Hey, everybody, and welcome to life as gamble. I am very pleased
today that my guest is the legendary gambler Billy Baxter. Over the last thirteen
years, I've done over six hundred episodes of Gambling with an Edge, and
when people ask me who are your favorite guests, top of my list has
always been Billy Baxter, just because he knows how to tell a story and
he's had a fascinating life. Also, I just wanted to say that all
professional gamblers owe him a huge debt because he is the one who fought the
case with the Irs Baxter versus the United States allowing gambling as a profession,
and the court ruled in Baxter's favor that gambling earnings could be considered earned income.
And because otherwise professional gambling would be a night mere tax wise, I
mean, it's already kind of a nightmare, but you know what I mean.
So, Billy is now eighty three and last year he was inducted into
the Sports Betting Hall of Fame and an amazing accomplishment in the World Series of
Poker Senior event, out of almost eight two hundred entries, he came in
second, and you know, just because it's a senior event. These are
not doddering old old men. I mean, there are a lot of really
strong players that were in this event. And for him to come in second,
he is a seven time World Series of Poker bracelet winner, and that
would have been his eighth. But anyway, an amazing accomplishment at eighty three.
Because these World Series of Poker events are really a lot of it is
endurance, So kudos to Billy for that. Anyway, now here's the show.
Billy. I'm so happy you're here and we can talk. Well,
it's good to be here. How you doing good? Good? Real?
Well? So I want to talk about golf and about boxing. But before
we get to that, I just recently learned that you were actually on a
chain gang. And for our younger audience who doesn't know what a chain gang
is, would you explain what that means. Well, I don't know if
this is one of my best stories, but I'll tell it anyway, Benji
asked. Back in my early day, before I came to Las Vegas,
this is prior to nineteen seventy five, I actually had a little gambling casino
in Georgia, which was very illegal. We had craps, roulette, blackjack,
just like Las Vegas, and we were open all night every night,
and it was very much against the law also. But at any rate,
this is any of the stories I tell you all verifiable. You can get
your nineteen eighty four issue of Sports Illustrated. The front cover I think has
Alan Trammel on the front issues to May of nineteen eighty four, and there's
a ten page story in there that will tell you about the FBI and the
Georgia Bureau of Investigation knocking the door down of my casino, which was during
the Master's golf tumber. This is in Augusta, Georgia and famous football player
Serny Jergison had the craps in his hand when the door when the doors came
down. But anyway, out of that, I wound up getting a year
in jail, and I was able to run that concurrently with federal book baking
cases that I had at the time, and the government they just wanted a
conviction, so they allowed me to run the state case with the federal case,
so I was able to do the time in my hometown in the prison
there. And this was on a road called Tobacco Road in Augusta, Georgia,
And in those days, they had a chain gang, just like they
do you see in the movies from years ago. They had the prisoners where
their feet were tied to the together, and they had one guard at the
front with a shotgun and one guard at the back with a shotgun, and
the truck was loaded with the hound dogs ready to chase anybody got away.
Well, when I first went to prison, that was where I was headed.
But the good news about the stories, I wound up not having to
go out every day on the actual chain gang and do that because I had
well i'll just say I had a little help and I was able to get
a job in the parts department, which is where we fixed the trucks and
all that took the prisoners out to work on the chain game. So I
avoided the actual swing blade duty. So the swing blade you would be chopping,
Yeah, you chopped grass on the side of the road, picked up
trash and whatever. The twenty or so prisoners that were tied together and that
went on. I mean, that's just the way the prison system was back
in those days. Is we're not talking about a long time ago. This
is in nineteen seventy five in Augusta, Georgia. It's amazing it was still
going on then. Yes, great movie about that for anybody who hasn't seen
it, there's a great movie with Paul Newman called Cool Handling Lucas exactly.
But okay, So anyway, then I wanted to get into boxing because I
understand you used to manage boxers. Is that right? That's correct? Yes,
how did that happen? Well, that was because of my gambling activity.
I would always better. I like to bet on boxing. That was
one of the things that I thought I did best was watching sporting events and
being able to determine which team was better or whether it be basketball or football
or whatever it was. And the same thing applied to boxing. So in
order to bet successfully, in my mind, I would go to the gyms
to watch people train when they were here for big fights and all that I
was interested in betting on. And one day I was in the gym and
the young kid named Roger Mayweather came to town. He got through out of
the Olympics and right before the Olympic trials for a bad attitude, and he's
in the gym and he's beating up all these pretty good fighters that I knew
about, and I said, well, who is that kid, and they
said, well, that's Roger Maywell. He just got threes out in town
here looking for a manager, and I had never did that before. So
Steve after his workout and talked to him and we came to an agreement and
I became his manager, and thirteen fights later, after having no pro experience,
in his thirteenth fight, I put him in for the world championship.
He fought a guy named Sammy Serrano and San Juan Puerto Rico and Roberta Komeni
Stadium before forty thousand fans, and he won the world title. The guy
had lost a fight in ten years. He knocked him out and there I
think it was eighth or ninth round. Wow. That's how I got in
the business. And then from there I became Bruce Curry's manager, who went
on to become the welterweight Champion, Junior welterweight Champion of the World. And
my last fighter was Vernon Forrest, who fought Shane Mosley twice and was our
represented in the Olympic trials and he was became wel toweight champion of the world.
So I had three fighters. I never had a fight to lose a
fight out of seventy five fight. It's the first seventy five fights they ever
had, and they all three became world champion without ever losing a fight.
Wow, Now did you have to deal with people like Don King to set
these matches? Was? Don King was our promoter for the for Mayweather's first
title offense I took. I went to see him because it was very difficult
to get raided back in those days. You almost had to buy your rating
and that sort of thing, or have somebody to push you to get in
there. So I approached Don about Roger and told him that you know,
this kid is exceptional. He can beat anybody at one hundred and thirty pounds.
And he said, we really you don't you think you need to give
him a few more fights. He's only had thirteen fights. I said,
you get him to fight, I promise you he'll win. And he says,
well, you got a pretty good reputation I understand in the gambling world
for picking winners and all. They says, So I'm gonna give you a
chance. I'm gonna get you this fight. All you got to do is
sign this promotional agreement, so he became our promoter. Ah, and did
he end up screwing you? I mean, I thought that was his m
to say Don's still alive. I think so. Well. Actually I like
Don quite a bit, but I think that him and Aaron both fallen just
under the same umbrella. They were like one A and one B. They
weren't entry. I don't think anyone was. They both had not the greatest
effort reputations for treating the fighters that well, but they both were great promoters.
So the controversy came with the Sugar Ray Leonard Hagler fight. Was it?
Yeah, that was a fight that was in Vegas, in one of
the fights that I bet about three hundred thousand on this fight. It taken
like whatever it was I forgot. I think it was around three to one
because Lenyard had been off for about a year or so and Hagler was like
pretty well thought of, is pretty much unbeatable at middleweight, and Lenyard was
moving up from forty seven pounds after being off about a year, a year
and a half maybe longer that I just don't recall exactly. And somehow with
my deductions, I came up. I thought he could win this fight,
so I made a pretty large bed on the fight, and of course we
won a very close decision, which Bob Aram was the promoter at the time,
and he knew that if Hagler lost and Leonard won, that Leonard's trainer
would not let him be the promoter for the next fight. I'm kind of
explaining how this thick story came about. And AERM at the time was writing
a story for the Las Vegas Sun on Sunday, and the fight didn't get
over till like nearly eleven o'clock at night and the Sunday morning paper which come
out at like one one thirty in the morning. Somehow another he managed to
race out of the stadium down to the Sun and my picture wound up in
the paper for uh having fixed the Hagler Leonard fight. And of course that
was later through a grand jury investigation everything else. Who was determined that I
didn't have anything to do with it. But I actually I should have sued
Aram, but at the time I'm just not the sue in type, so
I just let it go. Yeah. Well, and and it might have
been difficult to prove it was Aram that that said it or that was it
wasn't too too difficult, but we just let it go. So did you
like the boxing business? I actually loved the boxing. But we went all
over the world. I went to Japan with Bruce Curry. We fought an
undefeated fighter in Japan, and uh just this king was our promoter with that
fight. Also, Aram was my promoter with Vernon Forrest and but anyway,
we went to Japan and when we got off the plane, this kids we
were fighting. If we were led to believe, it'd be a pretty easy
fact. But when we got off the plane, the first thing we saw
was his picture on the in the airport going out, they had about thirty
newspaper people greet us at the airport, which is pretty unusual. And I
see this kid's picture on the wall that says it's hit Sue Akaya, which
was his name, and he's on the American Express card that says don't leave
home without it. So I said, you know, this kid must be
pretty popular over here. We wound up fighting in his college gymnasium. It
was a college student and it was pretty intimidating. They turned all the heat
off. It was in July and people were actually was so hot they were
ringing the dresses out and squeezing water out of them at the fight. Just
your dress that you had on, that's how hot it was. Wow.
Wow. Needless say, Bruce did come back and win that fighting about the
eighth round by not fifth, well I'm not sure the round, but he
won by knockout because he was losing every round up there. Oh wow,
huh why'd you Why did you end up getting out of the boxing business.
Well, that's ah, that's the reason I got this is I'll tell a
quick bad beat. This is this is a real bad beat story. H
Vernon was eighteen and oh with arom and he's getting ready to participate with the
world title fight I'm right before that, and he was approached by some black
attorneys I believe they were out of I believe they were black out of Atlanta
that talked to Vernon about if he could get away from that guy that's managing
you, we'll give give you quite a bit of money and you can,
uh, we'll do a lot of things for you that he's not doing that.
So he and he's from my hometown. That's how we became. I
had helped him quite a bit through the amateur and all, and insisted that
he lead stay in the amateurs and go to the Olympics, which he did.
He beat Mosley in the Olympic trials to go Olympics. Also he lost
in the Olympics, but you know, he probably should have won, but
he didn't. But anyway, so he was approached by these people. So
he being a poor kid growing up poor because I actually used to take groceries
to the house back and he was from my hometown. That's how I knew
about it. He's from Augusta, Georgia, and they were very poor,
and I helped his family out. And also I felt like I had a
really good obligation from him to stay with me because I had took him from
the very beginning and insisted on him stay an amateur. But then when he
turned pro, he did come with me. So now he's eighteen and oh
and he goes to the commission and files the griefs that he's we're not getting
along was his excuse, and he wanted to make a change. But in
fact these people were offering him quite a bit of money to get rid of
me, and signed with them. So the Commission here ruled in his favor,
and he was, I had two more years on the contract, So
in my mind, if you got a contract with two more years, they
on. The ruling was the arbitration. The ruling was there was a black
arbitrator by the name of Luther Mack and he was assigned the case and he
ruled in Vernon's favor to let him go. And he says, but I'm
a rude that Vernon should give you like two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
And I said, well, I don't need the money. If I've done
something wrong, just let him go. I said, I got money.
I said, I don't need to. They says, oh no, I
think you should deserve something. So that just tells you how bogus the release
is. Nor is if I've done something wrong, just let him go for
nothing, right, But they insisted that he give me money, which he
did, which I think obviously came from the attorneys that were rent us,
and naturally, I think he became world champion to fight after our release when
he beat Chain Moseley. So I lost the fighter and art so that soured
me on boxing, which leads me up to one of the great all time
bad beat stories of all time. So now I decide I get tired of
boxing. I retire from gambling everything. I moved back to Augusta, Georgia,
by a place back there on about thirty acres, and I'm going to
spend time with my kids and whatever. And I'm done with boxing and everything,
and gambling for that matter. And then I get a phone call and
it's from Floyd Mayweather Senior, who's in the federal penitentiary during a fifteen year
sentence for a drug kingpin charge. And he says, Billy, this is
Floyd Mayweather Senior. I'm calling you about my son, Floyd Junior. He's
a very good fighter. You've done such a wonderful job with my brother Roger,
and he was very happy with you all through his career. I want
you to manage my son for me while I'm in the federal penitentiary. I
want you to take him on. Oh my god, I said Floyd.
I appreciate I heard he's a really good fighter, but I'm going to turn
you down. I'm just I'm out of the boxing business. I'm so disgusted
with that. I'm done. Well. He only made a billion dollars and
I would have got a third of that, which is about three hundred and
thirty million. So I guess you could call that a bad beach story.
I guess Oh my god, oh wow, beg me to take him?
Oh man, I wouldn't take him for free? Wow Wow pretty good?
Yeah, sure is should get on the bad beats on football man. Yeah,
they have a program on that now, Bad beat Stories. Yeah,
I'll put that out with a lot of them. At thirty million. Yep.
Yeah, I don't think I've heard one worse than that. So,
Augusta, you grew up going to the Masters or never missed around from the
time I was thirteen years old, even when I moved out here in seventy
five until the only year that I ever really legitimate ever missed was the year
that I was in jail. I was close to that chain gang and you
talking about, Yeah, they wouldn't let me go then. So you probably
bet more money at golf than pretty much anybody. I mean, I'm talking
about like not necessarily on pro golf, but I'm playing golf. I was
have a very good golfer, but I did play a lot of golf for
money. I had a partner who was pretty good with Doo Brunson. Door
was about seventy four or seventy five offer, but he was able to match
up at around seventy nine, so he had a very good handicap gambling purposes
and what was you or me? I was terrible. I shot about eighty
eight, but I couldn't hit the wood, so only I would shooting my
eighty with just irons only I was only playing with I never hit anything.
In fact, I couldn't anything. I never hit anything beyond a four iron.
I shoot eighty eight with a four iron up, and so I was
just very ordinary. I could put in chip. So the way men Dobo
played, he matched up everything to where he would play with all the clubs.
I only played with a foe iron off, so they always gave me
a very good handicap. And we played a lot of money golf, me
and Door. We played the guys that owned the Royal Casino. His name
was Joe Sliman. I think he's still around town. I think he's in
the real estate business now, but he was making a lot of money back
in those days. We played a lot of Nassau's fifty thousand dollars. Nassau
two down press has doubled the back four and five hundred thousand changed hands a
lot of time. Me and Doyle scrambled the Las Vegas Country Club. The
last match we ever played with Joe Slamm and them. Me and Doyle shot
sixty at the lost No. I was told, I'm telling it run shot
sixty two at the Las Vegas Country Club. Wow. Wow, let's just
say we won about six hundred thousand. So when and these figures are you
were playing this high back in like the seventies, seventy five to eighty two,
And did you give up golf at that point order, Well, that's
another story if you want to just want to go absolutely sure. Uh.
One day I go to the golf course. I'm playing. He's actually the
guy that won the World Series with one chip. It's called a chipun chip.
Jack Strauss, Yeah, yeah, three time. Me and Jack were
playing golf all the time, and we matched up all the time, so
we pretty much knew each other's games. And so one day they give me
a game that I felt like I couldn't lose that, So me and Dole
went business with other things at the time. I won't get into all that.
But at any rate, Uh, we go to the golf But me
and Dole always gambled against each other even when we were together. It was
like he was he could never bet enough on anything. So when he would
bet golf matches that I wasn't involved with, that was part of my job.
I had to bet against him. But anyway, we go to golf
course and they make this match and they were giving me a spot that I
felt like for sure I had the nuts actually, and everybody starts betting.
It's like and Tony Spilotro's out of that too, the famous gangster, and
he was betting against me, and a lot of a lot of tough guys,
and so it winds up so many people wanted to bet. I said,
well, hold on, boys, wait a minute. I got to
get my napkin out, so I write down this guy had a five fown
on on that. So that guy had a five And then all of a
sudden, Doyle, who was there for breakfast, he said, okay,
you can give me a five pound dollar in that saw too. So anyway
we go out to play in the first hole, I'll get it back.
And once again this match I had to play with woods, which was different
from me, and I wasn't very good at him. So now the first
swinging almost whifted the ball, and the ball whiffle ball out to the right
wing out to the right, almost fanned it. And I was good enough.
I didn't fan ball, so this didn't feel. I knew something was
wrong. So I lose. So we go to the second hold of the
same thing occurs. I almost whiff of it again. So I says,
gentlemen, there's something wrong with my clubs. So I start. I turned
the car around. There's maybe twenty golf cards following us. I go back
up to the club that's with the Sahara and I take my clubs in there
to the insplotry. I remember his famous he said, oh god, damn,
you get one shot down, you start crying. Something's wrong. So
anyway, we go to clubhouse and the pro takes the screw. Back those
days, you had metal balls in the weight, which was the weight in
the clubs. And when he opened it up, he said, well,
I got bad. He says, looks like a bunch of woodpeckers have been
in your woods. He says, they're taking the weights out of your woods
and then he checked the irons, like the nine irons were made to like
a seven, and every club has been up. So we had left our
clubs overnight, so they had docted all my clubs up overnight. So I
go back out and say, well, boys, I didn't caught y'all with
too many cards in your hand, y'all y'all sheeting, I said, y'all,
let me get some clubs we could. So naturally, they don't want
to play this match on the legit because they know that, so anyway,
we won't going to all how that come down. It was big argument and
everything, but at any rate, we ended that match. But now to
make a long so now, but one of the sidelights of this story,
which I thought was very funny, I went into the clubhousing doors still in
the eating breakfast, and I said, because we were like partners and business
or a couple of things, I said, door, let me in something.
I says, why was you so anxious to bet on that match?
And you know, I had the nuts, And he got kind of red
in the face, and he looked at me and he says, you know
what, Billy says to tell you the truth? Everybody said today might be
a really good day to bet. So I thought that was a classic statement,
they might be a really good day to bet. Yeah. Wow.
There was final results of that as I took my clubs, run out there
and threw them in the pond. Harrah, if you go out there,
you might just go out there and find them now. And that's been thirty
forty years ago. I've never played another round of golf since. Oh really,
wow, that was in my last golf Wow. So back in the
day, did you play it all with Jimmy Chagra, Because I know he
had some legends. Let me Chagra. I was the main spot with That's
part of my poker history. When Chagra came to town, he was playing
in the poker game with me, Serget Bobby Baldwin. It was probably the
biggest poker game they ever had in Las Vegas. We were playing five hundred
and eight thousand, two blinds, no limit due to the seven in the
seventies and anyway, Chagra was losing a million a day on the golf course
and I was one of the ones out there betting against him. Normal day
was thirty forty fifty thousand. He lost millions, but he was trying to
line He wasn't trying to line the money. He was just trying to act
like a gambler because he knew he was under a federal indictment in Texas for
he was a drug on a drug kingpin charge. And so his solution of
the problem was he had the judge who was called Maximum John Woods. He
was known for killing or for sentencing drug dealers to big sentences. He had
Woody Harrilson, the movie Stars daddy shoot the federal judge dead on his front
porch. I don't know if you know that part of the story. Yeah,
and he's still in prison, right, well he probably, Yeah,
they let give me out a month or two before. He had treminal cancer
that led him out and he died within a month of being released from prison.
Yeah. Yeah, No, I meant his Woody Harrelson's dad, I
think is still in prison. But you don't never get out from killing a
federal judge. Yeah. Yeah, that's like, I mean a lot of
people don't know it, but at that time, this was the second biggest
federal investigation that's ever been in this country. Was that they had two hundred
special agents of the FBI that was sent to Las Vegas, Nevada, to
investigate the killing of John Woods, a federal judge. The biggest investigation ever
was the Kennedy assassination and the killing of John Wood. The federal judge was
the seconds. And that's when they had so much heat in Las Vegas on
all Gamma. That's when they broke up the skim at the Sahara, I
mean at the start of the hotel, and that's when all that came down,
when the two hundred special agents were here. Wow. Yeah. And
another sort of legendary guy blowing off money at golf was Jay Sarno. Did
you build a part of that? But you're one hundred percent right. They
had a crew around the Las Vegas Country Club that played with him every day,
and bad as he was, they didn't have to do this. But
I think they had a foursome that no matter who he drew as a partner
that day, the other three wall pardoners. So I don't think he had
much of a chance. You know. I remember when I first moved to
town in seventy seven, and you know, I was a kid and I
went to the there was a backam and club at the time. I went
to the Backam Club and the first time I walk in there, I see
Puggy Pearson playing somebody and who for me was like a legend at that time,
because I'd only read about, you know, these people. And one
of the guys at the Backaming Club tells me that Puggy has just won two
hundred thousand dollars that day playing golf off with Jay Sarno, and the next
week he was playing seven stud five ten limit because he had blown off all
the money. So it just sort of boggled my mind. That guy was.
You know, I had no clue what, you know, what really
went on when I first moved here. But what do you think the biggest
gamble you ever took in your life was? And I don't necessarily mean about
money, I just mean the biggest gamble of your life? You ever thought
about that? You know? I always liked to think that I was somewhat
of a manager as a gambler, in the words, I tried to keep
my gambling in check to my bank roll in it, and I think that's
one of the keys to success. So I made a lot of big bets
in my life, but many big bets. But I always tried to.
Like the Leonard fight, betting three hundred thousand always a big bet, and
I had numerous bets of that night in my life, but I always tried
to. I always felt one thing about gambling is your money is like your
toolbox. In other words, when you don't have any tools to work with,
you're out of business. So I always felt like the key to gambling
success was being able to I call it answering the bell every day. In
the words, you got to be able to get up and start gambling every
day. That means you have to keep money. So I never after my
early years when I was very young, I never put myself in position of
going broke again. Yeah, on one bet like you described, but I
mean gambles that were not about money, like gambles in your life. Where
I did many things that were very unsuccessful. We bought into Dole's room poker
room, which invested I think it was four hundred thousand and uh. Doel
called me one day, this is another bad beat story. Actually, well,
no, I might be the bad beat king with this and Doe I
invested and we were doing very good. And this was before the Black Friday
or whatever it was. About six months before that happened. Door called me
one day says, well, this big, big sports company out of England,
I believe it was, just offered him two hundred million to buy us
out. And of course my part of that would I think I had four
percent or whatever it was. Was like whatever that is, I say eight
and which was not the end of the world. But anyway, he I
said, well, it sounded like a good time to sell it to me.
He said, are you kidding? We're gonna get a billion dollars for
this company. Needless to say, three months later the doors came down,
everybody got closed up, and naturally we got nothing. For those who don't
know, Big Doyle's Room was an online poker site and then all those got
shut down at some point. So yeah, yeah, well, you know
this has been great, Billy. Any any other stories come to mind that
before we before we wrap it up. No, I think that's that will
give you a little something to dodge. Yes, Ill, and you know
maybe some other Oh I have a lot of stories, but maybe it's some
other time. I'll when you have another topic, I'll give you a few
more. Okay, yeah, because I can't get enough, so I just
want to thank you for doing this, so thanks. Just a couple of
endnotes for everybody. Billy Baxter mentioned Jack tree Top Strauss and the chip and
a chair, and I thought, for anyone who doesn't know that story,
what he's talking about there. So Jack Strauss was called Treetop because he was
six foot six and in nineteen eighty two, at the World Series of Poker,
he shoved all his chips in the pot and was eliminated, or so
he thought. But then what happened was when he stood up, he found
that he still had a chip that had been under his napkin, and in
today's World Series that he would not keep that chip, he would be eliminated.
But in nineteen eighty two he sat back down with one single chip and
ended up winning the World Series of Poker. And from that he said,
in this game, all you need is a chip and a chair to win.
So anyway, that's today's show. I hope you enjoyed it as much
as I did. You can always reach me at Life is a Gamble Pod
at gmail dot com, or you can find me on Twitter at RWM twenty
one. Until next time, wait at