1
00:00:08,519 --> 00:00:13,039
Good afternoon. You're listening to Gambling
with an Edge. Now here are your

2
00:00:13,080 --> 00:00:18,719
hosts, Bob Dancer and Richard Munchkin. Good afternoon, Welcome to Gambling with

3
00:00:18,800 --> 00:00:24,199
an Edge. I'm Bob Dancer and
I'm Richard Muchkin. Richard and I have

4
00:00:24,239 --> 00:00:26,879
had more than a ten year run
on Gambling with an Edge, and when

5
00:00:26,920 --> 00:00:32,079
we quit almost seven months ago,
we said we might have some additional shows

6
00:00:32,200 --> 00:00:36,399
on an irregular basis. This is
the first one of those. It's taken

7
00:00:36,439 --> 00:00:40,960
longer than I thought to get a
regular. We received an email from attorney

8
00:00:41,000 --> 00:00:45,600
Bob Lobe that he had some legal
issues with online casinos to discuss with our

9
00:00:45,640 --> 00:00:50,600
audience and were we interested the stupid
question. Of course we're interested. A

10
00:00:50,759 --> 00:00:55,479
few years ago we posed a conundrum
or whether Bob Lobe was the Midwest Bob

11
00:00:55,560 --> 00:01:02,079
Nursessian or whether Bob Nursessian was the
Las Vegas Bob Bla. We never did

12
00:01:02,119 --> 00:01:04,319
figure it out, and it turns
out it doesn't matter. Both attorneys are

13
00:01:04,359 --> 00:01:08,719
friends with each other and friends of
the show. So Bob Lobe, welcome

14
00:01:08,719 --> 00:01:12,560
to Gambling with an Edge. Great
to be back. All right, before

15
00:01:12,599 --> 00:01:17,120
I start asking questions to Bob Lobe
or Richard, did you have something you

16
00:01:17,120 --> 00:01:19,680
wanted to say? Well, yeah, just that I'm I. You know,

17
00:01:19,719 --> 00:01:23,400
I'm still trying to find my way
with the life as a gamble a

18
00:01:23,599 --> 00:01:27,159
podcast. I kind of don't really
know what it is yet or what I'm

19
00:01:27,200 --> 00:01:33,280
doing. But when this, when
Bob Lobe contacted me about this, I

20
00:01:33,400 --> 00:01:36,640
was like, you know what,
this is definitely a gambling with an Edge

21
00:01:36,640 --> 00:01:42,239
episode, and so I was just
really happy to be able to call Bob

22
00:01:42,359 --> 00:01:45,560
answer and say, hey, do
you want to do this episode? And

23
00:01:45,599 --> 00:01:49,599
he of course said yes, and
so here we are. And who knows

24
00:01:49,680 --> 00:01:55,400
how often these episodes will present themselves, but at least once in a while

25
00:01:55,519 --> 00:01:59,439
we'll be back with a gambling with
an Edge episode. And I'm happy about

26
00:01:59,439 --> 00:02:01,920
that. Good, happy, happy, everybody happy. All right, So,

27
00:02:02,040 --> 00:02:08,039
Bob Love, today we're talking about
legal issues with online casinos. What

28
00:02:09,280 --> 00:02:16,520
is this all about? Okay,
we're talking primarily sports betting, and as

29
00:02:16,599 --> 00:02:25,360
everybody knows that the sports books have
just sprouted up in almost every state,

30
00:02:27,479 --> 00:02:32,520
sometimes many different sports books, and
we are in the stage where the law

31
00:02:32,639 --> 00:02:38,000
is not clearly written. It's kind
of the wild wild West. States have

32
00:02:38,159 --> 00:02:45,879
not even when they're regulating states have
not really drawn up laws that regulate the

33
00:02:45,960 --> 00:02:53,039
rules of sports betting. Sometimes there
should be statutes that are on the book

34
00:02:53,039 --> 00:03:00,000
that tell them what to do.
Sometimes there are administrative rules that get promulgated

35
00:03:00,039 --> 00:03:07,599
and passed that are not quite as
accessible, certainly to the general public or

36
00:03:07,879 --> 00:03:12,240
in this case, gamblers. And
one of the things that has grown out

37
00:03:12,280 --> 00:03:17,560
of that is that the rules and
the terms and conditions that are posted on

38
00:03:17,599 --> 00:03:23,639
a website, the kind of thing
not just in gambling, where everybody if

39
00:03:23,639 --> 00:03:28,560
they want to, if they want
to access their bank account or access a

40
00:03:28,599 --> 00:03:32,680
particular website or in this case of
sports book, we all have blindly,

41
00:03:32,800 --> 00:03:38,960
i'm sure, checked the terms and
conditions that we're agreeing to them without reading

42
00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:43,080
them, and even if we read
them, it would be legal mumbo jumbo.

43
00:03:43,639 --> 00:03:47,520
And so many people are gambling without
any knowledge of some of the consequences

44
00:03:49,159 --> 00:03:54,400
that where I get calls from gamblers
who have some issues. The sports books

45
00:03:54,439 --> 00:04:03,199
are not necessarily the area in which
I have been most engaged in my practice,

46
00:04:03,439 --> 00:04:10,400
but I have had quite a number
of very distressing calls where in a

47
00:04:10,479 --> 00:04:17,399
nutshell, people's accounts have been suspended
and in some cases their amounts have been

48
00:04:18,079 --> 00:04:25,079
seized or the casino the sports book
are refusing to give it back, and

49
00:04:25,120 --> 00:04:30,240
I'm talking up to half a million
dollars in actually several cases, which is

50
00:04:30,319 --> 00:04:35,720
quite distressing. Yeah. Absolutely,
And so now we're talking here about legal

51
00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:42,480
regulated sports books. And again,
you know, people ask me all the

52
00:04:42,560 --> 00:04:46,600
time, you know, do casinos
cheat? And my answer is, in

53
00:04:46,639 --> 00:04:50,639
the old days, they used to
deal seconds and gaff the games, and

54
00:04:50,720 --> 00:04:57,759
the modern version of that is casino's
just try to steal your money. And

55
00:04:57,839 --> 00:05:01,839
now they're doing this in sports books. They are now just sometimes locking up

56
00:05:01,879 --> 00:05:06,959
people's money and refusing to pay.
Absolutely, I would have used the words

57
00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:15,360
that casinos are legally licensed these days. I'm not sure that they're being regulated

58
00:05:15,439 --> 00:05:24,040
much. And a couple horror stories
come from Native American casinos that have sportsbooks

59
00:05:24,079 --> 00:05:30,199
now, and I have to comment
that the regulators are the same casinos.

60
00:05:31,079 --> 00:05:38,759
The Indians are regulating themselves exactly,
and we all know. I think what

61
00:05:38,959 --> 00:05:44,680
happens when you get to regulate yourself, and so what is happening, I

62
00:05:44,680 --> 00:05:48,079
mean, if you had any success
getting money back for people. I've had

63
00:05:48,199 --> 00:05:55,959
varied success. I've had failures as
well. I have had a number of

64
00:05:56,000 --> 00:06:06,040
successes on relatively small amounts where somebody's
the casino's refusing to return the balance that

65
00:06:06,279 --> 00:06:12,959
is in a person's account, and
that's where we've gotten involved. It's a

66
00:06:12,959 --> 00:06:20,079
little bit difficult for me to get
a handle on litigating it because everything is

67
00:06:20,279 --> 00:06:27,240
online. When you open up an
account on a sportsbook, you don't really

68
00:06:27,399 --> 00:06:33,120
have a human teller taking bets.
You don't have a human casino manager.

69
00:06:33,639 --> 00:06:40,720
You don't have any way of really
being in touch with them other than on

70
00:06:40,879 --> 00:06:46,240
their comments page. So it becomes
difficult. But let me start with one,

71
00:06:46,519 --> 00:06:49,759
with one thing that I want to
mention to a lot of people.

72
00:06:50,199 --> 00:06:56,079
This should be one of the few
times where I really know what I'm doing

73
00:06:56,120 --> 00:07:02,800
and have a helpful suggestion. Don't
keep more money in your account than you

74
00:07:02,959 --> 00:07:10,920
need to currently place your bets.
Because some people have run up really high

75
00:07:10,959 --> 00:07:17,920
balances, they have committed what the
casinos feel is an improper act. They

76
00:07:17,959 --> 00:07:24,920
have suspended the entire account. In
other words, again, I've had a

77
00:07:24,959 --> 00:07:30,120
few cases where people have had balances
of half a million dollars. There might

78
00:07:30,160 --> 00:07:34,000
be only fifteen or twenty thousand dollars
that's really in dispute, where the casinos

79
00:07:34,079 --> 00:07:41,519
think somebody did wrong, but the
people are not getting their half a million

80
00:07:41,560 --> 00:07:46,959
dollars back. So what are the
kind of excuses the casinos are using to

81
00:07:46,759 --> 00:07:55,279
do this? Okay, I'm not
the tech expert. Casinos have prohibited the

82
00:07:55,360 --> 00:08:03,759
use of certain apps AI in sports
betting. They have prohibited inside information,

83
00:08:03,360 --> 00:08:09,639
which is not necessarily paying off the
refs like in the old days, or

84
00:08:09,360 --> 00:08:16,120
or paying a player to blow a
game. But I think, but,

85
00:08:16,319 --> 00:08:20,839
like you know, Lebron is injured, but the news hasn't come out yet,

86
00:08:20,920 --> 00:08:22,759
so you're betting before the news comes
out. That kind of thing,

87
00:08:24,000 --> 00:08:28,399
right, right? And they using
they use the phrase information that is not

88
00:08:28,560 --> 00:08:37,200
at this point publicly available. But
more they really fear the apps and the

89
00:08:37,279 --> 00:08:46,120
algorithms that people people have, people
who are probably even more savvy than the

90
00:08:46,120 --> 00:08:52,240
people who make the lines and get
an advantage that way, and are betting

91
00:08:52,399 --> 00:08:58,159
huge and are really attacking the bottom
line of the casinos. The other thing

92
00:08:58,320 --> 00:09:03,759
that is very very common that I
get the most complaints about, and this

93
00:09:03,159 --> 00:09:09,919
is one worry out necessarily dealing with
huge money, is the rules. The

94
00:09:09,000 --> 00:09:16,960
terms and conditions are prohibiting multiple people
on the same account, sharing of information

95
00:09:18,919 --> 00:09:24,320
and they've gotten good at that.
When we started out basically a couple of

96
00:09:24,440 --> 00:09:31,480
years ago with online sports books,
it was kind of every casino or every

97
00:09:31,919 --> 00:09:37,320
company like fan duel Er, Draft
Kings or at MGM or whatever. They

98
00:09:37,399 --> 00:09:43,200
all had their own terms and conditions, rules and regulations. But I've definitely

99
00:09:43,240 --> 00:09:48,960
seen a trend where they've been sharing
information and even some of the smaller companies

100
00:09:50,559 --> 00:10:00,960
have the most detailed terms and conditions
that have so many esoteric rules and rasiology

101
00:10:01,399 --> 00:10:07,159
like, we can do this if
we feel like it. In other words,

102
00:10:07,440 --> 00:10:11,080
in our sole discretion, we can
shut down an account. We can

103
00:10:11,159 --> 00:10:16,080
forfeit the money in our sole discression. And the only remedy that a player

104
00:10:16,240 --> 00:10:24,720
has in some of these things is
something that often violates public policy, and

105
00:10:24,759 --> 00:10:30,919
that's a mandatory arbitration clause, which
says you can't take us to court.

106
00:10:30,960 --> 00:10:35,559
You can only go to mandatory arbitration, and any can only go to the

107
00:10:35,600 --> 00:10:41,720
company that we regularly use and support. In other words, you're getting a

108
00:10:41,759 --> 00:10:46,559
bias hearing. Wow, Yeah,
And can you tell us who the worst

109
00:10:46,600 --> 00:10:54,000
offenders are? I'm not entirely sure
because my knowledge is only really from the

110
00:10:54,039 --> 00:11:01,279
phone calls that I get. I
have read that duel has gone to some

111
00:11:01,840 --> 00:11:07,840
skewed or lesser paying nods, particularly
on correlated vets. Oh well, but

112
00:11:09,399 --> 00:11:13,519
yeah, what they're free to do. Yeah, okay, I mean,

113
00:11:13,759 --> 00:11:18,879
like, are you getting more than
one person where the same company is stealing

114
00:11:18,879 --> 00:11:22,480
their money. I haven't gotten enough
costs to say I've got a pattern,

115
00:11:22,919 --> 00:11:26,600
but they're all over the place.
It's been some some Indian a couple of

116
00:11:26,679 --> 00:11:33,879
Indian casinos that are not affiliated with
let's call them a tribal chaint of Indian

117
00:11:33,960 --> 00:11:39,240
casinos. We're talking some discrete Well
they have one bricks and mortar casino and

118
00:11:39,360 --> 00:11:46,120
now they have their own sportsbook,
and they've gotten really sophisticated with denying people

119
00:11:46,440 --> 00:11:52,960
the rights. But I've probably got
a smattering of eight, nine, ten

120
00:11:54,960 --> 00:12:03,919
more of the or single complaints from
the larger chain. So maybe maybe these

121
00:12:03,919 --> 00:12:09,759
are random. Maybe we're very much
in this infancy, as you say,

122
00:12:09,799 --> 00:12:15,279
the wild the wildless. I wish
I could say, you know, there's

123
00:12:15,519 --> 00:12:22,039
there's one single changement that is really
terrible. I would, but it's everybody.

124
00:12:22,440 --> 00:12:26,799
I want your listeners know, you
know, yeah, yeah, Now

125
00:12:26,919 --> 00:12:31,480
it's part of the problem. Just
these gamblers are too good at picking winners,

126
00:12:31,080 --> 00:12:37,600
and so the casinos don't want their
action. Kind It's kind of similar

127
00:12:37,679 --> 00:12:41,600
to an ap at table games,
you know, in a bricks and mortar

128
00:12:41,679 --> 00:12:46,159
casino. Yes, you're too good, you can play any other game.

129
00:12:46,919 --> 00:12:50,600
Well you can't bet sports in these
cases, you know, well you can,

130
00:12:50,720 --> 00:12:56,679
but you're limited ten dollars a bet
and absolutely and we would have yes,

131
00:12:58,000 --> 00:13:01,919
absolutely, which which is fine.
I mean, you know, we

132
00:13:01,120 --> 00:13:05,440
all would look at that as the
cost of doing business. It's when they

133
00:13:05,440 --> 00:13:09,639
start stealing your money. And the
same thing happens in casinos, you know,

134
00:13:09,720 --> 00:13:13,480
with advantage players. They just take
their money and say, try to

135
00:13:13,519 --> 00:13:18,799
get it back, yep, And
eventually usually usually you do, but you

136
00:13:18,840 --> 00:13:22,200
know, it becomes costly in a
big hassle. Let me give you a

137
00:13:22,240 --> 00:13:26,039
couple of horror stories that are public
at this point. First one started out

138
00:13:26,039 --> 00:13:33,679
in England and it was a guy
who got together a group sports betting and

139
00:13:33,720 --> 00:13:37,759
they were taking the advantage of what
I referred to as as the bonus.

140
00:13:37,799 --> 00:13:41,120
You know, bet your first bet
and we're going to give you one hundred

141
00:13:41,120 --> 00:13:46,320
and fifty dollars or things like that, and there were some people who were

142
00:13:48,519 --> 00:13:52,679
They found out that a single person
got together a group of fifteen or twenty

143
00:13:52,720 --> 00:13:58,759
people, and nobody was betting much
more than the bonuses. But the fifteen

144
00:13:58,879 --> 00:14:03,639
twenty people were not really placing those
bets. They weren't doing the gambling.

145
00:14:03,360 --> 00:14:13,320
It was just it was just this
one leader. And it's not unlike something

146
00:14:13,360 --> 00:14:20,080
that we've seen for several years now
on slot pay and people who build up

147
00:14:20,120 --> 00:14:24,720
a large loss on a single on
a single day, but they're getting coupons

148
00:14:24,759 --> 00:14:31,120
for ten days per month in the
future. And they've got individuals who do

149
00:14:31,200 --> 00:14:35,919
their redeeming because they can't be there
every day to do the redeeming. So

150
00:14:35,120 --> 00:14:41,360
the casinos are very much resisting when
a single person is called at the very

151
00:14:41,440 --> 00:14:48,000
least calling the shots or using the
identification and the phone and the credit card

152
00:14:48,159 --> 00:14:54,320
of other people. And in some
cases the casinos are seeing the same pattern

153
00:14:54,399 --> 00:14:58,279
of vets and they're cracking down on
it, and they're saying, you a

154
00:14:58,399 --> 00:15:03,799
violated all of our terms, conditions, one other, one other trap.

155
00:15:03,399 --> 00:15:07,480
And believe me, I'm not the
techie who can explain this well, but

156
00:15:07,960 --> 00:15:18,360
a VPN is kind of similar to
blocking collar ID, where somebody is hiding

157
00:15:18,399 --> 00:15:24,679
the URL from which they are placing
bets. Yeah, it can make you

158
00:15:24,759 --> 00:15:30,679
appear to be in another country or
another state. Correct, or you're hiding

159
00:15:30,759 --> 00:15:39,600
that fact. Now, most states, when they are licensing online sportsbooks are

160
00:15:39,639 --> 00:15:48,879
online gambling. They are legally restricted
to either residents of their state placing the

161
00:15:48,919 --> 00:15:56,360
bets or being physically present in the
state when placing the bets. Okay,

162
00:15:58,399 --> 00:16:03,399
but some keys, when they feel
that they've got a particularly strong advantage on

163
00:16:03,919 --> 00:16:11,639
some particular games, are placing bets
from one location in five or ten or

164
00:16:11,679 --> 00:16:18,639
fifteen different states. Violates the terms
of the conditions. The casinos or the

165
00:16:18,679 --> 00:16:32,919
casino industry has gradually obtained the technological
capability of tracking bets and are not only

166
00:16:33,000 --> 00:16:37,639
turning down bets that come from other
states because their license says they have to

167
00:16:37,679 --> 00:16:42,360
turn down those bets. But when
somebody has attempted and they can show to

168
00:16:42,440 --> 00:16:49,200
their own satisfaction that winning bets have
been placed from several states, they are

169
00:16:49,799 --> 00:16:53,960
disallowing those bets. And in a
way, we could live with that,

170
00:16:56,000 --> 00:16:59,519
but they're freezing the accounts and taking
the money, and we can't live with

171
00:16:59,600 --> 00:17:04,000
that. Yeah, I mean,
yeah, if you found some way to

172
00:17:06,160 --> 00:17:12,160
get around their geolocation software, which
they have, fine, But if you

173
00:17:12,200 --> 00:17:17,079
call your brother who lives in that
state, and he gets on his account

174
00:17:17,119 --> 00:17:21,160
and makes the bet. They shouldn't
be able to, you know, freeze

175
00:17:21,240 --> 00:17:25,519
his account. No, because you
made the same bet in another state.

176
00:17:26,319 --> 00:17:34,039
That's true. Their technology is also
showing them when they're getting in effect,

177
00:17:34,079 --> 00:17:42,039
the same bets on the same games
in the same oh, the same combinations.

178
00:17:42,599 --> 00:17:48,960
I guess you'd call them such that
they think they are finding out that

179
00:17:48,119 --> 00:17:53,079
this is a group of people who
are using the same information. Well,

180
00:17:53,119 --> 00:17:57,079
but yeah, I mean, but
sure, that's true. There are groups

181
00:17:57,160 --> 00:18:02,839
that do that, that bet in
multiple states. But I mean, how

182
00:18:02,880 --> 00:18:04,440
can there be anything wrong with that? Well, in just a minute,

183
00:18:04,799 --> 00:18:11,759
they're saying, if a group of
ten in the same state are placing the

184
00:18:11,839 --> 00:18:18,480
same six bets on the same day, on the same teams in the same

185
00:18:18,559 --> 00:18:26,319
games, nothing more, that's a
pattern that they are uncovering and presuming that

186
00:18:26,319 --> 00:18:33,039
that is wrongful collusion according to their
terms and condition. Under the laws of

187
00:18:33,079 --> 00:18:40,079
a few states, not most Illinois
is one, there's something called syndicated gambling

188
00:18:40,799 --> 00:18:45,759
where they would interpret that as there's
kind of like a single bookie or single

189
00:18:47,119 --> 00:18:53,759
better taking advantage of a particular line. In other words, Richard, you

190
00:18:53,920 --> 00:19:00,160
referred when bets come from several states, that's not so terrible. But when

191
00:19:00,200 --> 00:19:07,119
they but if there's this collusion based
on inside information and all the bets are

192
00:19:07,119 --> 00:19:11,240
coming from the same state, that
that would not be as serious. The

193
00:19:11,279 --> 00:19:18,400
casinos are treating it as just as
as serious. And I do think you

194
00:19:18,440 --> 00:19:22,440
know, we're in the infancy of
AI. I think that is what's driving

195
00:19:22,480 --> 00:19:32,359
the casinos because they think that somebody
who's very adept at using AI will come

196
00:19:32,440 --> 00:19:37,359
up with better information in the aggregate, even if it's not inside information.

197
00:19:37,440 --> 00:19:41,640
Well, sure they and they do. They don't even before AI. I

198
00:19:41,640 --> 00:19:47,400
mean, you know, the sharp
sports betters were sharper than the sports books,

199
00:19:47,759 --> 00:19:51,039
right, So, yeah, that's
just the way of the world.

200
00:19:51,279 --> 00:19:56,720
Now, let me give you one
other kind of thought. Common law fraud.

201
00:19:56,839 --> 00:20:00,759
Long before we even had gambling in
the United States. One of the

202
00:20:00,799 --> 00:20:10,440
definitions of common law fraud that applies
in most state laws is if you make

203
00:20:10,480 --> 00:20:19,079
a false statement in order to obtain
something that isn't yours, that's fraud.

204
00:20:19,559 --> 00:20:26,640
Classic example is if you inflate your
income on a mortgage application to show that

205
00:20:26,680 --> 00:20:33,880
you really qualify per a particular mortgage. That's fraud. Okay, And as

206
00:20:33,920 --> 00:20:36,960
the law has developed in the United
States, And I'm going to give you

207
00:20:37,000 --> 00:20:42,640
an example that many people have heard
about. Even if you make good on

208
00:20:44,720 --> 00:20:52,519
the false statement, in other words, the casino, the sports better or

209
00:20:52,519 --> 00:20:57,000
the mortgage company, even if you
make good on your payments on the mortgage

210
00:20:57,559 --> 00:21:06,079
and the say again the casino is
not harmed thereby the fact that you made

211
00:21:06,160 --> 00:21:11,759
the false statement can be fraud.
The example that's in the news these days,

212
00:21:12,640 --> 00:21:18,319
I'm going to mention it within New
York is in New York Donald Trump's

213
00:21:18,319 --> 00:21:26,359
case in New York State Court,
where he made very serious false statements to

214
00:21:26,559 --> 00:21:33,000
Deutsche Bank. The government does not
have to prove that they were harmed by

215
00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:37,119
the false statements. The fact that
he made them is fraud. Okay.

216
00:21:37,480 --> 00:21:42,920
Now, how does this relate to
sports books? Is then, when a

217
00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:49,759
redeemer on slot play or a group
of people, if one person is using

218
00:21:49,920 --> 00:21:56,079
seven phones with the numbers that are
registered to severn different people, but they

219
00:21:56,119 --> 00:22:00,359
find that it's all out of one
location, and they get some more information,

220
00:22:02,200 --> 00:22:07,960
such as they have a at least
somewhat provable belief that one person is

221
00:22:07,079 --> 00:22:15,839
using seven identities perhaps to get these
bonuses or whatever. A false statement doesn't

222
00:22:15,880 --> 00:22:19,720
have to be a verbal statement.
It can be an act. And when

223
00:22:19,759 --> 00:22:26,440
you put somebody else's player's card in
the machine with another name, that is

224
00:22:26,480 --> 00:22:33,359
a false statement. And when you
register for an online account in somebody else's

225
00:22:33,440 --> 00:22:37,440
name, real person or not,
you're making a false statement that you are

226
00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:44,279
that person, and that violates the
terms of conditions. And that has served

227
00:22:44,960 --> 00:22:48,920
to freeze a few accounts, in
one huge one that I'm aware of.

228
00:22:49,839 --> 00:22:55,240
Okay, so if you guys are
living in a dorm, everybody go to

229
00:22:55,319 --> 00:22:59,119
a different Starbucks to make your bets. Well, it's interesting. The other

230
00:22:59,200 --> 00:23:03,920
public case that has gotten a fair
amount of attention in the country is a

231
00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:11,559
case out of Iowa. Now it
happens that this has gotten not only a

232
00:23:11,599 --> 00:23:17,480
lot of publicity, but it came
to the it came to the authority's attention.

233
00:23:18,960 --> 00:23:25,960
Was a college dorm that a few
college athletes were living in and a

234
00:23:25,960 --> 00:23:30,519
few games or a lot of bets
were placed on games in which those athletes

235
00:23:30,559 --> 00:23:37,559
were participating. Okay, that's more
of you know, the classic kind of

236
00:23:37,599 --> 00:23:42,640
fixing the game that we've known about
for one hundred years. Okay, but

237
00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:52,640
Iowa brought charges against the leader for
some serious money fraud against the athletes,

238
00:23:55,000 --> 00:24:02,519
and then the NCAA got involved,
and some other betters all who were involved

239
00:24:02,559 --> 00:24:07,440
in the same scheme. And so
you know, if you're you know,

240
00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:11,279
if you're in touch with athletes and
they're placing bets for you, let that

241
00:24:11,319 --> 00:24:18,440
be a warning. The more common
warning I think is huge betters have a

242
00:24:18,480 --> 00:24:23,119
bullseye on their back's that's where they
pay attention. Okay, that's where these

243
00:24:23,720 --> 00:24:29,240
half a million dollar accounts came from. For those of you who are in

244
00:24:29,359 --> 00:24:34,279
a group, there's one, actually
two groups that I'm aware of, in

245
00:24:34,319 --> 00:24:42,039
which there was kind of a loser
better, but a real big better who

246
00:24:42,079 --> 00:24:52,000
got affiliated with the sharp betters.
And because the loser better had a long

247
00:24:52,160 --> 00:24:57,680
record of losing, the casino was
more eager to take his action, okay,

248
00:24:59,440 --> 00:25:06,519
And so the big guys put their
action into the name of the of

249
00:25:06,599 --> 00:25:15,200
the big loser better, and the
casinos or the sportsbook got wise to what

250
00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:21,480
was going on. One of the
problems was one of the problem legal problems,

251
00:25:22,240 --> 00:25:30,200
was that this big loser was a
wealthy licensed professional. Now if I

252
00:25:30,240 --> 00:25:34,079
were, if I were another lawyer
wanted to bring a lawsuit it would have

253
00:25:34,240 --> 00:25:40,599
to be in the name of the
account holder, who's who put the money

254
00:25:40,680 --> 00:25:48,680
up and placed the bets. In
one case, a licensed professional was risking

255
00:25:48,759 --> 00:25:56,039
much more than his gambling losses.
He was losing his or potentially losing his

256
00:25:56,160 --> 00:26:00,319
livelihood because he would lose his license
if it was publicly known that he was

257
00:26:00,359 --> 00:26:06,680
involved in this kind of betting.
He would lose his license for betting at

258
00:26:06,720 --> 00:26:12,359
a legal sportsbook, for using other
people's names, which under a lot of

259
00:26:12,400 --> 00:26:22,279
money wandering statutes is a violation.
We're talking doctors, lawyers, stockbrokers licensed

260
00:26:22,319 --> 00:26:29,759
by the sec. You know,
professionals who were But he wasn't using other

261
00:26:29,799 --> 00:26:33,680
people's names. Somebody was using his
name to make the bets. Right,

262
00:26:34,519 --> 00:26:41,200
Well, at times they were giving
money to the licensed professional to place the

263
00:26:41,279 --> 00:26:47,799
bets. I see, because they
could, because he could put down bigger

264
00:26:47,839 --> 00:26:52,200
money. Yeah, okay. And
so this guy declined to be a complainant,

265
00:26:53,400 --> 00:26:59,480
and all of the other people were
without a remedy. They had another

266
00:27:00,359 --> 00:27:04,440
real funny phone call. It was
funny because it came from the general manager

267
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:12,559
of it. He said of an
East Coast sports book who and he showed

268
00:27:12,599 --> 00:27:18,160
the knowledge, So I believed him
that he was such. He was in

269
00:27:18,200 --> 00:27:23,319
the middle of a divorce, wife
had custody. Sixteen year old son got

270
00:27:23,359 --> 00:27:29,880
a hold of wife's credit card.
Sixteen year old son started sports betting online

271
00:27:29,920 --> 00:27:34,920
in his mother's name, losing a
lot of money, pissing off the father.

272
00:27:36,920 --> 00:27:41,920
Okay, and the father kept kind
of insisting with me that I can

273
00:27:41,960 --> 00:27:48,559
write the somewhat usual demand letter that
I've had some success with, saying you've

274
00:27:48,559 --> 00:27:52,440
abused this, you've gone too far, You had no right to keep all

275
00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:57,960
of his money. Okay, And
I should send the demand letter to the

276
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:03,519
gambling wasn't being on it, the
sports book that was being run by dad.

277
00:28:03,799 --> 00:28:11,160
Okay, that my demand letter will
have the effect of scaring the sports

278
00:28:11,160 --> 00:28:18,839
book into thinking that their license could
be in jeopardy for accepting an underage regular

279
00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:23,359
better. Okay, And I sympathized
with him in a way, but I

280
00:28:25,240 --> 00:28:30,720
had to decline. And this applies
to everybody who's using an underaged kid,

281
00:28:30,960 --> 00:28:37,440
and a college dorm often qualifies you
may be without a remedy because for you

282
00:28:37,480 --> 00:28:42,279
to maintain your complaint to get all
this money back means the lawyer has to

283
00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:49,200
elicit from the underage guy his client
a confession to a crime, and I

284
00:28:49,279 --> 00:28:52,920
wasn't going to put a client in
that position. Yeah, if the underage

285
00:28:53,039 --> 00:28:57,559
kid had used his own name an
ID, then you got you know,

286
00:28:57,599 --> 00:29:03,480
it seems to have a case.
Well then yes, because the casino would

287
00:29:03,519 --> 00:29:08,440
be on notice of the proper age. Yes, but I think in the

288
00:29:08,480 --> 00:29:14,000
Iowa case they were even using the
idea of somebody who's twenty one. You

289
00:29:14,039 --> 00:29:18,160
know, you can figure out the
rest and I know that, I know

290
00:29:18,279 --> 00:29:22,039
that. You know, some of
these are rather unique factual situations and won't

291
00:29:22,039 --> 00:29:29,920
apply to most listeners, but the
abuse by the casino. Don't continue to

292
00:29:29,960 --> 00:29:33,759
do this in more facial situations if
they continue to get away with it,

293
00:29:34,200 --> 00:29:41,400
particularly where their terms and conditions are
so restrictive, where anybody using a fake

294
00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:45,759
ID could be subject to this and
it could get really out of hand.

295
00:29:45,799 --> 00:29:51,000
And so well, let's go to
what can be done. I mean,

296
00:29:51,039 --> 00:29:55,519
you mentioned don't let your balance get
to I want to close, and I

297
00:29:55,599 --> 00:30:00,000
want to close on that note,
maybe that's my recommendation. All right,

298
00:30:02,160 --> 00:30:07,559
anybody can always supplement their account,
you know, with more capital if they've

299
00:30:07,599 --> 00:30:11,759
been losing and need to. Okay, although there is a problem with banks

300
00:30:11,960 --> 00:30:18,039
who do not like you making transfers
back and forth to casinos, and many

301
00:30:18,039 --> 00:30:22,960
people have had their bank accounts shut
down too, So that is a problem,

302
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:26,519
but not as big a problem as
having your money stolen exactly. But

303
00:30:26,599 --> 00:30:33,119
I have a couple of ideas or
suggestions as well, and those are I

304
00:30:33,160 --> 00:30:38,839
think there are two things that are
greatly underutilized, and those are the press

305
00:30:40,720 --> 00:30:49,599
and your representatives. So one idea
would be to get a sports writer who

306
00:30:49,759 --> 00:30:56,240
likes to gamble involved in all this
stuff and let him start writing articles about

307
00:30:56,240 --> 00:31:00,200
the stuff these places are doing.
That is a great suggect. Yes,

308
00:31:00,799 --> 00:31:04,799
and in a similar vein attention that
you can get for this stuff, the

309
00:31:04,839 --> 00:31:11,599
more they will have to stop it. And in a similar vein, this

310
00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:15,640
is actually out of a bricks and
mortar casino several years ago, we succeeded

311
00:31:15,680 --> 00:31:25,960
in getting money back by merely threatening
to put up billboards criticize on the roads

312
00:31:26,039 --> 00:31:30,880
leading to the casino. That's cheating. Yeah, that's a great idea.

313
00:31:32,359 --> 00:31:36,119
Like the press, it's a public
airing of what they've done. Well.

314
00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:40,480
The other thing that has been successful
is, you know, politicians are very

315
00:31:40,599 --> 00:31:45,160
cheap to buy. You make a
twenty six hundred dollars contribution to a guy's

316
00:31:45,240 --> 00:31:52,960
campaign and literally you can get his
home cell phone number and in the case

317
00:31:53,079 --> 00:31:59,160
back god, it's probably been forty
years. Tommy Hyland, they made some

318
00:31:59,319 --> 00:32:05,640
donation to a guy and you know, explain to him what the casinos were

319
00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:09,599
doing to blackjack players, and he's
like, that's that can't be true,

320
00:32:10,039 --> 00:32:15,240
right, And they took him to
the casinos in Atlantic City and got him

321
00:32:15,279 --> 00:32:21,480
barred for being a card counter.
And that's really why those laws got passed

322
00:32:21,559 --> 00:32:25,480
that you're not allowed to bar card
counters in Atlantic City. So I'm sure

323
00:32:25,519 --> 00:32:30,599
there are a lot of politicians that
like to bet on football, and you

324
00:32:30,680 --> 00:32:36,119
get some of them involved, get
them backed off, you know from sports

325
00:32:36,160 --> 00:32:39,880
books where they're only allowed to bet
a dollar fifty seven or whatever, which

326
00:32:40,079 --> 00:32:46,240
you know, literally some people are
limited to these miniscule amounts, and you

327
00:32:46,279 --> 00:32:52,839
know, good things can happen,
you know. Actually that touches. I'm

328
00:32:52,839 --> 00:33:00,160
glad you mentioned Tommy. With the
exception of Tommy and James Gross, I

329
00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:07,000
can't tell you the number of times
people have called me with a beef about

330
00:33:07,039 --> 00:33:12,839
what's happened to them. Any casino
APIs okay, yeah, and we go

331
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:17,119
through the whole process and here's what
it will involve, and they don't want

332
00:33:17,119 --> 00:33:23,079
to publicly out themselves. Yeah,
I think it's a big mistake. Look

333
00:33:23,119 --> 00:33:28,160
and Tommy and James Grocery, two
of the most well known aps, and

334
00:33:28,200 --> 00:33:31,480
they still can play all the hours
they want to play. I couldn't.

335
00:33:31,759 --> 00:33:37,519
I couldn't agree with you more.
I had a case ready to go where

336
00:33:37,519 --> 00:33:45,160
I happened to know that there were
commissioners on the Missouri Gaming Board who would

337
00:33:45,160 --> 00:33:51,519
have been receptive to outlawing premp shuffles, and their casinos were engaging in it.

338
00:33:52,359 --> 00:33:55,039
Okay, and keep in my Missouri
was one of the places where you

339
00:33:55,079 --> 00:34:00,279
couldn't bar people, and they were. And I had four or five people

340
00:34:01,160 --> 00:34:07,799
not willing to each being a victim
of that, not willing to be the

341
00:34:07,799 --> 00:34:12,239
plaintiff, not willing to even be
a witness that it was done to them.

342
00:34:12,239 --> 00:34:16,920
And it's very frustrating. But the
moral of all this is, don't

343
00:34:16,920 --> 00:34:22,920
put yourself in the position of being
a victim of one of these so that

344
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:28,079
you don't have to hire a lawyer, you don't have to fight with the

345
00:34:28,119 --> 00:34:37,079
casino. And again I'm getting back
to you know, take profits when you

346
00:34:37,199 --> 00:34:44,119
can despite the banks. So is
there amount of money that is too small

347
00:34:44,159 --> 00:34:47,000
to worry about? Like, if
you have ten thousand in an account,

348
00:34:47,280 --> 00:34:52,400
is it all right to let it
sit there? Or is that well with

349
00:34:52,559 --> 00:34:59,880
your place? If you're placing eleven
dollars bets to make ten dollars ten thousand

350
00:35:00,159 --> 00:35:04,840
is probably on the high side.
But the issue that you're raising, Bob,

351
00:35:05,000 --> 00:35:08,679
is really very similar to what's the
choke point of any given casino,

352
00:35:09,440 --> 00:35:19,400
and it varies among casinos. Okay, but presumably you are optimistic that you

353
00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:25,760
will get back this half million dollars
from this sports better who was, say,

354
00:35:25,920 --> 00:35:30,039
pushing the envelope in the casino didn't
like it. Is that a fair

355
00:35:30,079 --> 00:35:39,320
assessment. I've had three or four
that were particularly large amounts utterly failed in

356
00:35:39,440 --> 00:35:47,880
one. One is pending with the
most modern of terms and conditions that give

357
00:35:47,920 --> 00:35:55,639
you no rights at all, And
I'm not so optimistic. There is one

358
00:35:55,679 --> 00:36:00,679
other doctrine of law that I like
a lot to use in the kind of

359
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:07,239
area. It's called the doctrine of
unjust enrichment. And I would apply it

360
00:36:07,280 --> 00:36:12,880
in the way so as to say
a casino, okay, you get to

361
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:19,119
keep the hypothetic Well, I mean
not even do hypothetic. You keep the

362
00:36:19,199 --> 00:36:23,679
relatively small amount that you feel was
improper, but you're not entitled to the

363
00:36:23,719 --> 00:36:29,400
balance that's in the account. That
would be totally unfair, even though your

364
00:36:29,480 --> 00:36:36,360
rules and terms and conditions say you
can and if and if we want it,

365
00:36:36,400 --> 00:36:38,159
and we can't sue in a regular
court, we'd have to go to

366
00:36:38,239 --> 00:36:44,199
your friendly arbitrator. I've got no
reason to be optimistic in those cases,

367
00:36:44,920 --> 00:36:50,400
and in the aggregate, on those
cases, most of which involve smaller amounts,

368
00:36:51,519 --> 00:36:55,800
the client and I kind of come
to the to the to the conclusion

369
00:36:57,360 --> 00:37:02,119
that when we weigh risk and reward
on a relatively small amount, the attorney's

370
00:37:02,159 --> 00:37:07,000
fees and I'm not charging huge fees, eat up too much to where the

371
00:37:07,119 --> 00:37:13,480
risk is greater than the potential reward. In other words, well, it's

372
00:37:13,559 --> 00:37:16,519
kind of this way in the entire
legal system. Nobody can bring a lawsuit

373
00:37:16,599 --> 00:37:22,320
for less than thirty or forty thousand
dollars these days, because the outcome is

374
00:37:22,360 --> 00:37:27,719
always somewhat questionable, and the attorneys
or fees are going to be ten to

375
00:37:27,800 --> 00:37:30,239
fifteen thousand dollars, and that's just
not worth it. In other words,

376
00:37:30,800 --> 00:37:37,719
a huge portion of the population is
shut out of access to the legal system.

377
00:37:37,639 --> 00:37:42,559
Yeah. Well, you know,
a guy who can afford half a

378
00:37:42,599 --> 00:37:47,760
million in one account at one place
can probably afford some billboards, so maybe

379
00:37:49,119 --> 00:37:53,199
maybe agreed. Yeah, well,
this has been great, Bob. I

380
00:37:53,239 --> 00:38:00,320
want to thank you for doing this. Bob and Bob both so good and

381
00:38:00,159 --> 00:38:04,400
as a listener, I hope some
more people come to you and you do

382
00:38:04,519 --> 00:38:08,280
more gambling with a head shows.
Well we are open to that possibility.

383
00:38:08,760 --> 00:38:12,360
Yeah, yeah, thank you,
Bob. Now, at the end of

384
00:38:12,400 --> 00:38:17,840
our show, Richard and I used
to have a recommended section where we would

385
00:38:17,920 --> 00:38:22,519
recommend something to our listeners. So
Richard, do you have a recommended for

386
00:38:22,679 --> 00:38:27,480
our audience today? Of course I
do, and it's very apropos of this

387
00:38:27,559 --> 00:38:32,440
particular episode. I just last night
started watching a show on HBO Max called

388
00:38:32,559 --> 00:38:38,400
Bookie, and it is about a
guy who is a bookie in LA And

389
00:38:39,199 --> 00:38:43,880
I mean he's kind of a throwback
to the nineteen eighties or something, because

390
00:38:44,360 --> 00:38:49,400
modern day private bookies all use a
website. You know, you can just

391
00:38:49,639 --> 00:38:53,119
rent a website that where people can
you know, it has all the software

392
00:38:53,159 --> 00:38:58,159
to make your bets on. But
no, this guy still carries around a

393
00:38:58,760 --> 00:39:02,559
notepad and a pencil and writes down
the bets and people call him on the

394
00:39:02,559 --> 00:39:09,719
phone. And the show is a
comedy and it's creator is Chuck Lorie,

395
00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:15,960
who's the guy who did Two and
a half Men and Big and Big Bang

396
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:22,119
Theory, Yes, and many other
shows. And surprisingly, you know,

397
00:39:22,199 --> 00:39:27,119
he had this horrendous falling out with
Charlie Sheen over Two and a half Men,

398
00:39:27,760 --> 00:39:31,000
and Charlie Sheen is this is in
this series and you know, at

399
00:39:31,039 --> 00:39:35,079
the end of Two and a half
Men, he dropped a piano on Charlie

400
00:39:35,159 --> 00:39:38,599
Sheen like it was a guy a
body double dress like Charlie Sheen. But

401
00:39:39,199 --> 00:39:43,480
you know, he had some really
terrible things to say, but apparently they

402
00:39:43,519 --> 00:39:45,599
patched that up in Charlie. Charlie
Sheen is not the star of the show,

403
00:39:45,639 --> 00:39:50,480
but he just shows up as himself
as a guy who owes the BOOKIY

404
00:39:50,519 --> 00:39:54,000
money. So anyway, the show
is pretty funny and if you like and

405
00:39:54,039 --> 00:39:59,360
if you're into sports betting, obviously
you're probably already watching the show anyway,

406
00:39:59,440 --> 00:40:05,559
but definitely give it a give it
a watch. My recommended is a new

407
00:40:05,639 --> 00:40:10,920
novel by Mitch album A L.
B. O. M. Called The

408
00:40:12,039 --> 00:40:22,639
Little Liar It is basically a love
story that begins in the Jewish quarter of

409
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:31,960
Greece prior to World War Two,
where the Nazis eventually come in and gather

410
00:40:32,119 --> 00:40:37,119
up all the dudes, and there's
Auschwitch involved in some It's pretty horrible what

411
00:40:37,199 --> 00:40:45,400
they describe. So I had read
other descriptions of the Holocaust, and this

412
00:40:45,440 --> 00:40:50,519
one is open my eyes to certain
things. It is a love story,

413
00:40:51,119 --> 00:40:59,480
and it is it is, it's
well worth reading. Bob. Stick with

414
00:40:59,559 --> 00:41:04,840
what I am to stick with what
I said. My recommendation, take profits

415
00:41:04,840 --> 00:41:07,920
out of your account when you can. You'll avoid a lot of trouble,

416
00:41:09,280 --> 00:41:15,719
will avoid having to hire you.
Yes, so that sounds good for the

417
00:41:15,760 --> 00:41:21,920
listener, not so good for your
bankroll. But that's not where I make

418
00:41:22,000 --> 00:41:27,320
my living. And I've said this
for years. I'm so thrilled to be

419
00:41:27,440 --> 00:41:31,800
part of the AP community and all
of whom taught me how to be an

420
00:41:31,840 --> 00:41:37,719
AP that I like to give back
to the community when I can, so

421
00:41:38,519 --> 00:41:44,519
kind of a repository for some of
the horror stories that I can relate to

422
00:41:44,599 --> 00:41:47,519
others. And the AP community is
glad to have you as part of it.

423
00:41:47,639 --> 00:41:52,440
So thank you very much. Thank
you Richard go out and hit lots

424
00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:54,960
of royal flushes. Everybody, good
day,