Gambling

Wizards
Conversations with the World’s
Greatest Gamblers

Richard W. Munchkin

Huntington Press
Las Vegas, Nevada
Gambling Wizards
Conversations with the World’s Greatest Gamblers

Published by
Huntington Press
3665 South Procyon Avenue
Las Vegas, Nevada 89103
telephone: (702) 252-0655
facsimile: (702) 252-0675
E-mail: books@huntingtonpress.com

Copyright © 2002, Richard W. Munchkin

ISBN: 978-0-929712-68-0

Design & Production: Laurie Shaw

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be translated, repro-

duced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright
owner.
For my Grandpa Walter, who demonstrated to me
that some people are consistent winners.

And for Nelia, who understood.

 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.”
Alison “Abble” Engel, who is a movie producer in mind, but
a gambler at heart.
Michael Konik, who stood up for me when I needed it most.
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 au-
thor could hope for.
 Contents

1 Billy Walters................................................................................... 1
2 Chip Reese.................................................................................... 39
3 Tommy Hyland........................................................................... 79
4 Mike Svobodny.......................................................................... 111
5 Stan Tomchin............................................................................. 153
6 Cathy Hulbert............................................................................ 189
7 Alan Woods................................................................................ 237
8 Doyle Brunson........................................................................... 271
Index of Notes............................................................................ 295
Glossary...................................................................................... 297
 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 cham-
pagne and a large fruit basket greet him as he walks in. His host
has made reservations for the gourmet room and given him ring-
side 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 mar-
ket 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 mil-
lions 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 pro-
  Gambling Wizards

fessional gambler from the losers and wannabes? 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 gam-
blers.
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 I was 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 had 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 black-
jack 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 char-
acters, 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 profes-
sional 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 sur-
prises. 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
 Introduction  

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 math-
ematical 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 institu-
tion 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 ca-
sinos, but have the added problem of having to disguise their bet-
ting 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 steam-
ing. Professional gamblers comprise a very small community. Al-
though 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 in-
terviews 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 ca-
sinos frequently bar professionals from playing. Casinos are in
business to make money. Anyone who plays with what the casino
  Gambling Wizards

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 ca-
sino, 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, be-
ing 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 ex-
ample 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 back-
gammon 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 inter-
views, it really isn’t about the money. Mike Svobodny says that
there’s a fine line between a degenerate gambler and a profes-
sional. 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 to-
day?’”
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
 Introduction  

chapter to chapter; however, a complete glossary appears at the

back of the book. In addition, the “Notes” at the end of each chap-
ter expand on important gambling concepts referenced within the
conversations.

Richard W. Munchkin
Las Vegas, August 2002
 1

Billy Walters

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

any given weekend, Walters bets hundreds of thousands of dol-
lars 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 suc-
cessfully 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
  Gambling Wizards

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 laun-
dering. 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 cours-
es 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 val-
ue 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 intro-
duced to gambling was quite different from most of the people I
know.
As a youngster, I led two lives. My father was a profession-
al gambler, but he died when I was a year and a half old. My
grandmother raised me, and we were very poor. My grandmoth-
er 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 Chris-
tian 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.
 Billy Walters  

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 memo-
rable 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 un-
til 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 hun-
dred-dollar Nassau.
  Gambling Wizards

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 typi-
cal 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 busi-
ness, 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 to-
day. 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.
 Billy Walters  

There’s no organized crime there, and there never has been any
organized crime. Everybody gambled and as long as bookmak-
ers 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 termi-
nal 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 mar-
riage 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 sev-
en 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 ap-
pealed 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 naïve. 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
  Gambling Wizards

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 automo-
bile 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 gam-
bling.
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 gam-
bling. 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 go-
ing 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.
 Billy Walters  

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 profes-
sional 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 any-
thing. 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 prob-
ably 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.
  Gambling Wizards

nut peddler — Someone who wants to bet only on sure things. In pok-
er, 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 un-
derstanding 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 mil-
lions 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.
 Billy Walters  

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 will-
ing, 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 Horse-
shoe 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 play-
ing 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 in-
terviewed 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.
10  Gambling Wizards

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 start-
ed 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 to-
gether. 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 decid-
ed to discontinue the partnership. But I continued to bet sports.

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

1
For this and subsequent numeric references 2-4, see “Walters Notes” at the
end of this chapter.
 Billy Walters  11

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 expe-
rience and he thought we were bookmakers. He couldn’t fathom
that we were mere bettors. To be fair, up until then anyone in-
volved 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 car-
ried out simultaneous raids throughout the United States. They
raided several places under the pretense that this was a large
bookmaking network.

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, infor-
mation 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 au-
thor 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 rea-
12  Gambling Wizards

son 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 Depart-
ment 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 con-
fiscate ill-gotten gains from drug traffickers and such. Unfortu-
nately, 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 vio-
late 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.
 Billy Walters  13

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 administra-
tive 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 Po-
lice 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 mon-
ey 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.
14  Gambling Wizards

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 dol-
lars 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 Ve-
gas 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 in-
dicted, 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 Po-
lice 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
 Billy Walters  15

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 any-
one 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 in-
dicting 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, actual-
ly 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 of-
fered was absolutely preposterous. My wife was right there, and I
asked the attorneys to explain the possibilities to Susan. The law-
yer said, “Look, you’ve done nothing wrong and we believe that
you will prevail in court. But, understand that with a jury any-
thing 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 pos-
sibly 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 of-
fering 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 attor-
16  Gambling Wizards

neys’ office and she said, “We’re going to trial.” So we all got in-
dicted, 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 win-
ning. 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. Liv-
ing in Las Vegas, as you can imagine, there are all kinds of theo-
ries 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, try-
ing to seduce players into playing the wheel because they think
there’s a bias.
So these people approached me with this method to beat rou-
lette. 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 basi-
cally 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
 Billy Walters  17

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 com-
pany. Just as an added coincidence, I had the criminal investiga-
tion 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 prom-
ised 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.
18  Gambling Wizards

Sounds like they may have shot themselves in the foot. You
were a sucker who lost a million dollars in the same casino play-
ing 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 any-
thing 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 hap-
pened.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.
 Billy Walters  19

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 any-
thing 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 informa-
tion 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 him-
self with other bookmakers.

juice — The amount a bookie charges to wager above the base amount
of a bet. Often 10%, a football bettor 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 ho-
tels 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 bookmak-
ing. He knows that he doesn’t know anything about it, so what
20  Gambling Wizards

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. Any-
one 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 cus-
tomers over to Gene Mayday’s casino in a limousine to bet teas-
ers, 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.
 Billy Walters  21

The sports bettors over the years have become a lot more so-
phisticated 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 bookmak-
ing 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 book-
maker 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 bookmak-
22  Gambling Wizards

ing. When a customer comes into a sports book here and the em-
ployees 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 book-
makers 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.

 Billy Walters  23

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 busi-
ness. 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 mo-
bile-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-re-
ward, 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, improv-
ing 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 com-
24  Gambling Wizards

petition 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 contin-
gency.
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 part-

ner 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 bet-
ter 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.
 Billy Walters  25

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 mo-
ment. 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 Michi-
gan, 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,
26  Gambling Wizards

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 mon-
umental 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 peo-
ple’s handicapping abilities are going to get better. Right now the
 Billy Walters  27

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 ca-
sinos 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
and eleven and are one and seven this year. Let’s say that the line-
maker 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 fa-
vorite. 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.
28  Gambling Wizards

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 dol-
lars that I can tell you where ninety-five percent of the games are go-
ing 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-pro-
fessionals, 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, Virgin-
ia 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 sev-
en 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,
 Billy Walters  29

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 pe-
riod 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 casi-
nos 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 your-

self 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
30  Gambling Wizards

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 any-
thing else, it all boils down to being able to perform under pres-
sure 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 evalu-
ate my ability, and the ability of others. The mistake that most
people make in evaluating golf matches is they consistently un-
derestimate their opponent’s ability and overestimate their own
talent.
I beat one player out of a million dollars at golf. We were play-
ing 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 Nas-
saus 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 qua-
druple 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 wa-
tering [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
 Billy Walters  31

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 Alad-
din 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. Man-
agement 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.

32  Gambling Wizards

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
got to a point where I couldn’t stand being around smoke.
I was probably the fourteenth best poker player in the world,
but I played with the thirteen best. In order to compete at that lev-
el, 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
in a tough game, they’ll eat you alive. Being a professional poker
player and playing at a world-class level, man, you have to eat it,
sleep it, and breathe it.
That’s another thing that amazed me about some of the guys
I played with. Stuey Ungar was a perfect example. I can say it
now 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 world. I never did drugs in my entire life. Competing
in the gambling world I can just imagine what kind of chance I
would’ve had if I had been addicted to drugs.
To compete at that level is like dropping a piece of meat in
a fish tank full of piranhas. If you have a weakness or develop a
weakness, you’re gone. It’s no different from the wildebeests you
watch on the Discovery Channel. One gets old and slow and a lit-
tle 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 hap-
pened 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 profes-

sional gambler?

Number one, don’t even think about it unless it’s something you
 Billy Walters  33

absolutely love and are really intrigued by. In order to become

successful, regardless of your IQ, you have to be incredibly moti-
vated. 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 interest-
ing, 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 ev-
erything is going good, they’re successful gamblers, but the sec-
ond 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 un-
shakable 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 impor-
tant 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
34  Gambling Wizards

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

1—The Computer Group (first reference, page 10)

The “Computer Group” was one of the most well-known and suc-
cessful 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 ques-
tions. 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 vari-
ables, 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 book-
makers’. 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 life 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.
36  Gambling Wizards

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 differ-
ences. First, his program was for baseball, and second, it lost consis-
tently. 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 bet-
ting $3 million to $5 million on weekends. We busted bookmak-
ers. 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 (first reference, page 19)

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 ca-
sino. 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 wiseguys—showed up at his funeral to pay their
respects.

3—The Line (first reference, page 19)

The “line” in sports betting means the point spread placed on a
 Billy Walters  37

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 formu-
lating 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
to win $10. This extra dollar on losing bets is called the “juice” or
“vig.” 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 (first reference, page 22)

In 1998 the Nevada Gaming Commission made it illegal to place
a bet for another person at a sports book in return for compensa-
tion. This was in direct response to organized sports bettors who
used teams of people (sometimes called “beards”) to simultane-
ously 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 (first reference, page 31)

Stu Ungar was a gin rummy savant. He won his first gin tourna-
ment 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, any-
where, for any amount.
They came, they played, Ungar won. He began giving his op-
ponents bigger and bigger handicaps, but he still won. They even
tried cheating him, to no avail. Within a year it was almost impos-
sible for him to find a gin game, so he turned to poker.
Ungar entered the no-limit hold ’em world championship
event in the World Series of Poker at Binion’s Horseshoe for the
first time in 1980. He won. In 1981 he won again. The second larg-
est tournament of the time was the Amarillo Slim Super Bowl of
38  Gambling Wizards

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 rac-
ing 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 at-
tack.
 2

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 mil-
lions. 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 Dart-
mouth 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
broke 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
40  Gambling Wizards

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 con-
trol 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. Mo-
nopoly, 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.
 Chip Reese  41

My grandfather was a big figure in the sports world. He start-

ed the Mid-American conference with Miami of Ohio, Ohio Uni-
versity, 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 de-
bate, but I still found time to play poker. When I went to Dart-
mouth 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 Sa-
hara 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-$10 7-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 Day-
42  Gambling Wizards

ton. 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 play-
ers 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 cham-
pions and they’re the worst players I ever saw at this game.” Dan-
ny 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
1
For this and subsequent numeric references 2-4, see “Reese Notes” at the
end of this chapter.
 Chip Reese  43

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 rais-
ing. 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.

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 think-
ing 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.
44  Gambling Wizards

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 transi-

tion. 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 some-
body would hustle me to play no-limit or something, and I would
 Chip Reese  45

say, “I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll play a half hour of no-limit
hold ’em and a half hour of high-low split.” I knew I was a tre-
mendous 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 los-
ers 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 Fla-

mingo 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 life. He opens this big box and he probably had a million dol-
lars in it. 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
46  Gambling Wizards

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 win-
ning 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 naïve 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 manag-
er. 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 some-
thing 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.
 Chip Reese  47

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 play-
ers 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 estab-
lished places are squeaky clean. Then you have to worry about
teams and playing partners in the game. But if you have any ex-
perience 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 some-
thing’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.
48  Gambling Wizards

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 incom-

petence.

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 naïve, 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 ei-
ther 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
 Chip Reese  49

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, some-
times 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 fig-
ures 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 repu-
tation 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.
50  Gambling Wizards

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 com-
pletely 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
 Chip Reese  51

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 big-
gest 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 every-
body 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
52  Gambling Wizards

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 min-
utes 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
 Chip Reese  53

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 gam-
bler 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 fortu-
nately 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 confis-
cated 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.

54  Gambling Wizards

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 sev-
eral 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 Ve-
gas. 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 confer-
ence table was a backgammon board. He loved to play backgam-
mon.
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
 Chip Reese  55

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 rat-
ings 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
56  Gambling Wizards

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 op-
portunity 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 pay-
ing 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 briefcase.4 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 real-

ized, I’m a pretty lucky guy.
 Chip Reese  57

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 mar-
ried 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 mod-

els but have been unable to win at baseball.

Yeah, I think we’re the only ones who’ve ever figured out base-
ball. I was originally involved with the Computer Group when it
58  Gambling Wizards

started back in the ’80s [see “Walters Notes”]. Back then the pro-
gram 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 handicap-
ping 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 tru-
er 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 casi-
nos won’t let you bet. I remember several years ago there were
 Chip Reese  59

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 pointspread. 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.
60  Gambling Wizards

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 posi-

tion 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 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 taken it to the point where every single thing is analyzed
now. In that book, Doyle gave everyone the basis of how to think,
for each game.
Imagine if Paul Magriel never wrote that book on back-
gam-mon [Backgammon, by Paul Magriel; Magriel is profiled in
“Svobodny Notes”]. People wouldn’t have a clue about how
to think. If Magriel hadn’t written that book, none of the great
players in the world now would know how to play backgam-
mon really well.

But these computer programs still would have been written,

and then people would have learned.

Yeah, eventually they would have been, but still, the way of think-
ing has to be there. In 7-card stud no one had a clue. The concepts
of eliminating players, and playing different kinds of hands in dif-
ferent ways. In Vegas, everybody played backwards. It’s interest-
ing, because you’d think it would evolve, but it doesn’t. If people
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
 Chip Reese  61

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
players 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
time. 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 peo-
ple call the best player isn’t what it’s about. It’s not about super-
star 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 win-
ner 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 tal-
ents 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 Ben-
ny Binion said, “It’s easy to be honorable when you got plenty
of money.” But 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.
62  Gambling Wizards

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] situa-
tions 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 be-
cause 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 experi-
ence of twenty-five years. I can give you names of guys who are
up-and-coming superstars, who are supposed to be great play-
ers. I see them when they play in the big games and things go
 Chip Reese  63

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 fluc-
tuations [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 pok-
er—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
64  Gambling Wizards

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 Bel-
lagio they’re playing $500-$1,000 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 play-
ing, 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
 Chip Reese  65

an irrelevant 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 be-
fore. 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 under-
stands the value of a dollar. He was never one of those guys who
would play in the game and not pay attention to what the chips
were worth. You have to have that certain recklessness or aban-
don to really be at the top—to get in there and really mix it up,
66  Gambling Wizards

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 fac-
ets 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 market-
ing himself. I always thought the name “mad genius” was ap-
propriate.

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 six-
teen, 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 go there and get TV din-
ners 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
 Chip Reese  67

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
way 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 they offered him about ten different golf games, and he never
said a word. Finally, they offered him a game where they were go-
ing to hit 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 ne-
gotiated 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 put 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.
68  Gambling Wizards

Cathy Hulbert mentions in her interview that she thought Dan-

ny Robeson was the best 7-card stud player.

Danny was always the best 7-card stud player in the medium
games, maybe the best ever. Danny never played enough in the
big games to really test it, but he’s a great player. But Danny is one
of those guys who figure out a way not to keep their money. He’ll
make great plays in a 7-card stud game, and I certainly know how
he plays because we used to discuss hands when we were part-
ners. 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
were outside the game itself, like splitting pots and those kinds
of things. He was like a magician the way he mesmerized his op-
ponents. 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-$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 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 out-
 Chip Reese  69

comes are not really that important anymore, because it’s all part
of the daily routine. 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 be-
cause it was exciting to me and it took me to the level that I’m
at. It was that quantum leap from one atmosphere to another. I
remember it, so it must have been a defining moment. I have giant
decisions every day. I can tell you about days where I won thir-
teen 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 sto-
ry. 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, and
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 atmo-
sphere 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 start-
ed coming out more and more and we got close again.
At one point I went through a phase where I’d made a bunch
of money, but I was feeling almost like a parasite. I wasn’t do-
ing anything for anybody other than giving money to charities
70  Gambling Wizards

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,
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 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 commu-
nity 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 to-

morrow?

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 ana-
lyze 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 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
 Chip Reese  71

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—even though they know the virtual outcome based
on the computer. There’s a lot of pressure in fluctuation, especial-
ly 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 fac-
ets 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 sit-
ting 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 to-
day 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,
Bobby 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
and I were the two best players in the world at something and we
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

72  Gambling Wizards

say, I got the best of it against him, but this guy’s maybe a little
better than me, so I’ll wait and take the eighth seat in this game.
I’ll wait until this game is just right for me. These guys cost them-
selves a fortune.
I know from experience that you’re looking for drop-ins in a
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 Bel-

lagio. 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 play-
ing 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
your reputation?

Some do. But more don’t. With the lifestyle that I lead … I spend
a lot of money. I need to make a lot of money. I can’t go and play
 Chip Reese  73

$200-$400 or $300-$600. I 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
those games every day where you win or lose two- or three-hun-
dred thousand. I can do that betting sports. I’ve always been, per-
sonality-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
$20-$40, $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 ring games. When you’re playing in a seven- or eight-handed
74  Gambling Wizards

game, you’re really limited in how you can play. You have to play
by the book. When games get down to four- and five-handed,
with bigger antes, which happens more at the top [higher levels],
there’s a lot more strategy involved. It’s worth it to win the antes.
You can 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
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 endeav-
or], 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 (first reference, page 42)

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 bet-
ting 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 in-
crements 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 (first reference,

page 42)
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 three 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
the Southwest, until a fateful phone call in 1949. His friend Benny
Binion had arranged a poker game in Las Vegas. Moss would play
Nick “the Greek” Dandolos, the most famous gambler of the era.
76  Gambling Wizards

Binion set up the no-limit game near the doorway of his

downtown 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 ac-
counts 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 (first reference, page 42)

In casinos, gamblers play with chips, which are color-coded ac-
cording to denomination. The colors vary somewhat, but typi-
cally, 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 sponsor-
ing 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 (first reference, page 56)

Gamblers at the level of Chip Reese (and the seven others in this
book) tend to have a blasé 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 dis-
cusses 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. For
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
 Chip Reese  77

good condition. If he breaks it or loses it, you expect him to re-

place it. Well, my wrench may be a bundle of fifty-thousand dol-
lars.” 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
for every one of these players. Even before September 11, 2001,
the government 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 busi-
ness. It’s another part of the game.”
 3

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 is-
land-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 cur-
rency transfer.
The casinos have faxed his picture to one another for two de-
cades. Because of this, his name and appearance change more of-
ten 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 “ca-
sino’s” money back. On another occasion he was thrown in jail in
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 tick-
ets, limousine transportation, luxurious digs, and gourmet meals
intended for high-rolling suckers, usually unaware that he’s get-
ting 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 cav-
80  Gambling Wizards

ernous 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 years
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.
 Tommy Hyland  81

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-
dollar Nassau. He used to be a pretty good pool shooter. Bowling,
too. 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 every-

thing.

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
82  Gambling Wizards

waffled one week and I remember having to sell my pool table.

I 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
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 game kind of deteriorated. There were a lot of bad debts. I
gradually got out of playing poker. We were playing a little back-
gammon. I wasn’t any good at poker or backgammon, but I was
better than the guys I was playing with. Based on what I know
now, I 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.
 Tommy Hyland  83

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

my 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 prac-
ticing 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 strat-
egy 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.

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 any-

1
For this and subsequent numeric references 2-8, see “Hyland Notes” at the
end of this chapter.
84  Gambling Wizards

thing like that. It was pretty confusing. Some of Revere’s charts

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 some-
thing 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

guy who told us about a new book by Stanford Wong2 [Profession-
al Blackjack]. 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 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 $4,000
and 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 at
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.
 Tommy Hyland  85

first base — The first seat to the dealer’s left and the first to play. The
seat 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 bank-
roll 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 for-
ty- or 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 Stanford 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.
86  Gambling Wizards

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 judg-
ments 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 anybody 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 admin-
istrator of the team?

Yeah, [back] then we’d just play with my money and when we’d
win a certain amount we’d whack it up. We did it in a really sim-
plistic 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 really careful how you structure a bankroll. It can be pretty
bad if 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.
 Tommy Hyland  87

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 knowl-
edgeable, but they were having some tough luck and were strug-
gling. 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 eigh-
teen 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 impres-
sive. 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 buy-
ing four-hundred-dollar eyeglasses and paying for a real nice apart-
ment. It was a nightmare. He was also superstitious. He seemed to
not always bet the money mathematically. That bankroll was a dis-
aster. 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.

88  Gambling Wizards

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 re-
member all of us were in this house, or maybe four out of the five
of us, 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 it 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 black-
jack 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 be-
cause the casinos control all the politicians. Clearly, they should
be legal. You’re just using the information that’s freely presented
to you, and it would never be illegal anywhere else. I had our
lawyer check to see if there was any law in the Bahamas that pro-
hibited 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.
 Tommy Hyland  89

So what happened?

The casinos were starting to figure out how to spot the comput-
ers. 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 Baha-
mas, they caught me with a computer and pulled me into the back
room. The casino manager was there, and some Bahamian police
that 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
in a 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 un-
derstood 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
and returned the other half. Then, right when I was supposed
to sign the agreement, this Bahamian lawyer says, “By the way,
90  Gambling Wizards

when you get the other half of your money back, I want twen-
ty-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 to 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.
You 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 law-
yers 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 any-

thing. But it got a lot of publicity, and the Canadian casinos used
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 an-
other 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 ex-

changing 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 sym-
pathy was obviously on our side. The incident was a big deal in
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
 Tommy Hyland  91

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 momen-
tum. 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 op-
erate 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 inter-
ests 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 run-

ning a small company?

I’m sure there are lots of similarities. One of the main differenc-
es 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.
92  Gambling Wizards

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 Philadel-
phia 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.”
 Tommy Hyland  93

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 hap-
pened, 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
94  Gambling Wizards

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 comput-
er. 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 sup-
posed 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

 Tommy Hyland  95

had problems driving the interstate with money and I’ve heard of
other people having problems. These laws were passed suppos-
edly to stop money laundering and drug dealing. People don’t
realize how much the laws also affect the law-abiding citizen. The
way some of the laws are written, local police who stop people
with money and confiscate it benefit directly. So they’re not anx-
ious 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 Eng-
lish. 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 pic-
ture. 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 un-
derstand card counting, and sometimes Griffin doesn’t make much
96  Gambling Wizards

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 oth-
er 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, ha-
rass 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 distinc-
tion 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 pub-
lic 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 Grif-
fin. 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 hold-
ing 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.
 Tommy Hyland  97

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.
98  Gambling Wizards

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 make-
up 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 re-

member going back to him to get them modified. That was prob-
ably 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 ca-

sinos?

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 contend-
ing 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.
 Tommy Hyland  99

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 pre-
fer 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 hap-
pen 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 Rus-

sia. 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

100  Gambling Wizards

Griffin agency that makes me laugh. We have people that can

barely pass our test. The Griffin flyers make them sound like mas-
terminds. If they make these people sound dangerous, like they’re
all 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 comput-

ers have changed everything in gambling [Alan Woods is inter-
viewed 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

 Tommy Hyland  101

was House Speaker. I’m not sure if that was the horse that won,
or the one 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 in 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
had 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
deceased. 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 a special on Philadelphia’s eleven o’clock news sports-
cast; they did a feature on her playing tennis. She still moves
around pretty good.
102  Gambling Wizards

Are there more benefits to playing on a team than just smooth-

ing 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 infor-
mation. 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 advan-
tages 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. To-
ward 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 any-
thing 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
 Tommy Hyland  103

table, and as he was heading to the restroom, he noticed a secu-

rity guard looking at him. Now he’d heard about getting barred
in Las Vegas, 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 re-
ally 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 los-
ing, 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 to the front desk and tell them. They
check by looking 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.
104  Gambling Wizards

I hate to get people comps anymore, because things just al-

ways seem to go wrong. We actually have a rule that you’re not
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
that 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
reasonable period of time—six months or a year. I don’t think it’s
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 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 an
interest in playing. He’s a very good golfer. I think he’s hoping to
make his career in golf.
I think blackjack is a great profession. I get a lot of enjoyment
out 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
 Tommy Hyland  105

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 mil-
lion a year working for a casino, I wouldn’t even consider it. It
wouldn’t take me 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 tak-
ing 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 interest-
ed 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 have 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 out at blackjack to make quite a bit of money. It’s cer-
tainly not as hard 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 subjectivity 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
thirty dollars an hour at poker you have to be quite good. You
have to beat a lot of real sharpies, guys who have been playing
106  Gambling Wizards

for years. To 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 got-
ten better or worse?

The individual games have definitely gotten worse, although

there 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 (first reference, page 83)

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 amounts to a weighted average of what’s left to be played.
Many refinements and adjustments are necessary, but in a nut-
shell, the higher 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 plus and as little as possible when the count is
minus.

2—Stanford Wong (first reference, page 84)

A legendary name in the blackjack community, Stanford Wong is
108  Gambling Wizards

the author of several blackjack books, including his classic Profes-

sional Blackjack; he’s also written books on video poker, gambling
tournament play, and sports betting; produced software for black-
jack and video poker; and now sponsors one of the most popular
blackjack Web sites (www.bj21.com).

3—Team Play (first reference, page 84)

Blackjack players often band together in teams. This is done for
many reasons, but the primary one is the mathematics of “joint
bankrolls.” By combining money into a common “bank,” mem-
bers 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 ben-
eficial.
Teams the size of Tommy Hyland’s are no different from
multi-million-dollar corporations. They have attorneys, accoun-
tants, and lobbyists. Some of the biggest teams through the years,
other than Hyland’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 (first reference, page 88)

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 sec-
ond version, which he named David. These computers played
perfect blackjack and were hidden on the player’s body. The com-
puter 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
in 1985.
 Tommy Hyland  109

5—Griffin Book (first reference, page 92)

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 known associates. Once card counting became popular, Grif-
fin Investigations began listing card counters in its book, even
though card counting is not cheating. Griffin sends out regular
activity reports based on its latest intelligence. If a card counter is
spotted in Las Vegas, for example, the agency may fax a picture to
all of the service’s subscribers to let them know that the player is
active and in the area.

6—The Big Player (first reference, page 95)

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 pro-
fessional 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 bet-
ting 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 (page 98)

Reacting to the problems with card counting when Resorts Inter-
national 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
use 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
City 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.
110  Gambling Wizards

8—Comps (first reference, page 103)

”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 sub-
ject is Comp City, by Max Rubin.
 4

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 op-
posite. 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 ex-
ample, in one of the wildest proposition bets ever made, Mike lost
112  Gambling Wizards

$100,000 to a man who got breast implants (the bet was made fa-
mous 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 Ca-
sino. 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.
 Mike Svobodny  113

pigeon — A bad player or a bad gambler; an easy mark. Also known

as a “fish.”

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 to-
day.” Or, “I beat Magriel1 today.”

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-ori-
ented then. I was a lot more idealistic at that time.
One bad thing about gambling is you sometimes lose perspec-
tive 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 hun-
dred 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
1
For this and subsequent numeric references 2-5, see “Svobodny Notes” at
the end of this chapter.
114  Gambling Wizards

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 gar-
bage 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 start-
ed 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 suc-

cessful ones, have bad ideas about money management. Some-
body said something a long time ago, and I didn’t think it was
 Mike Svobodny  115

true at the time, but I do now: “The difference between a sick com-
pulsive 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 right 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.”
116  Gambling Wizards

Joe said, “No, wait until the second quarter and bet.” He lim-
ited 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 care-
ful 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
 Mike Svobodny  117

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, be-
cause 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 mon-
ey. 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 night-
clubs. 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.
118  Gambling Wizards

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 casi-

nos].

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 casi-
no 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 backgam-
mon, but poker is way down the line. I don’t know why that is.
 Mike Svobodny  119

She mentioned that poker players seem to take pride in scam-

ming 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.] Back-
gammon 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 pay-
ing 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 color-
ful 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
120  Gambling Wizards

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 backgam-
mon, 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 fas-
cinated 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 interest-
ing 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 com-
plex plot. I’m not even sure that he knew that his partner, some
German mad-scientist, was bogus. They were courting Prince Al-
bert, and Monaco chucked these guys out after a while. 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 re-
ally 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.
 Mike Svobodny  121

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 busi-
ness 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

122  Gambling Wizards

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 back-

gammon maybe $300,000.

That’s a pretty good night’s work. That’s a good score for back-
gammon.

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
 Mike Svobodny  123

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 Champi-
124  Gambling Wizards

onship 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 cul-
tural 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 basi-
cally 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.
 Mike Svobodny  125

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 responsibil-

ity. 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 mil-
lion. 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 mil-
lion 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, be-
cause 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 pro-
cess; 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 pro-
fessionals’ 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 in-
volved 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.
126  Gambling Wizards

Right after I won Monte Carlo, I was invited to Sweden for

a tournament. They treated me like a celebrity and comped ev-
erything. I started playing a prop4 with some guy. It was a vi-
cious 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 tourna-
ment 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. I 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 go-
ing 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 histri-
onics, 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 lean-
ing out farther saying, “No, no, don’t say that.” I started talking
to 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.
 Mike Svobodny  127

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 in-
side 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 fast-
est 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 ad-

mit, you’re never going to find another Magriel. Or the Big Z—he
was a famous fish that lost $10 or $15 million playing backgam-
mon. 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

128  Gambling Wizards

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.
 Mike Svobodny  129

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 a guy gin, and I’m a very bad gin player. If I rate my back-
gammon, 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 be-
fore 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.
130  Gambling Wizards

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 min-
ute. 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 an-
other 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 gam-
bled 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 knowl-

edge 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,
 Mike Svobodny  131

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 ar-
eas I’m very inexperienced, like card reading. Chip [Reese] is go-
ing 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
132  Gambling Wizards

said, “Any time you want to eat a turd, you get $5,000. But if you
puke you get nothing. Well, you get a hundred bucks for trying.”
This really 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 in-
stead he bought more. Everyone has different things they’re suck-
ers 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 oper-
ating 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?’
 Mike Svobodny  133

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 play-
ers. We were going to go to dinner and have the arbitration. Before-
hand, 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 wa-
ger.

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.
134  Gambling Wizards

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 stimu-
lation. I think that’s true of myself. I have a low boredom thresh-
old, 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 mon-

ey. 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
 Mike Svobodny  135

Rolls Royce and said, “You can have it free. Insurance is free, gas
is paid for, but you can’t sell it.” I wouldn’t take it. I’d have to take
care 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 con-
ducive 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 correla-
tion. 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 stabil-
ity 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.
136  Gambling Wizards

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 backgam-

mon?

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.
 Mike Svobodny  137

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 the-
ma-tic 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 backgam-
mon 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.
138  Gambling Wizards

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

money that you make. Against the same player, you will get
more 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 vic-
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 ex-
cuse 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 mon-
ey 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 experi-
 Mike Svobodny  139

enced 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 be-
cause 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 ta-
ble 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 remem-
ber 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 the 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.
140  Gambling Wizards

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 profes-
sional 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 imag-
ine. 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 million. That’s not an exaggeration, because I saw him
spend the money.
 Mike Svobodny  141

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
me 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 air-
plane.

Is there much backgammon action in Asia?

No. Gambling in Japan still has a stigma attached. All the big
Japanese 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
142  Gambling Wizards

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 pro-
fessional 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 im-
portant 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 success-
ful 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
 Mike Svobodny  143

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, Back-
gammon. That was the first really good book I read on backgam-
mon. 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 gam-
bling that are supposed to give you some wisdom. They’re obvi-
ous 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
144  Gambling Wizards

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 bet-
ter 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 dol-
lars 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 Califor-
nia got shot in the head. This happened just recently.
 Mike Svobodny  145

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 proposi-
tion 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 ten-
nis 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.
146  Gambling Wizards

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, “I’ll
give you $1,500.” He wanted $4,000, and this went on throughout
the month. Our bid and ask was always too far apart. In the mid-
dle 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 out-
side 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
 Mike Svobodny  147

couldn’t run the mile in eight minutes and twenty seconds. Huck
overheard me and said, “Are you kidding? I could do that back-
wards.” 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 los-
ing 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 gam-
bler, 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.
148  Gambling Wizards

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 De-
Niro, 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 Penin-

sula 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 gam-

bling 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 gam-
bling 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 go-
ing to have as much fun.” I think that’s true.
 Svobodny Notes

1—Paul Magriel (first reference, page 113)

On the drawsheets of elite backgammon tournaments, sand-
wiched 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 play-
ers—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 Com-
puter.” 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 nu-
ances, 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-1 through
X-64, and played both sides of every game in every match. It took
him months, but he painstakingly recorded the results and devel-
150  Gambling Wizards

oped 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 tal-
ented player, and after winning a World Championship in the
early ’70s, his reputation was confirmed. During the backgam-
mon 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 po-
sitions (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. To-
day, 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—de-
feating Mike Svobodny in the Las Vegas Masters.

2—Backgammon Points (first reference, page 114)

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 “Dou-
bling Cube”). A win is doubled—a “gammon”—if, when the play-
er 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.
 Mike Svobodny  151

3—Doubling Cube (first reference, page 124)

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 end-
ing 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, how 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. Be-
yond that, though, it gets messy. Handling the cube in tourna-
ment play is even tougher. In money play, each point is worth a
fixed (and real) value. In tournaments, points beyond the score
152  Gambling Wizards

needed to win a match are worthless, so there are oddities and

exceptions, especially near the end of the match. America domi-
nated 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 (first reference, page 126)

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 backgam-
mon, 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” of-
fer 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 (first reference, page 144)

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 them-
selves, with someone assuming the typical role of the casino and
“banking” the game. The bankers—either individuals or orga-
nized groups—make their money as a casino usually does, by
playing with the built-in house advantage.
 5

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 play-
er. 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 pat-
tern, 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 some-
what 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
154  Gambling Wizards

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 proba-
bility 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.

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

1
For this and subsequent numeric references 2-6, see “Tomchin Notes” at the
end of this chapter.
 Stan Tomchin  155

bridge national. I represented the United States in the Olympiad.

I played with Al Roth, one of the best bridge players of the mod-
ern 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 a while, backgammon became popular.
The club I played in was the Mayfair2 in New York. I actu-
ally gave Al the money to open the Mayfair. Eventually, it suc-
ceeded 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 play-
ers 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 mon-
ey 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
156  Gambling Wizards

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.

What did your parents think of all this?

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

sky 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 gam-
bler. When you represent the United States in the bridge Olym-
piad, 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.
 Stan Tomchin  157

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.

My 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
158  Gambling Wizards

safe-deposit box—he was about to lose it all.

I remember bankrolling Paul in these backgammon tourna-
ments. 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 tourna-
ment; 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 fif-
teen 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 Play-
boy 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 dol-
lars 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.
 Stan Tomchin  159

Resident backgammon player.

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

I was a 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, be-
cause 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 writ-
ing 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 backgam-
mon. That was all I did.
One time I was in Monte Carlo and halfway through the
160  Gambling Wizards

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 an-
other 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 mag-
nets 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 Craw-
ford 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 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.
A 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,
but 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.
 Stan Tomchin  161

One year I went to Monte Carlo to play in the World Cham-

pionship 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 fi-
nals. 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 fi-
nals 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 — A way 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 ridicu-

lous. 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

had a big following of wealthy people who were betting enor-
mous amounts 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
take advantage of me all the time. I’m the biggest pigeon there is.
162  Gambling Wizards

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 eas-
ily 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 do-
ing 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 backgam-
mon 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 complete-
ly 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 book-
maker. You assume the bookmaker is making money from some-
one 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 mon-
ey following me around the world. I was in Las Vegas betting
 Stan Tomchin  163

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 bookmak-
ers 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 unlimited 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 re-
ally knew what the line should be. There wasn’t a lot of research.
Most people who bet lost.
164  Gambling Wizards

I had a good friend who would go down to Times Square and

buy all the out-of-town newspapers. Remember, there was no In-
ternet. 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 ab-
sorbed with keeping statistics and tracking what was happening
with all the teams. Say a sports writer for the Atlanta Journal de-
cided 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 impor-
tant 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 on 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
morning and call me with his work. I would add a substantial
 Stan Tomchin  165

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 per-

centage 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 backgam-
mon 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 any-
body. 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
166  Gambling Wizards

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 unsophisti-

cated 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 spo-
radically, 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 black-
jack player around taught me the game. He was certainly the best
single-deck blackjack player there was. You had end-play situa-
tions. They’d deal around the corner. Little did the casinos know
that there was so much money in blackjack. The best thing that hap-
pened 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 into
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
 Stan Tomchin  167

a 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 gam-
bler, 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 who 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 hun-
dred 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
168  Gambling Wizards

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 informa-

tion 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 pro-
gram. Ivan helped him get down. Ivan called me and said, “This
is what I need.” And I said, “No problem.” Kent would bet some-
thing 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 mar-
kets. 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 fol-
lowers 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 al-
lowed 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
 Stan Tomchin  169

$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. Bookmak-
ers 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, I 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 book-
maker. 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 moni-
tor 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.
170  Gambling Wizards

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 au-
dited 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

 Stan Tomchin  171

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.
172  Gambling Wizards

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 commodi-
ties market. This was in the early to mid-’80s. I had a program-
mer, who was very good, create a trading model. In the early ’80s,
computers were still iffy and people didn’t know [about the po-
tential]. 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 per-
cent is probably too much.” We got into a lot of conflict. This was
 Stan Tomchin  173

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 com-

modities 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 thir-
ty 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
174  Gambling Wizards

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 de-

vote 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 thou-
sand 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 lift-
 Stan Tomchin  175

ing 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
176  Gambling Wizards

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 back-
gammon 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, I 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
 Stan Tomchin  177

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 Reso-
lution 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 ap-
ply 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 gam-
bling. 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.
I said, “You’re married; you have a new baby. What are you do-
ing? 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.

178  Gambling Wizards

For me, learning to lose was the most important thing in gam-
bling. 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 manage-
ment 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 go-
ing 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 experi-
ences and let them make choices. I bet on my daughter’s volley-
ball 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 var-
sity a ten-point favorite. Who do you like?” She said, “I’m var-
sity; 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
 Stan Tomchin  179

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 com-
modities, 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 tal-
ent. 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 be-
cause 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 backgam-
mon 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 success-
ful. I get a lot of pleasure out of seeing that.
180  Gambling Wizards

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 tenden-
cy 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. Black-
jack 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. De-
lighted. 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
 Stan Tomchin  181

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 be-
tween 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 dis-
cipline. 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 (first reference, page 154)

Contract bridge evolved from an old game called whist. Begin-
ning 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 Van-
derbilt, 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 cer-
tain number of tricks). Soon after, a young card-playing hustler
named Ely Culbertson, newly arrived in New York from the So-
viet 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 hus-
band 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 tour-
nament 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 en-
try fees and don’t award cash prizes. So what’s at stake? “Master
points.” Accumulate enough points through tournament win-
nings and you earn various designations of “master.” Though
there are now other ranks above and below it, the rank most fa-
miliar to the outside world is “life master.” For the bridge fanatic,
the acquisition of points is a consuming passion. Since you must
184  Gambling Wizards

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
1¢ to 10¢ 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 champion-
ships 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 chal-
lenge the dominant Italian Blue Team, which was virtually un-
stoppable 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 partner-
ships 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 Green-
berg (of Bear Stearns), and the late Malcolm Forbes. Players such
as these often hire entire teams of famous pros as partners.

2—Mayfair Club (first reference, page 155)

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
 Stan Tomchin  185

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 ver-
min 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 play-
ers 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 Ja-
coby, Johnny Crawford (who wrote the New York Times Book of
Backgammon), and Tobias Stone, co-creator of the Roth-Stone bid-
ding 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 habitués.
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 back-
gammon 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 pri-
vate 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 sev-
eral clubs 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 bet-
ter heeled than their counterparts of 20 years ago (some special
186  Gambling Wizards

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 (first reference, page 157)

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 contin-
ues 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-expec-
tation game.

4—Using Magnets (first reference, page 160)

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 (first reference, page

165)
Understanding the difference between negative and positive ex-
pectation is essential for any gambler. Here’s an example of how
 Stan Tomchin  187

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 tourna-
ment 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 (first reference, page 180)

Also called “expected win/loss,” “expected return,” “expec-
tation,” 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.
 6

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 tres-
passing. Cathy became so notorious that she was barred from casi-
nos 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 lev-
els. “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
7-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 swol-
len egos, were easy to manipulate. “No one challenges my authority
at the table,” she says of her ability to compete with the big boys.
190  Gambling Wizards

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
gamblers 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.
 Cathy Hulbert  191

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 mon-
ey.

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 environ-
ment, and he said, “Blackjack is so simple. I can teach you. On my
break let’s go back to your room.”
192  Gambling Wizards

The blackjack dealer wanted to go to your room on his break?

At twenty-four years old I can’t believe I was that naïve. 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.
 Cathy Hulbert  193

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 resumé that
I was a college graduate. I remember them saying, “Well, how do
you think the college graduate is going to like standing here spin-
ning 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 profes-
194  Gambling Wizards

sional 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 imme-
diately eager to learn the techniques of blackjack, which he was
willing to teach me. [The two also entered into a romantic rela-
tionship.]

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 under-
stand 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.
 Cathy Hulbert  195

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

Jody. Jody was Tip’s hooker girlfriend. [Tip was one of the play-
ers on the Czech team.] At that particular time, no one had at-
tempted 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 educa-
tion 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, Mo-
zart’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 base-
ball 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.

196  Gambling Wizards

And at the end of three months?

Peter was ready to travel to Europe, but that was also when Re-
sorts 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

 Cathy Hulbert  197

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 morn-
ing, 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 sit-
ting 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.
198  Gambling Wizards

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 invest-
ed 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 col-
lege 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 ca-
sino 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 ques-
tions. 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
 Cathy Hulbert  199

telling me that he was on Ken Uston’s blackjack team back at Re-

sorts 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 down-
played. I actually became such a point of contention that it broke
up the group. This was disastrous for Peter, because he was intro-
ducing 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 Pe-
ter 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 start-

ed getting thrown out?

Right.
200  Gambling Wizards

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 bet-
ting 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 cam-
ouflage 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 cam-
ouflage bets. We were just brutal. So this young kid was shov-
ing 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 Sa-
hara. 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.
 Cathy Hulbert  201

sky — Casino surveillance. Also known as the “eye” or the “eye in the
sky.”

The picture thing came up again in Macau. The casino man-

ager 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 Marlo 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.
202  Gambling Wizards

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 Hy-

land. She dropped out of blackjack for a while 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 de-

cided 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 profes-
sional attire. I spent several hundred dollars having people train
 Cathy Hulbert  203

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 hit-
ting 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 noth-
ing 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.
204  Gambling Wizards

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 driv-
er’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.
 Cathy Hulbert  205

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 sev-
eral 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
206  Gambling Wizards

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 Re-
public 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 de-
claring 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 es-
calated and he wound up leaving me in the middle of the night in a
ghetto area of Manchester. He drove off with the vagrant!
 Cathy Hulbert  207

I’m imagining driving around Europe in a bus for months,

sleeping in youth hostels and changing clothes in the car. It’s
not James Bond 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 after-
noon, 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 ad-

ept at spending money and living a little better “hotel” life. So
that part was better. But the hygiene situation in Asia, particular-
ly 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
208  Gambling Wizards

terrible feeling in the world to be lying there and feel bugs crawl-
ing 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 es-
pecially 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 cham-
pagne between the four of us before the restaurant called up and
asked the pit about our liquor cut-off. It turned out we were al-
lowed $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 shock-
ing 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.
 Cathy Hulbert  209

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 oth-
er 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 cheat-
ing 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 soli-
tary. I’ve certainly made the differentiation between the suffer-
ing. 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.
210  Gambling Wizards

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 your-
self 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
 Cathy Hulbert  211

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 gam-
bling, 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 re-
ally 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. Eventual-
ly, 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 actu-
ally 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 math-
ematical overlay. That meant the amount of money that you theo-
retically 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
wobble, 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
212  Gambling Wizards

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 mon-
ey, 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 elec-
tronics 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 ma-
chine and it eventually did hit and I think they did end up making
a little profit on it, but it really was gruesome.
 Cathy Hulbert  213

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 soli-
tary players out there playing them, but I don’t think the big team
networks are still in existence.
214  Gambling Wizards

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 pok-
er. 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 try-
ing 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 actu-
ally doing it.
 Cathy Hulbert  215

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 con-
nection. 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 col-
orful 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 hang-
over, 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
216  Gambling Wizards

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 real-
ize 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 person-
alities 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 con-
tempt for the world I was living in. I was especially bothered by
 Cathy Hulbert  217

how the other players treated the dealers. I was having monu-
mental 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.” Or, “Why don’t you go back to the rice paddies
where you belong?” There are many Asian dealers. Just disgust-
ing 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 al-
ways 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 con-
front 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 some-
one make a racial remark it was your duty, if things were ever go-
ing 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 con-
centration 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 approach-
ing. 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 fun-
nier, 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 psychol-

ogy, not about the cards.

For me it was psychology. It was fighting a battle. My own in-

ternal battle. One friend made me a 50-1 shot to ever become a
winning poker player. He thought my personality type was the
218  Gambling Wizards

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 my-

self 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 com-
petent 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 $100,000.
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

 Cathy Hulbert  219

months. 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 situa-
tion 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 emo-

tional 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, be-
cause I’d blow something up.

What about cheating? Have you run into cheating either at pok-
er or blackjack, or slots for that matter?

I’ve navigated through twenty years being pretty naïve. 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
220  Gambling Wizards

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. I 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 re-
ally 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

 Cathy Hulbert  221

when I decided I needed to take this seriously. I’d lost over half
my 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. I think that was at Rick Greider’s sugges-
tion. 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 capabil-
ity. 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 lim-
its. 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.
222  Gambling Wizards

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 differ-
ent. 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.

 Cathy Hulbert  223

Are you going to take private lessons?

I’ve taken private lessons.

From whom?

Tom McEvoy [a well-known poker professional, author of Tour-

nament 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 informa-
tion. 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 disad-

vantage in any poker game.

Isn’t there a big difference between tournament play and regu-

lar 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
224  Gambling Wizards

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 in-
credible adrenaline rush. I think that’s what keeps them so popu-
lar. 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 tourna-
ment 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 at-
mosphere 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? It’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
 Cathy Hulbert  225

them. I 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 ap-
plicable 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 play-
ers 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 to-
gether 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 consid-
ered (by beginners) to be a hostile action in a game.

I would think my win rate is more than someone else’s play-

ing 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 par-
ticular femaleness is. For instance, Linda Wright [another well-re-
spected professional woman player] is demure. She’s aggressive
in a quiet way. She uses her style to extract the most money.
226  Gambling Wizards

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 back-
bone 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 re-
laxed. 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 embar-
rassed by some of the things that are coming out of their mouths.
They’re adopting more male-like behaviors, and I don’t under-
stand 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 al-
ways thought of poker as the card game to make money at. Cards
 Cathy Hulbert  227

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 sur-
prise. 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 sepa-
rate 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 ta-
ble. 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 play-
ing 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 re-
turn. I’m always calling them that night saying I’m sorry I said
such and such.
228  Gambling Wizards

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 Heyden 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 per-
sonalities. 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’ phe-
nomenal winning streak is detailed in the Chip Reese interview.]
 Cathy Hulbert  229

Stu Ungar [see “Walters Notes”] was the same way. He was fear-
less. 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 some-
thing to control it. It’s a balancing act at all times.
I admire the player with the fewest leaks; someone who ap-
proaches the game from a professional standpoint. That’s why I
admire David Heyden. Nobody approaches the game more pro-
fessionally. 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 with-
out 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
230  Gambling Wizards

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 dis-
gusting 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 mak-
ing demands. I think that people who choose to go into this as a
profession … some part of their behavior could be labeled com-
pulsive. 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
 Cathy Hulbert  231

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, includ-
ing 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 emo-
tional 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 los-

ing. I don’t go beyond eight hours if I’m losing.
232  Gambling Wizards

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 great-

er. 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 snarl-
ing mad, too.

What about your regimen?

Before I go to play, I don’t engage in any other activity besides

 Cathy Hulbert  233

some writing in the morning. I don’t take phone calls. I don’t so-
cialize. I don’t plan any social event afterward. I don’t want any
time restrictions. I want my mind to stay as peaceful and rest-
ful 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 think-

ing. When I’m driving to the casino, I’m very aware of how ir-
ritated 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.
234  Gambling Wizards

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 an-
other 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 (first reference, page 194)

Standard deviation, or “SD,” is a statistical measure of the spread
of values from their expected result—in layman’s terms, a mea-
sure 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 (first reference, page 194)

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 de-
viation 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 manifesta-
tion of the layman’s term “good luck.”
236  Gambling Wizards

3—The Atlantic City Counter Convention

(first reference, page 196)
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 sur-
render” 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 Com-
mission 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 disal-
lowing casinos from barring card counters. This, naturally, left
Resorts vulnerable to a frontal assault by the world’s best coun-
ters.
Counters and teams came from far and wide to take advan-
tage 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 (first reference, page 197)

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 ra-
tio 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.
 7

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 pent-
house atop one of Hong Kong’s most exclusive apartment build-
ings 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 rac-
ing would give them a big advantage. They were right.
The way Alan and his team play the horses doesn’t look at all
238  Gambling Wizards

like gambling. There’s no excitement over which horse wins or

loses. Alan often doesn’t even watch the race. It’s all about num-
bers traveling across a computer screen.
Still active in the stock market, at one point during our inter-
view 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 oc-
casions. 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 introduc-
tion 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, I
played poker with friends, and I kept track of my winnings.
 Alan Woods  239

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 naïve.

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 book-
store, 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, wild-
card 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 fif-
ty 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 pe-
riod 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
that applies to your first attempt at any gambling game, whether
you’re playing blackjack or slot machines. If you lose, you tend
240  Gambling Wizards

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 hun-
dred 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 ac-
tuaries 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 incred-
ibly 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—surpris-
ing, 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
 Alan Woods  241

at one of the universities in Melbourne. By this time I was play-

ing 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 de-
scribed 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 dol-
lars, 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 surpris-
ingly, 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.
242  Gambling Wizards

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 1979 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, ex-
cept 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 sav-
ings. 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 1979 I hadn’t been working for a year. My wife left me
and I had three options, all of which involved getting out of Mel-
bourne 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 mid-
day 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.
 Alan Woods  243

You still hadn’t read a book? Did you know anything about
Kelly or proportional 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 respon-
sible 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 1979 I 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 coun-
ters. 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
244  Gambling Wizards

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. Us-
ton’s book was already out by then.
Out of a $100,000 bankroll I might have had twenty or twen-
ty-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 Eu-
rope 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 invest-
ment. We were winning. So when Peter called, we said, “Okay,
 Alan Woods  245

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 strat-
egy at the right count, and bet exactly the right amount. I think
I made many mistakes. My theory was that if I had it approxi-
mately 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 regard-
ed 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 Jakar-
ta 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-
246  Gambling Wizards

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 cheat-
ing; 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 travel-

er’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 hab-
it of not declaring the money because of the Americans I’d met.
They were … I can’t think of a better word than brainwashed.
 Alan Woods  247

They were so habituated to not declaring because of $10,000 [re-

porting] limits on cash in the United States. They didn’t want the
government knowing 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. dol-
lar 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 de-
cided 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 every-
where. 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 pro-
fessional. 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
248  Gambling Wizards

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 ner-
vous 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 go-
ing 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. Sud-
denly, making the plane is going to be very close. Off he went.
I arrived at the airport and stalled until the last minute board-
ing the plane. Eventually they said, “You have to board.” We got
onto the plane. I waited, waited, getting more and more nervous.
 Alan Woods  249

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 of-
fered 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 din-
ner 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
250  Gambling Wizards

money, and thought it was Monopoly money. I can’t believe I’d

have gotten 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 busi-
ness 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 ca-
sinos, 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
 Alan Woods  251

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 do-
ing 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 fill-
ing 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. I ended up winning $170,000, but I
guess I didn’t look like a normal gambler while this was happen-
ing. 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.
252  Gambling Wizards

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 bet-

ting 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

 Alan Woods  253

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 as-
sociates. 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 re-
tirement 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 indi-
vidualistic. 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 oth-

er professionals into a team effort where I got the three of them to
254  Gambling Wizards

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 mid-
dle of 1983, I 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.

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. Through-
out the ’80s, other Australians came here, tried to win, and gener-
ally 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.”

1
For this and numeric references 2 and 3, see “Woods Notes” at the end of this
chapter.
 Alan Woods  255

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 mon-
ey 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 bank-
roll 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 Ve-
gas?

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
256  Gambling Wizards

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 cou-
ple 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 mathe-
matical formula, which is called Harvel. Harvel was a mathemati-
cian 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 bet-
tors 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
 Alan Woods  257

that the favorites might finish second only half as often as they
won. In effect, you need to discount the straight mathematical for-
mula by eighty percent for finishing second, and about sixty-four
percent for finishing third.
Pitts eventually went back to Atlantic City and started a com-
puter 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 nec-
essary—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 an-
num. 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.
258  Gambling Wizards

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 favor-
ite 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 peri-
od I shorted the market. Each time, when it didn’t behave as I ex-
pected 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.
 Alan Woods  259

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 some-
where 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 posi-
tion 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 gov-
ernment 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.
260  Gambling Wizards

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 al-
ready 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, expect-
ing 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 inves-
tor’s insanity. Having made this $1 million very quickly, I then
shorted the Japanese market. A friend tried continuously to per-
suade 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
 Alan Woods  261

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 mul-
tiple 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 maxi-
mum level now?

I’m not very scientific about it. I still use an old Australian meth-
od 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 expecta-
tion, 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 ques-
tion 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.
262  Gambling Wizards

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.
 Alan Woods  263

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 program-
mers 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.
264  Gambling Wizards

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 bet-

ting £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 col-
lected $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 ex-
ceeded that one.
One day at Happy Valley there was a seven-race meeting.
Our normal outlay at one of these meetings might be twelve, thir-
teen, 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 nor-
mally 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
 Alan Woods  265

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. Es-
sentially, 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 un-
sophisticated 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 com-
266  Gambling Wizards

bine 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 opera-
tor 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 ad-
vantage 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 profes-
sional gambler.” What would you tell him?

I think I’d say, “Don’t do it unless you want to be a computer pro-

grammer.” 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 say-
ing 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.”
 Alan Woods  267

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 program-
mer.”

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 tem-
perament, 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 imper-
sonal, 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 (first reference, page 254)

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 neces-
sarily 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 gam-
bling, describing any situation in which the bettor has an advan-
tage in a proposition.

2—Pari-Mutuel Betting (first reference, page 254)

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 wa-
gered 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
270  Gambling Wizards

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 (first reference, page 255)

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—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” Brunson 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 revolution-
ized 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
272  Gambling Wizards

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 profession-

ally?

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.
 Doyle Brunson  273

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.
274  Gambling Wizards

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
 Doyle Brunson  275

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.

276  Gambling Wizards

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-$1,000, a $1,000-$2,000, and a $1,500-$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
 Doyle Brunson  277

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.
278  Gambling Wizards

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.
 Doyle Brunson  279

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
280  Gambling Wizards

over-match yourself with one of them, they’ll beat you. They

don’t choke.

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.

1
See “Brunson Notes” at the end of this chapter.
 Doyle Brunson  281

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
282  Gambling Wizards

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.

 Doyle Brunson  283

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.
284  Gambling Wizards

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.
 Doyle Brunson  285

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
286  Gambling Wizards

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.”
 Doyle Brunson  287

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.

288  Gambling Wizards

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
 Doyle Brunson  289

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
290  Gambling Wizards

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
 Doyle Brunson  291

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.
292  Gambling Wizards

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 (first reference, page 280)

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 assessements 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 play-
294  Gambling Wizards

ing 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.

 Index of Notes

Atlantic City (counter convention), Hulbert. ...............................236

Backgammon Points, Svobodny......................................................150
Banking, Svobodny............................................................................152
Big Player, Hyland. ..........................................................................109
Blackjack Point Counts, Hulbert....................................................236
Bridge Culture, Tomchin..................................................................183
Card Counting, Hyland...................................................................107
Cash Culture, Reese. ...........................................................................76
Color Code (chips), Reese. .................................................................76
Comps, Hyland.................................................................................110
Computer Group, Walters................................................................35
Computers (blackjack), Hyland......................................................108
Doubling Cube, Svobodny. ..............................................................151
Expectation (negative vs. positive), Tomchin................................186
Expected Value, Tomchin.................................................................187
Fluctuation, Hulbert.........................................................................235
Griffin Book, Hyland........................................................................109
Horse Race Bets, Woods...................................................................270
Line, Walters.......................................................................................36
Magnets (using to cheat), Tomchin.................................................186
Magriel, Paul (profile), Svobodny. ..................................................149
Martin, Bob (profile), Walters..........................................................36
Martingale Folly, Tomchin...............................................................186
Mayfair Club, Tomchin.....................................................................184
Messenger Betting, Walters..............................................................37
Moss, Johnny (profile), Reese. ...........................................................75
Overlay, Woods.................................................................................269
Pari-Mutuel Betting, Woods............................................................269
Pearson, Puggy (profile), Brunson. ................................................293
Poker Variations, Reese..................................................................... 75
Props, Svobodny. ...............................................................................152
Standard Deviation, Hulbert. .........................................................235
Team Play, Hyland...........................................................................108
Ungar, Stu (profile), Walters............................................................37
Uston’s Victory, Hyland..................................................................109
Wong, Stanford (profile), Hyland..................................................107
 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 se-

curity 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 num-
bers of decks.
298  Gambling Wizards

beard—A person used to place bets, especially sports bets, with-

out 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 ordi-
nary gambler.

canceling—While counting cards, matching plus- and minus-val-

ue 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.

 Glossary  299

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 transac-

tion 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 handi-

cappers bet it to a point where there’s no longer an edge.

floor—The casino playing area.

300  Gambling Wizards

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 check-

ers 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 gam-

bling wildly.

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

may have no advantage.

going for a number—To take a big loss.

 Glossary  301

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 bank-

rolls 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.

302  Gambling Wizards

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 gam-

bling.

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 nega-

tive-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.

 Glossary  303

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. Race-

tracks 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 de-

termine 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.
304  Gambling Wizards

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 dis-

advantage 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 ad-

vantage.

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.

 Glossary  305

stop-loss—A predetermined stopping point designed to limit

losses.

stuck—Losing money; usually used in the context of a single ses-

sion.

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.

306  Gambling Wizards

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.
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 Meet the Wizards of Gambling
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