics. In business you can work for a big firm, and not
only do you have to be good at your job, you have to put J up with
the political bullshit. You have to play the game and hope you catch
the right break to get your promotion. Things other than your talent
can keep you from going to the top.
In gambling, that's not the case. In gambling you control your
destiny. There's fluctuation, but fluctuation means nothing. You
know that from probability. The right answer will come about.
There are traps and things like that, so you can get sidetracked. But
gambling is one of the purest forms [of professional endeavor],
where you can rise to the top solely on your talent. If you're the best,
you'll get there.

Reese Notes
 1—Poker Variations
There are hundreds of different types of poker games, but only
a few are played in casinos. The most popular are: hold 'em, 7-card
stud, Omaha, and Omaha high-low split. Also found are 7-stud
high-low split, deuce-to-seven lowball, and razz.
Casino poker has three different betting structures, the most
common being split-limit. Split-limits can range from $2-$4 to
$3,000-$6,000 and higher. What this means is that the early betting
rounds are in increments of the lower limit, and later betting rounds
are in increments of the higher limit. In a $3-$6 hold 'em game, a
player may bet $3 increments before and after the flop (the first
three cards in hold 'em's community board), then $6 increments on
the turn (fourth community card) and the river (final community
card). The other two betting structures are pot-limit and no-limit. In
no-limit, a player may bet all the money in front of him at any time.
In pot-limit, a player may bet as much money as is already in the
pot.

2—Johnny "The Grand Old Man of Poker" Moss

Johnny Moss won the inaugural World Series of Poker held in
1970, then won twice more, making him one of only two men to
win wee times.
Moss grew up in Odessa, Texas, and began playing poker at the
age of 10. He plied his trade as a road gambler, playing throughout
Southwest, until a fateful phone call in 1949. His friend Benny
Binion had arranged a poker game in Las Vegas. Moss would play
the Greek" Dandolos, the most famous gambler of the era.
Binionon set up the no-limit game near the doorway of his
down-town casino, the Horseshoe, and crowds gathered to watch
the two men fire hundreds of thousands of dollars back and forth
across the table. The men played for five months and, though
account vary, Moss won between $2 million and $4 million. After
the last hand, the Greek reportedly uttered the famous line, "Mr.
Moss I must let you go."
Moss continued playing poker in Las Vegas until 1995 when he
died at age 88.

3—Color Code
In casinos, gamblers play with chips, which are color-coded
according to denomination. The colors vary somewhat, but
typically, silver (metal tokens) or white chips are worth $1, reds are
$5, greens are $25, blacks are $100, purples or grays are $500, and
amounts above that are subject to the color whims of the sponsoring
casino. Players often refer to the level they play at by color, as in, "I
bet black," or "I play green."
Chips are also nicknamed for the denomination of coins. A $5
chip is often called a nickel, while a $25 chip is a quarter. A big
nickel is a slot term for a $5 token. A nickel is also a sports betting
term for $500, and a dime in sports betting means $1,000.

4—Cash Culture
Gamblers at the level of Chip Reese (and the seven others in
this book) tend to have a blase attitude toward cash. They win it,
lose it, store it, carry it, play it, flash it, and loan it to each other, all
in huge amounts, without a second thought. Chip Reese thought
nothing of going to his son's soccer game with a million dollars in
cash in the trunk of his car. In other interviews, Alan Woods
discusses walking around with $400,000 in a paper bag and Tommy
Hyland uses a treasure map to dig up $140,000 that a teammate
buried in the Bahamas.
Gambling is a game, and cash is the way the score is kept, tot a
gambler, cash is nothing more than a tool. And since gamblers deal
with such large amounts of money every day they become
desensitized to its value. One gambler made a comparison to auto
mechanics, who think nothing of loaning a wrench to a fellow
mechanic. "You loan him the wrench and expect he'll return it in
good condition. If he breaks it or loses it, you expect him to replace
it. Well, my wrench may be a bundle of fifty-thousand dollars." Do
the big players ever worry about someone not returning their
wrench? Tommy Hyland said, "We've made a lot of money by
trusting each other.'
Having and carrying cash has caused problems of some sort
every one of these players. Even before September 11,2001, the
eminent and law enforcement were highly suspicious of anyone
carrying large amounts of currency. Since then, it's gotten worse
Anyone with cash is believed to be a drug dealer, money launderer,
tax evader, or criminal of some kind. Cash is often seized, based on
flimsy "probable cause," and modern-day civil-forfeiture
procedures can make it extremely difficult and costly to get it
returned, even if the cash-carrier is never charged with a crime. As
of this writing, Billy Walters is still trying to get back $2.8 million
in seized cash. One gambler put it this way, "It's just something you
have to deal with if you want to be in this business. It's another part
of the game."

TOMMY HYLAND

Tommy Hyland runs the most successful blackjack team in the

history of the game. For 20 years he has trained and tested card
counters, then sent them into casinos with piles of money. His play
has taken him zigzagging across the United States and island-
hopping in the Caribbean. He once had to follow a treasure map in
the Bahamas to uncover a buried stash of $140,000 that a teammate,
not pirates, had buried in order to facilitate a currency transfer.
The casinos have faxed his picture to each other for two
decades. Because of this, his name and appearance change more
often than the weather. He's been to Hollywood to consult makeup
artists. His hair has been straight and curly; he's also been bald. He's
used facial hair, contact lenses, and a fat suit. One Christmas Eve
he went into a casino dressed as Santa Claus, only to hear, Sorry,
Santa, we don't want any more of your action."
Playing blackjack for a living hasn't been all fun and games. An
angry casino owner once held a gun on him and demanded the
casino's money back. On another occasion he was thrown in jail at
the Bahamas, while the officials scurried to carve up his bankroll.
Usually, however, Tommy enjoys the high life that goes hand in
hand with being a casino VIP. He gets the first-class airline tickets,
limousine transportation, luxurious digs, and gourmet meals
intended for high-rolling suckers, usually unaware that he's getting
their money, to boot.
Arriving at a Las Vegas Strip casino for our interview, I give the
front desk the name Tommy is using this week. I ride a private
elevator to a luxury suite. Tommy greets me at the door. The
cavernous suite with its marble floors and gold fixtures is larger than
my home, and probably cost more to build.
"Let's order room service," he says. After all, the casino is
paying.

Do you remember the first bet you made as a kid?

Seems like the first gambling I ever did might have been a bet
on some sports event. We also used to pitch coins against the wall
at times.

At what age?

I'm going to guess I was in fifth grade, maybe ten or eleven year
old.
 Pitching nickels, dimes?

We used to pitch nickels, dimes, or quarters against a brick wall.

The closest one would win and take the other guy's coin.

Did the players practice at all? Did you try to get an edge?

Yeah, I think we did practice. Might have flipped by ourselves

sometimes. I used to bet on myself in sports a lot, shooting baskets
or other games. What else did we do? Golf.

How old were you when you started playing golf?

I think I was about ten or eleven. We used to play for a soda or

a dollar or something.

Where did you grow up?

New Jersey.

Did your parents gamble?

My dad gambled, but nothing serious. He liked to go to the race-

track a few times a year. He liked to play golf for a dollar or two-
Nassau. He used to be a pretty good pool shooter. Bowling, Just
once a month, or something like that.

Did you play a lot of sports in high school?

Yeah. Basketball, golf, and baseball. I played pretty much

everything.
 Once you got into high school, did you start betting sports?

Yeah, but not to a great extent. In high school, I'm ashamed to

say now, I was the house, giving out the parlay cards. I used to get
one from a guy, and I'd photocopy it, and back my own cards.

parlay card — A card listing all games and their point spreads
for a given weekend. A player may select two or more games, and all
games selected must cover the point spread in order to win. Payoffs
increase with each game added.

Why are you ashamed to say that now?

Well, it's pretty much the only time I've ever been the house.
I've always been a player. Some guy at my dad's work had them, so
he'd bring them home. The payouts were so bad, I raised them. I
think there were other guys doing it, but they were just returning the
standard payouts, so I eliminated the competition.

Did you make any serious money doing that?

I made money for a while: thirty dollars a week, or fifty dollars

a week, something like that. Then, I remember I got the bright idea
of trying to create more business. I made up my own spreads on
high-school games, and apparently they were pretty bad. I got
waffled one week and I remember having to sell my pool table lost
about four or five hundred dollars and I think that was the last time
I did the [parlay] cards.

waffled—To take a big loss.

How did you get into blackjack?

 By the time I was in college, I was playing cards all the time. I
played a lot of poker and I got interested in gambling in general We
used to golf a lot for money.

Where did you go to college, and what were you studying?

Wittenberg in Ohio. I was basically being a bum. I was

supposed to be studying political science, but I was on the golf team.
I was I playing golf, shooting pool, and playing cards. I've always
been an avid reader, and I just picked up some books on blackjack.
I started reading them and my roommate and I started practicing.

Did you also pick up books on poker?

No, I never really did.

But you were beating the game?

Yeah, I was beating the game there, but I remember in college

the I game kind of deteriorated. There were a lot of bad debts. I
gradually got out of playing poker. We were playing a little
backgammon. I wasn't any good at poker or backgammon, but I was
better I than the guys I was playing with. Based on what I know
now, it was horrible. It seems like we got Revere's book from the
bookstore [Playing Blackjack as a Business]. My roommate and I
started practicing blackjack, and he was more interested in it than I
was-He was from Ohio, but he stayed at my house for Christmas
break. I lived about fifty miles from Atlantic City.

What year was that?

This would have been 1978 I guess, Christmas of '78.

 So Resorts had just opened.

Yeah, it had just opened earlier that year. My roommate stayed

at v house for about ten days, and he drove down to Atlantic City
and back every day. I went down with him two or three times. We'd
memorized basic strategy, but we really couldn't count.1 I didn't
have any significant result, but he won. That was when they had
early surrender and you had an advantage off the top. I guess he was
able to count a little bit, but he won eight out of ten times or nine out
of ten. He won several thousand dollars. He'd always been a loser
in our college gambling—a heavy loser. I said, man, if this guy can
win all these times, there might be something to this. So, after I went
back to school, I started reading and practicing more. We had only
the one book as I recall. Then I guess I went down to Atlantic City
on and off. I thought you had to be a memory expert to keep the
count—that it wasn't really possible to do it yourself unless you had
some extraordinary gift.

basic strategy — The mathematically correct way to play every

hand based only on the player's total and the dealer's up card. Basic
strategy varies slightly for different rules and numbers of decks.
Against perfect basic strategy, the casino advantage in a multi-deck
blackjack game is only about one-half of one percent.
off the top—The first hand of a new deck or shoe.
1
For this and subsequent numeric references 2-8, see "Hyland Notes" at the end of this chapter.

Even given what you were reading? It's a respected book.

Yeah, because Revere's book—and [the same is true of] later

books--doesn't actually tell you how to physically do it. It really
doesn't say how you get your speed [counting cards] up or anything
like that. It was pretty confusing. Some of Revere's ch were great.
They're still good today, his color charts. But the physical act of
counting wasn't explained properly. A friend and I would sit next to
each other and I'd count the high cards and he'd count the low cards.
We'd whisper after every hand what he had and what I had and then
we'd get a count. We did this for hours and hours, and we were
winning. We did really well. We both put in a thousand dollars and
after several months, we had three or four thousand each.

How much were you betting?

We were way over-betting. You had to play a $5 table back then;

there weren't any $2 tables. Resorts International was the only
casino open. I'm going to guess we were betting $5-$50, or
something like that.

So you got lucky that you didn't tap out.

Oh sure, sure. We were fortunate not to tap out. Then we met a

I guy who told us about a new book by Stanford Wong2
[ProfessionalBlackjack]. This guy came to our table and he realized
we were counting. He explained to us that you have to wait until the
person on first base gets his second card, and then you start keeping
J the count and canceling out. So we started practicing, and
obviously after a little while we were able to do it ourselves. Then
we met two other counters. They each had a few thousand dollars.
By this time I'd read Ken Uston's book [Million Dollar Blackjack],
which talked about the teams.3 Having a team seemed really
glamorous to us. We decided to trust the other two counters. My
recollection is that we each put in $4,000. Now we had this massive
$16,000 bankroll. We started really firing at them. This would have
been about October of '79. We didn't realize you could keep books.
We used to each start at the exact same time. We'd each have
$4,000and we'd agree to all play until a certain time. Back then it
was pretty hard to get barred betting small. I guess we were betting
up to a hundred or two [a hand] at this point. We usually played i
night. We'd start at eight p.m. and we'd play until almost closing'
and then go to their apartment and split up the money.

first base--The first seat to the dealer's left and the first to play.
The ' at to the dealer's right and the last to play is called "third
base."
canceling — While counting cards, matching a plus- and minus-
value card to zero out. There is no change in the count, because the
two cards cancel each other.
getting barred — Being excluded from playing by casino
personnel.

We didn't keep track of hours. We just all assumed we were all

going to play the same time. We didn't do it by win or anything like
that. We just whacked it up each night. It seems like we did this
about four or five nights a week for quite awhile. Then we met this
annoying guy, Not Too Smart Art. He was pestering us, pestering
us. Oh, can I get on your team? He thought we were big shots now.
He begged us and begged us to get on the team and we brushed him
off a few times and finally we decided to put him on. Our bankroll
was maybe up to twenty-five grand at this point, plus he put in an
equal share. So now we had maybe a $30,000 bankroll. It seemed like
we won pretty regularly. Like I say, this guy begged for two weeks
to get on the team and then every time he played he won, so he said,
"Oh, I should have kept playing on my own." That's what I
remember about Art. Just complain and complain: "Why'd I ever
get on this team? I should have taken a shot on my own."

whack up — Divide money.

By this point, did you guys know anything about how much to
bet?
 A little bit. I could figure out a little, but I'm not super sharp at
math. I think that by the end of the "Experiment" we had a forty-
fifty-thousand-dollar bankroll. That was in December 79. We
crushed them during the Experiment. After the Experiment, I
wanted to keep playing, maybe go to Vegas. The other guys had
gotten Sanford Wong's book, Blackjack in Asia. They decided to go
to Asia. That's when I started teaching all my friends from the golf
course. That's kind of how I got into the whole team thing. We had
fifteen or twenty guys by the end of 1980. I'd teach them, test them,
and put them on the team.

What percentage of guys would actually test out?

Pretty much everybody I tried to teach. I just looked around to

see which people I thought were honest. I made some poor
judgment. and ended up with some bad people, but over the years
I've been fortunate to have mostly good people. I've never really
found am, body that—there's maybe like one out of twenty that I
tried to teach—I just gave up on.

test out—Prospective team members are often tested on their

playing skills. A player might be required to count down a single
deck in less than 20 seconds, or play a 6-deck shoe while bet and
play decisions are analyzed.

Many people say they want to learn, but they don't really
want to put in the effort.

After awhile I just gave people a basic strategy card and showed
them how to count, then said, "Come back when you have basic
strategy memorized and you can count down a deck within thirty
seconds." Some of those people never came back, but most were
able to learn.

So you started teaching these guys, and you became the

administrator of the team?

Yeah, [back] then we'd just play with my money and when we
dl win a certain amount we'd whack it up. We did it in a really
simplistic fashion, and I know there were lots of inequities in the
way we did it. It was either unfair to the investors or the players. I
didn't really know much about bankroll requirements. Sometimes
the way I structured it we had the wrong incentives. You've got to
be re ally careful how you structure a bankroll. It can be pretty bad
something extreme happens. If you start losing real bad and you
don't have it structured properly, nobody wants to play. That's
happened a lot in the past.

What happened with the first big losing streak?

These things all seem to run together. I was always pretty lucky.
I remember meeting a couple of other guys who were much better
blackjack players than we were. They were much more
knowledgeable but they were having some tough luck and were
struggling. They couldn't believe how we just always won. During
some fight--maybe the Holmes-Cooney fight, or one of those fights
a long time ago—we won several hundred thousand over just a
weekend. I think we had twenty players out there, and eighteen or
nineteen of them won.

Have you ever had a bankroll that crashed and burned?

I remember we got involved with a guy named Rats Cohen. I

always admired people who were really sharp with math, because I
wasn't that good myself. This guy Rats talked a really good game. I
was a young guy, kind of impressionable, and he was pretty
impressive. He had an apartment in Brigantine. He brought me over
and showed me this computer equipment. All he needed was a
bankroll [to get his team started] and we were all going to get rich.
Our team took one-third of our bankroll and gave it to him. There
were all kinds of delays. There were never really any significant
results, and he kept asking for more money. His players seemed very
skilled. I liked his operators, but the money just disappeared. He
was buying four-hundred-dollar eyeglasses and paying for a real
nice apartment. It was a nightmare. He was also superstitious. He
seemed to not always bet the money mathematically. That bankroll
was a disaster. I think we ended up losing two-thirds of our money.

What did you do at that point?

I think that's when we lost early surrender in Atlantic City. My

recollection is we ended the bank and a few of us came out here to
Vegas to play, and shortly after that I ended up joining up with
[players] Pitts and Red and a few others.

bank — The money put up to play with.

How did playing with computers4 come about?

We'd been hearing about them. We rented a house out near

Sam's Town [casino] and we ordered the hardware from a guy. I
remember all of us were in this house, or maybe four out of the five
of and we had absolutely no furniture. We had one table and we all
slept on the floor. I slept in the bathroom because we had no curtains
either. That was the only room with a tinted window, so was a little
darker.

This probably goes against most people's vision of

professional Las Vegas gamblers—it wasn't the high life.

We were playing blackjack on a bankroll, but we were waiting

for these computers to come. They came with the boots and all, and
we'd practice every day in this house. We did really well with the
computers. We made a lot of money.

You had some problems in the Bahamas over this, right?

Right. In 1985, Nevada made it illegal to play blackjack with a

computer. Computers were a relatively new thing. They weren't
used in everyday life the way they are now. The hidden blackjack
computers had been glorified in a Sports Illustrated article that made
Ken Uston and Keith Taft sound like two entrepreneurs blazing a
trail through Nevada making money. It said right in the article that
the FBI had ruled that these weren't cheating devices. When Nevada
passed a law against them, my mindset was that the only reason
Nevada was ever able to get it passed was because the casinos
control all the politicians. Clearly, they should be legal. You are just
using the information that's freely presented to you, and it would
never be illegal anywhere else. I had our lawyer check Wj see if
there was any law in the Bahamas that prohibited us from using
them, and there wasn't. So we continued to play everywhere else in
the country with the computers, except in Nevada. We were playing
in Atlantic City, in the Bahamas, and maybe some other islands in
the Caribbean.

So what happened?

The casinos were starting to figure out how to spot the

computers. They'd look for people with boots, with their feet
moving, or sitting with their feet flat on the floor. At Cable Beach
in the Bahamas they caught me with a computer and pulled me into
the back room. The casino manager was there, and some Bahamian
police were assigned to the casino. They asked me to pull up my
pant legs. When I did, they saw the computer. They said, "You're lot
of trouble. We make a nice casino down here for you Americans to
enjoy yourself and this is the kind of thing you do." The casino
manager didn't even seem upset; it was the Bahamian police who
were mad, or maybe it was just part of their act. My wife was on the
beach. She didn't even play blackjack at the time. When she came
into the hotel, they grabbed her and detained her. They took all the
money I had in a safe-deposit box. They held me and started
combing their books to see what they could charge me with. They
held my wife for about thirty-six hours. They put her in a cell with
somebody who was charged with murder. They did all kinds of
things designed to intimidate me.
They finally decided to arrest me, and put me in the central
lockup with ten other prisoners in a really filthy situation. I was in
there for two days. It looked really serious. They were talking about
trying to keep me in prison for five or ten years. Somehow I got
word to my two lawyers in Las Vegas and they came down. They
weren't allowed to practice there, so they hired a Bahamian lawyer.
There was no real law down there; the only thing they understood
was money. Everyone you ran into was figuring out how he could
get some of the money. I think they had $140,000 of mine and they
were trying to figure out how they could all whack it up.
So anyway, my wife got out of there. She flew home. There
were all these negotiations. We negotiated that I'd plead guilty to
some sort of fraud and get a suspended sentence. It was clear that
they weren't letting me out of there. I wasn't going to win any trial
down there, so even though I hadn't done anything illegal or
unethical, it was clear that I had to pay them off and get out. The
lawyer negotiated this deal where they kept about half the money
returned the other half. Then, right when I was supposed to sign the
agreement, this Bahamian lawyer says, "By the way, when you get
the other half of your money back, I want twenty-five thousand of
it." We'd paid him $15,000 and he'd worked only about two hours
at this point. He had me over a barrel, so we decided do that, too. I
lost close to $100,000.
I went to an actual court proceeding. With their accents, you
couldn't even understand what was going on. It was amazing. Yen,
had to be there, because you couldn't imagine. They might as well
have been speaking in a foreign language. I didn't know what was
happening. I don't know what I pled guilty to. My lawyers assured
me that it wouldn't matter, that it would never be recognized in the
U.S. as anything.

But it showed up in Canada?

Well, I don't think it showed up anywhere on a computer or

thing. But it got a lot of publicity, and the Canadian casinos use this
to get our group and me out of there. Apparently, Canada's
immigration laws say that if you're convicted of a felony in another
jurisdiction that would be punishable by more than ten years in
prison in Canada, you can be deemed not admissible [into Canada].
So the Canadian casinos, together with Canadian immigration, tried
to invoke this. I was able to win that case and I'm allowed in Canada.

It was just harassment, wasn't it?

Right. A bunch of my friends were counting cards and were

exchanging the information through signals. The Canadian casino
in Windsor tried to make it out like some sort of fraud.

This was your team?

Yes, these were people who played for me. I tried to go up there
and get them out of it, and I was talking to the press. Public
sympathy was obviously on our side. The incident was a big deal fl
Windsor. It was the front-page story three or four days in a row; all
about this trial and about these people who'd been accused of
cheating. Once the press got hold of it and interviewed the people
involved, the press and public were on our side. I think the casino
tried to bring up the incident in the Bahamas to stop our momentum.
They tried to make me out to be a convicted felon.

You talk about using the press. This is a tactic that an

ongoing business or company would use, right? Using publicity,
having lawyers on retainer—didn't you even hire a lobbyist at
one point?

All we were there to do is play a game according to the rules

that the casino laid out. That's always been my view. The casino can
make any rules they want. We'll either beat the game or we won't
play it if we don't think we can beat it. But even though we
operate ethically and legally, casinos are constantly harassing us.
Unfortunately, it's been necessary to hire lawyers. And yes, we even
hired a lobbyist. The casinos are very powerful and they've gotten a
lot of laws passed that are probably not in the best interests of the
public. We hired lobbyists a couple of different times to try to get
our views heard by the New Jersey legislature.

Do you think that running a blackjack team is the same as

running a small company?

I'm sure there are lots of similarities. One of the main

differences I've noticed is that people, when they meet blackjack
players, can't believe that we just hand each other massive amounts
of money. A player comes back and reports how he did. He might
say he lost $20,000 or $50,000 and we just say okay. We write it
down; we believe him. That's probably the biggest difference that
comes to mind. People just can't believe that we don't lose all our
money from people stealing it.

So you find that professional gamblers are much more honest

than people in the business world?

Yeah, I've been fortunate. The ones I've been associated with
are incredibly honest. We've had a few bad incidents, but most of
the time we've been pretty successful. We've made a lot of money
by trusting each other.

Reputation seems to be everything in this business.

There's word of mouth. I may not even know a person, but if he

knows a few people I know and they'll vouch for him ... We've
loaned large amounts of money to people we hardly knew, just
because other people could vouch for them.

Didn't you have trouble at another island casino?

St. Kitts. It's an island in the Caribbean. That's been pretty much
where all my foreign play has taken place. I've played most every
place in the Caribbean. So I went to this island, St. Kitts. They had
only one casino. They had a pretty good game, maybe six or eight
blackjack tables. I got friendly with the casino owner, who took an
active role in running the casino. He was always on the floor;
sometimes he'd push the dealer out of the way and say, "Let me deal
for awhile." He got to like me while I was there. I played golf with
him every day. I was also doing pretty well; I won almost $30,000
in the course of four or five days.

floor— The casino playing area.

 On the last day, he saw me walking through the lobby and called
me over. He said, "Tommy, you're going back to Philadelphia in the
morning, aren't you?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "Would you mind
giving something to a friend of mine back there?" I said, "Sure, I'll
do that for you." He said, "Come with me to my room and I'll get
it." So I went with him to his room and he went to a desk. He
reached in a drawer, pulled out a gun, and pointed it at me. He said,
"I know who you are. I know what you do. I want the money back
that you won." He had a piece of paper, it was a Griffin5 report, and
he was reading from it. Tom Hyland, alias so-and-so, card counter,
card-counting team—he's reading from it and he says, "I want my
money back," while he's holding this gun. I was young and foolish
at the time, and I said to him, "I can't give it to you. It's not all my
money. Besides, I won it fair and square. You do whatever you have
to do, but I'm not going to give it to you."

That's pretty ballsy with a gun pointed at you!

I'd hand it over in about three seconds nowadays.

So he said, "Okay, we're going for a walk then." It was night.
We walked out of his room and he started prodding me with the gun
in my back. We were walking down this narrow stone path. After
we took about twenty steps I said, "I changed my mind. You can
have your money back."

Do you think this guy really would have shot you? Killed
you?

I doubt it... Maybe. He ran that whole island. He might have

been able to do it. He was flabbergasted by the whole thing and he
was really pissed. I think he was also hurt. He thought we were
friends. So, we walked back to the main building. He went to the
office and told a girl working there to give me my safe-deposit box.
He said, "Count out $30,000," because I had more in there. I had
what I started with also. I said, "I think I only won $29,000." He
said, "All right, count out $29,000." I gave it to him and he said,
"Okay, have a nice trip. See ya' later."
Then, he went back toward his hotel room and I was all shook
up. I went back to my room, which was right across the way from
his, and I saw him leave. I don't remember exactly how it happened,
but I was with somebody else and I said, "I'm going to go in there
and see if I can find my money." I went into his suite and looked
around for the money, but I never found it. When I got back to the
U.S., I tried to get a lawyer to write nasty letters and call the Prime
Minister, or whatever he was called on that island. I never got any
satisfaction. It was lost.

Have you had other incidents where money has been stolen
from you like that?

Unfortunately, we've had a fair number of these incidents. One

of my teammates got his money taken in Aruba. He was down there
with his girlfriend and the casino got a flyer from Griffin saying that
he was a computer player. By that time we would never play with a
computer anywhere we weren't sure it was legal. We would never
take a computer to the Caribbean at that point. He was down there
in Aruba just counting cards. They insisted he had a computer. They
searched him. They searched his girlfriend. They searched his rental
car. They searched his hotel room. He had front money on deposit
and they said, "We know you had a computer; we just can't find it.
We're keeping your money." Coincidentally, I think that was about
$30,000 also. He did the same thing I did. He made inquiries, but it
was lost. It didn't seem practical to go after it.

front money— Money put on deposit in the casino's cashier

(cage) to gamble with.
 Tell me the story about the treasure map

That's when I was playing with a guy named Spike. It was

before we had the bad incident in the Bahamas. We were all
traveling back and forth to Freeport and Nassau to play. They had a
good game for the computers we were using and they had high
limits. We didn't want to carry massive amounts of money in and
out of the country, but we couldn't really figure out how to leave
money down there for the next guy [who would come in from the
team].
So Spike decided to bury it a couple of miles away from the
casino. He drew this map for himself. But then he got tied up with
other things and he didn't really want to go back to the Bahamas. I
was going, so he asked me to get his money down there. He said,
"It'll be easy; you can't miss it. All you gotta do is find this spot, and
from there you follow the map."
Well, the map left a little to be desired. Spike had landmarks
that were out in the water on another island, and you were supposed
to figure it out from there. My wife and I took probably an hour to
find this money. When we did, the box he put it in was all rotted,
the money was moldy and smelled terrible. We took it into the
casino to play and they said, "Where did you get this?" It was about
$140,000.

Has carrying cash become a big problem in the U.S.?

It seems like it. Especially traveling through airports. We've also

had other problems driving the interstate with money and I've heard
of other people having problems. These laws were passed
supposedly to stop money laundering and drug dealing. People don't
re-e how much the laws also affect the law-abiding citizen. The y
some of the laws are written, local police who stop people with
money and confiscate it benefit directly. So they're not anxious to
give you the benefit of the doubt.
There have been some real horror stories. These drug agents,
police, and customs agents prey on people who don't speak English.
They find any excuse to take their money, and then it's a nightmare
to get it back.

Let's talk about the Griffin Investigations. What was your

first experience with them?

My first experience with them was when I got barred at the

Sands back in the early '80s by a guy made famous by Ken Uston's
book [The Big Player,6 by Ken Uston and Roger Rapoport]. A guy
named Herb Nunez. He pulled me into the back room and took my
picture. I found out several months later that there were flyers out
on me, and that I was now in the Griffin Book.

back room — To be "back roomed" is to be detained by the

casino if suspected of counting or cheating.

Did you notice an immediate effect from that point when

you walked into new casinos?

Yeah. Now, instead of being barred because of my style of play,

frequently they'd call me by name when they barred me. I don't
think back then I knew how all this Griffin stuff worked, and I was
taken by surprise by some of the things they knew.

And Griffin, it turns out, was responsible for you being

arrested in the Bahamas and for the episode in St. Kitts.

The bad thing is a lot of these foreign jurisdictions don't really

understand card counting, and sometimes Griffin doesn't make
much of a distinction as to what activity you're up to. They see you
in a Griffin Book and they explode. They figure you're a scam artist
and you're cheating them. That's led to a lot of nasty incidents. The
other thing they do when they list me or some other old-time player,
they always identify us as computer players. Well, none of these
people have used computers since the laws were passed against
them. They used computers only when they were legal. So a lot of
times in these foreign places, the casino either legitimately thinks
you have a computer or they use it as an excuse to search you, harass
you, and take some of your money, claiming they know you had a
computer. That's what happened to my teammate in Aruba. The
reason he lost his money was because he was listed in the Griffin
Book as a computer player. They don't make any distinction that
you only used a computer when it was legal.

Isn't that libel?

You would think so. Some other card counters and I have tried
to sue Griffin. We never seem to get anywhere. Libel and slander
are some of the toughest cases to win. If they can prove you're a
public figure, you have to prove it's deliberately malicious.
Somebody like me, even though my name wouldn't be known by
the general public, is a public figure for purposes of the case,
because I'm a well-known blackjack player.
Someday, I'm sure, someone will win a big case against Griffin.
For example, if some sheriff in the middle of Kansas sees this
picture that looks like a mug shot and finds out the casino is holding
you, he's going to treat you like some sort of criminal. Right on the
top of the page [of the Griffin report] it says, "Cheating Activity,"
and then it has your picture. Then it just happens to mention that
you're a card counter. Someday this [mislabeling] will backfire on
them.
But I don't want to overemphasize the effectiveness of the
Griffin agency. They've hurt us a little bit, but I can still play more
blackjack than I have time for. I can't play in every single casino
that I want to. I'm really well known, particularly in Atlantic City,
but that's not because of Griffin. They're not a big factor for us. We
just have to move around.

Do you wear disguises?

These days I don't. I try to change my overall appearance, so I

don't have to go to a lot of trouble each time I go out to play. I don't
quite have the energy to do that. I'll dye my hair and grow a beard,
or get my hair curled, cut it short, grow it long, things like that. I
have ordinary features and an ordinary build, and people seem to
forget my face fairly easily.

Didn't you get barred once as Santa Claus?

That was back in Atlantic City, where they used to have this
three-step process. The first time you got barred they'd tell you that
you were welcome to play any other game except blackjack. The
second time they barred you, they'd say you weren't welcome on the
premises at all. And if you got barred a third time, you'd get arrested
for trespassing.
I think at the time I had already gotten to the second step at
Harrah's, so I got the bright idea on Christmas Eve of dressing as
Santa Claus. I was just going to fire away from minimum to
maximum. If they barred me, it would be treated as the first step,
because they wouldn't have any idea who I was. And that's what
happened.
There were four or five of us in there at once. One guy heard a
floorperson on the phone say, "I got a guy betting two hands of a
thousand down here. Another guy is betting purple chips. And Santa
Claus is really going crazy." It was pretty funny and it worked out
perfectly. They just read me the first warning, and they were
laughing while they did it. They thought it was pretty funny. They
took it in the Christmas spirit.

Did you ever go black or Asian, trying to change your race?

I never did that. The best disguise I ever had was when I went
to Hollywood and got a couple of wigs from this guy Ziggy, who's
a famous wig maker. I guess he made wigs for a lot of the Holly-
Wood celebrities. This was a long time ago, fifteen years, maybe.
He was the only guy who could make a realistic-looking bald wig.
I paid $2,500 for this balding blond wig. It looked really good.
Nobody ever realized it was a wig. I got a lot of play out of that. It
was worth more than the $2,500 I paid for it. I also got fake teeth
from Mike Westmore, who I believe won an Oscar for the makeup
in the movie Mask.

Were you able to talk okay with the fake teeth?

I sounded a little different. They were a little uncomfortable. I

remember going back to him to get them modified. That was
probably the best disguise I ever had. But it took forever. I had to
have my eyebrows dyed. They had to keep re-dyeing them. I had
this spirit gum to attach the wig. It took a good hour to get ready to
go play. My wife used to have to put it on me. You couldn't put it
on yourself.

Any other particularly outrageous stories that happened in

casinos?

I wasn't the sharpest guy around when I first started playing.

I've learned a lot over the years from the people I've worked with.
A lot of the things we did weren't particularly profitable, but we
used to have a lot of fun. We would all go into these Atlantic City
casinos at the same time. Twenty guys would just go in and bet. We
really didn't care if we got barred. The casinos were contending with
this really elaborate procedure that they were required to go
through. They had to come over, pull you away from the table, and
read you this card. Only a certain person was authorized to do it.
We figured if we had fifteen or twenty of us, they couldn't get
everybody at once. That used to be fun.

When did the law change so that they were no longer

allowed to bar players for counting cards?
After Ken Uston7 won his case. I guess that was in 1982.

And did that hurt the games? Was it better for you when
they could bar you?

Some people think that. I don't. I know a lot of card counters

prefer it when they're allowed to bar you. They think the rules are
better, the games are better. I'll always campaign for no barring. I
just don't think it's right that casinos are able to do that. We've
certainly made plenty of money in Atlantic City since they haven't
been allowed to bar us. It's much more comfortable to play when
you're not worried about getting hauled off to some back room or
getting arrested or harassed. As far as I'm concerned, and I'm sure
most players agree, Atlantic City is the place you're least afraid of
encountering some sort of casino nastiness. The worst that can
happen is they're going to shuffle the cards on you. I like that
feeling.

Will you still play out of the country?

I'll play out of the country. I won't play in those ridiculous places
anymore. I won't play in the Bahamas or any of those islands, but
I'll play in Canada. I've played in Australia. I don't plan on going to
Europe, but I'd play in some of those countries. All the countries
that I view as civilized. It shocks me that some of these guys with
all kinds of money will go to these crazy places to play blackjack,
just because they have a good rule or something. It just doesn't seem
worth it to me.

Say, for instance, Sri Lanka?

Yeah. Or Russia. A player I know was talking about going to

Russia. They have some great game there or something. That just
seems like insanity to me.

Do you have different people who do different things on

your team? Or is everyone playing the same game?

We have different levels of skill. That's another thing about this

Griffin agency that makes me laugh. We have people that can barely
pass our test. The Griffin flyers make them sound like
masterminds.If they make these people sound dangerous, like
they're Einsteins, the casino is likely to renew its subscription. Most
of our players are just regular card counters.

Have you branched out into other forms of gambling?

I do a lot of sports betting. I don't bet my own opinions, but I

have some people's opinions that I value and I'll bet money on their
selections.

One of the things that Alan Woods mentions is that

computers have changed everything in gambling [Alan Woods
is interviewed in Chapter 7].
 That's true. Unfortunately, I'm computer illiterate. I don't use
one.

Do you use them to analyze games at all?

We use Stanford Wong's program, Blackjack Analyzer. It's

great. You used to have to try to figure out win rates by hand, and
make all these assumptions. In the old days you'd ask
knowledgeable people what they thought a game was worth. Now
there's no more of that nonsense.

Is there a computer model involved in the sports betting that

you do?

I'm sure these guys do computer work. I'm not really privy to it.
I'm not an active participant. I just bet my money and they get a
share.

Woods mentions a horse-racing play that you were involved

in.

I collaborated with Alan. We made $27,000, and the horse's

name was House Speaker. I'm not sure if that was the horse that
won, or we pumped so much money on. Back then there was no
pari-mutuel betting in Las Vegas. If you bet at the casino race book,
the money didn't go into the track pool at all. They just paid you off
at track odds up to a certain amount. They would pay as much as
10- or 15-1. So you could bet money at the track on a bad horse and
make him the favorite, and make the true favorite a long shot Las
Vegas. That's what we did.
Three or four guys from our blackjack team went to Keystone
Racetrack in Philadelphia. We had friends in Vegas; I guess we ad
our watches synchronized. We bet as much as we could at the track
on the worst horse in the race, to show. It was a small track, so it
didn't take much money to pump him up. Then, as long as the best
horse finished in the top three, we would win. That horse paid a
small amount to win [$2.20] and a monster amount to show [$6.60],
because there was relatively no money on him in the show pool. All
the money was on this 50-1 shot.
That was fun, too. I believe our total take, split about twenty
ways, was $27,000. It wasn't a big deal, but we got stories in the
newspapers. Both in Las Vegas and in the Philadelphia papers: "Still
investigating. It doesn't appear that there was any illegal activity." I
think this was done maybe a few more times with the dogs in
Arizona, but it got to be an old trick. You couldn't bet a lot of money
to show or place in Nevada after a few more of those incidents.

How did your parents feel when you first started playing?

They were pretty conservative. They were hoping that it was a

phase and that I'd grow out of it and get a "real" job. My father is
ceased. My mother accepted it. She's used to it now.

You didn't start her playing?

No. My mother actually is pretty amazing. She's eighty-seven

years old and she still plays golf or tennis five times a week. They
did special on Philadelphia's eleven o'clock news sportscast; they
did a feature on her playing tennis. She still moves around pretty y
good.

Are there more benefits to playing on a team than just

smoothing out the fluctuations?

There are a lot of great things about playing on a team. There's

the camaraderie. You have somebody to travel with. You share
information. You learn things from each other. It seems like you
really come up with ideas when you have a team. One guy has the
germ of an idea, and he bounces it off somebody, and this guy adds
to it, and all of a sudden you've got a great project. There are
advantages to playing on your own, too. I've never really played on
my own, but there are a lot of successful players who've done that.

It seems like it would be a lonely game if you're playing it

on your own.

Some people who play on their own also do other things. There
aren't really many people out there who use blackjack as their sole
source of income and play on their own.

Any more stories come to mind?

I'll tell you my famous one. It's not really famous, but [Stanford]
Wong asked me if he could use it when he was giving one of his
talks. This was when we were playing mostly in Atlantic City. I had
these old friends who grew up in my neighborhood. They had a son
who was a little younger than me, and he was going to college. As
a way to make money in the summer, he asked if he could come and
play blackjack for me. He was a real smart kid and I knew he was
honest. So I said, "Sure, I'll teach you how to play."
I taught him, and he played Atlantic City and did well. Toward
the end of the summer he decided to make a trip to Las Vegas. One
of his first plays was at the Sands. He was winning and winning and
he couldn't lose a hand. They didn't have anything bigger than
hundred-dollar chips in the rack, so he had all these black chips
piled up, maybe $7,000 or $8,000 worth in front of him.
The shoe went negative and he decided to count his money to
see how much he was winning. He took all his chips off the table,
and as he was heading to the restroom, he noticed a security guard
 looking at him. Now he'd heard about getting barred in Las Ve-
gas, and he'd heard about counters getting roughed up in the back
rooms. So he ducked into the restroom, went into a stall, and shut
the door. He pulled out his chips and was counting his money while
sitting on the toilet. All of a sudden there was a knock on the stall
door. He opened up the stall, and there was this big security guard.
The guard looked down at him and said, "What are you doing?" He
had all his chips, and he was fumbling around, and he said, "I was
just counting my money." And the security guard said, "In the ladies'
room?"

That's classic.

Another time... Like I said, when I first started out we were

really aggressive and we used to get barred all the time. Most times
we wouldn't say anything while we were being ushered out the door,
but sometimes we'd ask them, "Why?" Actually, we'd say all kinds
of things. Every situation was different. One time, one of our
players was in Puerto Rico and he was down $4,700. The casino
manager came over and said, "We don't want you to play blackjack
anymore." A lot of times, when being barred while losing, our
response would be, "Well, are you going to give me back the money
that I lost?" And of course they would always say no. Well, this
time, the casino manager said "OK, we will." And he gave our guy
$4,700 back! He gave him the $4,700 and he said, "OK, just never
come back in here again." That was at the old Ramada in Puerto
Rico on the main drag there.

You mentioned being back-roomed. Does that still go on?

There don't seem to be many back-roomings, but there's still a

lot of nastiness. The popular thing nowadays is to electronically
lock you out of your room. Your plastic key card suddenly doesn't
work. So it's the middle of the night, you go up to your room, and
you can't get in. You go the front desk and tell them. They check by
Poking on the computer, where there's a note to call security or the
casino manager. Then they bar you and stick you with the hotel bill
even though they promised to comp8 it.
I hate to get people comps anymore, because things just always
seem to go wrong. We actually have a rule that you're allowed to
get room comps for people that aren't on the team. I'm afraid our
people will play too conservatively, because they're afraid of getting
kicked out of their rooms. That's plain foolish on the casino's part,
because we just get more determined to beat the place.

So you believe barrings have become more civil in the last

five years or so?

In general.

What about in these little places that have sprung up all over
the country?

Casinos are afraid of litigation. It does seem like most places

now go out of their way to be nice about it. And we're nice about it
too. I'm always nice about it. I'll always go back eventually, but I
won't try to push it in their face. I won't go back the next week or
anything like that. I'll stay out of there for what I consider to be a J
reasonable period of time—six months or a year. I don't think it's i
ethical that they bar players. No place is going to intimidate me into
not going back. Well, the islands have definitely intimidated me.
But no place in the U.S. is going to intimidate me into not playing
blackjack. If they have a good game and I think I have a chance I of
fooling them, I'm going to play.

If your son came to you and said, "I want to be a

professional gambler," what would you tell him?

That's actually a realistic possibility. He just turned twenty. I

don't think he wants to do it for his career, but I think he does have
a) interest in playing. He's a very good golfer. I think he's hoping
make his career in golf.
I think blackjack is a great profession. I get a lot of enjoyment
of it, not just because you can make a good living, but I think it's
the perfect way to make money. It seems to me that you're taking
the money from greedy corporations; the more influence they get in
a particular area, the worse off that area will be. I think everyone's
better off with the money out of their hands. I think we're on the
good side of the equation. I mean, I would never want to be the
house. If somebody told me I could make $10 million a year
working for a casino, I wouldn't even consider it. It wouldn't take
five minutes to turn it down.

Ten million a year?

Or even more. I wouldn't be interested. I don't like casinos. I

don't like how they ruin people's lives. I don't think the employment
they provide is a worthwhile thing for those people. They're taking
people that could be contributing to society and making them do a
job that has no redeeming social value. That's my view.

Your son has the benefit of having you to teach him. But if
someone wrote you a letter from out in the hinterlands saying, "I
want to become a professional gambler," what would you tell
him to do?

I actually get that a lot. The thing I really get a lot is strangers
asking to get on my team, or for me to back them. I'm not interested
in that. Unfortunately, there's a lot of really bad stuff written on
blackjack. I'd try to steer them to the right books. Emphasize that
you nave to have a bankroll that's discretionary money. It's a tough
grind. It's not a sure thing. I'm more optimistic than most people
about blackjack. I think it's clearly possible for somebody starting 't
at blackjack to make quite a bit of money. It's certainly not as good
as playing poker or trying to beat sports betting. The good thing
about blackjack is that it's cut-and-dried. There's not much activity
to it. If you follow the books and you're a reasonably intelligent guy,
there really isn't any reason you can't make money.
To me the contrast between blackjack and poker is clear. In
poker you have the benefit that you can put in as many hours as you
want. You're not going to get barred. But, to make twenty or dollars
an hour at poker you have to be quite good. You beat a lot of real
sharpies, guys who have been playing for o make twenty or thirty
dollars an hour at blackjack is easy. You can do that after one month
of study, as long as you don't make mistakes. As long as you learn
properly and you have the bankroll, that's a very low win rate at
blackjack.

How do you think the game has changed? Do you think it's
gotten better or worse?

The individual games have definitely gotten worse, although the

are still places with really nice rules around. I think that right now
it's a great time for blackjack players. There are so many casinos it
seems no matter how well known you are as a player, you can
always find somewhere to play. I think the state of blackjack is
good.

Hyland Notes

1—Card Counting
Once a blackjack player has mastered basic strategy, the next
step is to learn to count cards. Because the house advantage swings
back and forth between the player and the dealer, a counter can
obtain an edge. If more big cards (tens and aces) remain in the deck,
the advantage is with the player. If there are more small cards in the
deck, the edge grows larger for the house. A card counter keeps
track of the ratio of small to big cards by assigning them values and
"counting" them as they're played.
Many different counts have been devised, but one of the most
popular is called the High-Low. In this count, the player counts a
value of +1 for every 2, 3,4, 5, or 6 that he sees, -1 for tens (10, jack,
queen, king) and aces, and 0 for each 7, 8, and 9. If a player sees a
ten-value card and a 6, he would count -1 for the ten and +1 for the
6, giving him a count total of 0. The two cards "cancel" each other
out. If he sees 10,4, 3,5, 7, he assigns counts of -1, +1, +1, +1, and 0
for a "running count" of +2.
The player continues to count all cards dealt, which yields what
counts to a weighted average of what's left to be played. Many
refinements and adjustments are necessary, but in a nutshell, the her
the count goes to the plus side, the bigger the player's advantage.
The more minus the count, the larger the casino's advantage. Card
counters try to bet as much as possible when the count is ply as little
as possible when the count is minus.

2--Stanford Wong
A legendary name in the blackjack community, Stanford Wong
is the author of several blackjack books, including his classic
Professional Blackjack; he's also written books on video poker,
gambling, tournament play, and sports betting; produced software
for blackjack and video poker; and now sponsors one of the most
popular blackjack Web sites (www.bj21.com).

3—Team Play
Blackjack players often band together in teams. This is done f
many reasons, but the primary one is the mathematics of "joint-
bankrolls." By combining money into a common "bank," members
of a team can play for larger stakes and win much faster.
Consider two card counters, each with $10,000. Individually
they can each bet $25 chips and earn $50 per hour. But if they
combine their money into a $20,000 bank, they can both bet twice
as much, allowing both to earn $100 per hour. Add a third player
with $10,000 and all three can now bet at a level that earns $150 per
hour for each player. You can see why team play is very beneficial.
Teams the size of Tommy Hyland's are no different from
multimillion-dollar corporations. They have attorneys, accountants,
and lobbyists. Some of the biggest teams through the years, other
than Hy land's, have been the Czechs, the Greeks, and the MIT
team, which was originally started by a group of students at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

4—Blackjack Computers
The first hidden blackjack computers were developed by Keith
Taft in the mid-1970s. The earliest model, which was cumbersome,
was named George. After refining the machine, Keith made a
second version, which he named David. These computers played
perfect blackjack and were hidden on the player's body. The
computer was strapped to one leg and a power supply was strapped
to the other, with wires running up and down pant legs between
them-More wires fed into the player's boots, where switches were
operated with the toes. The player input every card seen and the
computer signaled back how to correctly play each hand and how
much money to bet. Use of these devices was outlawed in Nevada
in1985.

5--Griffin Book
Griffin Investigations is a detective agency originally formed to
protect casinos from cheats. The Griffin Book contains pictures of
suspected perpetrators, as well as their height, weight, aliases, and
associates. Once card counting became popular, Griffin
Investigations began listing card counters in its book, even though
cart counting is not cheating. Griffin sends out regular activity
reports based on its latest intelligence. If a card counter is spotted
Las Vegas, for example, the agency may fax a picture to all of
service's subscribers to let them know that the player is active and
in the area.

6—The Big Player

Counters get their advantage by betting large when a deck is
rich in high cards. However, raising bets according to the count can
give the player away. A team-play technique developed by a
professional gambler named Al Francesco aids in making these bets
without detection. Members of the team sit at various blackjack
tables in a casino, betting low amounts. When the count climbs, they
secretly signal a "Big Player" who appears at the table betting the
maximum allowed. The casino reasons that the big player couldn't
have been counting cards, since he wasn't even at the table from the
beginning of the shoe.

7—Uston's Victory
Reacting to the problems with card counting when Resorts
International opened, the New Jersey casinos sought the right to bar
counters. Famous card counter Ken Uston sued them, arguing that
casinos should not be allowed to bar players simply because they
their brains. Since card counters neither cheat in any way nor alter
the random outcome of the game, the New Jersey Supreme Court
ruled in Uston's favor. To this day, the casinos in Atlantic are not
allowed to bar players for counting cards. They are, however,
allowed to shuffle as often as they like and restrict the amount that
a card counter can bet.
 8—Comps
"Comps" or "complimentaries" are gifts given to players to
entice them to gamble. Most often these include free meals, drinks,
and hotel rooms. Larger players receive show tickets, limousine
rides, and airfare. Taking advantage of casino freebies has been
turned into an art form by some players. The definitive work on this
subject is Comp City, by Max Rubin.

MIKE SVOBODNY

If you sit back and try to imagine what it must be like to be a

high-stakes professional gambler, you're likely to conjure the real
life of Mike Svobodny. From his private cabana on the beach at
Monte Carlo to flying off to Saudi Arabia in King Fahd's personal
jet, Mike is a man who enjoys the many directions his off-beat
profession takes him. He doesn't own a home or a car. He doesn't
need them. He lives in the world's finest hotels and travels by
limo—and private jets.
Mike Svobodny's job is playing backgammon. He's the only
player ever to win both the World Championship and the World
Cup. But even the best players can't earn the really big money
winning prizes on the backgammon-tournament circuit. They have
to play on the side—for stakes.
People who don't know Mike might call him a hustler, but they'd
be wrong. A hustler masks his skill. He tries to appear weak, then
takes advantage by getting a handicap or inducing someone to play
who normally wouldn't. Mike's approach is exactly the opposite.
He'll tell you straight out, "You shouldn't play me. I'm too good for
you." It's a strategy that draws players like cats to cream. Some want
to play him because he's the best, others because his confidence
bruises their egos. Top players argue all the time about who's the
best, but on one point they all agree: No one makes more money
playing backgammon than Mike Svobodny.
Mike doesn't limit his gambling to backgammon. He's made
bets on sports and life with some of the biggest gamblers in the
world, and on some of the most outrageous propositions. For
example, in one of the wildest proposition bets ever made, Mike lost
$100,000 to a man who got breast implants (the bet was made
famous in a book titled The Man With the $100,000 Breasts and
Other Gambling Stories by Michael Konik).
To finalize plans for our interview, Mike called to say he was in
Los Angeles for the opening of Larry Flynt's new Hustler Casino.
Did I want to attend the opening night party with him? I wouldn't
have missed it for the world.

Was backgammon the first gambling you did?

Pretty much. I played a little bit of poker with friends when I

was in college. I started playing backgammon with my roommate
in graduate school. He used to beat me every month and I had to
pay his rent. Somebody suggested I read some books. I didn't even
know there were books on backgammon. I read the books and it was
an epiphany for me. I realized it wasn't just luck. Then I got better
than him, and he sensed it and quit playing me. I tease him now
about having a winning record against me.

What were you studying in graduate school?

Psychology.

I've heard that when you were traveling around playing,

even though you were playing small stakes, you had pigeons
tucked away in all these different places.
 It's not like I owned the pigeons. More than other professional
gamblers, I consider myself to be providing a service. People I play
against are my clients or customers, and I have to treat them in a
special way. They're going to lose money to me and they're not
going to be happy about it, so I want to keep them entertained. If
someone plays stupidly and still beats me, I never moan about it.
You see some other professionals complaining, "This idiot beat me."
Well, the idiot will win sometimes. If I play better, it just means I'm
more likely to win. It doesn't mean I deserve to win.

pigeon -a "fish."- A bad player or a bad gambler; an easy mark.

Also known as

I'm always astounded when better players lose, then abuse

the hell out of the guy who got lucky for a change and beat them.

If they get lucky they're going to enjoy it when they beat me. If
they know they're going to lose in the long run, what else are they
playing for? They want to be happy and say, "I crushed Mike today."
Or, "I beat Magriel1 today."
1
For this and subsequent numeric references 2-5, see "Svobodny Notes" at the end of this chapter.

At what point did you decide that this was your profession?

It was gradual. I first started coming to L.A. in the early '80s. I

was working in juvenile hall in Sacramento, but I was on call so I
didn't have to work if I didn't want to. I started coming down here,
and I was making more money playing backgammon in one day
than I made in a week at my job. I wasn't very money-oriented then.
I was a lot more idealistic at that time.
One bad thing about gambling is you sometimes lose
perspective on things that are important in life. There's a story in the
book The Biggest Game In Town, by A. Alvarez, about a guy who
was selling really nice portraits of poker players for $80. Everyone
got upset because all they had were hundreds, and no one wanted to
wait around for him to get change. So he raised the price to a
hundred dollars and everyone was happy. There's a strange mindset
there. Say I go to a restaurant and the bill is fifty-five bucks. If I
don't want to wait for change from a hundred-dollar bill, I'll leave it
there. Because money goes up and down so quickly [when you
gamble], you get a very jaded perspective.

The money has no value?

It's not that it has no value. It just has much less value than if
you were out digging a ditch for a month. If you lost $80,000 that
day, what difference does it make if you leave a forty-five dollar
tip?
Also, you don't produce anything when you gamble. A garbage
man provides a lot more to society than I do. I'm skimming off the
fat of society.

Couldn't the same thing be said about casinos?

Yes, exactly. Even more so, because they're much more

effective. They also fleece poor people. I just try to beat rich people.

At what point did you quit the job?

I just started working less and less. It was very gradual. They
said, "You call us when you want to work."

At some point there must have been a change from grinding

out nickels and dimes.
 My stakes have risen slowly since the beginning. When I first
started coming to Los Angeles, I wouldn't play for more than ten
bucks a point.2 It wasn't that I was afraid, I just didn't want to tap
out. People say they use the Kelly system. I don't go by that
[precisely]. I just go by my gut feeling. If I'm gambling too high, I
cut it down. If I go through a losing streak, I cut down the amount
I'll play for. If I win a lot, I'll go up again. That's the opposite of
what most people do. If they're losing, they want to get their money
back.

Kelly—The Kelly Criterion, a mathematical formula that

quantifies what percentage of a bankroll to bet in order to achieve
the maximum gain with the minimum chance of going broke.

You're saying even the professionals do that?

I see that with professionals, too. A lot of professionals, even

successful ones, have bad ideas about money management.
Somebody said something a long time ago, and I didn't think it was
true at the time, but I do now: "The difference between a sick
compulsive gambler who loses all his money and a professional is
that the professional wants to have the best of it." They both want
to gamble, but the sicko doesn't care if he has the worst of it.

Many successful gamblers say that the most important thing

about gambling is money management.

There are two different kinds of gamblers. Poker players have

what they call "nits," guys who are very calculating about getting
their advantage.

They grind.
 Yeah. I'm a nit, too. I really am a dyed-in-the-wool nit, but I'm
a very polished one. For example, you'll never see a really nitty guy
spending $1,000 on a dinner. It's just not in him. He'll think, "This
is a thousand dollars and I calculate that it takes X hours to earn
blah, blah, blah." A nit won't have any loss leaders. I'll give you an
example from sports betting.

loss leader— Playing a game or proposition in which you are

not the favorite in order to arrange a better game later.

A friend of mine, Joe, is a bookie. One day the office called and
said a basketball bettor was past posting him. This guy was always
trying to get a little edge. Just after the tip-off, he'd see a basket or
two baskets and then he'd try to get down. It's hard to know exactly
[a game's] starting time, and you don't want to cut it off right at the
gate; if there's a big flood of people [waiting to bet] you want to
take all the action you can get.
Joe called the guy and said, "Are you past posting us or are you
just stupid?" He was teasing him. The next time the guy bet, Joe
said, "You have no juice for today, because you're such a good
customer." The next time the guy called up and tried to bet, it was
night at post time and Joe wouldn't let him. The guy said, "Why
can't I bet?" And Joe said, "Because the game hasn't gone on long
enough. Call us back in a little bit." So he called back about a minute
later and said, "I want to bet this game." Joe said, "No, wait until
the second quarter and bet." He limited him to a dime. The guy
made four different bets that day and lost all of them, even though
he didn't bet until the second quarter. This guy had broken even all
year. He was a very careful bettor. Joe did that more as a joke than
anything else, but since then the guy has lost $25,000. It's not like
Joe trapped him in, but a nitty guy would never have done that.

past post—To bet after a game has started or finished.

 It's like an advertising budget.

It is. Another guy told me he lost nineteen bets in a row. I

believe him, even though most people are bullshitting when they
say this kind of thing. So I said, "If you lose your next nineteen in a
row, I'll give you $1 million. And if you win nineteen in a row, I'll
also give you $1 million. The next day I saw him and he says,
"You're in trouble. I went zero for three last night." He was
dreaming of getting this million.
The odds of losing nineteen in a row are about a half-million to
one. So it's the same as if I gave this guy two dollars. But I'm also
giving him two bucks if he wins, so I'm giving away a total of four
dollars. I really wasn't giving this guy anything, but he thought he
had a shot to get me. A lot of gamblers don't do those types of things
and I think you need to do them. If you're seen as a sport and an
action-type guy, then people give you action.

sport—Someone willing to take the worst of a proposition.

You don't seem nitty at all. In fact, you seem the opposite.

I'm not now. I've changed. Now I'm very sporty. Especially
when I first meet a guy, I'll make a dumb bet. I'm very happy when
he collects the first bet from me. You can always control how many
dumb bets you make. Later on you can tighten up. It's intuitive to
me now.
I play paddle tennis with this guy. I have a great deal. He owed
money to someone in England. The guy in England owes me a lot
more money than this guy owes him. We play paddle tennis for a
hundred dollars a game and I can't win. I'm probably a 2-1 dog every
time. Anytime I want to play, he's on call, because he'll make five
hundred by playing me, but I'm taking it off what the guy in England
owes me. My girlfriend says, "You're his pigeon." I say, "He's our
pigeon. We just don't want to let him know it." Doing things like
this allows you to last in game situations.

dog—Short for "underdog." Opposite of the "favorite.

Knowing where you're at [in these types of situations] is a very

important skill. Then you know whether you should raise the stakes,
because you got unlucky. Getting unlucky is not the worst thing in
the world, because you build equity for the future.
I lost over a half-million dollars to some Russian gamblers. I
was playing a card game and made about as stupid a mistake as can
be made. They loved me. The mistake I made was so stupid that it
was all over the beach in Monte Carlo. I wasn't mortified; I was very
happy. It was very valuable for me. I'm now a much better player,
but their image of me as a dodo from last summer is still there. Since
then, I've won $100,000 from one of the same guys. I've improved
so much that the money will all come back. When I go there now,
there's a bull's eye on my back. They all want to play me. They know
I lost big money. I paid off big money. I was pleasant about it and I
laughed and joked about it.

Where is this?

A beach club in Monte Carlo.

Have you gone to Russia?

Yeah. I played in a backgammon tournament there. It was like

the wild wild west. There were guys with machine guns in
nightclubs. It was like skiing down a scary hill. It was exciting and
I felt alive. I knew there was some danger, but it wasn't enough that
I was scared. It made me alert.
 Do they still hold this tournament in Russia?

Yes.

Would you go back?

I would. I meant to several times, but I was busy with something

else.

It seems from the people I'm interviewing that there are two
types of gamblers. One plays against other players, as in poker
or backgammon. The other is playing against the house—the
casino or a racetrack.

Those [the latter] are the nittier types.

But those advertising ideas wouldn't really apply [against

casinos].

That's exactly right.

It's also a fact that poker players are not as polite and nice to
people as backgammon players are. As a backgammon player, if I
go to somebody to play, and I'm both a prick and a really good
player, they don't need me. In poker they have to let you play. You
can't kick that guy out of the game. I'm talking about a casino where
it's high stakes. Most backgammon is done privately. If you're not
pleasant, you're not going to be in action unless you're a loser.

Cathy Hulbert was both a blackjack player and poker

player, and she found that blackjack players were incredibly
honest. But she finds poker players to be very much the opposite
[Cathy Hulbert is interviewed in Chapter 6].
 I think that's true. I guess that if you took all games players, the
most ethical might be bridge or chess, followed maybe by
backgammon, but poker is way down the line. I don't know why that
is.

She mentioned that poker players seem to take pride in

scamming or hustling each other.

It might have to do with the game itself, because poker is a

closed game and backgammon is an open game. [In backgammon
the facts are all out in the open for everyone to see. In poker the
cards are hidden, so deceiving your opponent is part of the game.]
Backgammon players, certainly the ones in New York, are
extremely honest. You never have to worry about anything. The
thing about poker players, especially the big ones: You have to
worry about them cheating you, but you never have to worry about
them paying you. Backgammon players in New York would never
dream of cheating, but they're always out of money. "Sorry, I'll have
to owe you." It might take awhile to get it.
One very well-known poker player is a total thief, but a colorful
character. He'll try to cheat you, cheat you, cheat you. But if you
beat him out of $50,000, you're getting that money. You don't have
to worry about it, you don't have to call him, it's coming to you
immediately. So there are differences.
I haven't run into that many cheats until recently. It's tricky
deciding how to deal with them.

You're talking about backgammon?

No, poker. I've hardly ever run into cheats at backgammon.

You never played against Gaby [a notorious backgammon

cheat in Los Angeles]?

I played against Gaby. I think he had a loss leader with me. He

played me some proposition, and I think I beat him for a hundred
twenty-three points. He was calling me the next day to play and I
said, "Look, I'm not interested in playing you." He said, "You're
going to beat me for a hundred twenty-three points and not give me
a chance to get my money back?" I said, "Yeah, unless you Want to
play me that same proposition." I knew he was a cheater, and he
knew I knew he was a cheater. I think he just played me a prop,
which wasn't high stakes, and figured he'd get me later. I think a
cheater looks at it that way. They'll gamble a lot of times figuring
they can always turn on the juice later and get the guy.
If I'm being cheated at poker or cards, I'm not really going to
know it. I'm not good enough, sharp enough; I don't really have the
experience to know. If someone is cheating me at backgammon, I
can smell it.

Do you think much cheating goes on in the poker rooms?

No. Maybe twenty years ago that was the case, but I don't think
so anymore. I have a high faith in the honesty of the casinos. The
last thing a casino needs is rumors of cheating at poker. They have
an eye in the sky that's trained to watch for that type of thing. They
filter out the cheaters and bar them. In private games, though, there's
a much greater chance of being cheated.
One group I find interesting is the halfway con artists. I'm
fascinated by the balls they have and how shameless they are. They
meet whomever casually, and suddenly they're that person's best
friend. I like to study it almost from a sociologist's point of view. I
have a background in psychology anyway, so for me it's interesting
to watch and listen to them, and discover their motivations.
I'll give you an example. I met this one con artist in Monte
Carlo. This guy was high-end. He was trying to sell some energy
system based on perpetual motion. They had this computer room
and a wheel that would spin using magnets—it was a very complex
plot. I'm not even sure that he knew that his partner, some German
mad-scientist, was bogus. They were courting Prince Albert, and
Monaco chucked these guys out after awhile. It was quite amusing.
One day this guy gives me a sad story that he needs to make
rent. I gave him the money and now I was their victim. All the time
it was, "Mike, can you give us this?" I gave him money—a couple
thousand dollars here and there. In my mind I wasn't really lending.
I was just giving it to them; I didn't think these guys were good
credit risks. But on the other hand, every night they were trying to
schmooze potential customers. They didn't go after anyone that
wasn't worth a hundred million plus. They were after a big score.
I didn't get the money back.
Now I go to an opening of a movie in Hollywood and I see this
guy. He sees me, and he doesn't know that I'm not mad about it. I
would care if it were a respectable guy I gave the money to and he
purposely stiffed me. But this didn't bother me, because I knew the
guy was a crook. But he didn't know that. He runs over and starts
screaming, "Mike, you're my baby! You're my homey!" He's kissing
me like he's so happy to see me. I realize what this is about. He
doesn't want me to be mad at him and make a scene in front of all
these people. He tells me, "You saved my life in Monaco. You don't
know how you helped me. But that other guy screwed us."

stiffed— Not getting paid. When someone doesn't pay a bet, the
winner gets "stiffed."

He came to meet me at my hotel and I was surprised because he

picked up lunch. This guy does have a big Rolodex. I thought,
maybe I'll get a couple of customers from this. He knows that he
has to make up some lost ground with me. Such guys can be very
useful to me, but I keep them at arm's length. These guys think
they're hustling me for a few dollars, which they get, but I use them
too.
Another guy called me the other day. "Mike, my brother. Can
you lend me two hundred dollars? You've lent me money so many
times in the past. If you say no, I understand and you're still my
friend." I said, "I won't do it. I'm giving you four hundred." He
laughs, "Ah, you're so nice." I was just happy I got off for so little.
But this guy introduced me to someone that I put into a business
situation that I'm collecting a commission on. I'm making two
hundred dollars a day. I have no risk at all and I collect $6,000 a
month. Because I was nice to the first guy, he wanted to do me a
favor. And even if it doesn't come back, it's not so bad to give some
poor schlub a little money. Altruism can pay.

The year you won the Backgammon World Championship

in Monte Carlo [1984], was that the beginning of the jet setting?

I guess so. I traveled a lot after that.

I was hearing stories of you spending summers on yachts.

All those stories get overblown. I have been on yachts. People

I want to play with are rich, so they might have a yacht. I might
have told someone that I went on someone's yacht and we went
swimming and then had lunch. Next thing I hear, I beat the guy for
$100,000 and I never even played backgammon with him.

But after you won Monte Carlo things changed for you. Did
you just flow to where life took you? Or did you sit down and
plan how you would attract the high-rolling players?

No, I didn't think of it like that. To attract the high-rolling

players you have to be able to afford to play them, and I couldn't. I
moved up gradually. I didn't win Monte Carlo and play people for
$1,000 a point. I'd play for a hundred or two hundred dollars a point.
Before that I played for quarters. As I got more money, I played
higher and learned how to handle pigeons better.

What's the highest you've played for in backgammon?

I played someone for $20,000 a point once. But it wasn't like

real money.

What do you mean?

I got stiffed that money. For real, I guess $7,000 or $8,000 a

point.

Do you know what your biggest win was?

I've won more money at things other than backgammon. At

backgammon maybe $300,000.

That's a pretty good night's work. That's a good score for

backgammon.

I'd like to have a million-dollar day. I used to say I'd like to have
a $100,000 day. I've had those, both winning and losing, many times
since then. Now I say I want a million-dollar losing day, which
means I'm wealthy enough to have million-dollar winning days.

In backgammon, is there a big difference between

tournament play and money play?

There's a lot of skill in both. There's more skill in tournaments

I think, but it's sort of like knowing how to shift gears. Both are
difficult.

Are there some people who are good tournament players

and not good money players? And vice versa?

Yes. The good tournament players who are bad money players
have some sort of personality defect. They're either steamers or they
don't have the heart to bet the money.

steaming — Playing badly or betting wildly when losing.

Are the Americans still the dominant players in

backgammon?

Not anymore. The Germans are.

Why is that?

The Germans have a stronger work ethic.

Is it possible to make a living playing tournaments?

It depends on what you mean by a living. I couldn't make a

living, but there are people who live off $30,000 a year.

Was there any one tournament you won that sticks out above
the others?

The two biggest tournaments I've won were the World

Championship in Monte Carlo and the World Cup. I'm lucky
enough to be the only person who has ever won both. I was more
proud of the World Cup than I was of Monte Carlo, because it was
almost all pros. That was a very tough format. You had to win three
out of five matches against each opponent. It came down to double
match point. The level of play has risen.

Do you think it's because of the computer programs out

there?

That's it. That's why there are a lot of very strong players now.
They mimic the computer.

Do the players who learn from the software learn the

gambling basics also?

When they learn that way it is a scientific observational method.

You hear people say that backgammon is all luck. People who have
that attitude tend to gamble. But if someone dissects the game, it's
more analytical and scientific. If they know a position is a pass by
three percent, they never take the double.3 If they know it's a take
by two percent, they always take it. I would say those players are
quite dispassionate about their gambling, which is a good thing to
be.

Backgammon is very popular in the Arab world, and there's

a lot of oil money there.

The problem with the Arabs is collecting the money. It's a

cultural thing. There's a saying that's very true: "The game is as
good as the pay." In other words, if it's a very easy game, it's tough
to get paid. If I sit down and play a tough backgammon match with
a tough opponent, I always get paid. If I'm playing with a total blind
idiot—which I did once, I played a guy who was basically deaf,
dumb, and blind—I don't get paid. When you evaluate somebody,
you look at two things: How likely you are to win, and how likely
you are to get paid.

Stan Tomchin mentioned that people have some number in

mind that they're comfortable paying, and you don't want to
beat them for more than that [Stan Tomchin is interviewed in
Chapter 5].

That's exactly right. I believe that it's a professional's

responsibility. I'm not being altruistic about it either. It's totally self-
serving to not go beyond that number. I beat you for $40,000 and
you're going to pay me. I don't have any doubts about it. I beat you
for $40 million and what's going to happen? You don't have $40
million. So what are you going to do? Are you going to give me all
your income for the rest of your life? You might not make $40
million in the rest of your life. A lot of people can't stop themselves,
so you have the responsibility to stop.
Once a sixteen-year-old kid lost over $100,000 to a couple guys.
The reason they beat him for $100,000 was because the kid's father
was very rich. The dad said, "I'm not paying this. He can pay it
himself." The professionals wanted me to arbitrate it, because they
thought I'd say he had to pay all the money. I would have made the
kid pay, but it would have been a twenty-year process; I'd have the
kid pay $4,000 or $5,000 a year, because that's what his income
would justify.

What ended up happening?

They decided not to have me arbitrate. I think the kid and the
father thought I was going to make him pay. But it was the
professionals' fault. I thought it was grossly irresponsible on their
part. Anyway, they agreed to play the dad a hundred-point match
double or nothing [the match had not been played at the time of this
interview].
 You've got a pretty big reputation as a gambler who's been
involved in a lot of interesting adventures.

You know, I'm sure a lot of stories have been told about me that
aren't true. But sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Mainly
there've been kind of funny things that have happened.
Right after I won Monte Carlo, I was invited to Sweden for a
tournament. They treated me like a celebrity and comped every,
thing. I started playing a prop4 with some guy. It was a vicious prop,
where I would almost always lose one point, but once in awhile I'd
redouble and win gammons [see "Backgammon Points" in
"Svobodny Notes"]. I lose one, one, one, one, and then pow, I win
nine. I was stuck twenty points, and one of the tournament directors
said, "You like giving money away. I should get in your suitcase." I
said, "You don't have to get in my suitcase. You can bet me right
now [on the game in progress]." I didn't know him that well, so I
said I'd play for cash. He started handing over cash and he lost
$10,000.1 was surprised. I was thinking, where does this young kid
get $10,000 in cash? He ran out of money, so I quit. The guy I was
playing stiffed me, but I didn't care, because I was getting cash from
this guy kibitzing.

get in your suitcase—A phrase that means a player loses so

much, you'd like to travel with him wherever he goes (in order to play
him all the time).

Then a guy I knew came up to me and said, "Do you want to

speak to Rolf?" I said, "What about?" And he said, "About the
money you just won from him." I said, "I'll talk to him, but I'm not
giving him his money back." Well, the money wasn't his. It
belonged to the tournament. It was money that was collected to pay
for the hall we were in and the tournament dinner. So he'd stolen the
funds from the club. I'm sure he didn't think he was going to lose. It
looked like he was going to crush me.
As soon as he sees me he jumps out on the window ledge. I
wasn't sure if he really was going to jump or if this was just
histrionics, but I said, "Here, take the money. Take the money."
What am I going to do? I didn't want him to slip or something. But
this made him even more embarrassed and ashamed. Now he's
leaning out farther saying, "No, no, don't say that." I started talking
W him. I said, "We can work it out. Nothing is this bad." Then I
said' "I'm not giving you the money. I'll lend it to you. You owe me
the money." He took it. I never saw him again, but every year at
Monte Carlo someone would come with some money from him
until he paid it all off.

Your psychological training came in handy at the key

moment.

To me gambling in general is fun. Gamblers are very

competitive by nature. When you're a professional, you're super-
competitive.

Do you think ego sometimes gets in the way?

Yes, often. The word "hubris" means being so proud you'd kill
yourself. It also means a plant that grows over itself and the inside
of it dies. I've seen hubris kill a lot of professionals—guys that are
much smarter and more talented than I am, and great all-around
games players. A guy named Horatio is that way. He doesn't want
to beat anybody but me at backgammon. At poker he wants to beat
Chip Reese (Chapter 2). He wants to be the fastest gunslinger in the
West, and that broke him. I just want that deaf, dumb, and blind guy.

Is part of the allure of backgammon tournaments the fact

that they take you to places you might not otherwise see.

I like the variety of people playing backgammon. You have to

admit, you're never going to find another Magriel. Or the Big Z—
he was a famous fish that lost $10 or $15 million playing
backgammon. He was a crook and everyone knew he was a crook.
But everybody played him, because he lost. He would cheat when
he played, but he would lose anyway.

How is that possible?

I don't think he cheated to win, really. I think he cheated so he

Wouldn't lose so quickly and be out of action.

In what way would he cheat?

He would mark cards, sometimes put in phony dice. But I would

never let anybody catch him cheating. I said, "Anybody catches him
doesn't play with us anymore." We didn't want to catch him red-
handed, because then it's really awkward, and he might get
embarrassed and quit. When he did mark the cards, we'd just put in
a new deck.
One time we were playing klabiash; $30,000 for a match that
takes five or ten minutes to play. Anyone can call for a new deck
whenever they want. It's the last hand and I see that the cards are all
marked when they come out. Big Z says, "I have a fifty." The other
guy says, "How high?" Our side had a higher fifty. He just barely
lost that match by a point or two. He was so disgusted that even
though he had just gotten all the cards marked up, he changed the
deck. He was a very big character. He pumped up a lot of
backgammon players. He had million-dollar losing months.

pumped up — When a player wins (or gets) a lot of money.

 When did you start adding poker to your repertoire?

I'll always play any game. I like playing backgammon, but I bet
horses, sports.

At one time, you were investing in Alan Woods' horse-

racing operation [Alan Woods is interviewed in Chapter 7].

Right. The first time I ever spoke to Alan, he called me up at

four in the morning and said, "Alan Woods here. Do you want to
bet a million dollars on this World Cup soccer game?" I said, "I'd
like to, but I'd like to be able to pay you too." He says, "You have a
thirteen percent advantage. I'll fax it to you." I said, "When does the
game go off?" He said, "Ten minutes."
I tried to negotiate with one of the English bookies for the World
Cup. I said, "We'll guarantee you £200,000 on every single game
until the finals. We're always going to bet the favorite. I want the
best price available in the newspaper." They turned us down. HoW
can you turn that down? They said they didn't want to be locked into
anything.

So you look for any opportunity where you know you have
an edge?

Yeah. But again, here's what has won me a lot of money: I'll do
something I don't have an edge at. I'll give you an example. I played
guy gin, and I'm a very bad gin player. If I rate my backgammon,
I'll rate myself a nine. If I rate my gin, I rate myself a one ... or a
half.

It would be hard to believe that you're that bad.

 So I play this guy who's good at gin. He's probably a 6-5 favorite
every hand. You know, at that price it doesn't take too long before
you're totally grounded. I played him $1,000 a hand and I won five
points. So I faded 6-5, got ahead five grand, and quit. He said, "Play
some more." I said, "Pigeon's prerogative." He knows I'm the
pigeon, so he can't really say anything about me quitting.

fade — To cover a bet.

grounded— Busted, broke.

There's only one way for him to get this money back now, so
we played some backgammon prop, and he lost $60,000. Now, he
wasn't unlucky in the prop. That was my earn, $60,000, maybe even
higher. I gave away a few hundred in juice playing gin, and I picked
up $60,000 in juice playing backgammon. My expected return that
day was over $59,000.

earn — The expected win.

Have you played blackjack?

Very little. I'm not a blackjack player. I find it boring. If I had a

choice of winning $100,000 at blackjack or $90,000 at poker or
backgammon, I'd choose those games. I like them.

I remember you showing people propositions and offering

to take either side, knowing that you might have the wrong side
if they chose wisely.

People often say, "It's just like Mike. He won from the wrong
side " A lot of times I'd say I had the wrong side when I really didn't
This is against pros. But you can beat guys from the wrong side too,
if they're not very good. You can get their nose open. You get them
into action. You don't have to beat them that minute. If you're a
professional gambler, you really can't be seen as someone who is
peddling the nuts all the time. You have to give close gambles and
even gambles where you have the worst of it sometimes. You don't
have to stay there forever.
So I play a guy and he chooses the right side and beats me for
seven points. I see that I can't beat him. Okay, I give up. I play him
the next day. He chooses the right side and I lose seven points. The
next day I lose seven points, and the next day I lose ten points. But
the next day I win 93 points. That's not so bad.
This is a very interesting part of human psychology. People
want to book winners every time. That's the pigeon mentality. What
you should really want to do is win. It doesn't have to be that day.
You always have tomorrow. A pigeon wants to win that day. How
many times have you heard someone say, "Come on, let's [quit
gambling and] do something else," and heard another guy respond,
"No, I'm stuck." That's the wrong reason to stay. If you're stuck, you
should want to leave. If you're a winner you should want to stay. If
you say to me, "Let's go to a movie," you're apt to hear, "I can't, I'm
crushing him." But if I'm stuck, I'm much more inclined to leave.
People say all the time, "I want to get my money back." What they
don't understand is that the instant they lost that money, it wasn't
theirs anymore. They gambled it and they lost it.

When you started playing poker, did you take an organized

approach like you did with backgammon? Did you buy all the
books?

I've read some books, but there's a lot of transference of

knowledge through all games and gambling. I'll give you an
example about poker. I'm not a good poker player, but if the game
is good, I'm happy to play. If the game is bad, I'm happy to quit. In
some areas I'm very good, but my starting requirements are going
to be tougher than other people's, because I know that I'm not as
good as many of them. In some areas I'm strong. But in other areas
I'm very inexperienced, like card reading. Chip [Reese] is going to
know that guy doesn't have the two pair he's representing. I won't.
Chip will check-raise the guy and I won't. I might just check the
guy. I play poker just because I like to be playing.

You like the action?

Yeah, I do.

Do you play backgammon with Chip?

Yeah.

Is he a good player?

Yeah. He doesn't play all the time. The only learning he's done
comes from playing me.

A lot of people have heard the story of the man [gambler

Brian Zembic] who won a $100,000 bet by getting breast
implants. Since you're the man who lost the $100,000, I'd like to
get your version of the story [Mike was "Jobo" in the book].

It was a lark. Brian is very cheap and extremely funny. Ten or

fifteen years ago, I'd bet him ten dollars he wouldn't do this or
twenty bucks he wouldn't do that. One night in New York, it's three
or four in the morning and we're walking down the street. He was
saying that it's good for me to get rich, because there's a trickle-
down effect—he gets upgraded from the floor to the couch or to a
spare bedroom. I said, "Yeah, look at all the crazy bets we could do
now." He says, "How much would you pay me to eat that turd right
there?" I said, "Five thousand, but if you puke you don't get any
money." He was really tickled to death by this. I said, "Any time
you want to eat a turd, you get $5,000. But if you puke v get nothing.
Well, you get a hundred bucks for trying." This real] happened. He
said, "That's great. If I ever go broke I know I can make $5,000."
Then he threw up. Just the thought of it made him vomit.

You're kidding.

I'm serious. He has a very weak stomach. Then he said, "What

would you give me to get breast implants?" So I picked a number
that I didn't think he'd do it for. I said, "I'll give you $100,000, but
they have to be bigger than Martha's, my girlfriend at the time, and
you have to keep them for a year." He started laughing. He thought
that was really funny.
He didn't do it for a long time. But then he lost money in the
stock market. In the book it sounded like I was doing something
crooked in the market, which wasn't true. I touted him on a stock,
which he bought. It went way up, and I told him to sell it. But
instead he bought more. Everyone has different things they're
suckers at. He ended up losing money.
For Brian, the choice between his mother dying or losing
$50,000 would be very tough. Let's see, $50,000 or your mom,
hmmm. At $100,000 there would be no question. Goodbye mom.
Anyway, he lost all this money, and when he loses money he goes
into this depressive state where he'll stay in his room and can't talk.
Money is the dearest thing in his life.
So a friend tells me, "You'd better call off that thing with Brian.
I think he might do it." I said, "He's not going to do it." If you offered
Brian $1 million to bungee jump, he wouldn't do it. He's afraid of
cars; if a taxi driver drives too fast, Brian gets really scared. So I
figured there was no way he would go on the operating table. My
friend said, "Remember, he had all those plastic surgeries for his
face." I'd forgotten about that. He'd ridden a motorcycle into a wall
and his face was disfigured; he had plastic surgeries to correct it.
So I went to Brian and told him I was going to call it off. He
said, "You can't call it off." I said, "What do you mean I can't call it
off? You're not betting me anything. I was offering you this as a free
roll. Does this mean when you're ninety-three years old, you can
come to me and say, 'Look, I'm going to put on titties?' Or have them
put on after you're dead, so I'll have to pay your estate?" He said,
"You can't call it off."
So we decided to have it arbitrated by three backgammon
players. We were going to go to dinner and have the arbitration.
Beforehand, I was talking to one of the arbiters. I said, "I think this
whole thing is a joke. How can I lose this?" He said, "Well it's not
clear-cut to me at this point." I said, "Why wouldn't it be clear-cut?
If you offer a guy a free roll, it's fill or kill. It doesn't sit up there
forever." And he said, "Brian told me that you said you wouldn't call
it off." I asked Brian if I'd said that and he said I did. So I said, "Okay
then, you can do it if you want to. I don't need any arbitration." I
like to stick to what I say. I still didn't think he would do it.

fill or kill — A stock-trading term that means to execute a

transaction immediately or cancel it. Here, the same concept is
applied to the wager.

The market went down more and more and more. He was in
agony. One day he walked into the Coterie in New York and he was
wearing a sport coat. He opened it and showed me he had on a bra
with big tits. It was weird. You're tied up in your own male sexuality,
and it seemed so bizarre, it made me sick to see that. It was like
seeing a road accident or something. It also made me sick that I lost
the $100,000. I offered him $60,000 and he could take them out. He
said no. Then maybe I offered him $70,000. He said no, so I said,
"Okay, you're stuck with them. You have to wear them the whole
year." He still wears them. He doesn't care.

My understanding is the year was up eighteen months ago

and he still has them in.

Yeah, and Brian is very heterosexual. He gets girls all the time.

I heard that he never got laid so much as he has since having

the implants.

I'm sure that's true. The first month he comes over to my hotel
room about three in the morning. I'm sleeping and he throws a girl
on the bed, takes her clothes off, then he takes his bra off. They both
have tits there bouncing together. Brian is not shy. He just got
married.

He got married with breasts? What's his excuse for keeping

them now? The attention?

I don't think that's it, because no one realizes he has them. My

mother and my aunt sometimes took him on vacation, and they
didn't know until I finally told them. He hides them.
Last week was my birthday and they threw me a surprise party
in Las Vegas. Some belly dancer was performing and Brian got up
with her and started dancing. He took off his top. It was so bizarre.
They're talking about making a movie about it, so he might make a
score.

Let's get back to traveling the world.

I don't know if it's just me, but I think a lot of gamblers have
short attention spans. They need stimulation. Maybe that's why they
gamble. That's why someone wants to bet a dime on a football
game. A friend of mine who's a professional gambler [but not in
sports] bets only on football games he can watch. This is like some
badge or something that he's not a pigeon. He knows that if he bets
$5,000, he's giving away two hundred fifty dollars to make that bet.
But as long as he's watching it's okay, because it's some form of
entertainment. My point is, a lot of gamblers need stimulation. I
think that's true of myself. I have a low boredom threshold, so I like
new places. I haven't lived in a regular home in eight or nine years.
I live in hotels.

So you don't accumulate lots of stuff.

I like winning money. I like having money. I like spending

money. But I wouldn't say I'm particularly materialistic. I have a car
in Vegas that somebody else uses. I don't have any houses
anywhere. I don't particularly want one. Say someone gave me a
brand new Rolls Royce and said, "You can have it free. Insurance is
free, gas paid for, but you can't sell it." I wouldn't take it. I'd have to
take rare of it. It would just be too much of a hassle.

I originally thought that professional gambling and stable

home life didn't go together. But now I've interviewed Doyle
(Doyle Brunson is interviewed in Chapter 8), who's been
married forty years. Billy Walters (Chapter 1) has been married
twenty-four years. Chip has been married a long time. Have you
thought of getting married and having kids?

I'm having a child in three months.

Was this planned?

No. I recently had a very extensive blood test. One of the tests
measured a hormone that prevents stress, and my count was very
high. The doctor said, "You don't have much stress." And he's right,
I don't worry much at all. But now that I'm having a kid, I find that
I worry about whether he'll be okay. What's going to happen to my
future? I don't remember worrying before. Maybe when I'm a parent
I'll be worried all the time.
I think, in general, it's true that the gambling life is not
conducive to marriage. In my case, I'm not married and I'm forty-
eight years old. On the other hand, I'm not sure that if I wasn't a
gambler it would be any different. But I do think there's a
correlation. I know so many single gamblers, and the ones that do
marry tend to marry late. I've been all over the world and I don't
have a home. What kind of marriage material am I? Women want
stability and security to some degree. Being a gambler isn't secure
or stable. It's the antithesis of those things.

Will your lifestyle change when you have this child?

It will. That's part of my worry. I want to be a very good father,

but I don't particularly want to be a good husband.

Where do you spend the majority of your time?

It changes. Last year it was Monaco. Sometimes it's New York

sometimes Las Vegas. I would say those are the main three.

Are there poker games in Monaco, or is it mainly

backgammon?

Mainly backgammon.

How do you think computers have changed things?

Computers have been terrible for me, because a lot of the money
I've won has been playing propositions. With computers now,
players just plug in the position and get the answer. They won't play
these props anymore.
Computers have also raised the bar. I was just talking to Magriel
about this. We were talking about a guy who's considered a very bad
player now, while ten years ago he would have been considered a
very good player. Ten years ago he might have been thought to be
as good as us, and now he's considered a real fish.

What happened?

Players have gotten better and better.

And he didn't.

No. Paul Magriel has gotten better, a lot better. I think I've
gotten better, too. Ten years ago we weren't that good.

Compared to everybody else, you were certainly good.

Yes, but now there are a lot of players that are better than I was
ten years ago. It's kind of like evolution. You have to get better to
stay the same.

Backgammon is a game where you have to play all the time

to be good.

That's absolutely true.

Do you have a laptop that you use these computer programs

on?

No. I'm very lazy. Almost all of my learning comes from either
playing propositions, which are a good learning tool, or from
Magriel. I might hire him to comb through my games. I especially
like when he points out thematic mistakes. He showed me a
thematic mistake the other day that I seem to make over and over
again, and I realized he was right.
There's one thing about my own ability that I like. If I'm shown
the right play, I can see it. That's why I'm good at playing props. I
can see when I'm wrong while I'm playing. It's funny, because I have
a big ego, but I want to know what's right, as opposed to being right.
A lot of good players are not that way.

I think this ability to suppress ego is a tremendous

advantage.

It's a very funny combination. I certainly do have a big ego. It

just might be hidden by false modesty. Ask the top ten backgammon
players in the world who the number one player is, and they might
name somebody else, but really, deep in their hearts, they feel it's
themselves.

There's a difference between being a great player and a

great gambler.

I think I'm both. Without any false modesty, I think I'm a great
Player, but I think I would grade myself a better gambler than a
player.

I would agree, and your reputation is that nobody makes n,

money that you make. Against the same player, you will get mo
money than somebody else will.

I think that's true. That comes from gambling ability. If you're a

hunter and you're carrying around a spear trying to hunt people you
can't complain if you find a spear in your own back once in awhile.
I think that helps me to keep a good attitude. If I have a losing streak,
I don't feel sorry for myself or feel like I'm a vie-tim.

Are you superstitious?

I'm not superstitious at all. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate

myself a zero. I don't believe in ESP or psychokinesis, but I have a
friend Dave who does. Back in 1983, Dave introduced me to this
tall dancing girl and we went out. He called me and asked, "Did you
have sex with her? Just answer yes or no." I said yes. "How many
times, once or twice?" I said twice, and he said, "Get in the car,
come to my house, and I'll play you backgammon and give you a
spot. But you have to come right away." Now I have to excuse
myself from this girl, whom I didn't know very well. I said, "David
called me, and I have to go gamble with him right now." So I went
over and we started playing. He was giving me a 5,3 spot, and he
was destroying me.

spot — A handicap. In this instance, Dave is giving Mike a 5,3

as his opening roll every game.

Now, he's giving you this spot because he believes ...

I'm weakened.

You're weakened because you had sex?

Yes. So he's destroying me. Neither one of us had very much

money at the time. We were playing for ten bucks a point, which
was plenty. The first twenty games I won maybe three. So I'd
experienced maybe two standard deviations of bad luck. Once a
month, Dave figures to do that to me.
 We're both laughing our heads off. I'm laughing because I know
he thinks this is happening because I had sex, and he's laughing
because he knows I don't believe any of it. We're both giggling like
school children. It was so much pleasure. So then, after about an
hour and a half, I crushed him and won back all the money. I just
had too much weight on my side; I couldn't lose for too long with
that spot. I said, "Well, you didn't prove anything. I beat you." He
said, "I did prove something. It just wore off. I know what I have to
do next time. We have to play while you're having sex."

weight—Advantage.

I was living in L.A. at the time, and there was a girl who was
staying with me. So Dave says, "Why don't you get her for this
experiment?" It's kind of an indelicate question to ask someone, but
I figured what the hell. And she said okay. I couldn't believe she
went for it.
So I tried to make the setting as nice as possible. We put the
table in front of the fireplace. I was in a bathrobe and she got under
the table while I played. I couldn't think about the game at all—she
happened to be really good at what she was doing. I remember one
time—she must have really been going to town—and I moved the
checkers backwards. I tried to go the wrong way. Dave just cracked
up. No one ever makes that mistake; it just doesn't happen. He was
beating me and beating me and I knew I couldn't win the money
back in the time I had left. I said, screw this! I quit playing and took
the girl to the bedroom. Dave brought the backgammon board into
the bedroom and put it on the bed. He said, I'll give you a 3,1 spot
to play now." I just pushed the board away. We've done that
experiment many times since then.
Backgammon has taken me to a lot of interesting places, and
introduced me to a lot of interesting people. About two years ago, I
was playing a Saudi Prince in Monaco. He couldn't play at all, but
he enjoyed the game. He was a very funny guy. He would spend
$10,000 a day on hookers. He had three or four with him all "he
time. He might screw them, he might not. He might play
backgammon and the girls would just wait. Every one of them
looked like Miss America. He had these professional ass-kissers
around him. They were professional friends—at $5,000 a week.
He'd pull out a cigar and ten of these guys would jump to light it. It
was sickening, because it was so disingenuous.
I like to be the one giving—taking people to dinner and the
like—I enjoy that. I was invited everywhere with him, on his boat
to parties. But I could never pick up a check. I tried to do it and he'd
get mad. He'd say, "I'm a Prince, that's my job. Don't ever do that
again." He'd lose face.
He invited me to Saudi Arabia, and he knew I was a professional
gambler. When we played backgammon we played cheap, a
hundred dollars a point. He'd want to play for an hour or so and he'd
lose maybe thirty points. It was entertainment for him. I would
aspire to be a rich sucker. Everybody treats you nice.

How long did you stay in Saudi Arabia?

About six weeks, but I was around him for a long time. He got
sort of dependent on me for entertainment. If he wanted me at four
in the morning, he'd call. "Let's play backgammon." I hardly ever
refused, but if I didn't want to do it, I had to hide out. He had all
these bodyguards and I couldn't hide from him. I'd be in a tent on
the beach in Monaco and his bodyguards would come up: "The
Prince wants you." One time I was in Cannes and they went
searching all over Cannes to try to find me. All the restaurants, all
the bars. He said, "Don't come back until you find him." It was a
royal order.
The Prince was very likable, but it gave me an insight into what
that world is like. He's not like a normal human being. He's almost
like a deity. I learned not to sit down before he sat down. And when
he stood up, everybody stood up. This was just proper etiquette.
So many funny things happened with the Prince. The first night
I met him, I went to play him backgammon, but he said, "Play my
cousin instead," because he was too lazy. Then I played the Prince,
but I wouldn't play him for money. I knew he was out of cash. His
relationship with money is as sick as you can imagine. In nine
months, he spent over $20 million dollars. He would periodically
get broke. Then he'd wait for a fresh batch of money to come from
his family and spend that. To go on vacation he'd need $10 mil' lion.
That's not an exaggeration, because I saw him spend the money.
A lot of people were on the pad and got slow paid. The hotel
would turn off his phone and lights. Then he'd pay them some of the
bill. I lent him $40,000 because he needed it for a friend of his. He
hasn't paid me back and I don't really care. He actually owes me
about $500,000 right now, but I don't really care, because I had so
many nice experiences with him. He bet the World Cup with pie and
lost a couple hundred thousand doing that. I beat him for so much I
started reversing the juice so he had about a twelve percent
advantage built in. He still lost.

Do you think that blew the friendship? The number got too
big.

No. I don't think it's on his mind. I think he's a little embarrassed
by it. I always kept my numbers with him really small. I told him in
the beginning, "I will always pay you and I want to be paid. If you
don't have money, we don't need to bet." Truthfully, my idea wasn't
to gamble with him, because in a very calculating way, that wasn't
the best way to make money. Maybe five years from now I might
play King Fahd. I knew that I couldn't win a million dollars from
the Prince and collect it. I could win $100,000 and collect it, but not
a million. It was just fun hanging around with him.
 I bought him a laptop as a gift and hired a guy to teach him how
to use it. We logged on to Games Grid from Saudi Arabia and were
playing backgammon with some guy. [Games Grid is an Internet
backgammon site.] He told the guy he was playing that he was a
shoe salesman in Ohio. We were laughing. Do you think this guy
would ever believe he's playing some Saudi Prince?
When we flew from Monaco to Saudi Arabia, he lent me one of
the Saudi gowns, and I put on the burnoose. I have pictures of me
lying in King Fahd's bed in this luxurious suite on the airplane.

Is there much backgammon action in Asia?

No. Gambling in Japan still has a stigma attached. All the big
Japanee gamblers like to come to Las Vegas to play. But if they
gamble in public, they lose face. There was some CEO of Sony or
one of those companies that would come to the backgammon club
there and play for ten dollars a point. I was hoping there would be
some high-stakes action there, but there wasn't. It's considered
gauche to play for big stakes. I really like Tokyo. I might go to
Lebanon soon. I like going to places I haven't been.

There's a guy in Iowa reading this book right now. He's

getting out of college and thinking to himself, "I want to become
a professional gambler." What advice would you give him?

Don't do it.

Really? Why?

First off, it takes a particular mindset. There's a lot of pressure

when you're playing and if you don't win, you can't pay your rent.
I'm not there now, but when I first started it was very important for
me to win. It was do or die. Not everyone can handle that.
 I think the chances of success are very small. You have a better
chance of becoming an actor and winning an Academy Award. The
number of professional gamblers I know of who are successful may
be ten or twenty. And I know a lot of gamblers. A lot of professional
gamblers are driving taxis. People have a real hard time
comprehending how fluctuations work. Things they think can't
happen almost always do.
I wish I had ten dollars for every time someone said, "You can't
believe what that guy rolled." You hear that all the time from
hardened pros. By definition, everything can't be extraordinary.

It's only extraordinary when it happens to you, not when you

get lucky.

No one, when they really get lucky, realizes how lucky they
were. I beat the guy for a hundred twenty points, but he played bad
and I played good. Now when you lose sixty points to the same
bozo, you think that's unbelievable. But that's what should happen:
You win a hundred twenty, he wins sixty. When you gamble every
day, 100-1 shots come in three times a year. People think losing to
a 100-1 shot is pretty bad luck. If you're using your bankroll to pay
the rent and make car payments, all of a sudden it's all dried up,
because you've spent a lot of the money that you won.

Any books in particular stand out to you as exceptional?

Books you would recommend?

Maybe I'm just partial to Magriel, but I just love his book,
Backgammon. That was the first really good book I read on
backgammon. I haven't looked at it in awhile, but I don't think it's
out of date even now. Doyle Brunson wrote a book of gambling
stories that I thought was very good. It's a book of parables about
gambling that are supposed to give you some wisdom. They're
obvious stories, but I remember it was quite interesting when I read
it. It's called According to Doyle. It's quite good.

Are there still big backgammon games in Hollywood?

Celebrity games?

No. Backgammon has sort of died in the States, certainly in

terms of high stakes. There are some pockets. Most of the guys I
play are pretty accomplished, where I'm not that big a favorite.

But you learn more playing good players.

I'd still rather play bad players. Though I don't mind playing
good players; I don't feel like I'm a dog to anybody.

Have you gotten involved with sports betting?

No, it seems too hard to me. You have to have a very organized
group. It's not something you can do on your own. It takes a lot of
organization and a lot of computer expertise. Then you have to
translate that expertise into getting the money. Plus, there are
problems with the law. If you give me a hundred dollars and say go
to a casino and bet this on the Knicks tonight, you're committing a
crime. We both are and it's not even the law that's the issue. It's
whether you're successful or not. I really do think that happens. If I
made $50 million at some completely legal gambling endeavor I'd
be under total scrutiny. They'd find something wrong.

In Nevada, you'd be winning it from casinos, and the casinos

are the law. So, of course, they're going to find something wrong
with it.

That's why they outlawed messenger betting. The guys would

send people around trying to get the best price. If it was in the
casino's interest, they'd have kept it legal.
Say I was a bookmaker in the Caribbean and made $25 million
a year. There'd be a lot of feds investigating me.

Whereas if you made $500,000 they probably wouldn't care.

That's right. They want to get their slice. You can become guilty
of your own success. If you're a great blackjack player, you get
kicked out of every joint. You have to hide the fact that you're good.
There's a real diminishing return for getting better and better at
something.

Others I've interviewed have said that having a lot of cash

is a big problem.

Oh yeah. You can't get on planes with it. I know a guy who was
carrying a half-million. He was going from New York to Vegas. The
money was totally legal. This guy pays about a million dollars a
year in taxes. He wouldn't fly a commercial plane, because he was
worried he'd have too many problems.

He was worried they would see it?

Yeah, so he chartered a private plane. It's also a security

problem-I heard a guy banking5 some of those blackjack games in
California got shot in the head. This happened just recently.

Have you been ripped off?

Not that I know of. I'm pretty careless; I know I've misplaced
money-I was staying at a friend's house once. About a month after
I left, he called me and said he found $20,000 behind the TV. I'd
hidden the money there and forgotten about it.

This could only happen to a professional gambler.

My Mom called me once, because she was getting something

out of the refrigerator and found a plastic bag with $10,000 I'd left
there.

The breast bet was one thing. Do you make these crazy
proposition bets like gambling on raindrops running down a
window-pane?

Huck Seed has made a lot of crazy bets. He's a very good
athlete, but not good with racquets. Playing basketball, I would have
zero chance of ever beating him. But he's not very good at tennis.
One day Huck says, "What will you bet me that I can't beat you in
tennis this year?" We bet $25,000. About a month before the year
was up, he hadn't beaten me and he'd been doing badly gambling.
He said, "Let's call off our bet." I said, "Huck, I'm not going to call
off the bet just because you're going broke. Even if you go broke,
you still owe me the money." He said, "I can beat you anyway." I
said, "How can you beat me with a month to go, and you've never
come close to beating me?" He said, "I can play every day for eight
hours a day, and just before the time is up I'll be able to beat you." I
said, "You couldn't play eight hours a day for a month." Another
bet—-$10,000. He had to play every single day for eight hours, which
he did, but he still didn't beat me.

He spent eight hours a day playing tennis for a month?

We made a settlement on the one-month bet. Three days before

the end I paid him $9,000.
 I guess that's a good month's work, $9,000.

Not for him. He's a very good poker player. I told him, "You'll
make $25,000 if you use that time to play poker. Why would you
take the cut in pay?" He said, "Call the [25k] bet off." I said, "m
give you $1,500." He wanted $4,000, and this went on through-out
the month. Our bid and ask was always too far apart. In the middle
of this he asked, "How much will you bet me that I can't stay in the
Crazy Horse [Las Vegas topless club] for 24 hours?" I said, "I'll bet
you $5,000," because I knew that to win that, he'd have to
automatically lose the tennis bet. He thought about it and said, "I'll
bet I can stay in the Crazy Horse for fifteen and a half hours." That
would give him just enough time to get to the tennis court.

But he'd have to stay up all night and then play tennis for
eight hours.

That's right. I figured he'd be really tired. I said, "If you step
outside the Crazy Horse, you lose." He agreed, and we made the
bet. Well, he ran out of money and they were going to kick him out.
He called up a friend to bring him more money. He stayed up all
night, then went and played his tennis. He won the bet, then asked,
"You want to bet again?" I almost did it to him, but I couldn't. I said,
"Go get some sleep."

Do you keep track of these bets to see if you're ahead in the

long run?

I don't really care.

You must think you have an edge when you make a bet like
that.
 What edge did I have when I bet the $100,000 on the tits? That
was a free roll.
One time we were playing backgammon and I bet a guy he
couldn't run the mile in eight minutes and twenty seconds. Huck
overheard me and said, "Are you kidding? I could do that
backwards." So Chip [Reese] and I bet him $5,000. It was four in
the morning and we went to the track with a stopwatch. He ran it
backwards in nine minutes, which is pretty good.

So where is the big action for backgammon?

The big action is at a place called the Beverly Club in New

York. But when you have a club with real big action, like people
losing hundreds of thousands, you knock them out pretty quickly. I
used to go to Dallas and play some guys there. I really like one of
the guys there. He's a really nice person, which is not normal for
most pigeons. They get insufferable, because everyone is always
acquiescing to whatever demands they make. You can't quit, but
they can quit. They play slow, but you have to play fast. They can
pay you slowly, but you have to pay them immediately. That's the
pigeon's prerogative. At the time, I could go and win $20,000, and
that was a big score. But now I don't want to go spend two weeks to
win $20,000.

If you can afford not to go to make $10,000 a week, life must

be good.

Yeah. It's fun to make money. It's how you keep score as a
gambler, really. We're not in normal society. If I ask someone how
much money he makes, that's a very rude question. But if I ask a
gambler, "How did you do last night," and he says he won $20,000
or lost $30,000, that's a normal question for gamblers.
I think I would have done better financially as a stock trader. I
Was sitting with two traders I know the other day who both will
become centi-millionaires. These two are very smart, extremely
hard-working, good gamblers. They were both backgammon
players when they were younger. I wouldn't trade my life for theirs.
I don't want to get up at five in the morning and look at some
computer screen all day long. I want to go to the pool. I want to fly
to Hong Kong.

A comment I hear a lot is: If these gamblers can do so well

at this, think what they could do in the legitimate business world
My response has been: If they can do this gambling, why would
they want to be in the legitimate business world?

That's right. When they made the movie Casino, I saw Robert
DeNiro, Joe Pesci, and Paul Anka ask permission to sit with Doyle
Brunson and Chip Reese to watch them play poker. A lot of people
even very rich people, would love to be that professional poker
player.

There's a definite romance to being a professional gambler.

I don't see the romance. I just think it's interesting.

To people on the outside ... here you are in a suite at the

Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills, jetting to Saudi Arabia,
playing in your cabana on the beach in Monaco. It certainly
sounds like a glamorous life.

To me the enjoyment is in meeting the different characters. All

gambling is is investing money aggressively. And investing is really
gambling. It's no different from buying triple-A bonds. It's either
very aggressive and high volatility or not. You can do things in
gambling that are the total nuts. If you own a bunch of slot
machines, you might never have a losing day. Is that gambling or
investing?

Have you heard the comment that professional gambling

has become the revenge of the nerds?

Yes, but I think that often the nerds don't know how to get the
money down. I think there's a good marriage to be made with them.
I consult mathematicians when I make bets. What do you think
about this? What sort of edge do I have? I'm not smart enough to
figure it out. I use them as a resource.
Chip said something when someone said the nerds are going to
end up with all the money. He said, "Yeah, but they aren't going to
have as much fun." I think that's true.

Svobodny Notes

1—Paul Magriel
On the drawsheets of elite backgammon tournaments,
sandwiched between the more conventionally named top players,
like Nack Ballard, Mike Svobodny, or Dirk Schiemann, you might
spot one entrant with the unlikely name X-22 ("X" to his friends!).
How did a former math professor and one-time New York Junior
Chess Champion named Paul Magriel evolve into backgammon
World Champion X-22?
In the late 1960s, Paul, like many young New York City
gamesmen, frequented the Mayfair Club (see "Tomchin Notes,"
Chapter 5). It was there that he learned to play backgammon.
Obsessive behavior and genius are often linked, and both traits
are found in abundance in the upper echelons of game players— not
all expert game players are geniuses, but almost all are obsessive.
Still, even in this world, so heavily populated by the weirdly
obsessive, Paul stood out. For a while he played with mirrored
sunglasses, and his jerky movements suggested that he really was,
as another of his nicknames had it, a "Human Computer." Even
today, Paul is known for his tics while playing. He has a tongue
more unruly than Michael Jordan's; like an escaped boa, it wags at
passersby as he calculates.
Realizing that tournament play had several unquantified
nuances, he set out to solve the tournament puzzle. At the time there
Were no books on match play; the backgammon books then in print
offered little more than coverage of the rules and a set of
recommendations for playing the opening rolls. Paul created a 64-
player tournament drawsheet, labeled the entries X-l through X-64,
and played both sides of every game in every match. It took him
months, but he painstakingly recorded the results and developed a
feel for the strategic differences that characterize match play.
Finally, it came down to a duel between X-34 and X-22, and when
the latter triumphed, Paul assumed X-22 as his nom de guerre.
It quickly became apparent that Paul was an unusually talented
player, and after winning a World Championship in the early '70s,
his reputation was confirmed. During the backgammon craze of the
'70s, many newspapers carried backgammon columns (similar to
the bridge columns that survive today). Paul became the
backgammon columnist for the New York Times, which also
published his book, Backgammon (1976). In it, Paul coined the
vocabulary and created the working methods that have been used
ever since for thinking and writing about the game. While
computers in recent years have discovered the few problem
positions (out of hundreds) that were misanalyzed, Paul's book
stands today as the foundation of modern backgammon and is
universally acknowledged as the greatest work ever penned on the
game.
By the early 1980s, quite a few players had reached Magriel's
level. Far from diminishing his reputation, it enhanced it—more
than half the world's best players were his students! He began
playing poker and won Amarillo Slim's Super Bowl of Poker.
Today, he still plays poker, flies around the world holding seminars,
and gives private lessons to the well-heeled. Though he plays
backgammon only occasionally, Paul Magriel is still considered a
formidable opponent. In June 2002, he won a premier event—
defeating Mike Svobodny in the Las Vegas Masters.

2—Backgammon Points
The basic unit of backgammon scoring for tournament or
money games is 1 point. A point is won when a player either
removes all checkers (playing pieces) from the board before his
opponent, or offers a double, which the opponent chooses to pass
(see "Doubling Cube"). A win is doubled—a "gammon"—if, when
the player removes his last checker, his opponent has not yet
removed any of his. A win is tripled—"backgammon"—if the
opponent has not yet removed any checkers and at least one of his
pieces is still in the winner's home area of the board.

3—Doubling Cube
No one knows the who, when, or where regarding the invention
of the doubling cube—it might have been in the mid-'20s, and it
probably happened in a New York City bridge club—but its
function represents one of the most perfectly conceived wagering
concepts ever devised. In a nutshell, the doubling cube is used to
raise the stakes in a wager, though its skillful use is much better
described as a leveraging of advantage. While variations are used in
many gambling situations, including such diverse games as
Scrabble, pool, and golf, its primary milieu is, without question,
backgammon.
The initial value of the doubling cube is usually 1, though in
money games players may agree to start higher. A player may,
during his turn but before rolling the dice, offer to double the stakes.
The opponent can choose to concede 1 point, thereby ending the
game, or "take" the double and agree to play for 2 points. Having
six faces, the cube's markings are 2-4-8-16-32-64, and the taker
assumes control of the cube, and may redouble (or not) at his option.
(Obviously, in a 15-point match, any turn beyond the 16-point level
is redundant, and even at money play, 16- and 32-cubes are
somewhat rare. Certainly, cube levels beyond 64 have been
achieved, though the more "unreal" the cube level, the more the
winner should worry about whether he will be paid.)
The mathematics of doubling seems quite simple—at first. If
the doubling option is offered, you must accept it if you have a 25%
chance of winning the game. Assume that in two four-game
samples, you have exactly a 25% chance of winning. The first time
around you pass on the doubling option, ceding 1 point each time,
for a net loss of -4. The second time around you accept the double
each time, then lose three games while winning once. Again, your
net is -4. If you pass when your chances are less than 25% and take
when they are more, in the long run you'll come out far ahead of
alternate strategies, such as "always take," "always pass," or
"operate randomly."
In real life, however, doubling is enormously complicated. First,
now do you know when you're above or below 25%? Some simple
endgame positions may be precisely calculated and some situations
lend themselves to fairly accurate measurement. Beyond that
though, it gets messy. Handling the cube in tournament play ;' even
tougher. In money play, each point is worth a fixed and real value.
In tournaments, points beyond the score needed to win a match are
worthless, so there are oddities and exceptions, especially near the
end of the match. America dominated world competition for many
years, in great part because players from other parts of the world
had no idea how to properly use the doubling cube.

4—Props
The term prop is gambler-speak for a "proposition bet," which
is a wager that is outside the normal rules of a game (for example,
"I'll bet I can beat you at golf using only my putter"). In
backgammon, props involve specific positions or doubling-cube
decisions. The player offering the proposition will set up a position
and ask, "Which side do you think is the favorite?" If a wager is
arranged, the game will be played out over and over from that spot
with the agreed-upon wager at stake each time. "Proposition
hustlers" offer props that appear to greatly favor the opponent, but
actually give the prop hustler a big edge.
Props involving sports prowess and bizarre challenges are also
common.

5—Banking
In many jurisdictions, casinos or card rooms are prohibited from
accepting wagers. They provide the game (table, dealer, chips, etc.)
and charge a fee to play. The players must bet among themselves,
with someone assuming the typical role of the casino and "banking"
the game. The bankers—either individuals or organized groups—
make their money as a casino usually does, by playing with the
built-in house advantage.

STAN TOMCHIN

Stan Tomchin claims he was "the most potent gambler in the

world," and he may have been just that. Stan was a chess master,
bridge master, and possibly the world's best backgammon player.
Then he moved on to blackjack, race betting, and ultimately sports
betting.
Raised on Long Island, New York, Stan started gambling at
eight and was soon running a poker game in the basement of his
parents' house. "At eight or nine years old, I was walking around
with five hundred dollars in my pocket," he says. After becoming a
chess master at 13, he gave it up for bridge when he discovered there
was no money to be made at chess. Stan won a national bridge
tournament and represented the U.S. in the bridge Olympiad.
Stan first discovered backgammon in a bridge club in New York,
and within a few years he was considered the best player in the
world. Backgammon put Stan on the road, traveling from New York
to London to the Caribbean to the Playboy Mansion in Beverly Hills.
As his reputation grew, so did his bankroll. But then, as was his
pattern, he gave it up for something new: big-time sports betting.
Stan was a member of the original Computer Group. He and his
partners bet football, basketball, and hockey—often as much as $3
million to $5 million on a weekend. They pushed the lines one way,
then the other, sometimes betting both sides and catching a middle
to reap huge profits. This interview sheds more light on the
workings of the famous Computer Group, but from a somewhat
different perspective. For example, Stan discusses betting big on the
same Michigan/Auburn football game that Walters discusses in his
interview. But where a loss would have cleaned out Walters,
Tomchin was already so far ahead for the season that he kept piling
on the bets.
Stan makes his home in Montecito, California, about two hours
north of Los Angeles. Tucked between the Pacific Ocean and the
Santa Ynez Mountains, it's an enclave of movie stars and studio
executives. For Stan Tomchin, it's the perfect place to sit back,
reflect, and talk about his incredible gambling career.

How did you first get interested in gambling?

I started gambling when I was about eight. I never looked at it

as gambling, but that's the way society termed it. To me it was very
short-term investing. I was making my bets with an edge, at least in
my mind. But the range of games I played was enormous. At eight
or nine years old, I was walking around with five hundred dollars in
my pocket. I played poker at the Malibu Beach Club on Long Island
where I grew up. In the summer I played poker and gin. I sat behind
the old men who played gin and watched them. It was ridiculous. I
thought, I'm better than they are. I got out the Encyclopedia
Britannica and started studying the theory of probability and games.
I ran a poker game all through grade school and high school in the
basement of my house. I never got an allowance from my parents. I
always had as much money as I needed from the game.
I played chess seriously beginning at eight or nine years old. I
was a master when I was thirteen, and stopped when I got to Cornell.
I played a little bit as a freshman, but there was no money in chess,
and I was hungry to make money, so I learned bridge.1 Bridge was
a fantastic game.
1
For this and subsequent numeric references 2-6, see "Tomchin Notes" at the end of this chapter.

Was there money in bridge?

You could make a living playing as a bridge professional, and

you could gamble at bridge for reasonably high stakes. Of all the
games I've played, I think bridge was probably the best. I won a
bridge national. I represented the United States in the Olympiad. I
played with Al Roth, one of the best bridge players of the modern
era; he was my partner for many years. So the bridge world was
terrific, because you had medium income, high income, all ranges of
people. At the bridge clubs I went to, you could play duplicate
bridge. Match-point bridge is what's played at the big tournaments,
but you could also play money bridge. That's where I excelled. After
awhile, backgammon became popular.
The club I played in was the Mayfair2 in New York. I actually
gave Al the money to open the Mayfair. Eventually, it succeeded
and he became very prosperous. All I did in college was play bridge
and poker. I spent fourteen, sixteen hours a day in the game room. I
never went to classes. I was lucky to pass any courses at all. I would
just go to my instructors and beg to take the finals and hope that I
would pass the test. From there, three or four years later after getting
out of the military, I took up bridge and backgammon full time.
The first two years at the Mayfair I played bridge, but I could
play backgammon. And there were some great backgammon
players there: Art Dickman, Tobias Stone. I was the scorekeeper for
them. I would watch them play and that was my training ground.
I studied with a friend of mine, Paul Magriel [see "Svobodny
Notes, Chapter 4"]. Paul was also a chess player. We used to play at
the Mayfair. After the Mayfair closed, we'd go to my apartment
where we'd roll out and study positions. There was no literature on
backgammon then. Nobody knew how to play. We came up with
theories that would blow people's minds. These were the best
backgammon players in the world, and all of a sudden I was the best
of the best. I just dominated the game.
From there, there was a whole world to go out and explore.
Nobody knew what we knew at the Mayfair. Nobody knew that it
Was okay to get hit and sent back. People thought I was crazy. Back
then there were so many concepts that people didn't know anything
about: timing, back games. It was a lot of fun. I helped Paul write
his book [Backgammon, by Paul Magriel].
I used to travel around the country and take Paul's book with
me. I would drop copies off in bridge clubs and different places,
then come back six months later and play backgammon for money
With these people who were learning to play.
I remember one year Paul went down to a tournament in the
Bahamas and won it. He came back and said the side action was
unbelievable. He'd won $50,000. The money just flowed and no
body could play. So the next year I went down to St. Martin and I
won a tournament. We were making a few hundred a week and all
of a sudden we could make $5,000 a week; plus, these people were
delighted to write a check. We learned social graces and how to treat
people. What they really wanted was to play with a top gun, play
the best player around. If they did happen to win, they didn't want
to cash your check. They wanted to keep the check with your name
on it.
So backgammon became very important to me, even though
bridge was a better game. But backgammon supported me and I
knew I could make a lot of money at it.
1
For this and subsequent numeric references 2-6, see "Tomchin Notes" at the end of this chapter.

What did your parents think of all this?

I was an outcast in their minds until years later. Prince

Obolensky had a backgammon magazine back in the '70s. [Prince
Alexis Obolensky was a big backgammon supporter in the late '60s
and early '70s. He was the author of Backgammon: The Action Game
and published a magazine titled World Backgammon News.] He
wrote an article after I won the St. Martin tournament, saying that I
was a bridge wiz with tremendous tenacity, and that I was probably
the best backgammon player in the world. My mother saw this and
she put it on the wall. All of a sudden it was okay to be a gambler.
When you represent the United States in the bridge Olympiad,
people give you some credit.
One time Paul Magriel and I went to London with $25,000. We
went to play against an Israeli phenomenon named Ezra. Twenty-
five thousand was a lot of money thirty years ago. Paul was going
to play Ezra and I was going to keep an eye on Paul. Paul was a
renowned backgammon player and I was always very quiet.
Nobody knew who I was. I liked this arrangement, because I could
just come out of the woodwork when I wanted to. They had an
agreement to play a hundred-point freeze-out for $25,000. They
played for two days and they broke even. They were flat. Neither
could win. Ezra said, "There's no action here." He played a very safe
game of backgammon, unlike our style, which was very risky-I said,
"I'll play you a few games." He just looked at me, because I was
like the backer there.

freeze-out—A match in which the players put up an agreed-on

amount and play until one player has won the entire stake.
backer— Someone who puts up money for gambling. Often the
player will get a percentage if he wins, but have no liability if he
loses.

We sat down and started playing, I think for $1,000 a point. y[y
strategy at that point was to make the game as complicated as
possible. Either I made a prime or I had a back game. Those were
my choices. Back in those days, if you really made the position
complicated, people didn't know how to dig their way out. It's like
chess. Some masters won't make the best move; they make the most
complicated move. I applied a lot of chess principles to my
backgammon game, which is why I think I was as good as I was.
I never got into a race. Say you look at a situation and think,
hey, I'm fifty-five percent in the race—I'll go for a race. Bullshit!
Why do you want to be [only] fifty-five percent against a pigeon in
a race? You're going to win seventy percent of the games if you just
throw the checkers on the board and let them land. I kept grinding
and grinding and I must have won $15,000 or so. Slow but steady.
Ezra got up from the table after a day or two and said, "You're too
good. I don't want to play." He knew, he could feel, that it was an
uphill battle. In his mind he was supposed to win these positions,
and he wasn't winning them.
So we'd done well, won some money, and we were in London
at a place called the White Elephant. It was a casino owned by a
gambler who liked to play backgammon. We were trying to get a
game with this guy, because he had plenty of money. It was an ideal
situation, because again, Paul was the player and I was the backer.
If they didn't want to play Paul, they played the backer. So Paul was
in the casino playing some roulette, which at that time Was his
favorite game. He'd come up with the idea that if you doubled up
after every loss3...

Oh no!

So I had to take the money away from Paul and get a different
safe-deposit box—he was about to lose it all.
I remember bankrolling Paul in these backgammon
tournaments. We would go down to St. Martin or Paradise Island. It
was pitiful. The pigeons were lined up. There were no sharpies. It
wasn't like today. There was Arthur Dickman maybe. Eventually,
Chuck Papazian got involved a little bit and he would come to a
tournament; Chuck was a great player. Paul would be broke. I'd
have to give him plane fare and set him up with people who had
millions and millions. If you sat down with these people, you were
going to win a hundred points. I'd set him up in these games and at
the end of the week I'd have to cover his losses. He lost! I said, "Paul
how could you lose to these people?" "Well, the cube got to sixty-
four." I said, "You're not here to gamble with them. You're here to
beat them. They want to write you a check. What are you doing?"

It sounds like this willingness to be relatively unknown

helped you get action you might not have had otherwise.

When I started out, I figured that if I was very low-key and

nobody really knew who I was, that would help. Now I'm not so
sure, because throughout my backgammon career, which spanned
fifteen to twenty years, people wanted to play the good players. The
more tournaments you won—and I had a string where I won a lot
of tournaments back in the '70s and '80s—the more they wanted to
play you.
I came out to California and won a tournament. Suddenly, I was
a celebrity. I got a call from [Hugh] Hefner's people. "Do you want
to come over and play some backgammon, stay at the Playboy
Mansion?" It was great. I was twenty-five years old and I was at the
mansion for two weeks playing Hef. We'd play for twenty-five
dollars a point. He'd be in his pajamas. Hef would finish his business
and then we'd play backgammon. It would be two or four o'clock in
the morning. Finally I'd say, "Hef, I can't stay up anymore." It didn't
matter to him because it was twenty-five dollars a point. If I won
three hundred points, no big deal. To me it was a lot of money. He
didn't want me to leave; he'd play for two weeks straight if he could.
I'd get up in the morning and go out to the Jacuzzi and there would
be all these bunnies and actresses, it was very social. There were
butlers and valets. Anything you wanted to eat or whatever. I was
almost part of the staff.

Resident backgammon player.

Yeah. He had a nice game room. I met a lot of interesting

people. I was young guy and knew how to be nice; if they wanted
to gamble, we gambled. It didn't matter what the stakes were.

What's the most you ever won at backgammon?

There was an older woman who was very wealthy. One night
we played, and at one point I must have been up a couple hundred
thousand. One of the things you learn as a gambler is that you have
to look at the person you're playing and make a judgment. What
does that person expect to lose? You don't want to beat them for
more than they expect to lose. If it's too much, you have to lose it
back until you get to a level where they're willing to pay. Part of
playing is, you have to get paid. I remember, I was up maybe 30,000
points. My girlfriend at the time was sitting next to me and she
couldn't believe it. She had never seen action like this.
 We played into the night and the woman won and won and we
wound up within a few points of even. It didn't bother me, because
I knew she would play the following week. We both got up from the
table and my girlfriend said, "That's all? I want more." So we looked
at each other and sat back down. She ended up writing me a check
for three or five thousand. It didn't really matter what I won, because
all she was going to pay was what she was comfortable paying.

Did you ever run into problems with being cheated?

I wasn't cheated [to a great degree]. But yes, there was cheating
going on.

You dodged that bullet?

The cheats didn't necessarily want to go after the top players. I

think because we could recognize it. I played so much
backgammon. That was all I did.
One time I was in Monte Carlo and halfway through the match
I went to the tournament committee and told them I was being
cheated. I didn't know how, but I knew it. I was losing to this Dutch
player 13-2. It was a 21-point match. I got up from the table and I
told the tournament committee I wanted protection They took the
match to a separate room. They had a new board new dice, and two
referees watching us play. He never won another game.
As I went through backgammon I saw a lot of cheating. Not of
me, but of other people. You sort of protect people. I had a good
friend who had a beach club in Florida with a disco, hotel, and game
room. I'd advise him on sports and horses, because he loved to
gamble. Someone came in and rigged the boards with magnets.4
When he went down to play, they turned on the magnets and cheated
him ... in his own club! He wasn't experienced enough to realize
what was happening. I could sense it.
 I grew up as a bridge player in the early '60s, and the ethics and
morals of the American bridge players were extremely high. My
role models were guys like John Crawford and Al Roth. When you
play bridge you say, "Please keep your hand back." [So as not to
inadvertently see your opponent's cards.] For me, that carried
forward from bridge into other games. You just don't cheat. You feel
like you're skillful enough to win without cheating.
In the early '60s I was a very good bridge player. John Crawford
would hire me and some of the young guns and we'd go to Europe
to play. The morality of the Europeans was completely different.
For them it was okay to cheat. And if you got caught, you went back
to the drawing board to find another way to cheat. We played in
Hungary and Poland. The Italians were notorious, and j so were the
English. They were signaling to each other right at the table. So I
was alerted pretty young in life.
When I was in high school I used to go up to Grossinger's to
play gin in the game room. [Grossinger's was a resort in the Catskill
Mountains in upstate New York.] When you've beaten all the people
at your level, you have to go up to the next level. For me,
Grossinger's was the next step up. I was sixteen or seventeen. Al
guy there was playing gin and he was cheating. What do you do. At
some point he wanted to play with me and I said, "Okay, hut you
can't cheat." I played him and he beat me. He cheated me some other
way. I went back to New York and decided that that was enough of
that.
One year I went to Monte Carlo to play in the World
Championship backgammon tournament. The finals were between
a woman I knew from New York and a scoundrel, a world-class
player, but a complete con man. I had known him for many years,
so we were cordial. There was a guy booking the action on the
finals. He made the line Scoundrel -150. I knew the woman and we
were friends. Early in the tournament, after she'd won four or five
matches, she came to me and said, "I need to go home with some
money. Can you help me?" I said, "You're in the round of sixteen
and we're going to hedge." So every match she played, she won.
And we're hedging, so she's giving some back, but she's securing
equity. She wanted to go home with $10,000. She gets into the finals
and she's in a position that no matter what happens, she'll go home
with $10,000 or $15,000. She was ecstatic.

hedge—Away to reduce risk. Tournament players often use

hedges to guarantee themselves a minimum payday by agreeing to
split all prize money, regardless of the match result.

Now I see this price on Scoundrel and I think, this is ridiculous.

This is an absurd line, because he should be more like 3-1. [If you
wanted to bet on Scoundrel, you had to bet $150 to win $100. Stan
felt that Scoundrel was so much the better player that the proper
price should have been $300 to win $100.] I bet $10,000 on
Scoundrel, and so did two friends. We watched the match on the
screen and after two games I threw up. I said, "Forget about it; the
fix is in." I don't know how they arranged it, but it was fixed [the
bookies had paid Scoundrel to throw the match]. Then I find out
that instead of doing the hedge, the woman had pressed on herself.
That just confirmed it to me.

press — To double a bet.

It turned out that Scoundrel was very popular in London and tad
a big following of wealthy people who were betting enormous
founts of money on him. I knew I was cheated, but I paid. I always
try to put my bad feelings aside as quickly as possible. I resolve my
conflicts. I've learned how to overcome my emotions with regard to
people who try to take advantage of me. And people have advantage
of me all the time. I'm the biggest pigeon there is.
 In what way?

As far as being a soft touch, giving money away, setting people

up in business. I donate a lot to charities. Money has come so easily
for me. If I can do some good with it, fine. If I can straighten
somebody out, fine. If someone betrays me, they're out of my life. I
don't need them. That's why I never thought the people who cheated
were very talented. Most of the people who were really talented
didn't stoop to that.
There was a time back in the '70s when everybody was doing
cocaine. Everybody wore a coke spoon and had a little bottle and it
was all very fashionable. I don't even think people thought it was
illegal, it was so common. People were playing backgammon high
on coke. They were playing on levels above everybody else— in
their minds. They didn't know they were stinking up the joint. A
good friend of mine came over to me and said, "Watch me play. I'm
playing so well. I'm getting unlucky and not winning, but I'm
playing so well." His perception, of course, was completely
opposite of the reality. My point is, drugs and gambling don't mix.
Alcohol and gambling don't mix. Exercise and gambling do. That's
a good mix.

You have to put up with some really awful personalities to

play backgammon.

That's one of the reasons I went to betting sports. You're on the

phone. You don't even have to know the person you're dealing with.
You don't concern yourself when you go through a bookmaker. You
assume the bookmaker is making money from someone else. You
don't have any feeling that you're beating anybody directly. Plus,
you don't have to put up with the vagaries of the people you deal
with. Some of the assholes—who wants to deal with those people?
 You dabbled in roulette. How did that project come about?

Through a guy who later became a partner of mine. He liked to

bet on me in backgammon and he'd made some substantial money
following me around the world. I was in Las Vegas betting sports,
horses, blackjack, everything. He came to me and said, "I have a
computer in my shoe. I can time the wheel." I said, "Okay, let's go
try it." We'd go out and find the wheels and guess what? The next
day they changed or balanced it. If you beat it for a day, they'd
change it. You need a casino with a big ego to win money this way.
Maybe a European casino, because they make so much money off
roulette.

So there wasn't any serious money to win.

No. You had to find a biased wheel. It wasn't that sophisticated.

This is why so many of these games are difficult. It's the casino's
job to find out what you're doing and negate your edge. That's why
sports betting was so much better. It's universal and you aren't
necessarily hurting the bookmakers. As long as you know what
you're doing, not only can you win, but you can also help the
bookmakers win at a higher rate from their customers. In effect,
you're playing against the customers. If you lay seven, a smart
bookmaker moves the line to eight and a half. A sharp bookmaker
takes advantage of a sharp player. Any bookmaker who throws a
sharp player out of his store is an idiot.

But it seems like they all do that now.

How could you not want the information? You're right; some of
them are pretty stupid.
Gradually I shifted my interest from backgammon to sports
betting. One of my bridge partners was a sports bettor at a time
when they thought nobody could beat sports. All the bookmakers
would laugh, but he knew what he was doing. He would bet on
Saturday, twenty or thirty games. He'd bet a couple of games for me
and I'd root with him. I started developing an interest in sports
betting. In time it overshadowed backgammon. I loved playing
backgammon and winning the money, but sports betting had
uninvited potential; there was no competition.
The bookmakers got a line from some other bookmaker. There
were different lines in different parts of the country. Nobody really
knew what the line should be. There wasn't a lot of research. Most
people who bet lost.
I had a good friend who would go down to Times Square and
buy all the out-of-town newspapers. Remember, there was no
Internet. He would buy thirty or forty out-of-town newspapers and
discard everything but the sports sections, then bring them to my
apartment. All I would do was read sports sections. I became
absorbed with keeping statistics and tracking what was happening
with all the teams. Say a sports writer for the Atlanta Journal
decided that the Atlanta Hawks were beaten up and were going to
have a bad road trip. This was great, because it wasn't reflected in
the line. That's really what sports betting is: making a better line
than the bookmakers do.
The bookmakers never believed it. There was an old guy at the
Mayfair that befriended me. He said, "Don't bet. You're going to
lose all your money. Everybody loses."
We became the biggest sports bettors in the country over time.
But the line was terrible. It could be off by a full touchdown in
football. We built an organization around the country to help us bet.
Eventually, we hooked up with the Computer Group in Las Vegas
[see "Walters Notes," Chapter 1]. It became more important for me
to be able to bet than to handicap. I still handicapped, but the
Computer Group did it with computers in a much broader way. They
could handle every game, all the time. We ended up betting huge
amounts of money for years. I guess I started betting in the early
'70s. I moved to Las Vegas for a year.

handicap — To evaluate a horse's, team's, or player's chances

of winning.

Back then, would Las Vegas sports books let you bet all you
wanted?

Well, the biggest bookmakers were in New York. I moved to

Las Vegas to bet horses. A friend of mine was a horse handicapper.
He had a system that clocked the true distances the horses ran
around the track. After doing his handicapping, he'd come back and
say, "This horse really ran a number that's better than what shows
onI the form."
I'm talking about handicapping six East Coast tracks, every
race. He would go into his office at eleven o'clock at night and go
over the results for the day. He'd finish at three o'clock in the morn'
i ing and call me with his work. I would add a substantial amount to
his order and I would bet the horses. We virtually emptied out the
bookmakers. There were stories about some of these horse
bookmakers who had rooms full of cash. Well, by the time we were
done, their cash had disappeared. We were holding probably eight
or nine percent on volume.

order—A list of bets for a given day.

on volume — A consideration of total money wagered. To win a
percentage on volume means to apply that percentage to the total
amount wagered.

So it behooved me at some point to move to Las Vegas. I think

it was 1975 and I stayed at the Jockey Club. At that time, I'm sure I
was the most potent gambler in the world. I was the top
backgammon player in the world and one of the top bridge players.
I was a very proficient blackjack player. Poker was boring by that
time. It just wasn't rewarding enough, but I could play poker with
anybody. Sports betting was terrific, and now all of a sudden I had
this horse betting, which was holding eight or nine percent.
So I appeared on the scene in Las Vegas. People saw me as this
crazy kid with a lot of money who was going to blow out, and that
was the image I wanted. The Stardust opened the biggest sports
book at that time. I would go in there and bet five football games
and probably twenty or thirty horses a day. I bet races at Laurel,
Hialeah, and all the East Coast tracks. I'd walk up and bet two
thousand to win and place on this one, and five hundred on the daily
double. Then I'd go back into the casino and maybe someone was
counting a blackjack shoe for me, so I'd sit down and start betting a
grand a hand and go up from there. The sports tickets ... I bet
hockey, basketball, it didn't matter. I even played craps, which I
couldn't beat, but it was more proof for the casinos that I was a
madman.5 If I went in there and once in awhile blew $10,000 on
craps, it gave me license to do anything I wanted.

In Ian Andersen's second book, Burning the Tables in Las

Vegas, he talks about playing craps for cover.

Ian and I were around at the same time and we developed a lot
of the same tactics and discussed a lot. We were friends. I haven't
talked to him in years, but back then we talked a lot. We stayed alive
a long time. I had a small group of players who counted for me. I
would play very high, $500 to $5,000.

cover— Making less-than-optimal bets or plays to look

unsophisticated to casino personnel.

You were using them to count shoes for you and call you in?
 Right. It was more for the lark and the comps. But I did it
sporadically, maybe half a dozen times a year. Even betting $5,000
a hand, you're not talking about a huge edge.

Right, compared to what you were doing in sports.

If I played for a total of six hours, my expectation was maybe

$10,000. Then I wouldn't come back for a month or two or three. I
stayed alive pretty long. The key, of course, was not varying the bets
much. Back in the early '70s, a guy I considered the best blackjack
player around taught me the game. He was certainly the best single-
deck blackjack player there was. You had end-play situations. They'd
deal around the corner. Little did the casinos know that there was so
much money in blackjack. The best thing that happened to Las
Vegas was Thorp's book [Beat The Dealer, by Edward O. Thorp].
Ninety-nine percent of the people are going to lose.

deal around the corner — In blackjack, to deal an entire deck

to the bottom, then shuffle and continue even if in the middle of a
hand. This practice created "end-play" possibilities for skilled card
counters who could ascertain the values of cards at the end of the
deck.

I had a group that I taught how to play blackjack. They were

options traders from New York and bridge players. They would
come out on a junket and I would meet them at the hotel and give
them $10,000 in cash. They would play, sometimes checking in two
hotels at once, because a lot of times the hotels were picking up
airfares. If you could play two hotels, you had double equity-The
attraction, really, was the comps.
When I was playing blackjack, I had a technique where I had
little straw up my sleeve so I could siphon off my drinks into a little
bag. I could sit at the table and drink straight shots, but siphon them
off. I'd just keep ordering them. It's hard for the casinos to bar you
when they think you're drunk as a skunk. We never played more
than a half-hour at a time in one casino. It's the results that
eventually get you. [No matter how much you disguise your play, if
you're a consistent winner the casino will stop you from playing.]
I used to bet with Churchill Downs. An old-time bookmaker
owned it. We won a lot of money. He couldn't believe we were
winning. We couldn't be fixing races, because I was betting thirty in
a day. And we were betting every track on the East Coast. It was
just a very sophisticated handicapping technique at that time. That
lasted about three or four months until he gave up.
It was really fun to be a gambler before computers came along,
when you had to be able to use your mind. Now it's different. All
those edges you used to find have disappeared, because people have
number-crunched everything.

Computers have revolutionized backgammon as well.

For me it took two years to attain a level that kids today can get
to in a month. You get a bright kid with a computer, and with the
interchange of data and information, he can become a proficient
backgammon player in three to six months.

How did the Computer Group come about?

I met Ivan Mindlin through someone else. I was in Las Vegas

betting horses and sports. He had some baseball program and a
database. He was a surgeon and a little bit of a degenerate gambler,
and he'd lost some money. I was betting horses and he'd tag along
With me and sort of be my chauffeur or whatever. This is a guy is a
surgeon.
I would bet, and he would bet fifty or a hundred bucks on my
picks. We were winning all sorts of money. He'd bet a hundred and
get thirteen hundred back. It was impressive. We didn't bet chalk.
We were looking for value by betting a 50-1 shot that should have
been 5-1. Ivan respected me, because I was winning at horses and
at sports. Then I moved back to New York after about a year,
because I'd burned out most of my spots. We stayed in touch. I had
a whole network of people.

chalk—A horse favored to win. These horses offer the smallest

odds. In sports, "betting chalk" means betting the favorite.

And you were doing this just out of your head? No

computers?

We were doing it out of our heads. We were gathering

information in certain conferences. We had certain good
handicappers. Then Ivan met a guy named Mike Kent in Las Vegas.
Kent really didn't know how to bet, but he'd developed this
computer program. Ivan helped him get down. Ivan called me and
said, "This is what I need." And I said, "No problem." Kent would
bet something and then Ivan would add something on and then I
would show it to someone else and all of a sudden we're betting a
lot of money. And I'm talking a big edge—maybe our edge was
twenty percent. We busted bookmakers. We just destroyed them.
My job was to cultivate markets and to keep developing
markets. Because of the volume of games we bet, we started
devoting our business to finding bookmakers, getting down, and
collecting.
After a couple of years we developed a following, and the
followers were a problem. Take the horses. If I walked in and bet a
$2,000 exacta, the problem wasn't my bet, but the money from the
followers. The casinos used to pay track odds, so the exacta might
pay $105 on a $2 bet. Even at ten dollars a pop, when you had three
hundred people, you're talking about $3,000 following you around.
When I was betting with the old-time bookmaker, I'd get up at
six-thirty in the morning and meet him at his book. I'd walk in
before anyone got to work and give him my list of twenty or thirty
races and $100,000 bundled up. He'd take it and shove it in a drawer.
Nobody knew what we were doing, and I wasn't allowed to let it be
known what I was betting. We could bet out of town as long as the
money didn't get back to his book. We could even bet in other books,
but he didn't want the pressure of having two hundred other people
betting the same stuff.
In sports I would go early in the week and bet a side -4. I'd bet
maybe $30,000. By the end of the week, it would be -7 and I'd have
$250,000 on the other side. I'd bet right before post so nobody knew
I was on the other side. I would bet games where we had no opinion,
because we had to protect the bookmakers. I would also do things
just to frustrate the followers.

post — The start of a game or race.

How did the followers know what you were doing?

It's not hard. Just look at the line.

Wouldn't the followers assume that the smart money isn't

going to go down until late.

That wasn't true. Sometimes I'd bet early in the week. It was
really an art. I used to monitor thirty lines around the country.
Bookmakers are smart. When the world has -7 and a bookmaker in
Dallas has Dallas -6.5, something is wrong there. He's supposed to
be getting Dallas money and he's got -6.5. He knows something. I
don't have to know what he knows. I only have to know that he's
got -6.5 when the rest of the world has -7. I know he thinks that
betting against Dallas is the right place to be. Now, if the computer
says that the game is supposed to be -6,1 would elevate that into a
much bigger play [against Dallas]. If the game is supposed to be -8
or -8.5, I don't want to play. We bet so many games that we didn't
need it. I was very good at that, "reading lines" it's called.

smart money— Expert players who bet with an advantage.

Calling all those bookmakers must have taken an enormous

amount of time.

I had a team of people who did it. I never called a single

bookmaker. My guys would call me up and say, "Here are the lines."
I had a big sheet and I'd say, "Read me the numbers." I'd monitor
them every day. I knew where the linemakers were located. I knew
which ones were sharp. I knew which ones had the guts to put up a
line and stick with it awhile.
When a game opened at 6.5 and moved to 7, then, slowly over
the week, 7.5, that was the public. But when a game opened at 6.5
on Monday, and on Tuesday it was 8, that wasn't the public. Some
sharp outfit had come in and someone knew something. There are a
lot of intricacies in how the line moves. It's something I studied for
years. I was able to solve the riddle.
I don't even have to know who's playing. I don't have to know
anything. I can look at the numbers and I can tell you the winners.

I would think that all the computer teams out there have
made sports a lot more difficult to beat.

Yeah. Volume is the problem. If you have to go out and bet

$50,000 or $100,000, you can't bet at seven o'clock in the morning.
You have to wait for the rest of the world to open. When the rest of
the world opens, you have the other guys who don't have to bet
$100,000 a game. They only have to bet $5,000 a game. They may
light on the same games you want to light on. So if the game opens
Giants -3 and they start laying 3, 3.5, the game may be -4.5 before
you can play.
When I used to move the computer order we were betting $3
million to $5 million on weekends. We bet almost every game. It
was an art to bet that kind of money. I would bet the wrong sides of
games early in the week, both to push the line in the direction I
wanted it to go and to get the followers off my back. I didn't want
to beat the bookmakers. I wanted to work with them. They would
beat their customers and I would win part of that.
We dealt with two hundred bookmakers. We had offices to do
the betting. It was a fascinating time. People from the Mafia were
interested. We had to avoid them. People from the government were
interested. One of the good things I did was always declare my
gambling winnings. So even when the IRS investigated or audited
me, they would see very large gambling winnings.

It doesn't surprise me that the government got interested.

Probably the biggest concern of the government is the fixing of

games. And to go after a bookmaker is always easy. Bookmakers
don't carry guns and they have lots of cash the government can seize
and keep. They're easy targets.
As far as the sports bettors are concerned, the game changed.
What used to work started to dissipate. Maybe other things kicked
in, but today the edges are getting smaller and smaller; there are too
many sophisticated people out there. Some will find small edges,
some will find big. In sports you might still be able to make five to
ten percent on turnover, but you have a lot of problems. You have
problems with getting paid. Messenger betting is now illegal in
Nevada.
 That means, if I'm in Nevada and I send someone to the
casino to make a bet for me, that's illegal, right?

Yes. That's messenger betting. When I was betting sports, we

had groups in the casinos with walkie-talkies. Everybody bet at the
same time. At one casino it was $5,000, another casino took $10,000,
we could bet $100,000 or $200,000 in one second. That's messenger
betting. Not long ago the casinos had Nevada pass a law making it
illegal. This was just the casinos trying to prevent the big players,
who had an edge, from winning.

It goes against what you said earlier about how they should
want the information.

In the old days, a guy named Bob Martin was the linemaker. He
was a very bright man. He would make the line and the first thing
he would do was call his sharpest bettors and offer his line to them.
When I lived in New York, he would call me, through an
intermediary, to offer me his football line on Sunday afternoon. Say
he had Rams -7 and I took the Rams. Now he knew he should move
it [away from my direction]. On Monday morning when the line
opened around the country it would be Rams -8.5. He would take a
chunk [book a big wager], $10,000 or $20,000, just to get the
information.

If your edge is ten percent, then he's only giving up $1,000

or $2,000 in expectation for that information. That's a great deal
for him.

The casinos really shouldn't worry about messenger bettors, but

they're greedy.

Would you say that casinos have the attitude that anything
that's good for the player must be bad for them?

Sure. They don't realize that there can be a win/win situation.

At some point you left the Computer Group.

At one point in time I retired. I got out of sports, because there

was too much attention. I was very low-key and I'd started to get
notoriety. I didn't need that. There was a lot of interest in what we
were doing. The timing was pretty fortunate, because I quit before
the computer case occurred. There's nothing wrong with what we
were doing, but it's something the government looks at askance.
We'd won a lot. My partners and I had made enough money, so we
retired. Just like with chess, bridge, and backgammon—it was time
to move on.
I moved to California, got married, had a baby, and gave up
most of my games, because I wanted to devote time to my wife and
daughter. I had a seat on the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange and
started trading options. I also started to look at the commodities
market. This was in the early to mid-'80s. I had a programmer, who
was very good, create a trading model. In the early '80s, computers
were still iffy and people didn't know [about the potential]. I had
some ideas and he was able to take my ideas and put them into a
program that identified trends. Today, everybody does it. Back then
it was unique.
In one year we took $300,000 and turned it into $1 million. It
was very strong. The commodities market was great and we had two
or three wonderful years. But my partner didn't understand
gambling. He wanted to bet ten or twenty percent of our bankroll
on every bet [trade]. I said, "What are you talking about? One
percent is probably too much." We got into a lot of conflict. This
was a guy who didn't have a lot of money, and all of a sudden he
had $1.5 million. I said, "Why don't we take down a million dollars,
split it up, and put it in the bank so you'll have some money?" Then
the market got competitive. By the mid-'80s we'd lost our edge.

Do you see any similarities or differences between trading

commodities or options or stocks and the gambling business?

The biggest difference has to be the, quote, legality. As a sports

bettor I never broke the law as far as I was concerned. It was okay
to be a sports bettor in New York City. The law said that betting
eleven to win ten was legal. In California the law reads differently.
Even if you're [only] a bettor, you can be convicted of a crime.

Is Internet sports betting illegal in California?

Well, there are a lot of gray areas. Can I call London and have
a friend of mine place a bet? Or call Ladbrokes in London and place
a bet myself from California? It doesn't seem like that should be
illegal. The bet is taking place in London.

Of course, you may have trouble getting paid on the

Internet.

You have to know the people behind the casinos and know that
it's okay. Yes, there are some bad people in the industry.

When I asked you to compare trading and gambling, I meant

the skills involved in being a winning player.

Most of gambling is money management. It's not identifying an

edge. Probability of ruin, this is something I studied twenty or thirty
years ago. And people aren't aware of that. So you see people
winning sixty or sixty-five percent of their bets in sports who, at the
end of the season, lose ten bets in a row and they're broke. The skill
to manage your bankroll over the course of your lifetime is
something that really should be taught. I teach that to my daughter
who is seventeen. I think to that extent it's the same game.
How you identify your edge. That could be a little different
There's research, following trends, investing in people who are good
handicappers. But you want to make sure you handle the bankroll
correctly. I know many people who've had an edge, but went tap
city. Almost everybody overbets his bankroll.

It also seems that many people get an edge and make a lot
of money, but then throw it away at some other form of
gambling where they have no edge.

Some of that is exploring. A person might make a million

dollars at sports betting. Then, as in my case, go into the
commodities market and put up x number of dollars for a venture. I
bankrolled it just as exploration. I wasn't sure we had an edge. At
one point in time I was managing over $10 million in a commodities
fund.

That seems like a very organized approach. You decide to

devote some amount of money and experiment. That's different
from going out and playing craps.

Why do gamblers blow their money playing craps or betting

sports when they can't win? Why do they do that? Because they don't
see an end to the money they're making at backgammon or whatever.
They think, "God, I can make five hundred or a thousand bucks a
day. I can blow it here, I can blow it there." They don't think it can
end.

So it seems like you approach all business with the same

kind of thinking: Find an edge and exploit it, whether it's real
estate or blackjack.

That's what life is about in my mind.

Is it enough action for you?

Now I work out. I do a lot of physical stuff. I've been weight

lifting for about seven years. I play tennis five times a week. I'm a
good tennis player and we've put together a team to play in the
Phoenix League, which is an over-fifty league, for the world
championships in Palm Springs.

Do you gamble at tennis?

No. I don't have much of a tendency to gamble. I was long the

Russian ruble when the ruble tanked. I don't like to lose.

For someone that gambled for so many years...

But I didn't consider that gambling. Now what I do is make very

large bets on real estate and my rates of return are thirty to forty
percent per annum. My daughter is an athlete in her high school. I
go to her games, I teach some tennis, I teach some chess. I like
dealing with kids. I'm in the Big Brother, Little Brother program. I
have a ten-year-old boy whom I see once a week. Occasionally, I
take him on a trip someplace. Now I think that making the world a
better place is more rewarding. How much money do you need?

Forget the money. How about the action? Do you miss that
pump that you get from the action?

I go to the gym and leg press a thousand pounds. I get pumped

from that. It's a different kind of high, but it lasts ten hours a day.
When you get into your forties you have to make a decision about
how you want to live the rest of your life. When I had my teams in
Las Vegas, one of the things we always did was work out every day.
We worked out, there was no alcohol, we ate right, and we got our
sleep.

Do you remember what the biggest bet you ever made was?

The biggest bet I've made was in real estate. I put eighty percent
of my bankroll in. The biggest bet I ever made at sports for myself
was about $400,000. It was probably '84. Bo Jackson played for
Auburn against Michigan. We'd had a fabulous football season and
won untold amounts of money. Then it was Bowl season and that's
where our strongest edge was. There were two games. A partner of
mine took a vacation, but my other partner and I were more
aggressive, so we were betting larger and larger amounts.
Now we get this game where UCLA is playing Illinois. Half the
team has the flu. I'm not talking about a bridge player or
backgammon player who has the flu and can't think. This is a three-
hundred-pound guy, and he's a little sick. They opened the game at
Illinois -4, which was ridiculous because we made UCLA a 7-point
favorite. The first thing we did was play Illinois -4, because we
knew the pigeons would follow it. The game went to 6 and we
bought UCLA taking 6.5 and 7. The bookmakers were being
overwhelmed with public money on Illinois. I said, "Okay, let's go
bet more." We took 7, we took 7.5, and the bookmakers were dying
for us to take it, because they were loaded on the other side. You
should look up the score, because I don't remember what the score
was. [UCLA won 45-9.]
Now, I think it was the same day, or maybe that night, the last
game of the season. It was Auburn and Michigan. Auburn opened
about -4 and the line runs to -7. We'd already won this other bet and
I said, "What are we supposed to do?" We were way out of our
league as far as money management was concerned, but this was
what I call a gambling opportunity. I'm up so much it doesn't matter
if I lose the game. What should I bet? I have no idea.
We ended up taking 4.5,5,5.5,6,6.5,7,7.5. It was a great game.
Michigan was up one point late in the game and Auburn was
driving. If the game falls 6,1 think we lose a little bit. No, probably
lose a lot, because we took a lot of 4, 4.5, 5, and 5.5. They got the
ball and it was third and goal on the five-yard line and they give the
ball to Bo Jackson. If Michigan can stop Auburn, we know Auburn
will kick a field goal and win by two. That means we win all the
bets. Bo Jackson goes into the line and bumps back. Instead of going
down, he pulls away and runs to the outside and, oh shit, it looks
like he's going in. Some linebacker comes and pounds him and he
goes backwards, but he doesn't fall down. He goes back the other
way and another guy comes and they tackle him on the one-yard
line. The clock had ten seconds left and they kicked a field goal.
Auburn won by two. We won all the bets.
My partner, who was out of the country at the time, comes back
and looks at the books. He says, "What the hell happened? How
could you bet that amount of money?" I said, "I couldn't help it."
The opportunity was there. I knew I had the right side. We made
Michigan a reasonable favorite. The public was all against it, so I
knew we were going to get paid. The bookmakers were making a
fortune. If we lost, it didn't make a difference financially. What's the
difference? A zero here, a zero there.

When you said you bet eighty percent of your bankroll on

real estate, how did you know that was okay to do?

I didn't. I read about all these people who were buying from
Resolution Trust. All the smartest people who were in the stock
market were getting out and going into real estate. It was the asset
of the '90s. The stock market was terrific in the '90s also, but real
estate is riskless, because you're buying an asset that's undervalued
with income.

Are there particular concepts from gambling that you think

apply to life in general, concepts that you think are important
for young people to learn?

Oh yeah. Absolutely. In a lot of different areas. What we talked

about before—money management—that's not peculiar to
gambling. That's important in all of life. I have a guy whom I invest
with in oil wells. It's a tax-write-off situation. I got a call the other
day. I'd put him in some real-estate partnerships and the oil business
hadn't been particularly good. He wanted to know if he could
borrow against his real-estate partnerships. I said, "Probably. How
much do you need?" He said, "$80,000." I said, "Why? What's the
problem?"
Well, he'd been shorting eBay, the stock. My blood started to
boil. I said, "What are you doing? You're in the wrong casino. You
belong in the oil-and-gas casino or the real-estate casino. What are
you doing shorting eBay? How much have you lost?" He'd lost
$100,000. "How much is your net worth?" He said it was $800,000.
said, "You're married; you have a new baby. What are you doing?
You're supposed to be out there grinding." Here's somebody who
was never taught rule number one: how to take a loss.

grinding — Trying to make small amounts of money with little

risk"

For me, learning to lose was the most important thing in

gambling. Everybody is great when they're winning. They perform
well. They play well. In blackjack you play your hands perfectly
whether you're winning or losing. It's only, "What's the count?" It's
only, "What's the appropriate bet?" Nothing else. That has got to
apply to all of life. It never affects me. If you're winning $10,000 or
losing $10,000, it shouldn't make any difference. When you start to
feel that you need the rush, then you're gambling. You asked that
question before: Do I miss the rush? No, because I never played for
the rush. Yes, it was a lot of fun winning large amounts of money.
But it was just an exercise in money management and control.
When I was growing up, though my parents fought me all the
way, I had this sense that I wanted to be a gambler. I was going to
be Maverick. I think children should have a dream. They should try
to find out what they like and pursue that dream. I loved sports. I
loved gambling. I loved numbers and probabilities. What is the real
measure of success in life? I think it's happiness, as opposed to
financial success or owning a nice home.
I think the job of a parent is to expose the children to
experiences and let them make choices. I bet on my daughter's
volleyball games with her. Just to give her the concept of value.
She's on varsity and they were playing a junior-varsity team. I said,
"Let's make a line. The game gets played to fifteen. We'll make the
varsity a ten-point favorite. Who do you like?" She said, "I'm
varsity; we're going to win." I said, "All right. I'll take the JV plus
10 for one dollar." The varsity won all three games, but they didn't
cover the spread. So she got an idea of value.

Let's say one of the kids that you're a Big Brother to is

getting out of high school. He comes to you and says, "I want to
be a professional gambler. What should I do?" What would you
tell him?

I would say get an education. If you want to be a gambler, you'll

need to learn about the law. And you have to be very careful,
because the lawyers themselves don't necessarily know gambling
law. You want to start off with a very good accountant. Somebody
who will be there for the next fifty years to help you. Then you want
as much education as you can get. You want to be able to step back
and get an overall view. I'd hate to be a poker player for twenty or
thirty years, sitting and playing poker all the time in dusty cloudy
casinos. There's got to be more. Try sports, try commodities, try
options, real estate.
Probably the thing that I promoted most to the gamblers I
nurtured was to save and invest money. A lot of these people don't
realize that as they get older, they're going to lose their talent.
They're going to lose their edge. You don't know how long it's going
to last. I used to discuss this with my friend Kyle: How are we going
to recognize when we don't have an edge anymore? That's very
important.
I would also tell a young gambler to study. Get all the data, get
all the information, absorb it all. Be relentless in information
gathering. You may not be able to get the answer, but why not have
all the information? Maybe six months from now a light will go off
in your head and you'll say, "I read that somewhere. I know this
answer."

The more you know, the more you can take advantage of.

Exactly. Someday you'll walk in the door of a place and there'll

be money lying on the table. Continue your education. Whether it's
local community college or reading magazines and books. Right
now I'm reading a book by George Soros on the decline of
capitalism.
In school I was always against the crowd. That's a lesson I
would definitely give my daughter. Be the contrarian. Just because
everybody agrees about something doesn't mean it's right. I was
always a doubter. I want to see the information. I want to know why.

It seems to me you're quite unusual. There aren't many

people who attain such a high level as a bridge player, or as a
backgammon player, and then just give it up.

Like chess. When I started college I was a very high-rated chess

player, but I'd done it. Now I want to go on and do something else.
Perhaps enable other people around me to become successful. I get
a lot of pleasure out of seeing that.

Are there any books that stand out for you?

There's a book called Against the Gods, by Peter L. Bernstein. I

think I would recommend this book to people who want to gamble,
or anybody who wants to manage his affairs properly. It's basically
risk management. That's all gambling is: risk management. You can
lose, you can win, but what are the risks? That's really what you're
trying to determine. As I've said, there's a general tendency in
people to overbet bankrolls.

I think gamblers tend to overbet, but non-gamblers tend to

not take any risks.

They have no idea of what it means to identify an edge. They

don't know what expected value6 is. Gamblers look at the world
differently. A lot of people tend to be ultra-conservative. Blackjack
players are taught this, otherwise they go broke right away, but other
gamblers tend to overbet. They have a tendency when they're
winning to assume their edge is much bigger than it is in reality. I
would advise gamblers to err on the conservative side. You're going
to live sixty, seventy, eighty years. How much do you want? You'll
get there eventually, as long as you don't go tap city. Take your time.
There's no rush.
As a professional gambler, I think it's appropriate to bet on
talented people who've had an accident. My experience tells me that
if someone who's a winner has had an accident and I can go in and
bankroll him, then I should. And I'm delighted to do it. Delighted.
It doesn't matter what the split is either, because they're so
consumed with getting it back and becoming a winner again. They'll
work so hard to make it.

have an accident—To lose a lot of money, or to "get broke."

In reality what you're betting on is people. If you have a guy

with a winning idea but a losing personality, you're not going to
make any money. It's not so much the idea, but the person. You want
to gamble on winners—people who are truthful and honest. You
don't want to hear people lying, and little lies are still lies. Sure,
people can exaggerate a bit, but if you start to hear lies, get up. I
also think loyalty is important. You find that people who are loyal
to their spouses are good partners. The point is, if you're working
with someone who is betraying his wife, why wouldn't he betray
you?

Do you find more people with those qualities in the

gambling business than in the so-called legitimate business
world?

I think you have to find the right people. You sense these things.
You do find them in the business world. How do you know which
bookmakers to bet with? What we tried to do was put people
between us. We had agents. We paid the agents very well to find the
bookmakers and guarantee them. The agents made a lot of money,
but they stood as a guarantee. You had to know that they would do
that.
Gambling is a tough business. You have to have a lot of
discipline. Most young gamblers I see just don't have the discipline.
First of all, they have to go broke. If they haven't gone broke once,
you don't even want to bet on them yet, because they haven't had
that experience. The best businessmen are people who make things
clear in the beginning. What is our deal? What happens if? What
happens if something comes up that neither one of us thought of?
Gambling can be a stepping stone to other areas. I don't think you
can say to yourself, "I'm a poker player and that's it." You have to
go on.

Do you still follow sports?

No. I can't bet legally in California, and if I can't bet, I'd rather
watch my daughter play volleyball. I always looked at games as a
tree. You climb the tree and you get to the highest branch you can
possibly get to. When you're there you climb down and go on to
another tree. You go on to the next adventure in life.

Tomchin Notes

1—Bridge Culture
Contract bridge evolved from an old game called whist.
Beginning in the 19th century, refinements were added to whist, and
with each change came a new name to distinguish the altered game
from its predecessors. In 1925, for example, Harold Vanderbilt,
playing "auction bridge" aboard his yacht, dreamed up a new and
more exciting method for keeping score. He named his creation
"contract bridge" (the players contracted to win a certain number of
tricks). Soon after, a young card-playing hustler named Ely
Culbertson, newly arrived in New York from the Soviet Union,
seized on the game as a means of making a name and fortune for
himself. Culbertson had a genius for promotion and within a decade,
bridge players numbered in the tens of millions. (A measure of the
fanaticism inspired by bridge can be found in the 1930 Bennett
murder case, in which Mrs. Bennett shot her husband after he bid a
hand poorly and failed to make his contract.)
 Bridge professionals can earn money in a few different ways.
The first is as a paid partner. Today, bridge has nearly vanished from
the home-entertainment scene, but it's still a popular tournament
game. The American Contract Bridge League organizes
tournaments small and large, including several national events held
annually that draw as many as 20,000 tables over 10 days of play.
Bridge tournaments for the most part charge minimal entry fees and
don't award cash prizes. So what's at stake? "Master points."
Accumulate enough points through tournament winnings and you
earn various designations of "master." Though there are now other
ranks above and below it, the rank most familiar to the outside
World is "life master." For the bridge fanatic, the acquisition of
points is a consuming passion. Since you must win events to obtain
points, it's important to have a good partner, and that's where the pro
comes in. He (or she) is a hired gun, paid for partner services. An
established professional gets at least $500 for a day of play, with
name players earning considerably more.
A pro's second way to earn money at bridge is, simply, to
gamble on it. In clubs or private games, stakes usually run from lc
to 10c a point. The nickel and dime games are most common, but
stakes of $1 or more are not unheard-of. Serious players crank
through four hands in a half-hour or less, and an average result
might be 1,000 points, with occasional rubbers (rubber bridge:
Vanderbilt's original method) swinging several thousand points. In
the course of an evening, even a dime game can lead to a $1,000
win or loss; when the stakes climb north of $1 a point, serious
money is being exchanged.
A third, though less common, way to earn money at bridge is
through team play, as national or international championships are
primarily team events, and occasionally a rich patron will sponsor
a team. Texas businessman Ira Corn hired a half-dozen young pros
in the late 1960s and put them on a full-time payroll. This team,
known as the Dallas Aces, was formed to challenge the dominant
Italian Blue Team, which was virtually unstoppable from 1957 until
the '70s. The Blue Team disbanded for a few years and the Aces
won the world championships in 1970, '71, and '72. The members
of the Aces all went on to continued success, with one pair, Bobby
Wolf (now a syndicated columnist) and Bob Hamman, considered
to be one of the greatest partnerships of that era.
While many storied gamblers have turned their talents on
bridge, the game has also attracted notable names from the world of
high finance, including Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Ace Greenberg
(of Bear Stearns), and the late Malcolm Forbes. Players such as these
often hire entire teams of famous pros as partners.

2—Mayfair Club
Bridge clubs have been around since the days of Cavendish, an
18th century Englishman who was an expert whist player. Within
the confines of these clubs, bridge, backgammon, and other games
are often played for stakes.
One modern-day bridge club was the Mayfair in New York City.
During the 1960s and '70s, it was run by an irascible bridge legend
named Alvin Roth. Far from upper-crust English card clubs, the
Mayfair was known to its denizens as the "Dump," the sort of place
where some of the more impoverished inhabitants, after a long spell
between winning rubbers or a series of setbacks involving
unreliable steeds, would surreptitiously scrounge through the sofas'
deflated cushions for change, hoping the vermin lurking therein
were not as hungry as they were. Scrofulous it may have been, but
Roth was acknowledged, even by those who disliked him, as
possessing one of the finest minds ever to focus on bridge, and
several generations of the game's best players slouched through the
Mayfair's doors.
It was at the Mayfair that modern backgammon was born. In the
1960s, backgammon's big-name players included Oswald Jacoby,
Johnny Crawford (who wrote the New York Times Book of
Backgammon), and Tobias Stone, co-creator of the Roth-Stone
bidding system. But by the late '70s, only Stone was mentioned in
the same breath with the young elite: Paul Magriel (known as X-
22), Chuck Papazian, Mike Senkiewicz, and Stan Tomchin. Magriel
had written his landmark Backgammon in 1976, and talented young
players flocked to him: Eric Seidel, Roger Lowe, Jason Lester, and
Billy Horan among them, four of the best players of 20 years ago,
and all Mayfair habitues.
During the same era, another backgammon club emerged, much
more genteel than the Mayfair. The Park 65 was founded by Tim
Holland, a golf hustler who'd won three consecutive backgammon
world championships in the 1960s. (See Fast Company, by Jon
Bradshaw, for a profile of Holland.) Plenty of wealthy duffers were
happy to pay for the privilege of playing a three-time world
champion and Holland stocked the exclusive Park 65 like a private
fish pond; for years it was joked that no one with a pulse was
allowed to enter. (In the mid-'80s, after his world-championship
win, Mike Svobodny amazed his friends by charming his way in.)
Louise Goldsmith, a former Mayfair player who'd been running
Park 65 for Holland, later opened a club called the Coterie, home to
the best in the late '80s and early '90s.
All of these clubs are now gone from the scene. Of the several
dubs that provide "action" in New York today, the heir to the
Mayfair is Alan and Lourdes Steffens' Ace Point Club, which
attracts not just New Yorkers, but Danes, Russians, Israelis, and
other Players from around the world. These players may be better
heeled than their counterparts of 20 years ago (some special
chouettes are said to require a $40,000 cash buy-in), but they have
two things in common with their forebears: They still dress like they
make their livings returning soda bottles for the deposit, and they're
unquestionably among the best players in the world.

3—Martingale Folly
 Sooner or later all gamblers are enticed by a betting system.
These systems are also called "progressions," because they call for
bets to get progressively larger as a sequence goes on. The oldest
and most famous of these systems is called the "Martingale." It
entails betting an even-money proposition, such as red or black on
the roulette wheel. The bettor bets one unit, and if he loses, he then
bets two units. If he loses again, he wagers four units, and continues
to double the bet until he wins. Once he wins, he will recover all
losses and be ahead by the original one unit. After winning, the
Martingale player withdraws his bet and begins again with a one-
unit bet. The problem with this system is that you will eventually
hit a bad streak that runs long enough to produce a catastrophic loss,
on average exceeding the sum of all the small victories. The
important thing to remember about all systems is that no method of
betting your money, by itself, can overcome a negative-expectation
game.

4—Using Magnets
One way that players cheat in games involving dice is to insert
tiny weights, called "loads," into one side of the dice. The side with
the load is heavier, causing the dice to land more often with that side
down. A more subtle and sophisticated method is to use a much
smaller load that's affected by a magnet. Then a magnet is
positioned under the game board to affect the dice as they're rolled,
or the board can be wired with an electromagnet. In this case the
current, or "juice," can be turned on and off. These are also called
"juice dice."

5—Negative- vs. Positive-Expectation Games

Understanding the difference between negative and positive
expectation is essential for any gambler. Here's an example of how
to calculate expectation. If you were to place a bet straight up on
every number on a roulette wheel, you would make 38 wagers
covering the numbers 1-36, plus 0 and 00. Now, no matter what
number hits, you would lose 37 of those bets and be paid 35-1 on
the one bet that wins. The net result is a loss of two betting units out
of the 38, which is a loss of 5.26%. So in this game you have a
negative expectation of 5.26%, which is what you expect to lose on
every bet you make.
In order for a professional to consistently make money, he must
play games with positive expectation. Casino games that offer
potentially positive expectation for skilled players include
blackjack, poker, video poker, sports betting, horse betting, and
almost anything else under special circumstances, such as
tournament play or when played as part of a casino promotion. Most
non-casino (non-banking) games, e.g., backgammon, cribbage, and
gin, can yield positive expectation to skilled gamblers.

6—Expected Value
Also called "expected win/loss," "expected return,"
"expectation," or simply "EV," expected value is an assessment of a
gambling proposition's mathematical worth. An indispensable
measure for proficient pros, most major gambling decisions are
ultimately made based on expected value.

CATHY HULBERT

In 1996, Card Player magazine published an article naming the

top 7-card stud players in the world. The only woman on the list
was Cathy "Cat" Hulbert. The article said, "It must be emphasized
that there is zero tokenism in the selection of Cat. She is that good."
And since then, her game has only gotten better.
Prior to her poker career, Cathy traveled the world as one of the
first female professional card counters. She was a member of the
famous Czech team and was part of Ken Uston's group in Atlantic
City, where she was arrested more than 50 times for trespassing.
Cathy became so notorious that she was barred from casinos in Asia
before she even sat down at a table. Once, determined to beat casino
surveillance, she donned a wig and full beard and took acting
lessons to perfect her disguise as a man.
Between blackjack and poker, Cathy was also a professional
slot player, running a team of octogenarians who sat and pulled
handles for her when progressive jackpots reached profitable levels.
"Slot machines were the grimiest, dirtiest, hardest work I've ever
done," says Cathy. "It's the lowest form of gambling you can do."
Still, it was good for a few hundred thousand dollars.
Finally, after burning out on blackjack and slots, Cathy moved
on to poker. She struggled for the first three years, until 1986 when
she hooked up with David Heyden and Rick Greider, two of the best
'-card stud players in the world. She took lessons and began beating
the game. In blackjack, being a woman had been a big negative. In
Poker, she found that the opposite was true, as men, with their
swollen egos, were easy to manipulate. "No one challenges my
authority at the table," she says of her ability to compete with the
big boys.
Today, Cathy splits her time between $80-$160 7-card stud at
the Commerce Casino and $40-$80 hold 'em at Hollywood Park
Casino, both in southern California. She took some time off a game
to relate the life story of one of the most successful female gam.
biers of all time.

Do you remember the first bet you ever made?

In a professional or non-professional capacity?

Non-professional, as a kid.
 No, it wouldn't have been as a kid. It would have been in Las
Vegas.

Really? Did you play games as a kid?

Oh, all the time.

But you never played for pennies or nickels?

From five years old on, all I ever wanted to do was play games
And I was always the best.

What kind of games?

Mostly cards. Hearts, spades, bridge, and rummy. I played a lot

of Scrabble, too. But that was the interesting phenomenon when I
moved to Las Vegas. I went from thinking I was unbeatable into an
arena of game players where I was nobody.

You were how old when you moved to Vegas?

Twenty-four.

Was that the idea? I'm going to go to Las Vegas and ...

Become a poker player.

Really? That was your original intent?

Yep.

You were playing poker at home?

 No.

Wait a minute. You're twenty-four years old. You've never

played poker. And your idea is to move to Las Vegas and be a
poker player?

Right.

Didn't you think you should try playing at home to see if you
even liked it?

I knew that all I liked doing was playing cards. And poker is the
only card game where you can gamble for large amounts of money.

So what happened when you got to Las Vegas?

I was thinking about this the other night and laughing. I went to
the Stardust and began talking to a blackjack dealer. I was pretty
intimidated, sitting there and getting acclimated to the environment,
and he said, "Blackjack is so simple. I can teach you. On my break
let's go back to your room."

The blackjack dealer wanted to go to your room on his

break?

At twenty-four years old I can't believe I was that naive. We

went to my room and he dealt a few hands and all of a sudden his
pants were down and I was just shocked. He said, "Well, I taught
you everything you need to know about cards. Is there anything else
I can teach you?" It got really bad. There was grappling and falling
off the bed, and punching and slapping. I got out of the situation
without being physically harmed, but...
 And this was on his break?

On his break.

And he just went back down and started dealing cards

again?

Right.

That's amazing.

I started to become jaded right about then.

You'd been in town five minutes. I'm sure you could have
had the guy fired immediately.

In most situations where bad things happen to me, I usually

blame myself.

Do you remember the first time you went to the poker table
in Vegas?

A whole blackjack career comes before that. I just got lucky

enough to get involved with blackjack players.

Before you even tried playing poker?

When I first started trying poker, I'd already amassed great

wealth.

How did that happen?

 I got a job at the Union Plaza as a big six dealer. I wanted to be
a blackjack dealer, but I made the error of listing on my resume that
I was a college graduate. I remember them saying, "Well, how do
you think the college graduate is going to like standing here
spinning this wheel?" I thought, oh no, look what I've done. I should
have said I was a high-school dropout. I'd have a better chance of
dealing blackjack. So dealing the big six, outside of working at a
soap factory when I was fifteen, was the most boring activity I've
ever done. I thought, how can I make this more interesting? So I
started trying to hit the 40-1 [payoff slot]. After awhile, the casino
started thinking I was the unluckiest big six dealer they'd ever had.
They took me off the big six and let me deal blackjack.
I was struggling getting the cards out of the shoe when a guy
named Peter showed up at the table. I immediately noticed the
variation in his bets and thought it was strange. When he had larger
bets he seemed to be getting blackjacks and I wondered if there was
a system involved, which was, as he told me later, thinking a lot
further than most pit bosses ever did. They didn't believe that card
counters could beat the shoe.
A couple days later a guy I'll call Tex came in and he was
playing the same type of strategy. I started to slow down to make it
easier if he was using some system. Later he told me this drove him
nuts. He wanted me to deal as quickly as possible.

Oh, you were trying to help him.

I was, by slowing down. Then a group of Czechoslovakians

came in and I associated them with the other two. I figured that this
was a group of people who were all playing together. [This was a
group of Czechoslovakians that made up a large team of
professional card counters. They were known as "the Czechs."]
When Peter came in the next time I said, right across the table,
"What type of system do you use? Why is it effective?" And he
went, "Shhh, shhh. After work if you want to go for some coffee I'll
tell you, but please don't say anything more about it here." We went
for coffee and he dropped his Mensa card out of his wallet.

No! Sort of accidentally like, "Oops, my Mensa card"?

I said, this is just my type of person: Super Nerd. He wore pants

that were way up here and always showed his socks. I was
immediately eager to learn the techniques of blackjack, which he
was willing to teach me. [The two also entered into a romantic
relationship.]

Do you remember about what year this was?

Mid-'70s.

So he started to teach you on your off hours?

Right.

Did he give you a book? Or did he just teach you from

scratch?

Just from scratch. I met the other members of his blackjack team
and learned the concepts of team play and standard deviation1 and
fluctuation.2 I seemed to absorb this type of information. Even
though I don't have a mathematical background, Peter, who's a
mathematical genius, says I have an intuitive ability to understand
what's correct without being able to do the computations myself. I
know the right questions to ask and the right person to ask them of.
1
For this and subsequent numeric references 2-4, see "Hulbert Notes" at the end of this chapter.

That's a very important skill. Was this a slow process? Or

was it, "Man, I want to learn this; give me everything you've
got"?

It was a quick process. But I also knew I was in competition

with Tody. Jody was Tip's hooker girlfriend. [Tip was one of the
players on the Czech team.] At that particular time, no one had
attempted to teach a woman to play blackjack. I know Tip thought
it was a brilliant idea to have a woman doing it, and Peter had the
same idea. No one would ever suspect a woman of counting cards.
That's how he convinced the other team members that this was a
brilliant strategy.
There's nothing that precludes a woman from being able to
count cards. You certainly don't need any special type of education
to become a proficient card counter. I always use the Texan as an
example of that. We were in Salzburg once, and everywhere you
looked it was Mozart: Mozart's house, Mozart's school, Mozart's
balls, whatever. Peter said, "I'll make you a bet that the Texan has
no idea who Mozart is." I said, "All he has to say is that Mozart had
something to do with music." Those were the grounds for the bet.

If he mentions music you win.

Yes. And when we asked him, the Texan thought he was a

baseball player. I lost the bet. This was one of the world's greatest
card counters. He always knew what should be bet at what count—
the exact amount down to the quarter chip. One time, when we were
in Great Britain, he was afraid of becoming seasick, so he thought,
I'll just take the train to the mainland. He had no idea that Great
Britain was an island and you couldn't get to the continent by train.
[This was before the Chunnel connection.]

So, you were still dealing blackjack at the Union Plaza while
studying counting?
 For about three months.

And at the end of three months?

Peter was ready to travel to Europe, but that was also when
Resorts International first opened in Atlantic City3 [in 1979]. Up
until then I'd played only a short amount of time for very small
stakes.

On the team bankroll?

The team didn't allow me to play on their bankroll. So whose

money was it? Interesting question, because I've always said that no
one ever staked me, but I guess I must be wrong. I can't recall, but
it was very small stakes.

So the team was ready to go to Atlantic City?

Peter was going to team up with Ken Uston. Ken's and Peter's
life philosophies were so different that there was no chance these
two people would ever get along outside the specific need of the
time, which was to put a bankroll together. But Ken needed a
bankroll. His group didn't have any money.

That's odd. They should have had some money.

They did, but not enough because they wanted to flat-bet the
maximum.

flat-bet — Never changing the amount of your bet.

OK, so Ken and Peter get together, and Peter says, "I have
this girl who can play." And Ken said ...

"No way. Absolutely not."

Ken wouldn't even allow you to test?

No, absolutely not. Darryl [a Uston team member] worked with

me on the side. He was really sweet to me, but Ken was very much
against it. It wasn't just me, it was the idea of any woman being
capable of playing blackjack.

In one of Uston's later books he talks about playing with a

woman he calls Inga.

The only thing I ever wanted to accomplish in my life was to be

able to change somebody's attitude about what a woman is
competent to do in a field where no one believed she could have any
ability. What I actually did in the blackjack world was make a
breakthrough for other women. I know who Inga is. Later, I had so
much trouble with the Czechoslovakians and their opinion of
women in general, but at a party twenty years later Walter [a
member of the Czech team] came up to me at a party and said, "I
want to apologize to you. You certainly proved me wrong." Now, a
lot of women play blackjack. I was the forerunner.

OK, so you went to Atlantic City.

Ken used me as "the bimbo." Just occupying a seat was worth a

lot of money, because when Resorts opened their doors in the
morning, people actually stampeded one another. I remember Ken
was taken by security into a back room after he ran somebody over
trying to get to a seat. Within ten minutes of Resorts being open,
every single seat was taken. I had great value just sitting there so he
could bet on my empty spot. I had no decisions to make. I was the
bimbo.

Were you paid for that? Or did you just have the "honor" of
sitting there with Ken Uston?

I think I received an hourly rate for that. But it was interesting

seeing the "great" Ken Uston in action. He used his own special
Uston Advanced Point Count4 [UAPC]. It was so complicated that
several times he would lose count, because he didn't really have the
capacity to socialize with pit people or other players and keep the
count. That's not to downgrade him; it's just very complicated I
would be plodding along using the High-Low, and lots of times Ken
would have to ask me what the count was.
I remember I had $10,000 of my own at that time and I invested
it all. I knew this was big. The bimbo made $30,000 in a week.

Wow.

So it was a great kick-start.

That ended pretty quickly, right?

I think it lasted only two weeks. Then Resorts International

changed the rules and we went to Europe.

What was your family saying at this point?

I don't think I confided a lot. It was an embarrassment to them,

because I was the only child of six that had graduated from college
and they had high hopes. Earlier, I'd taken a job at the New York
State Senate, so they thought their daughter was going to amount to
something.
 Now I was in Las Vegas. My father once asked me, "What
should I tell people you do?" I said, "Casino management. You
won't be lying because I manage to get thrown out of every casino
I ever go into." But when I bought them a new car at some point
when the wealth was coming in, they became more proud of me.
My mother realized that when she told friends at work that her
daughter was a professional gambler, people had lots of questions.
It put her in the limelight.

Suddenly it was a good thing to do.

Right. I have a funny story. I had moved to an apartment in

Vegas and I was walking down the stairs when I ran into the
custodian of the building. We started talking about blackjack and he
was telling me that he was on Ken Uston's blackjack team back at
Resorts in Atlantic City. I was thinking, how unlucky is this poor
bastard? He tries to pick up this random girl, and she really was on
the Uston team. Was this a billion-to-one shot?

Poor guy. So you went to Europe with Peter and the Czechs?

Right. The first trip, I remember being in Holland, and I was

still being paid just to occupy a seat. Now everybody was starting
to have money, and they figured there was no reason to allow me
investment rights when they didn't particularly need me at this
point. Of course, the chauvinistic aspects of it cannot be
downplayed. I actually became such a point of contention that it
broke up the group. This was disastrous for Peter, because he was
introducing the Czechs to all these casinos.

Maybe I've forgotten the way the world was twenty years
ago, but it's amazing to me that they wouldn't even test you to
see if you knew how to play.
 The world was amazing twenty years ago. I do have to give
Peter a lot of credit for standing up for me even though we were in
a personal relationship. Now we went back to Europe and we
hooked up with Alan Woods and some others.

Had you started playing yet?

When we came back from that first European trip, that's when I
started playing. It was in Vegas.

So when you started playing in Vegas, that's when you

started getting thrown out?

Right.

How did they pick you off so quickly? I would have thought
like Peter: A woman in Vegas playing against four decks? They'll
never figure this out.

It really was an incredible backfire. Twenty years ago, it was

highly unusual to see any woman sitting at a blackjack table betting
a lot of money. There would be some very wealthy Asian women,
but even they were rare. So now you have, virtually, a kid who
doesn't fit the profile—no jewelry, no expensive clothes. She comes
in and bets from minimum to maximum. I didn't do any camouflage
betting. At the time, Peter had a rule of no camouflage betting. If
you bet a quarter on one hand and the count called for a four
hundred fifty dollar bet on the next hand, that four-fifty went out
there. I was methodical and I did not swerve from that strategy. It
never even occurred to me to make camouflage bets. We were just
brutal. So this young kid was shoving out the money, and it was
disturbing to the pit bosses. Like, where did this person come from?
 Camouflage — Just as soldiers use camouflage to effect
invisibility in their environment, card counters use camouflage to
effect invisibility in the casino. The idea is to make bets and plays
that may not be optimal, but will make the counter indistinguishable
from ordinary gamblers.

You got picked off quickly?

Very quickly.

Is that when you got into the Griffin Book?

I remember what I was wearing in the picture when I first saw

myself in the Griffin Book. They'd taken my picture at the Sahara.
They took it from the sky. Fifteen years later, when I hadn't played
blackjack in like nine years, I was sitting with someone who said,
"Why do I know you?" Then he said, "I know who you are. Your
picture is on the pit stand at the Bally's Casino." I said, "Still? I
haven't played a hand of blackjack in nine years." He said, "Your
picture is still there." He was a pit boss at Bally's.

sky— Casino surveillance. Also known as the "eye" or the "eye

in the sky."

The picture thing came up again in Macau. The casino manager

asked to see me and said, "If you're not allowed to play at Caesars
Palace, what makes you think you'd be allowed to play here?" The
Griffin picture did haunt me throughout.

You had never played in Macau?

I had played about three weeks in Macau before the picture

caught up with me. It was startling to be in such a remote area of
the world and have the Griffin agency haunting me. I only lasted a
couple days in Walker Hill [in Seoul, Korea]. If I could go back in
time, would I still go from minimum to maximum? I sincerely doubt
it.

Did you try disguising yourself?

There was one situation at the Hilton where I had been barred.
I guess I didn't keep very careful track of which shift I was barred
on, because I was being barred so frequently. A situation occurred
where I was meekly sitting there pushing out my quarter chip. I'd
only been at the table five minutes when a pit boss came by and
said, "Deal past that girl." I felt like Mario Thomas. "That Girl." The
attention it brings from the other players is amazing. They're like,
"What did she do? She's just sitting there." Then I looked at the
bosses and I realized I was on the same shift I'd gotten barred the
day before. That's when two security guards grabbed my shoulders
and I went for a scuttling ride across the casino floor. They took my
head, stuck it in the crap table and said, "Why don't you play some
craps with that cheating money of yours? How about some roulette?
But don't you ever, ever, come in this casino and play blackjack
again." And then they just Picked me up by the shoulders and
dragged me out. I was literally pushed out the front door. Women
don't like going through that type of thing.

That kind of thing happens a lot less nowadays, because a

lot of lawsuits have convinced them that this isn't the best way
to treat the patrons.

There weren't any lawsuits back then. I remember Debbie

Hyland. She dropped out of blackjack for awhile because she just
couldn't take being arrested. Being arrested for me was a chance to
meet some new friends. Who's going to be in the holding cell today?

Were you ever arrested, really?

In Atlantic City, about fifty times.

Fifty times? For what?

Trespassing.

This was the second trip to Atlantic City?

Yes, many years later.

What was that about? They'd barred you and you went back
in, so they had the right to arrest you?

Right. Just for trespassing. I never had to stay overnight

anywhere ... Thank heavens, because they don't have a manicurist
in jail.

I think we were getting to disguising yourself.

I was so angered when they dragged me out of the Hilton, I

decided to go back in there. It's a funny thing, because the Hilton
has this sign, "The Friendliest Casino In The World." That's not
what I call friendly. I went to New York to a disguise expert. We
spent several days fitting me with mustache, beard, and very
professional attire. I spent several hundred dollars having people
train me how to walk as a man, and I wouldn't need to talk. I went
back into the Hilton dressed as a man, with a beard and everything.
I played about an hour and a half. That's as long as the gig lasted, till
somebody tapped me on the shoulder and said, "We know who you
are." I remember my heart was pounding so hard. Oh no, I'm going
to be arrested disguised as a man! What part of the holding cell are
they going to put me in this time? I literally ran out of the Hilton
that time.

You went back to Europe and now you were a real player.

I always felt like we were slightly behind the big money. The
Czechoslovakians had gone through Spain just burning every
casino. Our group was using Peter's strategy of gingerly hitting
them. If you take a big score, move on the next day. But the
Czechoslovakians' approach was, "We don't care. We're never
coming back here again. Just burn it to the ground." So we were
always following the trail of the Czechoslovakians. While we were
in Europe, they were making a big score as the Samurai Seven, as
we called them, in Macau. So we went in their Samurai wake. We
were always right behind their tracks.

You traveled through Europe and made a bunch of money?

Yes, but it was not a glamorous life. We traveled in a VW bus

with several team members. It's a Jekyll-and-Hyde existence,
because you pull up to the casino and now you have to put on an
outfit to go waltzing in like you're some high-limit American
gambler, but you've just changed in the back of a VW bus. When I
put my underpants on they were probably wet from washing them
the night before in the basin of the pensione we stayed in. We were
the cheapest traveling blackjack group there was. No, there was
nothing glamorous about it.

How long were you over there?

Months and months. The only time I ever got to stay put was in
Salzburg for a few months and in Berlin for several months.

Did you stay anywhere nice during those months?

I made friends both times. Even though I love to spend money,

I knew the value in having this money was to keep reinvesting it.
The investors are the people who make the most money on
blackjack teams. If you were just a player and you didn't have any
investment money, you always came out just barely covering your
expenses.

How much did you make?

Hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Wow, that's good.

Yeah, I made a lot of money. I did bottom out at one time after
we broke a bankroll.

What do you mean "bottom out"?

The chronology is really hard for me to remember with all the

trips to Europe. It was after Atlantic City that I'd built up to about
$30,000. After the first trip around Europe I had $70,000, which
was all my own money. It was stolen in Spain.

How did it get stolen?

It was just a freak accident. We were in that lovely VW bus and

somebody making a phone call outside asked me for a map. As I
was reaching into the back seat, another person opened the driver's
side door and just took my purse with all my money.
 My God!

That was a rock-bottom time for me. I went from $70,000 to

broke, zero.

You must have been sick.

I was suicidal. I have a problem with depression and that took

me down.

I assume you called the police and the whole bit.

At that time some civil unrest was going on in Spain and we

weren't even allowed in at the police barracks. Plus, how do you
explain having $70,000 stolen? Thirty grand of it was Barclay's
traveler's checks, but they were held up for months because it was
so suspicious.

So you got that back?

I got that back, but it took six months, because Barclay's had to
do their own investigation into whether this was set up. How do you
explain to a British bank that, oh, I just happened to have $70,000
in my purse. It sounded so hokey. They did pay it off, but told me
never to buy Barclay's traveler's checks again. I've never been able
to buy a traveler's check since then, because I have that record of
having that amount of money stolen from me.

Is this just part of the business? Were you ripped off other
times?

I've never known anyone ripped off more than me. Which is
why the Czechoslovakians had a good point. They didn't want to
have a young woman on their blackjack team, because she had to
carry large amounts of money and she might fall prey to anybody
who Wanted to rob her. She'd be an easy mark. I've been robbed
several times. Nothing compared to the Spanish monstrosity.

Ever at gunpoint?

At gunpoint behind the Peppermill in Las Vegas. I got out of the

car in the parking lot behind the Peppermill, and it was dark. I Was
closing my purse and putting my keys in. I looked up and saw two
guys coming right at me and I knew what was going down I took
my purse and flung it, and then I saw the guns. They said "Get back
in your car." I just kept walking. It's not like I was reasoning, a) I
can get back in the car, or b) I can keep walking. It was just instinct
that said, If you're going to get shot, you want to get shot right now.
You do not want to get back in your car. They went after the purse.
That was a scary one.
I'm not eager to go to Spanish-speaking countries, because it
seems like every time I did I was robbed. In the Dominican
Republic I had everything stolen at the airport. I was waiting for my
baggage to come out, and waiting, and waiting. Well, I finally got
the picture. I had no baggage. I think I've been robbed a total of five
times. I once thought about writing a pamphlet, "How to Cope with
Loss."

This would be a problem traveling around with all that

money. Were you ever worried about taking it across borders
and declaring it?

I would break out in hives. High-anxiety-type worry. Oh yes. I

remember once in Asia I had $50,000 strapped around my leg. I was
coming through customs and I was wearing pants with the type of
cuffs that clench around your ankle. All of a sudden the $50,000
dropped. I had to go through customs like Quasimodo. I broke out
in a sweat. They asked me, "How much money are you carrying?"
"Ahhh, a thousand dollars." "OK, go ahead, miss." I was dragging
this wooden leg behind me. Yes, many times going through customs
was a nightmare. I think the most fear I've ever felt in gambling was
getting through customs.

Let's get back to Europe after you had your money stolen.

We went back to Great Britain and I was in the worst depression

of my life. I used to think, I'm not going to pull myself out of this.
Then Peter and I had a terrible disagreement. He stopped in the night
for a vagrant along the side of the road, and we argued about
whether to give him a ride. This was in Manchester, England. The
fight escalated and he wound up leaving me in the middle of the
night in a ghetto area of Manchester. He drove off with the vagrant!

I'm imagining driving around Europe in a bus for months,

sleeping in youth hostels and changing clothes in the car. If s not
James pond in a tuxedo at the baccarat table.

No. It's not a glamorous life. It's a really hard life.

How many days a week were you playing? How many hours
a day?

We played every day. There wasn't any reason for me to be there

if I wasn't playing. European casinos would open late in the
afternoon, at four or five. We'd sit and play until closing time.

Your whole life was traveling and playing blackjack seven

days a week? There was no sightseeing or recreation?
 No.

What was playing in Asia like compared to playing in

Europe?

By the time I made it to Asia, I was more sophisticated. More

adept at spending money and living a little better "hotel" life. So
that part was better. But the hygiene situation in Asia, particularly
Macau, was awful. This is no exaggeration: They would have these
petite, beautiful, Asian girl dealers hawking up mounds of phlegm
and spitting on the floor. I was thinking, if I can leave this country
without getting a disease, it will be a miracle. The world's largest
cockroaches live in Macau. In the middle of the night you could
hear them marching, and I would run for rescue to one of the other
blackjack team members.
When I was in Macau, I was again traveling with a blackjack
team. I did all my blackjack play with a team. I had a single room,
and the guys split up three and two in two other rooms. They took
turns every night coming in to try to kill the cockroaches for me. I
remember Winchester standing on the bed with a can of Raid and
spraying and spraying, and the cockroaches just thumbing their
noses at him, saying, You're going to need something stronger than
that. I started sleeping with the lights on. Still, it's the most terrible
feeling in the world to be lying there and feel bugs crawling on you.

But then you also lived the good life of the big player. What
is it like to be treated like a high roller?

I have to tell you my favorite comp story. It was at Caesars

Palace I was with Winchester and my friend Josephine and this guy
that I'd met at a blackjack table. He was coming in from Missouri
especially to spend time with me. I had a gorgeous suite at Caesars
and we went down to the Italian restaurant. Mr. Missouri, who was
not a gambler per se, got into the whole idea of living like a high
roller very quickly, and we downed $2,600 worth of champagne
between the four of us before the restaurant called up and asked the
pit about our liquor cut-off. It turned out we were allowed $10,000
worth before they'd cut us off. More than any other time, I was really
getting into the role.
The one thing I enjoyed in blackjack, as a woman, was shocking
people with the amounts of money I was betting. I remember once
on graveyard shift, there were sprinklings of people around. This
guy turned to me and just assumed I was a hooker. He said, "Come
here, sweetheart. Come sit next to me." I had a whole handful of
thousand-dollar chips, so I put them in his face and said, "I believe
I can sit anywhere I want."
Here's another graveyard-shift story. Some guy was betting
between two and four hundred dollars in black chips, while I was
there putting my quarter chips out [waiting for a big count]. He was
getting really annoyed, because he viewed me as the anchor man
and thought that my play was affecting the dealer's cards. He would
backtrack the hands to show where I'd hurt him, and he complained
to the floorperson, "Can't you do something about her?" The
floorman said, "Well, you can just go to another table if you want."
So he got up and went to another table. The count was bad where I
was, so I got up and went to the same table he'd gone to. A lot of
people would think it would be easier not to deal with him, but
somehow it made me gleeful. I knew the time would come when all
of a sudden I'd have $1,000 out, and I just couldn't wait to see the
expression on his face. When the $1,000 bet did go out, you could
just see him swallowing his manly pride right at the table, totally
diminishing his stack.

You hit on something I want to talk about. You said you

never played blackjack without a team. A lot of people have
talked about the importance of being part of a team. Poker, on
the other hand, is a very solitary game. What are your feelings
about that— being on your own as opposed to being part of a
team?

I've done team play with poker. I don't mean going out and
cheating together. But pooling our resources. It was an experiment.
We tried it and it was a gigantic flopperoonie. I would never play
blackjack on my own. The fluctuations are just devastating. The
fluctuations in poker are much less.

As a poker player, do you miss having the team

camaraderie?

I guess not, because I never think about it. But poker is very
solitary. I've certainly made the differentiation between the
suffering. I've felt pain in taking blackjack losses, but because it's
so mathematically rote, there aren't any mistakes. In blackjack I was
used to falling back on a mathematical formula. You always come
away saying, I did the best I could. I knew what the proper plays
were. I made them. I lost. So there wasn't the pain of thinking, I've
made an error.
In poker, you always come out of a session saying, I think I
made an error. You start analyzing every hand you played. It turns
into a different kind of pain when you lose. It gnaws at you. In poker
there isn't a mathematical formula. So if you're the type of person
who doesn't recover from errors quickly, you have a big lesson to
learn [how to recover quickly] before you get any better. There are
so many stumbling blocks.
In going from being a hotshot blackjack player to the world of
Poker, I had to face emotional deficiencies in my personality. I had
to realize that if I didn't overcome them, I would never be a winning
player. It took me years to become a winning player.
 Really? Years?

Right, because there were so many of these stumbling blocks

for me.

Were you keeping records?

I've kept records for every single day I've played poker for
twelve years.

How long did it actually take before you were a winning

player?

Three years.

You didn't give up? That's amazing fortitude. After one

year, after two years, not to say, I'm not cut out for this.

I don't give up on bad romantic relationships either. On the other

hand, it's not necessarily something good you can say about yourself
when you become so pit bullish that you don't face it, that you won't
admit that maybe you should give up.

But now you're quite successful.

Of course, starting out with such a large bankroll as a cushion

helped.

How did blackjack end?

It was complete battle fatigue. I didn't want to meet one more

shift boss' eyes and slink out. People still say to me, "You can make
so much more money playing blackjack. Don't you want to go back
to it?" I like coming home, eating at the same place every day, and
running errands. I don't like traveling, which is ironic because I've
been able to see so many places in the world and would rather have
stayed in one place the whole time.

After blackjack, you played slot machines. How did that

come about?

Slot machines were the grimiest, dirtiest, hardest work I've ever
done. It's the lowest form of gambling you can do. I can't take credit
for any of this. Someone else introduced me to it. In gambling,
certain situations arise and die very quickly. You have to take
advantage of a situation when it's ripe, because it's not going to last.
At that point there was money to be made in slots. Even though it
meant getting my hands dirty, staying up for twenty-four hours at a
time, stretching myself out, having problems with the IRS, and
being forced to trust other people who were probably stealing left
and right. I decided at that point in time to work really hard again.
I'd worked hard playing blackjack going through Europe. Then I
took a vacation. When my vacation was over it was time to make
money again. I had someone instruct me on the proper machines to
play. We had a team of slot players. Eventually, I formed my own
geriatric slot team, which was really funny.

These were little old ladies on Social Security you hired to

pull the slot handle?

And men. The prerequisite to getting a job on my slot team was

you had to be over seventy years old. They didn't come under
suspicion from the casino the way other professional slot players
did.
 Surely not the profile. Most people don't realize you can
actually make money playing slot machines.

These were progressive slot machines linked to one meter. The

meter would get to a certain number and you would have a
mathematical overlay. That meant the amount of money that you
theoretically were going to put in the machine was going to be less
than what the jackpot would pay out.

So you had these little old men and ladies that you hired to
pull the handle ...

They were like, what do you call those things? Weebils?

Weebils Gobble, but they don't fall down. You know how old people
go from side to side? I was always helping them, "You can make it
to the chair." I hired these people after I was no longer allowed to
play. The idea of getting barred for playing slot machines is so
ludicrous. But I got barred from playing slot machines.

You would think that the casino would love to have you.

I know, because they can only make more money, and more
money, and more money. I guess if I had to play devil's advocate I'd
say their reasoning was, if the jackpot was going to be hit, they
wanted it to be hit by someone who would spend that jackpot in the
same casino. If it was hit by a professional slot player—in my case,
for example—it was going to be spent at Nordstrom's.
That was pretty short-lived. But it was brutal because if you had
a bank of eighteen machines, and I had two of my geriatrics on it, I
was afraid they were going to die before the jackpot was hit. It was
just nerve-racking. The last thing I ever wanted to do was leave a
machine before that jackpot was hit. But sometimes the jackpot
wouldn't hit for forty hours. You'd have to exchange players, and
worry about whether there had been any cheating done by the
casino. It was an expensive venture. Then dealing with the IRS, and
the paperwork—it was a nightmare. There are lots of people who
still do it.

Were you playing video poker as well, or was it all

progressive slots?

No, it was all three-reel mechanical slots. Once they brought

electronics into it, I no longer trusted the situation. I was into a new
venue by then. I was tired of having black hands.

I hear some of the big-time poker players will venture off on

a big slot play.

There's a nasty story about that. It was down at the Horseshoe,

and it involved some high-limit players, and it lasted about five
months. They put hundreds of thousands of dollars into the machine
and it eventually did hit and I think they did end up making a little
profit on it, but it really was gruesome.

They had to have somebody on the machine twenty-four

hours a day for five months?

Right, and they watched their life savings being emptied into a
slot machine. It has to be the lowest form of gambling. It was so
much stress and so much hard work, only to meet up with the IRS
at the end of the tunnel.

What was the IRS like?

First, we had to call our employees independent contractors,

which meant they had to sign a 1099 and were responsible at the
end of the year to file with the IRS. No matter how carefully you
filled out their returns for them, or said you must do such and such,
because they were always reimbursed for the taxes they owed, they
would somehow fudge it up. So I had all these people coming back.
It was constant mending and patching and taking care of things for
years afterwards.

Was the money worth it? What kind of money could you
make playing slot machines?

If I was doing it, I must have thought the money was worth it.

What does that mean, six figures a year, seven figures?

I think there were a couple six-figure years. Just barely, a couple

of back-to-back $100,000 years.

That's not a bad living. There are a lot of people reading this
book who I think would be ready to pack their bags and move to
Las Vegas and start playing slot machines—dirty hands and all.

Those machines don't exist anymore. Video poker is the thing

now. There are solitary slot machines around. And there are solitary
players out there playing them, but I don't think the big team
networks are still in existence.

While you were playing the slots you were living in Vegas
and started playing poker?

Yes. The type of poker I was playing was completely social

poker. It was more for amusement's sake, because the stakes, even
though they were high for poker, were so low compared to what I'd
been risking at blackjack.
 When you started playing poker did you go to Gambler's
Book Club and buy a bunch of books?

I had the good fortune of meeting someone whom I consider to

be the best 7-card stud teacher there is. He had a mentor who also
was a great 7-card stud teacher.

Who was that?

David Heyden, and his teacher was Rick Greider.

How did you meet Dave Heyden?

I had just gotten back from my slot play and I had this curiosity
about anyone in the games world who was known as "The Best." I
was playing recreationally at Caesars Palace at the time, and that's
where he played. His guru-like manner fascinated me, and he was
going to speak at the Hilton on 7-card stud. I went with a friend. We
call what happened the "world's greatest gambling renege."
We were sitting there before the lecture began, and I was trying
to coax my friend into asking out a girl he'd liked for over a year.
He said, "You don't understand what it's like for me to ask
somebody out. It would be like you asking Dave Heyden out in front
of these four hundred people." And I said, "If I ask Dave Heyden
out in front of all these people, will you ask Lily out?" Cut to the Q-
and-A period after the lecture. Even though I have a lot of
fearlessness, I was becoming paralyzed at the idea of actually doing
it.

Now you know what men go through.

I thought, how ridiculous that I'm even thinking this. But I felt
like I'd been dared, and I hate to turn down any dare. I remember
putting my hand up a tiny little bit and immediately David said,
"The young woman in the back of the room." I stood up, and I
remember my legs shaking, and I called him Mr. Heyden. I said,
"Could you give me the exact odds on my chances of getting a date
with you?" The whole room cracked up. This was on video and
when we saw it later it was like there was an immediate connection.
Even though he's blind as a bat and couldn't see me in the back of
the room, his whole demeanor changed. It makes you believe in a
psychic connection. There were hands up all over the room and he
called on me. A week later we were living together.

How did he answer the question?

He gave it a nerd answer that I loved. He did a kind of boyish

"Hah hah, I'm a workaholic, but I am yearning for some kind of
titillation." And everybody started laughing and he said, "See me
after the show." Which I didn't do because I ...

Was petrified with fear?

No, actually the opposite. I think I was over-confident. I

thought, of course he knows who I am, because I assumed that he
could see me. I'm very visible when I'm in a poker room. I'm very
colorful in my attire, and one of the few women in the poker room
playing large amounts of money. It was arrogance that made me
think, well, let him get in touch with me—which he didn't do! I said,
How can this be happening? How can he not want to get in touch
with me? Later, at the hot dog stand at Caesars Palace, I went up to
him and said, "I'm really surprised you never got in touch with me."
He was standing there with the greatest hangover, his head Was just
throbbing, and he said, "It was you who asked that question?"
At the time I met him I was squandering the money I made at
blackjack playing poker. I was playing with some of the best people
in the world, just because it was so much fun. I didn't realize what
a sucker I was.

But you had records to show how much you were losing per
hour.

Yes, but I sure was having fun. You know, "I lost $10,000 today
but had lots of fun—it was a four-star fun day!" All of a sudden I
had the great fortune of being with the world's greatest poker
teacher.

How quickly did you start winning after that?

Not very quickly. You can teach someone how to play a

particular hand, but it's like chess—there are so many variations of
the same situation that can occur and so many levels of judgment
that need to be plugged in. I had another big stumbling block. I was
having confrontations with other players at the table. Blackjack was
just me against the house. I remember always being very stoic
during a loss. But at poker, my opponents had personalities. And the
personalities ranged from racist scumbag to snake-like vermin. I
was used to being in a world where integrity was valued, and now I
was in a world where I don't think the players could define the word.

Is that true? Do you find poker players and blackjack

players to be a completely different breed?

Yes. Somehow I think poker players revere the ability to con

someone out of his money. This is a badge of honor to them. The
values are completely flip-flopped.

What was that like, going from blackjack, where people are
very honest and scrupulous, to this world of...

It was disgusting. You take more showers. I used to be so proud

of what I did for a living, and now I began the day feeling contempt
for the world I was living in. I was especially bothered by how the
other players treated the dealers. I was having monumental
problems with people's stupidity in blaming any situation that
occurred at the table on the dealer. They would say horrible things
like, "I hope your mother gets shot on the freeway tonight in a drive-
by." Ox, "Why don't you go back to the rice paddies where you
belong?" There are many Asian dealers. Just disgusting filthy
things.
I always confronted the situation as if something I could say
would make a difference. It took away from my poker. I was always
getting into arguments with other people. It was a social cause. I
was always patting myself on the back saying it's because I'm such
a good person that I'm having these problems.
I took private lessons from Rick Greider, and he said, "You'd
better take a different look at why you're having these problems. Do
you really think you'll ever make a difference when you confront
somebody with their own racial bias?" When I answered no, he
asked why I kept doing it. He said the best thing I could do would
be to approach the dealer away from the table afterward and say,
"We're not all like that." I just felt that if you heard someone make
a racial remark it was your duty, if things were ever going to get
changed in this world, to stop that person and indicate that this is
not acceptable. But I couldn't do that and keep my concentration
and focus on poker. I had to make a giant compromise. Now, unless
the remark is really nauseating, I try to keep myself calm, because
I don't have the ability to do both.
That was only one hurdle I had to get over. It was just hurdle
after hurdle after hurdle. Some I didn't even see myself approaching.
God, I just made it over that hurdle and now look what I have to do.
I had to face becoming manic when I lost. It was so different from
the way anyone else lost. I'd lose, and I'd get funnier, more
entertaining; it was a coping mechanism for me. It was manic
behavior, and I couldn't concentrate. So I lost for a long time,
because I couldn't control my mania at the table.

It sounds like becoming a winning player is all about

psychology, not about the cards.

For me it was psychology. It was fighting a battle. My own

internal battle. One friend made me a 50-1 shot to ever become a
winning poker player. He thought my personality type was the
opposite of everything that poker calls for. He strongly suggested,
"Don't keep going. It will break your heart." I give myself a lot of
credit for perseverance, because it was breaking my heart.

Was there ever an epiphany? Did you wake up one day and
say "I'm a winning player"?

The epiphany came right after my private lessons with Rick

Greider.

Tell me about Rick Greider.

He was Dave Heyden's mentor and he didn't let me delude

myself about the reasons I was taking certain actions at the table.
He was able to look at my records and point out abnormalities that
I had to face. In poker, because of fluctuations, you can be a
competent player and still lose for a year. Even though they're worse
in blackjack, the fluctuations in poker are still significant—you
could drive yourself crazy.

Really? You could lose for a year? Poker players play a lot of
hours.

Right, maybe 1,500 hours a year. David Heyden and Jeff

Sandow are the two best 7-card stud players I know. Late in their
careers, after twenty years, they each had losing years, which I find
just incredible. According to an expert I rely on, the cards may not
break even throughout a lifetime. Certainly twenty years may not
be enough. If people really understood what fluctuation means in
poker, probably no one would play it. That's why you have to hope
you get lucky. If you take two people of equal skill level, one could
get a good variation and the other a bad one. At the end of the year,
one could be a losing player and one could win $100,00U. Facing
that fact is scary.

What's the longest losing streak you've had?

If I consulted my records I could be exact. But I'd guess five

month. I do remember once losing 21 out of 23 sessions, which was
mind numbing. I need a drink just thinking about it.

What records do you keep?

Type of game played, how long I played, result, and any

situation that occurred that I think may be unusual. Like, if I thought
someone was cheating.

Or if someone had a tell?

Those are separate records I keep. But now, after doing this for
ten years, I have a PMS chart. I discovered that my results were very
shaky for four days every month. I said "Damn! Why didn't I realize
this ten years ago?"
 Do you take those days off?

I play very low limits. I become very aware of where my

emotional state is.

That's fascinating.

It's not fascinating, it's infuriating. I'm not saying this is true for
all women. I just have to recognize it's true for me. And being a
feminist, I don't want to say now we can never have a female
president. You could never have me as a woman president, because
I'd blow something up.

What about cheating? Have you run into cheating either at

poker or blackjack, or slots for that matter?

I've navigated through twenty years being pretty naive. I know

in France we were cheated. You get the idea after you go through
several shoes and the count never comes down. My mentor in poker
always told me that the reason you have a stop-loss is that if you're
being cheated, they won't get all your money in one shot. They'll
have to do it over a series of sit-downs with you. This was really
great advice.

stop-loss—A predetermined stopping point designed to limit

losses.

Do you think there's much cheating going on in the poker

rooms?

Not at the level that I play. I play $75-$150 or $150-$300.1 think

the cheating occurs, or did occur, in the really high-limit games. I
can't talk as an expert on this, but that's what I've heard. If I really
concentrated on it, I'd become so neurotically paranoid that I don't
think I'd sit down. I'm sure there's cheating. I don't pay attention to
it the way I should, but somehow I still overcome it. Thanks a lot!
Now I'll be completely paranoid.

You're being cheated and you're able to overcome it? You

must be mega-talented. Did you have trouble stepping up in
stakes, then going back down?

I started at a high level.

A high level is what?

I played $75-$150, because I had so much money.

It's nice to be rich, isn't it?

It was so much fun playing with players like Danny Robeson

and Eric Drache.

So you were serious when you said you'd lose $10,000 in a

day?

I was serious. I went backwards and had to swallow a lot of ego

when I decided I needed to take this seriously. I'd lost over half
bankroll just screwing around. I swallowed my pride, sat at the
lower limits, and proved myself the way a rational person would. I
went down to $15-$30.1 think that was at Rick Greider's suggestion.
It's just common sense. You prove yourself at one limit, then move
up. I kept moving up until I was back into the $75-$150.
At the poker table, it's important to be the controlling force. It's
very hard for a woman to do, but I always had this capability.
Because of my personality, I'm able to accomplish it where I don't
think other women can. I could always be the controlling force—
until I hit the $75-$150. Then I was just another person at the table
waiting for good cards.

Was that because the level of the other players was so much
better?

Even really terrible players at that level still had the savvy to
bet marginal hands on the end, which means there were bets I was
having to pay off that I didn't have to pay off at the middle limits.
People, even when they're bad, are usually aggressive at the higher
limits. You'd rather be with someone passive.
You just have to give up all ego, which is another reason I've
stayed in action while other people of equal skill level are on the
rails now. They can't get over themselves. Of course, the first time
others see me drop down limits, there's going to be whispering,
gossiping, full of happiness that I've failed. That's upsetting for a
couple of days, then who cares? I'm still in action and they're on the
rail. In the poker world, like in many worlds, people feel personal
success watching someone else's failure. It makes them feel good.

on the rails — Broke. Refers to players with no money who lean

on the rails around the poker room and watch the games. They're
also called "rail birds."

So when you got to the $75-$150 level, you couldn't control

the game any longer?

Right.

Still? To this day?

I've finally gotten it back. But now, because of where I'm

staying it has sort of disintegrated.

What do you mean?

The game no longer exists at Hollywood Park. They just don't

deal it anymore. The players have filtered away and the game's
disappeared.

That's the nature of the poker world, isn't it? This year it's
here and next year it's somewhere else?

But now I'm beginning to tackle a whole different venue of

poker and I have to swallow it [pride] one more time. I'm starting to
learn hold 'em. It's a whole different game. The concepts and the
way of thinking are different. The information provided is different.
Again, right before the disintegration, when I was playing regularly
at Hollywood Park, $40-$80 stud, I was the best. There was so much
confidence, so much security, and so little pain in losing because I
always left the table, no matter what the results were, saying I'm the
best. Now I'm back in a game where I look around and go, oh no, I
could be the worst person in the game.

So what are you playing, $20-$40 hold 'em?

Oh no, $40-$80.

Not learning your lesson and starting lower?

No, not learning my lesson.

Are you going to take private lessons?

I've taken private lessons.

 From whom?

Tom McEvoy. [A well-known poker professional, author of

Tournament Poker, and co-author of Championship No-Limit & Pot-
Limit Hold 'Em, Championship Stud, and Championship Omaha.] I
think that's another advantage of being a woman. People are more
willing to give up information. And I have information to exchange,
too. If I give up a little about 7-card stud, I can get somebody with
expertise in hold 'em to give up a little bit to me. Some people from
my past are generous with hold 'em information. In poker, no one
ever admits that anyone else can play. It takes something away from
them to admit somebody else can play. I'm not that way at all.

Do you play tournaments?

I don't like tournaments. I don't like the feeling of running out

of money in any type of situation. Or being short-stacked. It's like
becoming impotent.

short-stack — Refers to players with a small number of chips, a

disadvantage in any poker game.

Isn't there a big difference between tournament play and

regular play? I guess my question is: Are there people that are
good tournament players that are not good ring-game players
and vice versa?

I don't know about the vice versa. I can only comment on the
many tournament winners who go into a ring game and are a
complete joke. They lose all their tournament winnings there. The
vice versa I don't have the information to discern if that's true or not.
There are certain skills, but they're pretty easy to adapt to
tournament play: mainly to scrunch up and become really tight in
the beginning hours and then just wait, wait, wait. Plus, you have to
have a huge amount of stamina to play tournaments. My thought
processes break down after about six-and-a-half hours. At the end
of a tournament I'm always more weary than I want to be. I've
played tournaments, and being at the final table is an incredible
adrenaline rush. I think that's what keeps them so popular. There's a
lot of recognition.

My understanding is that the ring games at the tournaments

are particularly juicy.

Most people, if they understood the amount of money they

could expect to earn and the long-shot element of playing a
tournament versus what they could win in the side games, would all
play side games. Plus, now the IRS is taking from the winnings of
tournaments and I'm not sure it's really positive-expectation
anymore.

Have you thought of going to tournaments just to play in the

ring games?

I did that recently and I enjoyed myself. But it's quite a zoo
atmosphere and I like familiarity when I play. Whenever you go to
a new casino there's a whole period of adapting to its rules, its
floormen. I like the special attention I get by going to the same place
every day, being a big fish in a small pond.

So it's not really about extracting the maximum amount of

money? If s more like a job now. Do you play only six hours a
day?

Six-and-a-half hours is probably what I play a day. The reason

I don't travel more is because I own two hundred-pound dogs and
they're my children. I don't trust a lot of people to take care of them-
1 won't kennel them, and they're not willing to travel with me, or so
they tell me.

You said that being a woman was a big negative in

blackjack. What about in poker?

Huge positive! Especially in my particular situation right now.

I'm speaking for California games—I'm not quite sure if it's
applicable to Vegas—but I know my biggest earn is in California,
because of the different cultures that come together daily to play.
I'm really skirting the issue. I'm talking about ... I get to play with
Middle Eastern people here.

Middle Eastern, and I would think there are a lot of Asian

players in California, as well.

A lot of Asians, too. But it's particularly the Middle Eastern

male personality type that I can extract the most money from. You
take someone who grew up in a culture where women still have to
walk behind their men. Women have to wear veils. They can't drive.
In the Arab world they can be killed if they fall victim to rape. It's a
really grotesque situation. But you take that male's mindset, bring
him to America where, "This woman is supposed to be walking
behind me, and now she's check-raising me!" They have volatile
temperaments too, and you put that combination together and
they're almost incapable of folding in situations where it's obvious
that they should.

check-raise — A poker tactic that entails first checking, then,

when a player bets, raising that bet. Also known as "sandbagging,"
it's considered (by beginners) to be a hostile action in a game.
 I would think my win rate is more than someone else's playing
the identical hands—minimum twenty-five percent more. A lot of
my friends shake their heads and say, "You're so lucky to be
female." But you also have to take advantage of what your particular
femaleness is. For instance, Linda Wright [another well-respected
professional woman player] is demure. She's aggressive m a quiet
way. She uses her style to extract the most money.
My style is so confrontational and my personality is so sharp
and caustic that people conspire to beat me. They constantly root
against me, even when they're not in a hand. It takes a lot of
backbone on my part, because I have people cheer against me all
the time. They yell, "Draw out! Beat her!" which is very rude. I've
just grown used to it.
Poker has brought about changes in my personality. I'm relaxed.
Whenever someone tries to attack me verbally, I come back so
quickly, making them the object of the ridicule, that they stop. No
one challenges my authority at the table. I don't know, in some
cases, how they look at me—whether as a male or female, or just a
eunuch that must be destroyed.
I know that I don't see women getting better in poker. Ten years
ago I used to be impressed by the women who could eke out a small
win rate; they had cool temperaments. Now I'm embarrassed by
some of the things that are coming out of their mouths. They're
adopting more male-like behaviors, and I don't understand that.
They just don't understand fluctuation, as most poker players don't.
They resort to this whining crybaby behavior that I just hate to see
women display.

But all poker players seem to display that.

Right. I just don't want women to do it. I don't want them to be

superstitious. I hold them to a higher standard. Please don't ask for
a deck change or a seat change [for superstitious reasons]. Somehow
be above that.

So why gamble? Why do what you do for a living?

I write as a hobby. Sometimes after a losing session, I write out

certain thoughts and feelings. I was reviewing some of what I'd
written the other day. Within a year there were at least thirty days
of very painful experiences. I woke up with nightmares. I thought,
"Why am I subjecting myself to this? I must look eighty years old
on the inside. Why do I keep doing it?"
When you've wanted to do something since you were knee-high
and you've become proficient at it ... it becomes habit. I always
thought of poker as the card game to make money at. Cards were
always superior to Clue or Scrabble or anything like that. I feel like
when I open up a hand of cards, it's a present, it's a surprise. Hello
there!

I know the feeling.

I've always remarked that most women don't gravitate to it. It's
a very hostile world. There are a lot of reasons more women don't
play poker. First of all, I think women equate chips with money.
When I put four hundred dollars into the pot in one round, it's an
investment to me and I expect a certain return on it. Other women
put in four hundred dollars and think, that could buy something
new—maybe a washer-dryer. They don't have the ability to separate
the two. We're a more protective gender. We want to keep things.
Also, to be really good, you can't have compassion at the table.
Or if you do, you have to stifle it. There was a player who had thirty
dollars in chips in front of him. He was sitting next to me and
shaking his head and he said, "My wife is going to leave me. She
said that if I came out to the casino today, she was going to leave
me. I've got a two-year-old child. I can't even buy groceries. This is
all the money I have left." I thought, this is going to make it harder
taking that last thirty dollars. But if it's not me, it's going to be
somebody else.
That was another thing I had to overcome when I was first
playing: feeling sorry for people. There is no room. There isn't
enough earn-per-hour to have sympathy for anyone you're playing
with. I have problems playing with my friends. It's another hurdle I
have to go over. And it's the opposite of what you think: I can't stand
to lose to my friends.

You're right. That's the opposite of what I thought.

I cannot bear it! There's nothing that infuses me with anger more
quickly than to have a friend win money from me. I have to walk
away from the table to calm down, to shed those feelings. My
friends are very forgiving, which I don't think I would be in return.
I'm always calling them that night saying I'm sorry I said such and
such.
I asked a friend who is very much into yoga and spiritualism
"What draws you into poker?" She said there's something about
each hand that presents itself as a problem to work through. She said
every single hand fascinated her. She said that she's addicted to that
process. People tell me that if I hit a $100 million lottery, I'd still
come in and play poker. I probably would.

Do you worry in general about carrying around so much

money?

In California there have been a lot of terrible situations. There

aren't that many women in my little world. I'd say there are five that
are very visible. Two of them were followed home. One was shot to
death, then burned in her trunk. The other was shot through the
head; now she's not even ambulatory. It was horrible, and I play
higher than they did. It was just dumb luck that it wasn't me. I hired
a bodyguard until [the perpetrators] were caught. He drove me to
the casino and drove me home. Robbers aren't aware that you're not
taking the money home. You leave it on deposit in the casino. The
women they were robbing probably didn't have any money on them
at all.

As far as gamblers in general, who are the people that stick

out in your mind as the best of the best?

David Hey den and Danny Robeson.

How good is Danny Robeson?

He's a genius. He can talk people into calling when he wants

them to. He can talk people out of calling when he doesn't want
them to. It's just innate genius the way he controls the whole table.
They call him "The Weaver," because he interweaves everybody's
personalities. There is no one better. I'd love to get inside his brain-
Even David says that Danny is the best 7-card stud player.
I admire people who can balance taking a risk with staying in
control. It's fascinating that this guy Archie Karas won millions, but
he always ends up a railbird. [The story of Archie Karas'
phenomenal winning streak is detailed in the Chip Reese interview.]
Stu Ungar [see "Walters Notes"] was the same way. He was
fearless. If you bring fearlessness to the poker table, it's pretty hard
to deal with. It's hard to overcome an opponent who has no fear of
losing- But there has to be some limit to it. There has to be
something to control it. It's a balancing act at all times.
I admire the player with the fewest leaks; someone who
approaches the game from a professional standpoint. That's why I
admire David Heyden. Nobody approaches the game more
professionally. He physically readies himself through meditation
and exercise, as if he's going into battle. He's one of the few players
that you can't call in the middle of the night and say, "Hey, there's a
great game that just came up." He doesn't run into a game without
physical and mental preparation.

leak—A weakness in a player's game or abilities.

Players like Huck Seed—with his eating habits and physical

prowess—make conditioning their whole life. [Read more about
Huck Seed in the Mike Svobodny interview.] Everything they do
outside of the game is designed to make themselves better inside
the game. I really admire that.
An article in Card Player about me said: "She doesn't have the
normal leaks that people do—like sports betting, or going to the
crap table." The reason I'm able to withstand large fluctuations is
that I have a huge tolerance for pain. It keeps pushing me into the
next day. Then some kind of healing and rejuvenation takes place,
and the next day I'm back to myself and I want to go back there and
prove that I'm the best.

You play five days a week?

Yes, five days.

What do you do on your days off?

Read, watch movies, pet the dogs, shop. I spend a lot of money
in the service industries. It takes a lot of time to get to the masseuse,
the hairdresser, the manicurist, the chiropractor, the psychiatrist.
That's what I'm doing with my time off, spending money. You think
it's easy to show up in a different outfit every day?
 Do you think that men can work [take advantage of] women
players, the way women work some men?

I've only met one man, and this was a long time ago, that had
the capability of doing that. He was a pimp. I remember going away
thinking, I fell victim to him because he knew what I wanted to hear.
Isn't that interesting that he had that ability and that I was led astray
in a poker game by him? I've never had anyone else try. Sometimes
people hit on a weakness by accident. Anything that can upset you
at the poker table I consider a weakness. Nothing anyone has ever
said about me being female at the poker table has even dented me.

My thought wouldn't be to upset you, it would be to flatter

you.

I'm glad I don't play poker with you; I would be susceptible to

flattery. Also, if you bring up atrocities to animals, that's so
disgusting to me that I get physically ill. I get up from the table.

Do you think poker players are a healthy group?

Emotionally healthy?

Not at all. I sometimes believe that I'll have to be single forever.

Poker takes so much out of you. If you have to come home and
manage children or a husband or somebody else making demands
on you, I don't know what would be left over to give them. I'm not
surprised that many gamblers don't have a home life. When you go
home, you need time to heal. You don't need anyone making
demands. I think that people who choose to go into this as a
profession ... some part of their behavior could be labeled
compulsive. Some people control it and make money, but there's a
compulsion behind all people who gamble for a living.
I saw a play about poker recently, and there was a comment
about compulsives that made me squirm in my seat. The guy was
talking about being a professional poker player and said, "I'm just
looking at all of you as suckers." Then another guy responded,"...
You're really looking at a reflection of yourself. You are the real
compulsive character here, because you continue to do this for a
living."

Have you read many books on poker?

Oh yes. It's like I sleep with David Sklansky—his book that is.
He's the greatest theorist there is. [David Sklansky is the author of
some of the best known and respected books about poker, including
The Theory of Poker, and Hold 'Em Poker For Advanced Players, with
Mason Malmuth.] Mike Caro is a good writer. He comes up with
original ways of looking at the game. For instance, I once asked
him, "Do you think one color flush is more intimidating than
another color flush? That is, if I have ace, king, queen of spades on
the board, do you think an opponent is more likely to fold than if I
have diamonds, because they're not as intimidating to look at?" He
said he'd thought of that. [Mike Caro is known as "The Mad Genius
of Poker." He has written The Book of Tells, Caro on Gambling, and
many other books on poker.]

board — The upcards in 7-card stud or the community cards in

hold 'em.

Do you have any rules about when you quit for the day?
Like if you've lost a certain number of hands?

David Heyden told me you have to make all your decisions

before you sit down at the table. So you don't have to decide under
emotional duress to keep playing or not. I use a stop-loss.
 Is it a certain number of hours, a certain amount of money,
or whichever comes first?

It's a certain amount of money or a certain number of hours if

losing. I don't go beyond eight hours if I'm losing.

But you might if you're winning?

Yes, if I'm winning I'll sit there until I fall out of the chair.

Really? You mentioned that after six-and-a-half hours

you're not sharp anymore.

Winning gives me so much more power. The adrenaline is

greater You never play as well as when you're winning, so you have
to take advantage of every moment. Your image at the table is so
enhanced, your win rate probably doubles while you're sitting there
with a massive pile of chips. People are afraid of you. You can steal
ante after ante. You're feeling great and omnipotent. That's when
you keep going, going, going. I never have a cap on how much I
win.
When I sit down at the poker table, I want people to say, "I'm
used to losing to her." I want them to have that expectation. You
always want them to remember the image of you being strong and
in control, and it's hard to maintain that image when you're short-
stacked. If they're seeing you lose hand after hand, that's the time to
leave. Don't leave that imprint on their memory system. When
somebody says, "I never see you lose." I say, "I've never lost. Isn't
that incredible? I'm just so lucky. I never lose!" You pound it into
their heads, "I am special. You have no shot against me." They
become whipped and that's the way you want them. I never want
them to see me bleeding.
 So you'll sit there twenty hours if you're winning. At some
point do you say, I want to go home and sleep?

It comes down to I have to go home and feed the dogs. If I get

up say $10,000, I'll leave if I lose back half of it. That makes me
snarling mad, too.

What about your regimen?

Before I go to play, I don't engage in any other activity besides

some writing in the morning. I don't take phone calls. I don't
socialize I don't plan any social event afterward. I don't want any
time restrictions. I want my mind to stay as peaceful and restful as
possible. I go to bed at exactly the same time every night and get up
at exactly the same time every morning. People don't equate this
with a professional gambler, but my mind functions more clearly
when I behave this way. I don't drink alcohol the night before I'm
going to play. And there are many mental things I do in the morning.
There's a computer card game I play to see what my retention level
is. What my patience level is. What my focus level is.

Which card game do you play?

Hearts. I play just to make a quick observation of how I'm

thinking. When I'm driving to the casino, I'm very aware of how
irritated I am at other drivers. I observe myself. The calmer I am,
the better I know I'll do. If I'm driving like a maniac, if the light
turns yellow and I'm rushing through, I'll think, OK, you're in a bad
state today.

Do you still play?

I play lower. I make a mental note to watch what's going on with

myself, and not take anything for granted. I don't want a $5,000 loss
because I'm in a terrible frame of mind. Sometimes you can be in a
terrible frame of mind and you don't even realize it. You feel happy
and everything is great. But when it comes down to the crunch of
actually having to analyze a particular situation, you're not very
good at it.

How hard do you think it is to teach someone to play? If you

took a guy off the street, how hard would it be to make him a
winning player?

Incredibly hard.

Really? Even at low levels?

Even at low levels. I'm attempting to do it now and it's very very
hard. There has to be innate talent. There are so many parts to being
a winning poker player that can't be taught. At the lower limits, the
rake is so high that the best person in the world may not be able to
win. You have to be in the middle limits to have a chance to survive
the rake.

Do you own any poker software?

I own the Wilson Turbo Texas Hold 'Em, and Mike Caro's Poker
Pro. Do I use them? Yes. Especially while I was learning hold 'em.
I use Mike Caro's a lot.

Do you think these programs have really changed the game?

These, and the books, have changed the game. But when it
comes down to it, if you put eight people at the table who have all
read and understood the books, all of the same intelligence, it will
come down to character.

Character?

You have to put your mistakes behind you quickly, because

another hand is being served up. People that hang onto the past don't
have any future in this game. Who has the discipline? Who has the
emotional stability? Character, that's the bottom line.

Hulbert Notes

1—Standard Deviation
Standard deviation, or "SD," is a statistical measure of the
spread of values from their expected result—in layman's terms, a
measure of the boundaries of good and bad luck. Suppose you flip
a coin 400 times. You know that, on average, you should get 200
heads and 200 tails. But you're unlikely to land on exactly 200 of
each. Standard deviation tells us how far off you could land in either
direction. It turns out that you're 95% likely to flip heads between
180 and 220 times (a range of +/-2 standard deviations). Gamblers
use standard deviation to determine how bad (or good) things can
be expected to get when playing a given proposition. If the gambler
is a tails bettor and loses to 250 heads out of 400, standard deviation
alerts him to suspect the honesty of the coin, or the flipper.

2—Fluctuation
To fluctuate means to rise and fall like the waves, which is
exactly what a gambler's bankroll does—even when he's betting
with an advantage. When a gambler hits a losing streak, he may
question whether he has calculated his advantage correctly.
Standard deviation tells him whether his fluctuation falls within a
reasonable range. Negative fluctuation (excessive losses) is one of
the primary reasons for the high failure rate among prospective
professional gamblers. Positive fluctuation is often viewed as the
manifestation of the layman's term "good luck."

3—The Atlantic City Counter Convention

Atlantic City's first casino, Resorts International, opened to the
public in May 1978. The rules of the games were (and still are)
mandated by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission, which,
in January of 1979, unwittingly rendered the blackjack tables at
Resorts the best in the world for skilled players: The "early
surrender" rule imposed by the Control Commission gave a perfect
basic strategy player about a 0.1% advantage off the top.
But that wasn't what brought the counters. The Control
Commission also eliminated the casinos' two most effective
counter-measures against card counters by mandating that dealers
cut off no more than one-third of the shoe (before shuffling) and
disallowing casinos from barring card counters. This, naturally, left
Resorts vulnerable to a frontal assault by the world's best counters.
Counters and teams came from far and wide to take advantage
of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. When the casino doors
opened each day, there was a mad dash to get a seat, with others
waiting to play forming lines five deep. The players termed it the
"Counter Convention" and the "Experiment."
Eventually, the Casino Control Commission changed the rules,
but for a time, Atlantic City was the center of the blackjack
universe. The book Two Books On Blackjack, by Ken Uston, details
the Atlantic City Experiment and the bankroll that Cathy Hulbert
was involved in.

4—Blackjack Point Counts

A card-counting system requires the use of a point count. All
point counts do the same thing, which is to keep track of the ratio
of high cards to low cards. However, there are many different
versions. Here's a list of some of the better known point counts:
High-Low, Hi-Opt 1, Hi-Opt 2, K-O, Red 7, Revere Advanced Point
Count, Ten Count, Thorp Ultimate, Uston Advanced Point Count,
Wong Halves, and Zen. As simplicity is favored, the most popular
counts used today are the High-Low and the K-O.

ALAN WOODS

A big winner with a big bankroll, Alan Woods bets millions the
way the rest of us bet dollars. He made his first million shorting the
Hong Kong stock market in 1987. He lost it back the next year
shorting the Japanese market. In 1994, he picked up $8 million from
bets on World Cup soccer, betting more than $3 million on a single
game. This is a man who's not afraid of risk.
In his gambling career, Alan has been a world-class bridge
player, a sports bettor, a globetrotting blackjack player, and a market
speculator. But it's betting the horses that made him one of the most
successful gamblers in history. His two-story penthouse atop one of
Hong Kong's most exclusive apartment buildings looks across the
harbor to Kowloon, the New Territories, and into China. Directly
below is Happy Valley, one of Hong Kong's two racetracks, where
Alan has won more than $150 million using a sophisticated
computer model to handicap the races.
Alan grew up in Murwillumbah, Australia, a small town on the
northeast coast of New South Wales. After a brief stint in the
actuarial department of a Melbourne insurance company, he faced
a major life decision. He had three options: He could make $5 an
hour as a professional bridge player, move to Sydney and go to
Work on the newly opened futures exchange, or try to make it as a
professional blackjack player. Blackjack won out.
After five or six years of traveling the world as a card counter,
he and a teammate moved to Hong Kong to bet the horses. They
believed that a computer program designed to model horse racing
Would give them a big advantage. They were right.
The way Alan and his team play the horses doesn't look at all
like gambling. There's no excitement over which horse wins or
loses. Alan often doesn't even watch the race. It's all about numbers
traveling across a computer screen.
Still active in the stock market, at one point during our interview
he glanced over at a Bloomberg monitor set up in his living room
and smiled: "I might be losing half a million dollars here while we're
talking."

When did you start gambling?

You jump right in, don't you? My first experiences were at age
seventeen or eighteen, while home on holidays from University. I
played a card game called solo with my parents and brother and
sister. It's quite a good gambling game.

So you were playing for money with your parents?

Yes, but very small money, although my sister would often cry
if she lost. This was five-cent stuff. If my sister lost playing poker
or solo, she would end up in tears.

Were you always a game player?

Not really. I'd played chess prior to this, but on relatively few
occasions. I grew up in a country town, so I would never have heard
of bridge, for example. Now Monopoly I'd probably heard of, but I
didn't play it much. Age seventeen was probably my introduction to
games.

Was blackjack the first game you looked at and thought, "I
can make money at this?"

I won playing poker long before I knew about blackjack. Both

at University and in Sydney, where I eventually moved to work,
played poker with friends, and I kept track of my winnings.

When you started playing poker and winning, did you go

get any books about how to play? Did you try to improve in any
way, or did you just figure you had the game beat?

I didn't know books on such subjects existed. It wouldn't have

occurred to me at the time that people would write books about how
to play poker. I was very naive.

Well, you were from a small town in Australia.

By this time I was in Sydney and other places, but I don't think
I was aware of how-to books about anything. If I went into a
bookstore, I'd look at the fiction. But even if I had gone looking for
them, there probably wouldn't have been anything worthwhile
there. A lot of the poker that we played was dealer's choice, wildcard
rubbish. I used to play bingo with a couple of friends in a beachside
resort not far from where I lived. We usually won at that—I think
because most of the other players were so old and senile they would
miss the numbers. Despite the house rake of fifty percent, these
players were so dim-sighted or senile, we might have actually had
an advantage there.
I'd also gotten involved in horses by this time. For a brief period
I was semi-addicted to them, so I lost far more on them than I should
have. I don't remember paying horses much attention until one
particular day. One of Australia's top-class races was on with two
very good horses in it, champion horses. There was a third horse
that was a mudlark, and it was pissing down rain and muddy.
 Mudlark?

A mudlark likes to run in the mud; wet tracks. So I bet this

one—in many ways an unfortunate occurrence, because it won. It's
always a bad thing, I think, when your first bet on the horses wins.
I think mat applies to your first attempt at any gambling game,
whether you're playing blackjack or slot machines. If you lose, you
tend not to get addicted, whereas if you win, addiction can set in. I
bet the horses for two or three years after that without having much
idea what I was doing, virtually none. Until one day I lost a hundred
dollars and then I just quit. I probably didn't have a single bet on the
horses worth remembering for fifteen years.

What was your degree in?

I spent four years at University without getting a degree. Most

of the time I was there I didn't go to lectures. More often than not, I
didn't turn up for the exams. I was studying all math courses.

And you had a facility for math?

Yes.

So when you got out, what did you do?

Well, eventually I started working for an insurance company

while studying to be an actuary. I completed seventy percent of that
before my motivation disappeared.

When did you start playing blackjack?

A casino opened up in Hobart, Tasmania, the little island off the

bottom of Australia, sometime in the latter half of 1972. By 1973
the state government insisted that the casino hire consulting
actuaries to calculate the house percentages at all the games, and
they chose my firm. One of my friends was delegated this task by
the managing director. Of course, the calculations were incredibly
simple for all the games except blackjack. My friend must have
spent three months with a hand calculator, calculating the correct
basic strategy for blackjack, which he got right—surprising, given
that many other people were trying to calculate it at the same time,
and getting it wrong.
Anyway, at the time there were a couple of Canadian students
at one of the universities in Melbourne. By this time I was playing
bridge- They claimed you could beat the game of blackjack, and I
said, "No no, you can't. The house advantage is point-seven percent.
My friend has done all the calculations." Then they described card
counting to me. I thought, "This sounds plausible."
Fairly soon after, ten of us flew to the casino for a weekend.
This was a big deal back in those days, flying away somewhere for
the weekend. Ten of us took five hundred dollars each, and two of
us tried counting. We each won about five hundred dollars, while
the others lost all their money. "Wow," I thought, "this card counting
really works."

Did you have a book? How did you know how to count?

The Canadian guys had a book, but I don't remember ever seeing
it. They probably gave us a basic strategy table photocopied out of
it.

So they told you that 2s through 6s are plus one, tens and
aces are minus one, and here is basic strategy... bet more when
the count is plus?
 Yes.

And you doubled your bankroll?

Yes. Anyway, a few months after that the Australian National

Bridge Championships were being held in Hobart. Four of us agreed
to form a joint bankroll of $6,000 [to play blackjack on the side].
The other three got there a few days before I did. By the time I got
there, they'd won something between $6,000 and $8,000. That Was
pretty good. I started playing and losing, and they decided to
disband the team—"This Alan Woods is no good." Now
surprisingly, the other three were all very good bridge players, so
there Was no reason to assume that they wouldn't have been
excellent blackjack players, but they never pursued blackjack after
that. It Was reasonably obvious that it was a good way to make
money, but for some years I didn't play.

joint bankroll—When two or more players combine their

bankrolls into one. This allows all players to bet more money and
thus earn more.

Were you still working?

Yes. From 1975 to 19791 I promised my wife that I wouldn't go

away playing blackjack for the weekend. She didn't like me leaving
her alone with two children. I might not have kept this promise,
except throughout that period I had absolutely no money, anyway. I
was always in debt because I had invested all my money in the stock
market.
By the time I ended up not having a job, I had $6,000 in savings.
Whatever I had in those days I invested in the stock market,
virtually all of it in two companies. One of them was a closed-end
investment company, which would sell at a discount to its asset
value. In fact the discount was huge. If this investment company
invested in shares with a net-asset value of one dollar, I would buy
them at between twenty and forty cents. Later, the company was
taken over and I ended up being worth $120,000. Having had zero
money for some years, I suddenly ended up with this windfall.
By 19791 hadn't been working for a year. My wife left me and
I had three options, all of which involved getting out of Melbourne
and away from the vicinity of my wife. I could become a
professional bridge player in Sydney playing rubber bridge, and
make maybe five bucks an hour. Or, I could go trade on the futures
exchange, which had just started up in Sydney. But that might have
been nine-thirty to three-thirty hours, and seemed too much like
normal work. The third option was to go to Hobart and play
blackjack.
In retrospect, had I gone to Sydney and traded futures, I might
have ended up very rich anyway. I think I would have been good at
that. But I went to Hobart in May 1979. I spent four months there,
going to the casino every day, from about midday until midnight. It
was my social life as much as anything else. I wouldn't necessarily
spend all that time playing blackjack. I could end up gossiping with
friends or whatever. I made about $16,000 in that four months.

You still hadn't read a book? Did you know anything about
Kelly otrproportional betting?

Yes. I'm sure I had Beat the Dealer by then. [Beat the Dealer, by
Edward O. Thorp, contained the first thorough presentation of a
mathematically based card-counting system and was responsible for
popularizing the technique, and the game of blackjack in general.]
Would I have been playing Hi-Opt 2 that long ago? Probably yes.
When I went to the States, I'm sure I was playing Hi-Opt 2 [see
"Hulbert Notes," Chapter 6]. I think someone just gave me the
system.
 Who gave it to you? Someone you met there in the casino?
Someone from bridge?

I don't know. I've got no memory of where I got it. But I'm sure
I was playing Hi-Opt 2 and side-counting aces, because that's what
I was doing when I first ended up in the States. I would have
switched to playing the simple High-Low count maybe in late '80 or
'81.
In December of 19791 headed off to Vegas with the friend who
had originally done the calculations for the consulting actuaries.

So you won $16,000 and set off for Vegas. Was the plan to
stay there as long as you were making money or were you just
going for a set amount of time?

My friend was going for a set amount of time. My plans were

more open-ended. I met two guys [Fred and Will] fairly early on
there. It was coincidence. We were playing at the same table. Will
recognized me as a counter before I recognized him as one. I hadn't
been in Vegas long, so I had no idea how many counters were
around the place, or how likely I was to run into one. Then I was
playing in Caesars and another guy [Peter] was playing at the same
table, and he approached me away from the table.
In January '79, Atlantic City opened up a free go for card
counters. Under an agreement with the state, they weren't allowed
to bar card counters for an indefinite period—which as it turned out,
lasted only two weeks. The casinos told the state that they were
losing X million dollars a week, which, of course, was all bullshit.
But anyway, by the time we went to Atlantic City I think I had
teamed up with Peter and Cathy ["Cathy" is Cathy Hulbert]

So while playing you would realize that there was another

card counter at your table. Then you would meet each other away
from the tables and strike up these friendships.

Yes.

Okay, so you went to Atlantic City and put together a team?

Well, Peter had put together the team.

Was that the famous Ken Uston team?

No, Peter and Ken Uston had fallen out by that point in time.
Uston's book was already out by then.
Out of a $100,000 bankroll I might have had twenty or twenty-
five thousand invested, and Peter probably had fifty or sixty
thousand. How much did we make in those two weeks? I guess
approximately $100,000.

Was there some point at which you thought, "Holy cow, I

can make a lot of money at this?" Or was that a slow process?

I'm sure before I went to Vegas I anticipated never having to get

another job. At the time I wanted Aus$250,000, figuring that would
be enough to retire on. I probably had the $250,000 by the time I
got back to Australia, so it took six months.
After Atlantic City, one of my teammates, Jay, and I went back
to Las Vegas. Peter and Cathy went to Europe and teamed up with
a couple of English card counters. Then Peter rang from Europe and
invited Jay and me to go there and team up with him. By this time
Jay and I had been playing on a team in Las Vegas. I was the
notional team leader, and had eighty percent of the investment. We
were winning. So when Peter called, we said, "Okay, but we're on a
team with these guys Fred and Red, and we'd like them to come
too." Cathy and Peter weren't so keen on this idea. Maybe they
regarded [Jay and me] as better players.
Peter tested our blackjack play. We had to sit down as they
flicked cards, and we had to count them and play the right strategy
at the right count, and bet exactly the right amount. I think I made
many mistakes. My theory was that if I had it approximately right,
it was okay.

Had you had any extended losing streaks up till then? It

doesn't sound like you had.

Certainly nothing serious. During the days in Hobart I might

have lost for a week or two or three, which I would have regarded
as very serious at the time. In the light of experiences in later
years— backward fluctuations I took on horses or stock markets or
blackjack teams—the fluctuations were minuscule.
With some difficulty we persuaded Cathy and Peter to accept
Fred and Red as part of the package to get Jay and me. Then the
four of us went off to Europe. We hadn't been in Europe very long
when Peter wanted someone to go explore Asia. Jay and I were
chosen for this exploration, and within a few days of arriving in
Europe, the two of us were off to Asia.
Peter told us that somewhere in Asia we might run into this guy
Tip, and Peter gives us a couple of signals to use in case we do. Sure
enough, the first time Jay and I walked into the casino in Jakarta
[Indonesia], before we got even ten feet into the casino, this guy Tip
stood up from a table and signaled me to meet him in the bathroom.
Some Westerner walks into this casino in Jakarta and he
immediately assumes it's a card counter. I must have looked
professional.

Was it an illegal casino?

 The casinos there may have been semi-legal. They got closed
down a couple of years later. We were cheated in that first casino; it
was the main one in the middle of Jakarta. When I first met Tip in
the bathroom he told me they were cheating, but Peter had said,
"Don't believe this guy. He's the slimiest, lying, cheating son-of-a-
bitch you'll ever come across." So I sat down and played anyway.

So what could he have said to you: "They're cheating but

I'm here playing anyway"?

I'm really not sure that he knew at that point how they were
cheating; I found out years later from a guy in Korea how they did
it. There were girls stationed next to the dealer. There was a flap
covering the front of the shoe, which had to be pushed up in order
to pull the next card out. When they pushed up the flap, they also
pushed up the next card so the girl could see it and tell them what it
was. Now they had a choice of pulling the known card down into
their hand or dealing it to you. If you're hitting a twelve and they've
got a ten saved up there, they can bust your hand with it.

How much did you guys lose?

We lost $40,000 in about four days. Peter was going berserk by

this time, because he wanted us to stop playing. Stanford Wong was
there as well [see "Hyland Notes," Chapter 3]. He arrived a couple
of days after us, so it was like a card counter's convention. He said
he could see nothing wrong with the game. In those days he was the
god of counters. His writings were widespread and generally well
respected.

When you went to Asia, do you remember how much cash

you took with you? Were you worried about carrying large
amounts of cash?
 Yes, very worried. I was carrying $60,000, $40,000 of it in
traveler's checks. Jay had $20,000. We'd quickly lost the $40,000,
but we were already playing at the other casino some of the time.
We won the $40,000 back in four days at the other casino, which
was very fortuitous.
Carrying that money around is one of the craziest things I ever
did. All of these countries had currency controls. I got in the habit
of not declaring the money because of the Americans I'd met. They
were ... I can't think of a better word than brainwashed. They were
so habituated to not declaring because of $10,000 [reporting] limits
on cash in the United States. They didn't want the government
Rowing how much cash they had. Anyway, for me, as an Australian,
the situation was entirely different. I should have always declared
what I had going into or out of the States, or any other country. Or
I should have used telegraphic transfers to wire it in and out instead
of carrying cash.
I eventually did this years later when I went to the Philippines
on a junket. I TTed in $20,000 around the time when U.S. dollar
short-term interest rates were around twenty percent. When my
money got to the Philippines, the bank held it for a couple of weeks
and claimed "broken cable under the ocean." They claimed they
hadn't received it, but I'm sure it was just a way of earning interest
on the money for a couple of weeks. I'm in the habit of telegraphic
transferring money all over the world these days, but who knew
anything about it back then?
Around this time, Tip ended up in jail in the Philippines, having
been caught trying to leave the country with $50,000. His girlfriend
flew from Jakarta to Manila with more money to try to bribe his
way out—$10,000 got him out of jail but didn't get the $50,000
back.
Some months later, by the time they were in Korea, Tip decided
it was better to have the girlfriend carry the money. So she ended up
in jail. But anyway, I don't remember worrying about this until we
were in Korea.
When Jay and I went into the Philippines, we were losing
everywhere. I think Tip or his players had already been to the out-
of-the-way places—Zamboanga, Davao, Cebu—they were all well
aware of card counters, and any Westerner that turned up in those
places betting other than very small money was overwhelmingly
likely to be a card counter. You couldn't last more than a few days.
From there we went to Seoul. We didn't last long before they
barred us, maybe two days—again, because Tip's team burned out
all these places.
I asked at the casino how to get to Inchon. Apparently, they then
rang up Inchon and told them we were coming. When Jay got there
they said, "No no, we've heard about you. You're a professional.
You're barred and tell your friend he is barred, too." I was barred
from this casino without ever having entered it.
After Inchon we went back to Seoul and got ready to leave. The
night before I was due to leave Korea, I couldn't sleep at all. I was
worried about getting caught with $60,000 on me, thrown in jail,
and my money confiscated.

It must have been a tough night.

That was my only one. No, actually I had another one in Manila
later, when I gave a guy I'd just met $20,000 to carry on the plane
with him. When we went to catch the plane, he'd left his baggage at
some other hotel along Rojas Boulevard.

Wait, you just gave some guy you'd never met $20,000 and
asked him to carry it on the plane?

I'd known him for a couple of days on this junket to Manila.

 Oh well, that makes perfect sense then!

I'd met him in Manila. He arrived on a different plane than I,

but he was part of a junket for Australians. Anyway, it was a very
nervous time waiting for him at the airport. I had $10,000 in each
of my socks and another $10,000 down the front of my underpants.
Even now, if I need to carry anything over $5,000 into another
country, I carry it in my sock out of habit. This guy was quite young.
He was twenty-three or twenty-four and seemed safe. He was going
with me on the same plane, so there didn't seem to be much risk.

But you didn't ride with him to the airport?

No, that's what went wrong. After I transferred the money to

him in the coffee shop, he put it under each sneaker. Then he told
me he had to go back to his hotel to get his luggage. At this point
it's going to take him fifteen minutes to get back to his hotel and get
his stuff, then another thirty minutes to get back to the airport.
Suddenly, making the plane is going to be very close. Off he went.
I arrived at the airport and stalled until the last minute board-1
ing the plane. Eventually they said, "You have to board." We got
onto the plane. I waited, waited, getting more and more nervous.
They shut the doors and we were still sitting there, about to start
taxiing, when suddenly they opened up the doors. He'd made it at
the very last minute.

It sounds like you were more worried about him missing the
flight than you were about him ripping you off.

Right. It never crossed my mind that he was trying to rip me off.

My read of the situation didn't make that a possibility.

I think people are fascinated by the amounts of money

involved, and that it seems to get so freely passed around in the
gambling world. In the business world, it would be three months
later and the lawyers would still be writing contracts.

We certainly did in the blackjack days. I continue to do it now.

I did something with Tommy Hyland once (Tommy Hyland is
interviewed in Chapter 3). Having just come from Europe, I had
maybe $40,000 in European currencies. I had thousand Swiss lira
notes, thousand deutschmark notes, guilders, and those bills are big.
I hadn't met Tommy at the time, but we had mutual friends. I didn't
have any U.S. dollars so I asked Tommy for $10,000. I offered him
the foreign currency to hold, but he said he didn't want it. I'd
borrowed a man's handbag to carry the European currency. Given
they were bigger, the bills didn't fit in a sock.
So I've got this money in the handbag and we're having dinner
in Bally's in Atlantic City. It's got escalators that run down from
three levels, and the restaurant is on the top, on level three. We ate
in this very nice restaurant and I left the purse sitting not on the table
but on a bench with potted plants next to the table. I left the
restaurant and forgot the handbag. I got down three flights of
escalators when I remembered I'd left this purse behind with
$40,000 in it. I went running up those escalators as fast as I could. I
rushed across to the table we were sitting at and the purse was gone.
It had been only five minutes. I rushed back to the maitre d', and
said, "Do you know what happened to the purse that I left at the
table?" He says, "Oh, sure, one of the waiters picked it up." They
returned the purse to me and I looked in and all the money Was still
there. I'm convinced that they looked in, saw the money, and
thought it was Monopoly money. I can't believe I'd have got ten all
of it back if they'd realized it was real money, and how much it was
worth.
You're right, though; it is different in gambling. If you hand
someone $100,000 in cash, it's pretty straightforward. They should
give it back, plus or minus whatever they win or lose. In the business
world, things are not necessarily so clear-cut. I expect you are more
likely to get outright cheated in the business world.

Have you ever been ripped off big by anybody?

The only possibility would be a guy named PM. In early '81,

while playing on bankrolls of mine, he lost $100,000. It didn't occur
to me to distrust him at the time. I thought PM was honest, but later
on there was a story in Korea that involved another guy who'd left
money in a safe-deposit box that PM had access to. PM lifted the
money and disappeared. I don't think he's been heard from since. He
disappeared off the face of the blackjack-playing planet. So there
would be some question about whether PM was more con man than
blackjack player.

Other than Jakarta, did you run into much cheating?

Of the three times I'm sure I was cheated, twice were in illegal
casinos, one in Seoul and one in Sydney, and the third was that time
in Jakarta. In any of the legal casinos in the States, I think not. The
major casinos aren't going to risk it.
As for losing money backing blackjack players, I guess if you're
part of a team that you're sure has all good and honest players, then
it's okay. But if you start, as I did, backing all and sundry ... I guess
people wouldn't have a very successful record doing that.

Any good blackjack stories come to mind?

One time a gambler named Winchester, Cathy Hulbert, and I

went to play at the casino at Surfer's Paradise on Queensland Gold
Coast. People there knew me from Hobart, where I'd played seven
years prior. By this time, Winchester and I were both in the Griffin
Book, and maybe even Cathy, as well. Within a day or two of
playing there, they cut one deck or a deck and a half from the front.
I wasn't planning to make any money out of this; I was doing it for
fun. I would bet two hands of two hundred off the top and if the
count went negative, I would cut down to ten dollars for a hand and
then jump it back up, forcing them to shuffle. I was controlling
when they shuffled. There were a couple of other players at the
table, one on either side of me. I told them that this was not a good
game. They should go to another table. They said, "No no, we're
having too much fun watching this right here."
So I'd just cut my bet to ten bucks and then increased it to a
hundred. The pit boss said, "Shuffle up." The dealer either didn't
hear him or ignored him and dealt me a ten. Now the pit boss
insisted that she shuffle and she said, "I've already given him a
card." He said, "Never mind, shuffle up." At that point, having
received a ten, I wanted to play out the hand, but the dealer took it
away. I went upstairs to the casino gaming commission, though I'm
not sure what they call it there. I complained to them and I wanted
them to hurry back downstairs to get statements from witnesses,
figuring that the casino might deny this. They weren't too interested.
They had me fill out some form explaining exactly what happened.
I complained that they were wasting my time filling out the form
when we should be going down and confirming my story. I filled
out the form and they wouldn't come downstairs with me, so after
thirty or forty minutes I left feeling very pissed.
I went back to Hong Kong, where I was living, and didn't hear
anything for six months. Then my wife got a check from the casino
for a hundred dollars. The reason the gaming commission didn't go
to look is that they were watching my table on video. They'd seen it
happen. So they forced the casino to send me a check for a hundred
dollars.
My blackjack career ended in 1981. I did go to the MGM in
Vegas when it opened. I arranged a junket with a Chinese friend. By
the time I sat down at the table I'd been traveling for twenty-four
hours. I was very tired. I played for an hour and a half and I Was
playing $5,000 to $15,000.1 ended up winning $170,000, but I
guess I didn't look like a normal gambler while this was happening.
Given that I was very tired, I probably looked far too bored as I was
winning all that money. The total play I got in was less than four
hours and I won $212,000.

Then they barred you?

Yes. I'd wired $400,000 to the casino. After the session was over
I withdrew the $400,000 in cash and got it in a brown paper bag. So
I'm walking through the casino with $400,000 in a brown paper bag
to deliver to a friend who was also a counter. In retrospect, given
the cameras they have everywhere, and given that my friend was so
well known as a blackjack player, it wasn't a good thing to be doing.

So after blackjack you went back to Australia and started

betting horses. Were you using computers, or just
handicapping?

Handicapping, using a mathematical system based on weights.

Americans tend to use speed numbers and they ignore weights. In
America a horse will generally carry much the same weight within
a pound or two. If he wins a race he's not suddenly going to have to
carry ten pounds more as happens here in Hong Kong. Weight is a
significant factor here. Whereas, in America on the fast dirt tracks
it's more a matter of speed from Whoa to Go. Anyway, in Australia,
grass racing is less speed related and weight has more of an effect.
Winchester had been trying to persuade me to bet the horses from
the time we'd first started traveling to play blackjack. But I didn't
know anything about the horses. It would be too much work. After
I'd been in Australia in 1982 and married for a year, I was a bit
restless doing nothing. Or maybe the Protestant work ethic was
rearing its ugly head, so I thought I should find another way of
making money.

What happened to, "I have my $250,000, so I can retire?"

Exactly. As I said, the Protestant work ethic was rearing its ugly
head.

Do you still have that today? You told me many years ago
that all you ever wanted was to have enough money not to work.
But the more money you got, the harder you seemed to work.

There's certainly some element of truth to that. I'm sort of lazy

and slothful, but the times when I'm inclined to get depressed are
when I'm not doing the work that I should be doing. I have things
piling up, financial accounts I haven't settled for years. I just settled
two or three months ago with one of my Chinese associates. I owed
him $9.8 million, which had been accumulating for four years.

That's pretty amazing that this guy hasn't been in any hurry
to collect $9.8 million that he's been owed for four years.

Most of it doesn't go back that far. Most of it has come in the

last year.

So your Protestant work ethic was making you go back to

work.

Right. Another thing that influenced me was that in 1981 Cathy

Hulbert got married in Albany, New York. The Bermuda Bowl
bridge championships were going on in upstate New York round
about the same time, so I went.
 Now, one of Australia's greatest bridge players was near
retirement at that point. He was sixty-odd then, and he'd been at the
top level of Australian bridge, the best player for many years.
Anyway, he was a professional punter. He took me aside during this
Bermuda Bowl and said that if I wanted to come to Sydney, he'd
teach me how to punt on the horses. Presumably, Winchester had
been talking to him about trying to get me interested in this. I never
did take him up on the offer, but it did get me interested to the extent
that I formed my own team of four in Melbourne. This was very
unusual for horse punters. They're normally very individualistic. I
was bringing blackjack team theory to punting the horses. It's much
better psychologically to be part of a gambling team than to be on
your own, having to suffer the fluctuations alone. This venture
lasted maybe four months before I split to New Zealand. We won
about Aus$15,000 between us.

punter—A gambler.

In New Zealand, I organized Winchester and a couple of other

professionals into a team effort where I got the three of them to
calculate probabilities for each horse in the race. I'd average them
and bet the overlays.1
We went through some huge fluctuations there. We started with
a bankroll of NZ$20,000 to NZ$40,000. We won $50,000 and then
had the whole lot wiped out. At one point, around the middle of
1983,1 had to go back to Australia for a month to get more money. I
went back to New Zealand and we took another huge fluctuation,
about $100,000 upwards, before most of it blew away again. By
early '84, Winchester and I parted ways and we were betting our
own money.
1
For this and numeric references 2 and 3, see "Woods Notes" at the end of this chapter.

How did you wind up here in Hong Kong?

 When Winchester and I were in New Zealand, there was an
article in the newspaper about how big the [race betting] turnover
was here. Back in 1984 it might have been $3 or $4 billion. That
was a huge sum of money and the pools2 were enormous compared
to Australia and New Zealand, and America for that matter. It
seemed like a juicy place to be. But first, I went off to the States for
a couple of weeks—perhaps subconsciously to escape a girlfriend I
was otherwise going to have to move in with.
Winchester and I talked about Hong Kong briefly in New
Zealand before we went to the States. We talked about it some more
in the States and I also talked to a guy named Pitts and his partner.
Long before we finalized plans, Winchester decided not to come
and maintained that we would never win here. Throughout the '80s,
other Australians came here, tried to win, and generally failed.

How did it happen with Pitts? Did you approach him or is

this something that he had been working on already?

He wasn't working on it, and I don't think anyone approached

anyone. It's like a group of friends talking about something and Pitts
said, "Sounds interesting. We're interested."
So we came here. My investment was sixty percent of $150,000.
Pitts had thirty percent, someone else had ten percent. Now my plan
was to try to rate [handicap] the horses myself and see how it went.
Whereas Pitts' interest was always in trying to develop a computer
model. I wasn't convinced a computer model would work.
Unfortunately, at the first race meeting I went to, there were maybe
six races and in four of them I got the win, the quinella, doubles,
everything.3 You know, "My God, I'm drowning in money here."
The first time I went to the track at Happy Valley [the Hong Kong
race track], I was just picking winners everywhere. Again, very
unfortunate because ...
 race meeting—Horse races are grouped into race meetings.
Racetracks generally have seven to ten races at a meeting.

You thought you had the touch.

Yes, yes. Anyway, with a combination of expenses—probably

only half of it came from losses at the horses—the $150,000
bankroll eventually got decimated.

Were they living here too?

In 1984 just Fred from the blackjack team and I came here.

Pitts and his partner were back working on the model in

Vegas?

Well, not working on the model. His partner was setting up the
database. They had girls in Vegas typing things in from yearbooks
that we sent them from over here. How much work Pitts did on the
model or modeling before he came here a year later I don't know.
Probably only five or ten percent was done before he got here in
October '85. After another year, he'd written a fair amount of code.
I'd found a way of winning on the horses that involved selecting my
favorite in the race and betting it if I thought it was an overlay. My
ratings wouldn't win if I tried betting quinellas and tierces and
everything else. This method of just picking the best horse and
betting it if it was an overlay is the American-type method, but I
found I could win doing that. In the latter part of the '85 season,
that's what we were doing, rather than using the computer model.

Were you paper trading the computer model at the same

time? To test it?
 We could run tests on back data. Paper trading? Not really. It's
possible that we tried betting the computer stuff some days, and
found out that it didn't do very well.
A mistake that both Pitts and I made back in those days was
building the model using samples that were too small. Pitts built
models partly in consultation with me on two or three hundred
races. They were just too small and too back-fitted. By the next
season, '86-'87, we had probably run the bankroll down to five
percent of the $150,000, or less. Prior to this, Pitts had tried a couple
of other ways of making money, like the Ziemba system.

I don't know what that is.

Well, it was an arbitrage thing using the win tote in the States to
indicate advantageous bets in the show pool. Only, Ziemba's system
was faulty. He'd used a straight mathematical formula to work out
the chance of running second and third given the horse's probability
of winning. But reality is different. Favorites don't run second and
third anywhere near as often as the straight mathematical formula,
which is called Harvel. Harvel was a mathematician who, I guess,
first published a paper on this, although anyone could work it out
independently. It's very simple.

tote (tote board) — The large racetrack scoreboard, which tells

the bettors all the necessary information about the next race and the
previous race. The name tote board came from the Totalisator
Company, which operated at most racetracks in North America.

Anyway, Harvel doesn't represent real life, so others have come

up with models; Henri Stearns is one of them. I was aware of this
effect before coming to Hong Kong. I knew in Australia that the
favorites might finish second only half as often as they won. In
effect, you need to discount the straight mathematical formula by
eighty percent for finishing second, and about sixty-four percent for
finishing third.
Pitts eventually went back to Atlantic City and started a
computer team to play blackjack, which was very successful. They
might have won a couple of million or so.

How many years did it take before you started winning in

Hong Kong?

It was the third year. We won in '86 using the computer.

What was the state of your personal bankroll at that point?

Did you still have money put away?

Yes. In '86-'87 I won $100,000. By October '87 I was worth

about US$400,000. That was after a year of winning.
I want to mention that horse racing skills don't transfer very
effectively from one country to another. There might be one or two
years, two being probably closer, of learning experience
necessary—of getting familiar with how things operate in different
countries. Certainly ten or more years ago, the way professionals
bet in America and Australia and New Zealand would have all been
quite different. Hong Kong was a mixture of all of them.

Is that why you never pursued going after the races in

Australia or the United States?

It would require a much bigger database. In Hong Kong there

are maybe a thousand horses and six hundred races per annum. You
don't have horses coming in from other countries, except for three
or four races per year. In Australia or the U.S., you might have
20,000 horses, maybe more, and maybe 20,000 races per annum.
Obviously, you wouldn't want to bet on all of them, but you'd need
to keep a database of them all, because occasionally someone is
going to come from some country racetrack to race in the cities
where you're betting. So it would be far more complex. In terms of
trying to set up in Australia, whatever I could possibly make there,
I'm probably better off devoting the work to trying to improve the
return in Hong Kong.

When did you make your first million?

During the October '87 stock market crash. That's one of my

favorite stories. In December '86, the futures on the Hang Seng
index in Hong Kong sold two months ahead and three or four
percent higher than the market. So you could sell the futures, buy
all the underlying stocks, and earn four percent per month. I went
into the largest stock-brokerage firm here, owned by the Hong Kong
& Shanghai Bank, and introduced myself. At this point I had only
$100,000. I'd sell these futures and buy this stock and I'd have a
perfectly hedged arbitrage position. Sometimes, for some reason,
there would be brief pessimism, so six weeks into my two-month
position the futures would drop and trade at a discount. Now I could
reverse out of the position by buying the futures for less than the
stock and selling the stock for a profit. This was like a pot of gold
dropping at your feet when it happened. I earned the equivalent of
sixty percent per annum across all the trades.
At the time I considered the U.S. market and the Hong Kong
market extremely overvalued. A couple of times during this period
I shorted the market. Each time, when it didn't behave as I expected
it to, I fairly quickly closed out. Once I lost about US$15,000 doing
this and another time I lost US$30,000. It doesn't seem like very
much these days but at the time the two of them might have
represented ten percent of my net worth.
Anyway, come the fateful Monday in October 1987. The
American market had gone down five percent on Wednesday, five
percent on Thursday, and five percent on Friday. These days if it
goes down two or three percent they're wailing. Three five-percent-
down days in a row. I'd been waiting for this. I went to the
stockbroker's Monday morning, getting there half an hour early,
ready to short and close out the arbitrage position. What I needed to
do was sell my stocks, which I had hedged, and sell some more
futures. The Hong Kong stock market started falling that morning
while I was doing this.

On the Wednesday and Thursday when the U.S. market was

falling, was the Hong Kong market dropping?

Not too much. The Hong Kong stock market peak was
somewhere around 3,900 at the time. I shorted at 3,800 so there
hadn't been anything like the three five-percent drops. I set up my
position early Monday morning. The Hong Kong market went down
twenty-five percent that day. America followed, crashing another
twenty-five percent that night. I think it dropped five hundred
points. Then they closed the Hong Kong stock market for the rest
of the week. There was some suggestion that the futures exchange
was going to go bankrupt, because some of the people who were
long the futures weren't going to be able to pay. For a little while
there was some suggestion that the people who profited out of this
weren't going to get paid. Eventually, the Hong Kong government
put together a $2 billion dollar buy-out package for the futures
exchange.

So what did you make on this deal?

In the space of a day, I made US$1 million. I was worth about

$400,000 and went to $1.4 million in a day. That was a fairly nice
win, wasn't it?
 Do you consider that the same as gambling?

I suppose it was. Although at the time I did it, I thought it was a

certainty.

I don't mean that you didn't have an edge. I mean, do you

see any difference between guys who play the markets and guys
who are professional blackjack players or horse bettors?

No. Many of the professions, currency traders perhaps, are

using systems, hedge funds, etc. These are just a far more
sophisticated variation [of gambling] than blackjack, or the horse
racing-type model. We use a computer model back-testing data.

Which is what many traders do. I'm surprised you haven't

taken this approach to your trading. Created a computer model.

The amount of work involved would be huge. And there are

already so many smart guys that have been in it for years.

Don't you think that the market is so huge, it doesn't matter

how much competition there is?

The book Market Wizards referenced a futures trader who made

$100 million or more. He was very successful at it for a number of
years. At the same time, he invested in thirteen houses, expecting to
make money on each one. He wasn't throwing away his money, he
was looking for value. But he lost money on all the houses except
one. I'm a strong believer in sticking to your area of expertise. I
wouldn't try to run any other business now and I'd be less inclined
to invest in others.
 But you still do a lot of trading.

This is my own market timing. I've been good at this over

twenty-five years. I mentioned the '74-'79 period in Australia. In
'74, I bought stocks at the lows.

Have you set up any kind of rules for yourself about your
entry or exit, or is it all just by feel?

It's instinct, which is generally pretty good, although sometimes

I get in a bit too early, because I underestimate the normal investor's
insanity. Having made this $1 million very quickly, I then shorted
the Japanese market. A friend tried continuously to persuade me to
get out of that position, but I was distracted—by a computer game.
I ended up playing this game for two months from morning until
night. My girlfriend fed me dinner while I sat at the keyboard. So I
ignored my Japanese position when I should have closed it out. I
lost the whole million back again.
But it did have a good side effect because during this period I
increased the amount I was betting on the horses. I have always bet
whatever I felt comfortable with. So my betting went up by a
multiple of three each year. By the time I lost the money in Japan, I
had won another $100,000 on the horses. I won $300,000 total that
season, $1 million the next season. So though I went from millionaire
to non-millionaire very quickly, I was a millionaire again within a
year.

There's a point at which if you bet too much at horses, you'll

bring down the payoff and lose your edge. Are you at that
maximum level now?

I'm not very scientific about it. I still use an old Australian
method of deciding on a bankroll size, multiplying the bankroll
times the probability, and making that bet. The bankroll size that I
use would be determined partly by the total pool size. To give you
an example, the bankroll that I use for calculating the bets into the
quinella pool might be five percent of the total pool. Sometimes if
the horse is a big overlay on our model, with three times
expectation, this means I might take fifteen percent of the quinella
pool. I've taken more than that. I would guess that my biggest collect
on a single quinella was around thirty percent. It was the last race
of a meeting as well and it paid HK$21 million. That one quinella
was worth US$2.7 million.

What I was getting at was, currently, what you bet is not a

question of your comfort level.

Our betting levels now, and for some years, are limited by the
pool size.

I find it funny, though, that you had this comfort level about
betting the horses, but were willing to plunge into shorting the
market for such a huge figure.

But I wasn't risking that much. When I shorted the Hong Kong
market, it wasn't suddenly going to go up by fifty percent. I'd done
it a couple of times before and lost limited amounts of money.

I'm talking about the Japanese short. So you weren't

expecting the kind of fluctuation that occurred?

No. I put my head in the sand. I should have gotten out earlier.
In January 1990 I did it again. A couple of weeks later I closed it
out, losing about $15,000, for fear of the same thing that happened
years before. If it started losing $100,000 or $200,000, I'd just not
think about it, find some way of ignoring it, and the money would
have dribbled away as before. Two weeks later, Japan went off the
cliff. I'd been waiting for that for years. I had plans of shorting more
as the market went down. I'd even worked out how much I was
going to make—between US$5 million and US$10 million. There
are a couple of financial things I regret in life. They're both missed
opportunities, rather than the loss on the Japanese markets.

It fell off the cliff and you didn't jump in? Why not?

I don't remember. I wouldn't have been very happy about it, so

I probably tried not to think about it. I think this is a pretty good
strategy for life. If there's something distressing to you, it's better to
put it out of your mind than get depressed or fret over it. As much
as possible, it's best to block out the unhappy memories or the things
that are going to upset you.

Your thinking about other games has been to quantify them

and then bet your advantage. Whereas, over twenty-five years
of this trading, it seems you haven't tried to quantify it. I'm not
saying you should do it today. I'm just curious that it never
evolved that way.

I wouldn't do it. It's too instinctual. I did another one in '95, and
this is my second regret about lost opportunity. When the U.S. dollar
went down to close to 80 yen, I set up a long dollar position at about
82.5. It briefly went below that to 79 or something. Then it
gradually edged upward. I sold at about 87.4 and made US$2.4
million. At the time, I thought this was a pretty neat little score. But
I should have held it. It capped at 147.

So back to horses.

Yes. I won $100,000 in the '86-'87 season; $300,000 in '87-'88;

$1 million in '88-'89; $1.5 million in '89-'90; and $2.5 million in '90-
'91. By February '92 I was up approximately $2.5 million for that
year, but then I went on a losing streak such as I've never suffered
before. This may have been caused by competition from other
teams. Maybe my model wasn't good enough then. I hadn't done
much work on it, nor had others done much work on it.

If it was working, why fix it?

Right. In those years I didn't work very hard. I'd get prepared
for the race meeting, do the race meeting, be forced to do whatever
accounting I had to do the next day, then forget about it until the
next race meeting.
Anyway, having been up approximately $2.5 million, I'd lost
$2.9 million going into the last race day. I think I won about $400,000
that day to break even for the season. This is what led me to join up
with the Australians. They wanted me to give them the Tele-Quote
information that I'd been saving over the years so they could start
building a model. Instead of selling it, I made them an offer to team
up, which I wouldn't have done if they weren't here already. They'd
come here with Winchester. I needed programmers at the time. [At
this point in the interview, Alan glances at the Bloomberg's screen
set up in his living room] I might be losing $500,000 here while
we're talking.

Because the market is going up?

Yes [he's shorting again]. So in '93, for the first time, I started
programming. It was partly because of that loss that I decided to do
some work on the system. The next year I was with the Australians
and we won about $1.5 million. The next season we won $10
million, and the next season we won significantly more than that.
 Are you still winning eight figures a year?

Yes. I've passed the billion-dollar mark [HK$1 billion is about

US$130 million].

You also bet a lot of money on World Cup soccer didn't you?

I won about $8 million betting World Cup soccer. I ended up

betting £2 million with Ladbrokes, which I suspect may be one of
the biggest bets ever made by an individual punter on a sporting
event [about US$3.2 million]. There can't be many bigger than that.

What is your biggest winning day, and biggest losing day in

gambling?

Biggest wins tend to get distorted by triple trios. One time we

collected $50 million in the triple trio, plus about $8 million on
other bets. About US$7.5 million for the day. I don't think I've ever
exceeded that one.
One day at Happy Valley there was a seven-race meeting. Our
normal outlay at one of these meetings might be twelve, thirteen,
fourteen million Hong Kong. This day we laid out HK$23 million—
and wiped out the lot of it. I think that's still my biggest outlay ever
[about US$3 million]. It was a zero-collect night.

Earlier you mentioned mistakes.

One way or another we've made many mistakes. One of my

worst was churning the bets out too late to get them down. One day
a race came up and I wasn't absolutely sure about the error, but I
knew it was mine. We missed getting a quinella that would have
paid US$1 million. I was very distraught about that. I normally
manage to shrug off mistakes of equal magnitude with a bit more
elan. But I was so distressed that on the next race, the last race of
the day, I made another mistake and put the bets on five minutes too
early. Some of the betting we were doing was at another location,
but only bets that paid less than 50-1. Because I put the bets on early,
I drove the payout below 50-1, so the other location started putting
bets on it as well. It promptly got up and won! In flowed a $1.25
million return. Between the two mistakes I made an extra $250,000.
Speaking of betting early, I mentioned a quinella before. It was
paying 1,108-1 when we put our bet on. I was aware that we had
some big overlays in the race, and I deliberately put my bets on early
in order to get the other computer teams off it. I realized that if I
reduced the dividends, I had some chance of getting them off some
of our combinations altogether, or at least reducing the amount they
were going to bet on them. We collected a bit over US$2.5 million
on that one quinella.

It seems that not only are you now beating the races, but it's
also become sort of a poker game figuring out what the other
teams are doing.

I suspect others have given this a lot more thought than I have.
Because of the way we save data to build future models, I can't
generally bet too early. I can't play this strategy game very well. We
would need to get far more sophisticated software to take our bets
back out of the pool and assume they weren't there in order to make
other bets. If I bet too early, it will distort my betting in other pools.

But it's added another dimension to the game.

Yes, but it's not one that I worry about too much. Another team
did something far more horrific than anything I've ever done.
Essentially, they overwrote some data for one race meeting that was
crucial to the probabilities for the rest of the season. There were
maybe six race meetings to go, and every time a horse from that
race meeting raced thereafter he would get a very low probability
regardless of how he performed at that meeting. So the last race
meeting they ended up betting on the wrong horses because of this.
But they still won about US$1.5 million.
One day we were betting the double trio, but with very
unsophisticated betting software that wouldn't merge the bets. It
would just print out 8,000 bets and then someone would put a big
bracket around sixty bets and effectively say, "You can combine
these," etc. By mistake, one of the guys double bracketed the same
combination. He bet the same thing twice. This combination
promptly got up (won). Our collect out of the pool was going to be
$5 million anyway, but I think we collected $13 million.
Recently, after I'd printed the bets out in time, one of the girls
[placing the wagers] put down a bet as $50,000, but the operator
repeated it back as $500,000. The girl said, "No, it should be
$50,000." It took a minute or so to correct, so she didn't get all the
bets down. One was a quinella for $30,000 that paid 300-1. We
missed a $9 million collect through her not getting the bet down.
When we don't get bets down, sometimes they don't win and we
save money. But you want to get them down because the advantage
is reasonably big.

You obviously don't need investors. Do you still have them?

Yes. The outside investors are getting a return on their money. I

take a royalty, plus the workers' shares come off, so what they get -
is forty-five percent of the win, approximately. The ones who also
work and invest get fifty percent. No, I don't need the investors, but
having given them something, it's hard to take it away. If there
wasn't some ego involved in wanting to do well for all the people
who work for me, if it was just me, I wouldn't be driven to work as
hard as I do. Also, there's psychological support, and whatever
pleasure one gets out of working with others. Making money for
other people is nice. I've made several guys millionaires.

That must be a good feeling. Let's say you had a nephew

fresh out of school who came to you and said, "I want to be a
professional gambler." What would you tell him?

I think I'd say, "Don't do it unless you want to be a computer

programmer." Crazy Mike Caro wrote a book back in 1984 [Caro
on Gambling]. It was a series of articles or stories. One of them
involved monkeys falling out of the trees, or something. What he
was saying was that computers were going to take over gambling,
and if you didn't have a computer, get one right away. He said, "If
you haven't got enough money, sell your car, sell your friends, but
rush out and buy a computer. Computers are the future of
gambling."

He was right.

He certainly was. Which is why I'd say now to anyone asking

me, "It's only worthwhile if you want to be a computer
programmer."

But if you want to be a poker player or a backgammon

player or a blackjack player, you don't need to be a
programmer.

I would generally advise against trying to become one of those,

because I think one needs to have a very even and tough
temperament, a strong desire to accumulate money, and enormous
self-control to be a successful gambler. I think Caro also said that
the most successful poker player amongst a group of approximate
equals is he who steams least. Gambling on races is fairly
impersonal, so it's somewhat different, although there are punters
that steam, as well. Amongst approximate equals, the most
important thing is self-control and not steaming. It's more important
than ability.

If this ended tomorrow what would you do?

I would hope I'd retire. It's been my plan for years to retire to
the Philippines and have seven wives.

Woods Notes

1—Overlay
The concept of an "overlay" is an important one in the world of
professional-level gambling. In horse racing, an overlay is a bet in
which the payoff odds are greater than the odds of the horse
winning. For example, if the true chance of a horse winning is one
in three, but the horse is paying 5-1, there's an overlay. Assuming
you bet this horse and the race was run three times, you would lose
one betting unit twice and win five betting units once, for a net gain
of three units. So the winning handicapper is not necessarily looking
for the horse that will win, but the horse that will yield an overlay.
The term overlay has come to be used in many areas of
gambling, describing any situation in which the bettor has an
advantage in a proposition.

2—Pari-Mutuel Betting
Horse betting is based on a pari-mutuel system. Unlike sporting
events, where gamblers bet against a bookmaker, a race bettor is
actually betting against the other bettors. When money is wagered
at the track (or in casino race books), it goes into a pool. The
racetrack takes a percentage of the pool as its fee for providing the
betting service—this fee ranges from 17% to 25%, depending on
the pool type. The remaining money is then disbursed to the winners
in proportion to the amount bet.
For example, if $12,000 is bet in the win pool, the racetrack
takes $2,000 and $10,000 is left. If the wagers on the winning horse
totaled $1,000, those bettors would receive their $1,000 back, plus
$9,000 profit divided among them. The winning bettors receive
odds of 9-1. If $2,000 had been bet on the winner, there would be
$8,000 profit, and the same horse would return 4-1.

3—Horse Race Bets

In Hong Kong, many different bets can be made on a given race.
Most of these bets have an equivalent bet in the United States.
Win—Pays if horse finishes first in the race.
Place—Pays if horse finishes first or second.
Show—Pays if horse finishes first, second, or third.
Double—Must pick the winning horses in two races. In the
U.S., this is usually called the Daily Double.
Treble—Must pick the winning horse in three races.
Six Up (sometimes called Pick Six)—Must pick the winners of
six races.
Quinella (called Exacta Box in the U.S.)—Must pick the horses
finishing first and second in either order.
Exacta—Must pick the horses finishing first and second in the
correct order.
Tierce (called Trifecta Box in the U.S.)—Must pick the horses
finishing first, second, and third in any order.
Trifecta—Must pick the horses finishing first, second, and third
in the correct order.
Double Trio—Must pick the horses finishing first, second, and
third, in order, in two races.
Triple Trio—Must pick the horses finishing first, second, and
third, in order, in three races.
 8

DOYLE BRUNSON

The World Series of Poker is held every May at Binion's

Horseshoe in downtown Las Vegas. It consists of numerous
tournaments held over the course of a month: the winner of each
event receives a gold and diamond bracelet and a pile of money. The
championship game is no-limit hold 'em with a $10,000 buy-in and
a million-dollar first prize (and even higher these days). Every
poker player in the world dreams of winning this event. Doyle
"Texas Dolly" Branson won it two years straight, in 1976 and 1977.
He has a total of eight bracelets from World Series events and was
the first poker player to win more than a million dollars in
tournament prize money.
In 1978 Doyle published Super/System, a book that
revolutionized poker. The best players at each game wrote a chapter
on their specialty. Doyle himself wrote the chapter for no-limit hold
'em. Chip Reese wrote about 7-card stud and Mike Caro covered 5-
card draw. It was the first book by professionals for professionals,
and since its release, the level of play has steadily increased.
Doyle was known as the first "educated" poker player; he had a
split Masters degree in Education and Business Administration. His
plan was to teach school and coach sports, but the pay was so bad
he never did. After college, he worked in sales for a year, but found
he was making a lot more money playing poker. He quit the job and
never looked back.
For 10 years he traveled around Texas to anywhere a big game
was spread. It wasn't the easy life: "You had to win the money. You
had to collect it. You had to keep from getting cheated at the table.
You had to keep from getting robbed. And then you had to keep
from getting arrested. It was an interesting combination of things
that you had to overcome."
By 1973 Doyle's reputation had become so big that he found
himself unwelcome in many games. He moved to Las Vegas and
experienced phenomenal success there, too. He says, "I had some
theories that were ahead of their time. I just won all the money, all
the time."
Poker has exploded in popularity since then. The finals of the
World Series of Poker are now televised on ESPN and there's a
tournament circuit in the U.S. and Europe. They've brought a new
respectability to poker and showcased a new breed of younger
players. But Doyle Brunson remains the most famous poker player
in the world.

When did you first start gambling?

In college. It was about 1953. I was playing poker in the

dormitories.

How did you go from playing in college to playing

professionally?

I graduated from college, then went back and got my Masters

degree. I took a job in Texas as an adding-machine and
bookkeeping-machine salesman and I worked there for about a year.
That's when I started playing hold 'em. It became evident that I
could make a lot more money playing poker than I could doing
anything else. So I quit and I've been doing it full-time ever since.

What was your degree in?

I had a Bachelor of Science and a split Masters in Education and

Business Administration.
 But you never branched out into business?

No. I was going to coach and teach, but the pay scale was so
bad that I never went into it.

What did your parents think?

They didn't like it at all. In fact, I hid it from them. My dad never
really knew. He knew that I played poker, but he didn't know that I
was doing it professionally. My mother never really said much
about it. Of course, once you get to be a big success at something,
people are different than they are when you're struggling, starting
off. Most people do struggle when they start off in the poker
business. There are a few exceptions, like Chip Reese [Chip Reese
is interviewed in Chapter 2]. He came to town and he immediately
was one of the better players and has remained so. Most of us have
paid our dues.

At that time, did the professional poker circuit involve a lot

of driving around from game to game?

In Texas it did. There was a circuit in Texas where there were

games all over the state at different times of the month. I made those
and did that for ten years.

In the early years traveling around in Texas, were there

hijackings, robberies?

Many. That was always one of the perils you faced. You had to
win the money. You had to collect it. You had to keep from getting
cheated at the table. You had to keep from getting robbed. Then you
had to keep from getting arrested by the police. It was an interesting
combination of things that you had to overcome.

Was the decision to move to Vegas made because you

thought you wouldn't have to face those things?

That was part of it. Another part was that I'd gotten so far above
the average player that I was becoming unwelcome in some places.
I just won all the money all the time. I had some theories that were
ahead of their time. Most of the good players now know them all,
because of the book [Super/System, by Doyle Brunson], and playing.
Back in those days I almost never lost.

Were those no-limit games?

No-limit. I didn't play limit until I moved to Las Vegas.

Actually, I didn't play limit the first seven years I was here. Finally,
when I saw that that was where a lot of the money was being won,
I had to adjust my game and I started playing limit. The first seven
years in Las Vegas when I played no-limit, I can't recall ever losing.

Is there a lot more skill in no-limit than limit?

Oh yeah, a lot more skill in no-limit. You have more things you
can do.

I read somewhere that in limit games, a player could go for

an entire year and lose just because of fluctuations.

I don't agree with that. When I've been playing regularly, I've
never gone loser more than a month. Anytime I lost five times I
would take a week or two off, and reevaluate things to see what I
was doing wrong. I don't believe it's possible to play poker for a
year and lose if you're playing correctly.
 When did you come to Las Vegas?

I came here in 1973 to live. I first started coming here in the late
'60s.

Did you have problems with the mob when you moved to
Las Vegas? I've heard they were a problem for the professional
poker players back in the early days.

They were to some people. I never allowed myself to be drawn

into anything with them. I knew who they were. They approached
me [to be a part of cheating rings] and I always said no. I think they
finally came to respect me for that. They realized that I wasn't going
to do it. I knew that would break gambling up, and I have always
tried to promote gambling. If there's any taint or any hint of
anything wrong with a poker game, people stop playing. I didn't
want that. I tried to keep the games I was in as honest as I could. I
think most of the top players did the same thing.

Was poker big in Vegas at that time?

Not like it is now.

When did the big upsurge in the game take place?

I think when the World Series of Poker started. It's been getting
bigger and bigger ever since. It's phenomenal the growth it's had. If
I were a young man now I'd be killing myself playing. There are so
many good games and so many tournaments. They have them
worldwide.

Do you like to play tournaments?

 I don't play a lot of tournaments. I like the side games better,
because that's where the money is.

There's a tournament tomorrow at Harrah's. Is that no-limit

hold 'em?

Yes, it is, but I won't play in it. To start with, I usually like them
to be a little bit bigger. I like it to be a $10,000 buy-in and this one
is $5,000. Also, I hear the room is smoky; I don't want to go in and
make myself sick.

That's one nice thing about the card rooms in California;

they are all non-smoking.

I wish they would pass that here.

Is tournament play completely different from side-game

play?

Not completely different, but there are a lot of differences. It's

not nearly as nerve-racking in a tournament as it is in side games.
In a tournament you can lose only your original buy-in, as opposed
to losing whatever you bet in a side game. You can bet $100,000 in
a tournament only if you were lucky enough to have already won
that much money; if you lose it, you still lose only the $10,000 that
you started with. Whereas, if you're playing in a real poker game
and you bet $100,000 and lose it, you lose $100,000. You have to
have a different make-up, I think, to play the big no-limit [side]
games.

Are there many big no-limit games now, or is it primarily

limit?
 It seems like limit has taken over a lot. They just play high
limits. A $2,000-$4,000 limit game is really a huge game. I went
into Bellagio one day and they had a $200-$400 game, a $300-$600,
a $400-$800, a $500-$l,000, a $l,000-$2,000, and a $l,500-$3,000
game. All those games were running on the same day. That would've
been unheard of a few years ago. President Clinton, although he had
his faults, definitely made the economy good. It seems everybody
has money, which is great for gambling.

What made you decide to write Super/System? Didn't you

wise up a lot of people with that book? I would think it hurt
your income.

Actually, it was the reverse. It made a lot more players. I think

there are more players in the big limits because of that book than
any other factor. It made good players out of mediocre players, and
it made really good players out of good players. You have to have a
nucleus to have a game going on. I think the book helped.

Do you travel much anymore?

A little bit. I'm trying to curtail it as much as I can. I've got trips
scheduled to Tunica [Mississippi] and Austria in the near future.

Those are both for tournaments?

Yeah. I went to France for a poker game. I've been to the Isle of
Man, Australia, Ireland. There are games everywhere. If I were a
young man, as much as I liked to play when I was young, I'd be
going all the time.

Do you find that having as big a reputation as you do helps

or hurts you?

I think it's beneficial. Some of the really good players will shy
away sometimes from games that I'm in. But the reputation causes
moneyed people that have read and heard about me to seek me out
to play.

So the book helped you in that regard.

I think so. It's hard for me to realize that I'm as well-known as I

am. I'm just a poker player from Texas. There was the book, and a
lot of articles in magazines, some television coverage. It kind of
sneaked up on me before I realized that people actually knew who
Doyle Brunson was, especially in Europe. At the last tournament of
champions over there, a bunch of European players came over and
spoke to me and had me autograph the book and so forth. It seems
I'm better known over there than I am here. I don't know why.

How has Las Vegas changed with regard to poker?

There wasn't that much poker, especially high-limit poker.

There was a guy from Texas that came out and started a no-limit
hold 'em game at the Golden Nugget. That was the forerunner to the
bigger games. They had a few games that got big sometimes, but
nothing like the magnitude of the game today. Poker is flourishing.

It seems to have respectability today as well.

Oh sure. In the '50s and '60s it was almost a disgrace to be a

poker player. People I went to school with actually walked across
the street to keep from saying hello to me. Those same people today
call me up when they come to town and want to go out to dinner. I
have a long memory for stuff like that. It doesn't bother me now, but
it did bother me then. I think I've put it behind me, but it's still a
bitter thought when I remember how people looked down on me.
They thought you were some kind of gangster if you gambled. It
was something that I chose to do. I started and I liked it. I was good
at it.

You said one time that there's a difference between "being"

broke and "getting" broke.

Probably what I was referring to was, if you just run out of

money you're okay because you can usually borrow money. That's
getting broke. If you really get destitute—where you went out and
borrowed and promised people that you would pay them back and
haven't—that's what you have to try to avoid. That's being broke.
People have to cut down on their playing and play in selective spots
at lower limits when that happens. I think I did that pretty well in
the early years. When I was running short of money, I would cut
back to lower limits until I made myself comfortable again. Then I
would start playing higher.

You weren't one of those guys who were rich one week and
broke the next?

I never plunged off and got myself in real bad shape, no. You
have to have discipline. If you don't have it, you can't be a successful
gambler, or a poker player at least. You have to discipline yourself
to do certain things. I think I got all my discipline from athletics. I
was a miler, a long-distance runner, and I was a basketball player.
For my time I was really good. I think I developed a discipline that
carried over into other phases of my life. I love to play. Ten years of
my life are almost a blur where I did nothing but play, sleep, and
eat.
 When did you take up golf?

When I was about thirty years old.

Has there been a lot of money to be made in golf over the

years?

There wasn't when I first started playing. But there came a time
when there was a lot of money. We played some of the biggest
games that have ever been played anywhere. We played for
hundreds of thousands of dollars.

You don't play anymore?

No, I blew out my leg and I can't play. It's been seven or eight
years since I've played. I really miss it. It was good exercise, whether
people say it is or not. I won a lot of money playing golf and I
enjoyed it. There was a group of us around America who were the
real high players. We got together pretty regularly and it was a great
thing.

Chip Reese said he and Danny [Robeson] played against you

and Jack Binion.

Yeah, they were better players than we were, but we beat them.
We kept them broke for about a year.

Is there a way to overcome that, if you're someone who dogs

it?

I think it's something that's inbred. Some people choke and

some don't. Some people can relax and it's like your muscles have
a memory. You can just swing the same way. Those are the really
tough players. Guys like Tommy Fisher [professional poker player]
or Billy Walters [Chapter 1]. I matched up against all of them. That's
when you find out who can play for the money and who can't. I
would usually over-match myself. That was my way of doing
things. I would over-match myself for big amounts of money,
because I could usually win when the pressure came. Then you find
guys like Bill Walters or Puggy Pearson.1 If you overmatch yourself
with one of them, they'll beat you. They don't choke.
1
See "Brunson Notes" at the end of this chapter.

Have you branched out into other forms of gambling?

I've always bet sports. Because of my background as an athlete,

I've always had a big interest in it. When I was growing up, I was
very competitive. I had aspirations of being a professional athlete
until I broke my leg and had to quit.

How did you break it?

I was working at a gypsum plant and a big pile of sheet rock fell
on me and crushed my leg. If that hadn't happened, I never would
have gotten into the gambling business, so I don't know if it was
good or bad. I was on crutches for two years. It got better. I could
do things on it for thirty years, I guess. But it's why I have problems
now. I walk with a cane or crutch. Since I stopped playing golf I
gained weight, and the knee and ankle have gotten bad. I need an
operation on it, but I hate to go through it.
So I always had an interest in football, baseball, and basketball.
I always bet them, but it was more for pleasure. Then the last ten
years we've gone into computer programming and all that stuff.
Chip and I bet on baseball every year and we've been very
successful. Football too, but not as much as baseball.
 Do you have the same kind of problems that Bill Walters
talked about? Problems with the casinos not letting you bet?

We didn't for a long time. We do have problems now. Las Vegas

has become a joke for the sports bettors. It's actually embarrassing.
They've run all the business away from the casinos. There are all
these sports books now offshore in the Caribbean. The Las Vegas
casinos take very small bets. It's not like the old days. I don't know
what they're thinking. I think they're inefficiently run.

It's like blackjack. There are very few people that can
actually beat the game, but the casinos are so afraid of them that
they end up running more good business out the door.

I tried to play blackjack a little bit. I never really learned it. I

never became proficient enough that I could win. But if I went in a
casino right now and started playing blackjack, they'd ask me to
leave.

Because they figure you wouldn't be playing if you thought

you had the worst of it?

Right.

With people analyzing everything to death with computers,

what do you think the future of gambling is?

I don't see it doing anything but getting bigger and better. It's
obvious that the American people like to gamble. It's a crying shame
that we can't get Congress to legalize it and get the taxes from it. I
said that years ago, before they started legalizing it in other states.
The government should step in and legalize gambling everywhere,
but in order to open up a casino, they'd have to be your partner. You
talk about not having a deficit. We'd have so much money in the
treasury, we couldn't spend it.

What about for advantage players? Will there still be

opportunities to make money betting sports? Will poker get
harder to beat?

The poker games will get harder, but there's an intangible in a

poker player. There are poker players who know as much as I do—
they might know more about probabilities and odds and
everything—but there is an intangible that defines whether you're a
winner or not.
I don't know if you know Puggy Pearson. He's an old-time poker
player. When I came to Las Vegas he was the dominant poker player
here. All the action revolved around the game that Puggy was in.
Here is a guy who had a sixth-grade education. He didn't have any
idea about odds or probabilities, yet he was the best player. He has
an instinct. That's what poker players have.

advantage player—A gambler who looks for a mathematical

edge at any game and, upon finding it, exploits it.

Did you see the movie Rounders?

Yeah.

In movies, tells, like the thing with the Oreo cookie, are
always very overt. In high-level poker, are there tells that are this
distinct?

I've seen them. Not from professionals, but from amateur

players who sometimes come into the big game. One time a guy
came in and whistled Dixie every time he was bluffing. It was
comical. Everyone at the table picked up on it. Of course, he went
broke… I have tells on people that I've had for twenty or thirty years
and never had the opportunity to use. Like Johnny Moss (see
"Walters Notes," Chapter 1), he was a great player. I had a tell on
him that I picked up from across the room when I was watching
him. It was a simple thing where he over-relaxed his face. He was
bluffing and his face had no tension showing at all. It was obvious
to me, because I had played so much with him. After that, I saw it
several times and it was always when he was bluffing. But it never
came up during a hand with me. I've had that with several people.

tell— In poker, a habit or mannerism that gives away

information about a poker player's hand. In the movie Rounders, a
climactic scene revolves around Matt Damon realizing the strength
of his opponent's hand by the way he separates and eats an Oreo
cookie.

Do you write these things down?

I just remember them. I guess I have a very good memory.

Do you keep track of your wins and losses?

Sure.

What do you keep track of other than the win or loss?

That's all.

Do you add it up at the end of the year to get a total?

You have to do that to pay your taxes, which I have always been
very conscientious about. In fact, my accountant told me one time
that if I ever had any problems he would get up on the stand and
testify that I was the most conscientious taxpayer he'd ever had as a
client. He said that because I wouldn't take some deductions I was
entitled to. I just didn't want problems. These guys that don't pay
their taxes are crazy. The only way you can accumulate things over
time is to pay your taxes. I've always preached that to the young
guys. I tell them just close your eyes and pay. It hurts, but it's the
way to do it.

I remember that Jack Strauss [a World Series of Poker

champion] had big court battles over his taxes.

Jack had some bookmaking problems, too. Jack was a unique

man. He's the one someone should write a book about.

You said when you came to Vegas the games were revolving
around Puggy Pearson. Was Johnny Moss here at that time?

Moss came a little after I did. Johnny had been out here about
twenty years prior to that and he had some trouble with the mob. He
had to leave to keep from getting killed. He didn't come back for
twenty years.

What was the cause of his problem?

It was way before my time, but the way I understand it, he had
a problem at the old Flamingo after Bugsy Siegel had been killed.
There was a guy running the place named Gus Greenbaum, and he
was a poker player. All the big games were there and Johnny had
somehow put a couple of guys in the ceiling that were looking at
the cards through a telescope. I don't know the whole story, but I
heard Johnny tell it. Anyway, they caught the guys. They brought
them down and Johnny was sure they were going to kill them, so he
stepped forward and said, "Listen, those guys [in the ceiling] were
just doing this for me. I'm the one who did all this. Let them go." So
they let those two guys go and they still had Johnny there in the
casino. These two guys went out and got shotguns and marched
back into the casino and got Johnny and left with him. So Johnny
didn't go back to Las Vegas for twenty or twenty-five years.

Back in the early '70s when you got to Las Vegas, was there
still cheating going on?

In the '70s, yes. That's when the mob guys were here.

Chip said that eventually the players said enough is enough.

Yes.

I think you're right that the worst thing for Vegas would be
a reputation that people are being cheated.

You get some of that anyway, even in the honest games. People
lose and can't accept the fact that they lost to a better player. So
sometimes they claim that this happened or that happened, when
these games are as honestly run as possible. They have surveillance
cameras on every table, plus the players are watching each other.
I'm convinced that in the upper limits they are one hundred percent
honest. I don't know about the lower limits, because I'm not there.

What advice would you have for the guy who is in college
playing poker who thinks he has what it takes to be a
professional?

I would tell him that the probability is that he doesn't. Most of

the players that we get are hometown champions. Some guy from
Milwaukee is the hometown champion and he comes out here
thinking he's the best. He usually finds out that he's not. He winds
up having to go home. There are exceptions, but it's a small
percentage. Some guys make it.

If a guy does want to make it, what should he do?

There is no substitute for experience. Just play and play and

play.

Start in the lower limits and work your way up?

Unless you inherited a lot of money.

Any books in particular you would recommend, other than

your own, of course?

I haven't read a lot of those books. I think there is some

worthwhile information out there. Mike Caro and David Sklansky
are the two best authors out there. Both of them are brilliant guys.
They really know poker.

Do you own a computer?

Yeah.

Have you seen any of the poker software?

Now that's something else. Mike Caro has a program called

Poker Pro. It's the greatest thing. You can learn the odds and
percentages of different hands against other hands. I used to sit
around and deal hands by the hour, but these things play like 20,000
hands in thirty seconds or something, and it gives you the answer.
It's the greatest.

That surprises me. I wouldn't have thought you'd be using

something like that.

Oh yeah. You keep learning as you go. The exact numbers are a
little bit different. For example, in hold 'em I knew about what the
odds of making a flush were. But this tells you one point eight one
to one that you don't make a flush with two cards to come. That's
helpful. You can figure out your pot odds and whether it's
advantageous to call.

Tell me about the ten, deuce. The second time was it a

superstitious thing? [Doyle Brunson has won the World Series
of Poker twice. Both times he won the last hand with a 10 and a
2. This is considered a terrible starting hand.]

No, I was forced into the pot as the big blind. It was down to
two of us. I didn't even think of it, that it was the same hand. The
flop came ten, eight, five. The other guy had the eight and five of
spades. I had two tens and I checked it. He made some small bet and
I called it. Here came a deuce, and at that point I remember thinking,
Here it is again. I checked it and he bet. I moved in on him and he
called it and I caught another ten.

big blind—A forced bet in hold 'em that starts the action.
Typically, the person to the left of the dealer puts up half a bet, called
the small blind, and the next person puts up a complete bet, the big
blind.
flop — In hold 'em five community cards are dealt in the middle
of the table. Three are turned over initially; this is the flop. After a
round of betting, the fourth card, known as the turn, or fourth street,
is dealt. The last card is known as the river, or fifth street.
 move in — To bet all your chips. Also known as "going all in."

The first time was it also a case of you being in the blind?

No. The first time it was down to Jesse Alto and me. Jesse was
a notorious steamer. I had just beaten him out of a nice pot and I
knew he was steaming. You understand what I mean by steaming?
He was agitated and really ready to play. He raised the pot and I
called it, which I ordinarily wouldn't have done. I had ten, deuce of
spades that time. He had an ace, jack. The flop came ace, jack, ten.
He made some kind of small bet and I called, and off came a deuce.
He still had aces and jacks against tens and deuces. He bet and I
moved in on him. He called it and the last card was a ten.

He must have really been steaming then.

Well, the game was over. I was very fortunate.

Do you now get into situations where the flop comes ten,
deuce and people start to worry and throw their hand away just
because they know the story.

They talk about it, and I attempted to play that hand for years.
Finally, I gave it up, because it's just such a bad hand.

Any of the up-and coming young players that stand out in

your estimation.

Oh, there are a lot of them. Poker's a young man's game.

Usually, you don't see poker players in the big games over the age
of fifty. For some reason they start tailing off. You go look at the big
games and you'll see a bunch of kids. I'd say most of them are in
their thirties. There are a lot of good young players.
 How long have you been married?

Almost forty years.

How has your wife dealt with this life?

She's been remarkable. It takes a special woman to be with a

poker player. Not just because of the ups and downs, but also the
mood swings and the hours that you're away. Back in the early years
it was the hardest to be apart. I was gone for three or four weeks at
a time. She's never really bothered me the way a lot of guys' wives
will. She never calls the poker room unless it's really important. I
really appreciate the way she has done things. She realizes my work
comes first. She handled it very well.

What is the most you've ever won in a day?

I've had weekends where I won well over a million dollars.

I guess a poker game can last more than a day. What about
the biggest loss?

I don't really recall. Three or four hundred thousand is the most

I can recall losing in one play. When I went to France I lost $1.4
million, but I was there several days.

Are there any moments that you look back on as your

greatest gambling moments?

When you win the World Series, I think that's the ultimate for a
poker player. I don't think there's anything better than that. There
have been times when I needed to win, but that was an awfully big
thrill. Some of the biggest thrills I've had have been playing golf.
There's nothing better than birdying the last hole to win all the
money.-That's a thrill you can't hardly equal. I was lucky enough
that I did win a lot. Like I said, I always matched up where I had a
very tough game, as opposed to most players, who match up where
they have almost a cinch. People wanted to play me because they
knew that I did match up that way.
There were golf games everywhere I went. I had different places
across America that I could go play and have good games. Games
where I thought I could win and usually did. I really had a good time
doing it. I enjoyed playing golf more than playing poker.

You got more action because you gave more gamble; do you
do the same thing at poker?

I do to a certain extent. I used to have a reputation for giving

action before I wrote the book. Then I wrote it and in there it tells
about all the bluffing strategies—about how many times I was
bluffing. There came a period after I wrote the book where I couldn't
bluff. I just got called. I finally had to change my way of playing to
where I just didn't bluff.

Any other advice to the players out there?

I think you have to ask yourself if you have the temperament to

do this as a profession. It's different if you're doing it as a sideline
to make money, because you have something else to fall back on. If
it's your profession, you have to be prepared for some swings in
your early years until you get enough money where you can afford
the fluctuations. Unless you have a lot of money.
But I've found that most of the poker players came from a
poorer background, including myself. I think it puts a drive in you
to succeed, which you don't have if you're raised with money.
 I've also noticed that a lot of the players are ex-athletes.
Especially the old no-limit players. Some of the younger kids now
are coming out of the universities. I was what I call the first educated
poker player, the first poker player with a formal education. And for
me, too, athletics helped me develop the competitive spirit that I've
got. I have a drive inside me that hasn't diminished over the years.
I still need to win, and I think you find ways to do that. One of my
favorite sayings I have hanging on the wall. "If you can't get in
through the door, you come in through a window." That's the case.
You have to keep persevering. You have to have a lot of discipline
and character, and self-confidence.

How much do you play now?

If the right people are here I play every day. That happens two
or three times a year. Otherwise, I play in the bigger tournaments
and just occasionally.

You mentioned that you play more in the side games than in
the events?

Yes, more in the side games. Even though you have an

advantage in the tournament, you still don't figure to win. You have
three hundred players and they're going to pay eight or nine of them.
It's hard to get down to that final eight or nine. So I play more in the
side games.

Jack Binion is in Tunica now. He's no longer at the

Horseshoe here in Vegas. Will they still have the World Series
here with him gone?

They have been.

 Has Jack being gone affected the tournament?

Well, last year I didn't play in it for the first time in thirty years.
I have eight bracelets and I like to play in it. But Jack Binion is one
of my best friends. They had a family fight and I sided with my
friend. There were some hard feelings there. Not on my part, but I
guess on their part. I just didn't feel comfortable going to play. It
was the first one I ever missed.

I was surprised that Chip said he hadn't played it in ten

years.

He hasn't played it much. It's during baseball season so he's

doing a lot of computer work. Those tournaments are pretty tough.
I have a lot of admiration for those tournament players. It's not like
I look down on them. Guys like T.J. Cloutier [two-time World Series
runner-up] and Phil Hellmuth [World Series Champion], they go to
all the tournaments and they play all day every day in them. That's
pretty tough. I respect those guys who do that. They just happen to
not play at the same level as we do. There has been a lot of debate
over who are the best players. Nobody can convince me that the best
players aren't the guys who play for all the big money.

Did you take up backgammon when all the other players

took it up?

No, I didn't. I saw how much time it took. I saw Chip start
playing and they would do nothing but play for a month straight. I
thought, my time is full now. So I never even made an attempt to
learn and I'm kind of glad that I didn't.

Like any game, it takes a lot of time if you want to be good

at it.
 I wouldn't want to play if I couldn't be good.

What about gin rummy?

I'm a good gin player. I wouldn't say I'm great. That was another
game I never really took the time with. I'm better than the average
country-club player. Against the real top players—most of them can
beat me.

How do you find doing business with gamblers as opposed

to business people?

I've had a lot of that. The upper echelon of gamblers are the
most honorable people I've ever known. I'm sure they're the most
honorable people in the world. Every time I've gone into business
I've run into problems. Somebody is always trying to screw you.
Their word is no good. You have to have everything spelled out in
contracts. With gamblers, their word is their bond. I'm not saying
that all gamblers are that way, but most of the ones that I deal with
are. If they say, "Let me have $50,000 and I'll get it to you
tomorrow," you'll get it tomorrow. You can't do that in the business
world.

What occupies your time now that you can't golf and don't
play poker that often?

I don't know. I hang out on the Internet and bet sports and trade
in the stock market. I have a couple of dogs that are out getting
groomed. I play with them a lot. My wife and I spend a lot of time
together. We go out to dinner every night. I swim every day.
Poker playing is a great way to live. You don't have to answer
to anybody. You don't have a boss. You don't have any set hours. I
can't imagine a better life. Benny Binion used to say, "If you got
talent, Las Vegas is the land of milk and honey. If you don't, it's a
burial ground." That's the story.

Brunson Notes

1—Puggy Pearson
One gambler who garners tremendous respect from the
Gambling Wizards is Puggy Pearson. Along with Doyle Brunson's
comments in this chapter, Chip Reese and Billy Walters also
discussed Puggy. It's interesting to note the similarities in the
assessments from Reese and Walters.

From Billy Walters: One of the guys I have as much respect for
as anyone in gambling is Pug Pearson. I met Puggy thirty years ago.
Just guessing, he's got about a fifth- or sixth-grade education. I'm
not even sure if Puggy can write, but he's a world-famous poker
player and has been very successful throughout the years. He lived
in Las Vegas when it was controlled by the mob and he's been
exposed to everything a guy could be exposed to in terms of
cheating, teams, and everything else. He's been here for thirty-some
years, and I've seen him get hold of hundreds of thousands of dollars
and then get broke, and start back playing five and ten [limits]. It's
the equivalent of climbing a mountain, getting within two steps of
the top, and getting knocked down about a thousand times. But now
he's got money, he's got a beautiful home, and he's done that by
having an incredible feel, an incredible work ethic, and being able
to navigate and survive in times that most people couldn't. Puggy
has what I call a jungle feel, as good as any man in gambling.

From Chip Reese: When I first came to town Puggy was on his
way to going broke. He went through a bad divorce. He had a nice
family and he just kind of got ruined and fired off all his money.
Then he made a comeback. I used to break Puggy playing
backgammon all the time. He'd get hold of twenty grand, and he'd
come over and we'd play. I'd beat him out of all his money, then I'd
loan him two thousand to go back and scuffle with. But I'll tell you
what he did. He went down to a lower level, which took a lot of
guts, because he'd been king of the hill for a long time around here.
He went one notch down and started hustling around there and he's
a millionaire now. To be sixty years old and broke and put those
kind of hours in—I give him a lot of credit for that. He's an
interesting guy. Puggy's not educated, but he's got a sense about
nature and about people that's as good as anybody I've ever played
against.

Puggy Pearson now travels around the country in his oversized

motorhome. Painted on the outside of his traveling home are a royal
flush, a pool cue, and this quote,

I'll play any man from any land

any game that he can name
for any amount that I count.

In small print at the bottom is the disclaimer,

Providing I like it.

Notes Index

Atlantic City (counter convention), Hulbert

Backgammon Points, Svobodny
Banking, Svobodny
Big Player, Hyland
Blackjack Point Counts, Hulbert
Bridge Culture, Tomchin
Card Counting, Hyland
Cash Culture, Reese
Color Code (chips), Reese
Comps, Hyland
Computer Group, Walters
Computers (blackjack), Hyland
Doubling Cube, Svobodny
Expectation (negative vs. positive), Tomchin
Expected Value, Tomchin
Fluctuation, Hulbert
Griffin Book, Hyland
Horse Race Bets, Woods
Line, Walters
Magnets (using to cheat), Tomchin
Magriel, Paul (profile), Svobodny
Martin, Bob (profile), Walters
Martingale Folly, Tomchin
Mayfair Club, Tomchin
Messenger Betting, Walters
Moss, Johnny (profile), Reese
Overlay, Woods269
Pari-Mutuel Betting, Woods
Pearson, Puggy (profile), Brunson
Poker Variations, Reese
Props, Svobodny
Standard Deviation, Hulbert
Team Play, Hyland
Ungar, Stu (profile), Walter
Uston's Victory, Hyland
Wong, Stanford (profile), Hyland

Glossary
 86ed—To be thrown out.
action—Betting; when money is on the line.
advantage player—A gambler who looks for a mathematical
edge at any game and, upon finding it, exploits it.
all in (going)—To bet all of your chips.
backer—Someone who puts up money for gambling.
backgammon—To win a game of backgammon by removing all
checkers from the board before your opponent removes any of his,
and while he has at least one piece remaining in your home area.
back room—To be "back roomed" is to be taken to the casino
security office if suspected of counting or cheating.
balanced out—In bookmaking, to have approximately equal
amounts of money bet on both sides of a game.
bank—The money put up to play with.
barred (getting)—To be excluded from playing by casino
personnel.
basic strategy—In blackjack, the mathematically correct way to
play every hand based only on the player's total and the dealer's
upcard. Basic strategy varies slightly for different rules and
numbers of decks.
beard—A person used to place bets, especially sports bets,
without being detected by casino personnel.
big blind—The second of two forced bets in hold 'em that starts
the action. The player to the left of the button puts up half a bet
("small blind"), then the next player puts up a complete bet, the big
blind.
big nickel—Five-dollar tokens for video poker or slots.
black (chips)—Hundred-dollar chips.
board—The upcards in 7-card stud or the community cards in
hold 'em.
button—The last player to act in a poker hand.
camouflage—Making bets and plays that may not be optimal,
in order to render the professional indistinguishable from an
ordinary gambler.
canceling—While counting cards, matching plus- and minus-
value cards to zero out.
chalk—A horse favored to win. These horses offer the smallest
odds. In sports, "betting chalk" means betting the favorite.
checkers—The playing pieces in backgammon.
check-raise—A poker tactic that entails first checking, then,
when a player bets, raising that bet. Also known as "sandbagging,"
it's considered (by beginners) to be a hostile action in a game.
Chouettes—A backgammon game for more than two players.
cinch—A bet that can't lose.
cover—Making less-than-optimal bets to look unsophisticated
to casino personnel. Also called "camouflage."
crew—A group of gamblers who work together as a team.
deal around the corner—In blackjack, to deal an entire deck to
the bottom, then shuffle even if in the middle of a hand.
dime—A thousand-dollar bet.
dog—Short for "underdog." Opposite of the "favorite."
dogging it—Choking or playing poorly under pressure.
drop-in—A player who in not a regular.
dumped (getting)—To be set up by a trusted partner.
earn—The expected win.
eye in the sky—Surveillance in a casino.
fade—To cover a bet.
favorite—The team or player believed to be most likely to win.
fifth street—The last of five community cards dealt in hold 'em.
Also called "the river."
fill or kill—A stock-trading term that means to execute a
transaction immediately or cancel it.
firing off—Playing badly and with such reckless disregard that
the player loses all his money. Also called "going on tilt" and
"steaming."
first base—In blackjack, the first seat to the dealer's left and the
first to play.
flat-betting—Never changing the amount of your wager.
flattened out—When a bookmaker puts up a bad line and
handicappers bet it to a point where there's no longer an edge.
floor—The casino playing area.
flop—In hold 'em, the initial three of five community cards
dealt in the middle of the table.
followers—Players who try to bet along with the smart money.
fourth street—The fourth of five community cards dealt in hold
'em. Also called "the turn."
free roll—Proposition in which a player has no liability for
losses, but some portion of the win.
freeze-out—A match in which players put up an agreed-on
amount of money and play until one player wins the entire stake.
front money—Money put on deposit in the casino's cashier
("cage") to gamble with.
game—In sports betting, a bet on the game (sometimes called
the "side") means choosing a team against the point spread.
game maker—Player who arranges a proposition.
gammon—To win a game of backgammon by removing all
checkers from the board before your opponent removes any of his.
get broke—To lose all your money.
get in your suitcase—A phrase that means a player loses so
much, you'd like to travel with him wherever he goes (in order to
play him all the time).
getting down—Placing a bet.
getting your nose opened—Losing badly. Often leads to
gambling wildly.
giving (or having) gamble—The willingness to bet when you
may have no advantage.
going for a number—To take a big loss.
green (chips)—Twenty-five-dollar chips.
grinding—Trying to make a small amount of money with little
risk.
grounded—Busted, broke.
handicap—To evaluate a horse's, team's, or player's chances of
winning.
handicap game—A game in which the opponents do not start
equally.
have an accident—To lose a lot of money, or to "get broke."
heads-up—Playing against only one opponent.
hedge—Make a bet to reduce risk.
holding out—A cheating maneuver in which the cheat palms
cards so they can be reintroduced into the game at a later time.
jam—To bet aggressively. It often means big or fast action, as
in "a jam-up game."
joint bankroll—When two or more players combine their
bankrolls into one.
juice—The amount a bookie charges to wager above the base
amount of a bet, often 10%. Also called "vigorish" or "vig."
juice dice—Dice with loads that are affected by magnets.
Kelly Criterion—A mathematical formula that quantifies what
percentage of a bankroll to bet in order to achieve the maximum
gain with the minimum chance of going broke.
knife-and-fork—Monthly expenses. Also called "nut."
leak—A weakness in a player's game or abilities.
line—A point spread or odds used for betting on a sporting
event.
load—Weights put into dice to make certain numbers roll more
frequently.
lock—A bet that can't lose. Also called a "cinch."
loss leader—Playing a game or proposition in which you are not
the favorite in order to arrange a better game later.
money management—The proper application of funds in
gambling.
move in—To bet all your chips. Also known as "going all in."
 moving money—Getting bets placed, usually a large amount.
Nassau—A betting proposition in golf. A Nassau consists of
three bets that apply to the first nine holes, the second nine holes,
and the entire 18 holes.
nickel—Five-dollar chips.
nit—A cheap player who is unwilling to tip or make any
negative-expectation bets.
nut peddler—Someone who wants to bet only on sure things.
An unbeatable hand is called "the nuts."
off the top—The first hand of a new deck or shoe.
on the rails—Refers to players with no money who lean on the
rails around a poker room and watch the games; they're called "rail
birds."
on volume—A consideration of total money wagered. To win a
percentage on volume means to apply that percentage to the total
amount wagered.
order—A list of bets for a given day.
parlay card—A card listing all games and their point spreads for
a given weekend. Gamblers can wager on the results of two or more
games.
past post—To bet after a game has started or finished.
pick off—To detect a skilled, or a cheating, play.
pigeon—A bad player or a bad gambler; an easy mark. Also
known as a "fish."
post—The start of a game or race.
press—To double a bet.
price—The odds or line on a proposition.
pumped up—When a player wins (or gets) a lot of money.
punter—An English term for a gambler.
race meeting—Horse races are grouped into race meetings.
Racetracks generally have seven to ten races at a meeting.
rail bird—A player who is broke and watches games from the
rail that encloses a gaming area.
 rake—A fee charged by the house for dealing the game. The
house rakes a specified amount, often a percentage, from each pot.
reading lines—Watching the movement of point spreads to
determine where the smart money is being bet.
red (chips)—Five-dollar chips. Also called "nickels."
rich (deck)—In blackjack, a deck containing many tens and
aces.
ring game—A full (or near-full) table. In hold 'em, a ring game
would consist of nine or ten players. In 7-card stud, it would be eight
players.
river—The last of five community cards dealt in hold 'em, also
called "fifth street."
sandbag—To act weak when really strong.
shoe—A box that holds multiple decks of cards, often used in
blackjack.
short-handed—A game with few players.
short-stack—Refers to players with a small number chips, a
disadvantage in a poker game.
shuffle point—Often applied to blackjack: the point at which a
dealer shuffles the cards.
sky—Casino surveillance. Also known as the "eye" or the "eye
in the sky."
small blind—The first of two forced bets in hold 'em. Typically,
the person to the left of the button puts up half a bet.
smart money—The wagers of expert players who bet with an
advantage.
splitting pots—A deal made to divide a pot before a hand is
over.
sport—Someone willing to take the worst of a proposition.
spot—A handicap.
spread—1) In blackjack, the variation between a card counter's
small bets and big bets. 2) In sports, the differential in points by
which one team is favored over another. 3) In poker, to deal a
particular game.
steaming—Playing badly or betting wildly when losing.
"Steam" can also mean gamblers following betting momentum.
stiffed—Not getting paid.
stop-loss—A predetermined stopping point designed to limit
losses.
stuck—Losing money; usually used in the context of a single
session.
taken off—Usually, to be cheated. Also, to be beaten by other
players.
taking a shot—Trying to take advantage of a person or situation.
tell—In poker, a habit or mannerism that gives away
information about a player's hand.
test out—In blackjack, prospective team members are often
tested on their playing skills.
third base—The seat to the dealer's right and the last to play.
tilt—Playing badly or wildly when losing.
total—In sports betting, a bet on whether the total points scored
by both teams in a game will go above or below ("over/under") a
number made by the bookie.
tote (tote board)—The large racetrack scoreboard. The name is
taken from the Totalisator Company, which operated at most
racetracks in North America.
tout—A service that sells sports picks to bettors.
turn—The fourth of five community cards in hold 'em. Also
called "fourth street."
under a peek—A player's cards are spied and conveyed to his
opponent.
vigorish—The commission charged by the casino on sports
bets, or, more generally, the casino's mathematical edge on a bet.
waffled—To take a big loss.
weight—Advantage.
whack up—Divide money.
 wheel—In poker, a hand of A2345. The best hand when playing
for low. Also called a "bicycle."
world's fair (showing me the)—A lucky run of cards; every
hand is a winner.

About the Author

Richard W. Munchkin is a writer, producer, and director of film

and television. He lives in Santa Clarita, California, with his wife
Nelia and sons Nicholas and Alexander. Richard has been
fascinated with gambling since childhood, and had a winning trip to
Las Vegas once in 1987.