Speaker 1: Good afternoon. You're listening to Gambling with an Edge.
Speaker 2: Now here are your hosts, Bob Dancer and Richard Munchkin.
Good afternoon, Welcome to Gambling with an Edge. I'm Bob
Dancer and I'm Richard Munchkin. Today we're talking to legendary
Las Vegas sportsbook operator Ark Manterras on occasion of the
publication of his new autobiography called Bookie arc Man Terras.
Welcome to Gambling with an Edge.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Bob and Richard. It's great. It's
a pleasure to speak to both of you. I'm sure
we're going to have a lively discussion and I've been
looking forward to it all day.
Speaker 2: Good You were raised in western Pennsylvania, and a whole
lot of sportsbook operators in Las Vegas came from that area.
Some related to you, some were boyfriend boyhood friends, some both,
to what you tribute to the concentration of Vegas bookmakers,
all coming from that same relatively small area.
Speaker 1: Well, when I was growing up, sports gambling was not
a negative and it was not frowned upon, and I
probably was a teenager before I realized that there was
legal implications, So it was a hotbed of activity. There
was a lot of gambling in the Tri state area,
meaning Pittsburgh, Ohio, and West Virginia, and you know, all
the way starting with Jimmy the Greek and the great
Mochy Facento, the Caesars Pallace casino manager for many many years,
who both came out of Steubenville, and a lot of
people followed after that, including my uncle Jack Fransy, who
was a very prominent sports handicapper.
Speaker 2: Well, when you came to Vegas, your uncle Jack was
kind of your guardian angel, telling you go here, don't
go there. Tell us about uncle Jack.
Speaker 1: Well, Jack was a great handicap. He had a great
eye for sports, and he had tremendous self discipline. And
I tell people who asked me how did he do it?
How was he a successful handicapper for sixty some years?
And I say his number one attribute was was his
self discipline. Second, he had a great eye for talent
in sports where he could he could watch a basketball
game in particular, I think even more so than other sports.
But he could watch a basketball game and come away
with a totally different perspective than most of us could.
And and he and he would have a great opinion
on that team in their next game every time, every
time he watched, it seemed. And I can tell you
this when he when he passed away about five years ago.
When uh when now I don't remember what year it was.
Was a twenty nineteen When did the Raptors win the
NBA Championship? Uh? Yeah, okay, well a few months before
he passed he bet the Raptors to win the championship.
As far as I know, that was the last bet
he ever made.
Speaker 3: So was he betting all sports? I mean, I mean football, basketball, baseball.
I don't think he betted baseball that much. He did
a little bit, but not not daily. But but but
but college and pro basketball, yes, and and football college
and pro certainly yes. Well, when you're trying to college
also boxing also oh yeah, great boxing, handicapper, you know,
when you're trying to bet college I mean, there's so
many teams and divisions and all that that that's a
lot to do back in the day before computers.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, he did it all in his head. Uh.
And he had a remarkable mind and a remarkable memory.
He's one of the few guys that I know that
that did never had a phone book, never wrote people's
numbers down, He just remembered them. And you know, obviously
that was before smartphones and so forth. But he didn't
need anything else other than a phone to dial, and
he would get a hold of whoever he wanted. So
he was a great, great talent. He you know, he
was on your side of the counter. Obviously guys would
have liked him if you didn't have the opportunity.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wish I had met him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And one one last comment on uncle Jack and
uh uh, you know this is typical of him, if if,
if you knew him. He had hip surgery as he
as he was getting older, he fell and broke his hip.
And uh, I went to the hospital just before surgery.
Now I was told surgery was going to be in
the afternoon. I think I think it was four o'clock
the surgery was scheduled for. So I went down about
one or two o'clock, thinking that I could spend a
few hours with him before the surgery. But when I
got to his room, they were they were just about
ready to take take him away down into the pre
op waiting area, and the surgeon came in and talked
talked to him for a few minutes, and he knew
the surgeon, and he had been recommended to him, and
he was taking taking good care of him, and and
he and he and he told Jack, he said, Jack,
don't worry about a thing. This is no problem that
you got another good five years left in you. Uncle
Jack looked over at me and he said, I make
the under a slight favorite.
Speaker 3: And he died four and a half years later.
Speaker 2: Handicapper to the end, that's a when you were at
the Stardust, it was at the tail end of it
being mob controlled. Tell us about some of the shenanigans
that went on there at the time.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, it was at the tail end. And and
you know, it was actually a blessing for me in disguise,
because I got to see how things were being done
and things were being manipulated. And I do tell the
story in the book, the book the Bookie, how in
those days, tickets wagers were handwritten on three three copy paper,
and one set would go down into a lock box
that would be sent to the audit department, and one
one copy would go to the customer to bring back
for the winning wager, and one would go to the
cashier's kate. But eventually as I moved from position to position.
I started out as a boardman in those old fashioned
boards like like the Wrigley Field Uhore scoreboard where you
where I would change the odds up, up, up on
the boards. And then I moved to the ticket writer,
and the sports book, ticket writer in the race book,
and eventually cashier. And as I went through all those positions,
I started to notice the tickets didn't line up properly
all the time. And there was a period of time
when I was working in the sports book where I
would get sent sent on a break almost daily. Say kid,
wanted to take a break. It's slow, get get out
of here for a while. So every day I'd take
a walk for about an hour up and down the strip.
And I loved it. Life was good in the In
those days, I was going to UNLV and I was
working in this in the most prestigious sports book in
the in the world. But when I would come back,
I would notice some tickets were always written out of
my drawer, you know, and they were always for flat
amounts five hundred dollars on you know, the Jets plus
seven for five hundred dollars or the giants plus three
for one thousand dollars, and it was almost daily, and
finally I started wondering and asking, you know who's coming
in and betting a flat amount like that every day
when I when I leave, and I asked the question
a few times and always left off at kid, don't
worry about it. We got a little busy. Well then
when I became the cashier and I realized that the
tickets didn't match up properly. Then I did eventually come
to realize what was happening, because I remembered back when
I was a boardman up on the second floor and
the audit department was right down the hall, and I
would see one of one of the managers up in
the audit department at night frequently, and I knew that
there should not be a crossover like that, there should
not be interaction between between the audit apartment and the
operations team. And eventually it hit me like a ton
of bricks that the customer copy, the audit copy, and
the cashier's copy were all together, and you could if
you had a losing bet, you lost the bet that
the money was gone, but if that one team won
it was pretty easy to make that at three or
fourteen parlay after the games were over.
Speaker 3: Yeah, nice work if you can get it. Did you
move to Las Vegas with the intent of getting into
the book making.
Speaker 1: Business or or I transferred. I transferred from the University
University of Pittsburgh to UNLV, and my sister was out here,
my uncle Jack was out here, obviously, and then others
came out after all of us did, But no, I
did not. When I first came here, my intent and
I loved sports, and I loved sports gambling, but my
intent was to finish school quickly and go on to
LA where I had an offer in La to be
a stunt man in Hollywood, which was very appealing to
me as a young man. And I was naive enough
at that time that if they would have told me
to jump off a building, I would have done it.
And this followed the movie, Yeah, this followed the movie
The Fish at Saint Pittsburgh, where I was really lucky
to fall into a role. Sonny Vacaro was a technical
advisor on the movie, and he knew I was about
the same size and I could play a little bit,
and he put me in the movie as a stuntman,
and I just fell in love with it and saw
the stars in Hollywood right before my eyes, and I
literally was offered a job to come out there, but
I asked him to wait until I finished my degree.
Never made it.
Speaker 2: Pretty much concurrently with your career, a legendary gambler named
Billy Walters was cleaning up on a number of sportsbooks,
including at times yours. Yeah, tell us some of your
encounters with Billy over the year.
Speaker 1: Well, I didn't have too many, you know, I didn't.
I didn't have too many encounters with him personally. I
did see him occasionally at a charitable event or a show,
or or mate or or dinner once or twice, but
but I didn't see him in the sports books very
very much myself. But it wasn't It wasn't him personally
that concerned me. It was his followers and his minions
and and and his partners as he called them, which
I didn't view as partners. I viewed them as runners.
Speaker 2: And and the runners were it was illegal to be
a runner.
Speaker 1: In the Vata, it was, yeah, yeah, in the Vata
that in the Vata it a messenger. Betting was prohibited. Yeah, yeah,
So you know. Yeah, I always took a hard line
on enforcing regulations, uh state and federal, and uh that
didn't go over real well with certain segments of the market.
And I get that if I was a player, and
if I was on the other side of the counter,
and by the way, you know, as a young man,
I had to make that decision. At some point, I
had to make the decision which side of the counter
I was going to be on, and it was going
to be one or the other. And it was actually
a close, close decision. I think I made the right
decision for for myself. But once I did that, then
I was fully committed to operations and I viewed the
company's gaming license as the most valuable asset that that
they had, and I wasn't really willing to take a
gamble on jeopardizing that license.
Speaker 3: The messenger betting law didn't come in when that come
in the nineties, because it wasn't originally, you know, a law,
and you.
Speaker 1: Know that's that's it's a regulation, not necessarily, I mean, yeah, yeah,
it's a regulation. I don't that's a good question. I
don't know. I don't remember when it was enacted, but
i'd say it was before the nineties. I would say
the eighties in all likelihood, but I'd have to I'd
have to look that up to be certain. Tell us
about pasta what was it, When did it come into effect,
and what did it do? Yeah, the Professional Amateur Sports
Protection Act, And I do tell that story in the
book also, which I think you know a lot of
people find that a fascinating story in the book because
at the Hilton, at the Las Vegas Hilton, we had
just opened the Flamingo Hilton Sports Book in I believe
it was eighty nine, and it was a really easy
fix to connect the Flamingo Hilton Sports Book to the
Las Vegas Hilton Superbook. And that was the first such
venture like that in the Vata where two sports books
were connected by computer. And you know, when you change
the line at one place, it would change it at
both and the odds displayed was simultaneous in each property.
And it was really a seamless integration, much easier than
I expected in all likely that vic Salerno had to
put in the computer system back then, computerized book making system,
and he and his company did a great job of
connecting the two books. So anyway, after that, it was.
It was kind of a no brainer for us to
reach out into other jurisdictions and see what we could
do at racetracks. You know, the Interstate Horse Racing Act
allows for interstate wagering from one legal jurisdiction to another
on horse racing. Now, the Wire Act, which applies to
sports gambling, was a little bit different, and we had
to obviously we had to be concerned about that, but
we thought the pretext was laid for interstate gambling between
legal jurisdictions. So we went out Roxy and I went
to race tracks all across the country to gauge their
interest in this endeavor. And uh, some uh, some racetracks
were a little bit lukewarm. Some one one racetrack was
firmly against the COMPS concept of taking uh uh sports
wagers at the racetracks, and and and that was Churchill down.
Churchill was adamantly opposed to the concept. But you know,
in reality, they were opposed to any forms of gambling
or even charity gambling. They were opposed. They were opposed
to every every form of gambling to my to my
knowledge that that that they viewed as as competition to
to to racing. And one track the Laurel Racetrack in
Maryland was very interested. They loved the idea, and talks
continued with Laurel. We we had, uh, you know, a
real prospect of putting a sports book into Laurel. Laurel
actually started building a sports book at the track. Of
course that turned eventually that turned into a sports bar,
and uh, last I knew it was still there. But nevertheless,
in retrospect, I think that was the worst thing that
could have happened with that this was being being so
well received right outside of Washington, d C. Because the
next thing we knew there, you know, there was furious
lobbying against what we were trying to do, and PASPA
became the law of the land almost overnight, and that
became live, I believe, in nineteen ninety two, and of
course it held up all the way till twenty eighteen.
Speaker 3: But you in the book, it seems that in hindsight
you seem not so sure that this opening up of
gambling everywhere was a good thing.
Speaker 1: That yeah, yeah, I do have some concerns, Richard. I
think that it's gone too far, too fast, and I'm
really worried about pushback. I think that pushback is it
is inevitable now there's so much advertising and so much sponsorships,
and you can't go to a game anymore without seeing
team gambling company logos on the scoreboard or some cases
even here with the Knights UH casino company logos on
the on the player jerseys. And you're watch a game,
try to watch a game with your family, you know
that you're inundated with either adverse sports gambling advertising or
or or in play odds updates. And don't get me wrong,
I love the industry. I love both industry. I love
the sports gambling industry, and I love the products that
the leagues put out on the field. But I've been
around a little while now, and I've seen gambling and
other jurisdictions, and I've gone to the UK and Ireland
and a lot of other countries where sports gambling was
widely acceptable for the most part. And what's happening in
all those jurisdictions now now it's going the other way.
Look at Italy, for example, sports gambling is legal in Italy,
but sports gambling advertising is not. And and and similar
pushback and steps going the other way in many countries
around the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I want to go back for a minute,
back to the Stardust. Did you have any interactions at
all with Frank Rosenthal or or was he gone by
the time you got there?
Speaker 1: He was gone. He was gone by the time I
got there. He was He was there when I came
to town, and he was there for a part of
the time that I worked at the Fremont Hotel downtown.
But he was gone from the startist by the time
I started at the Stardust. But some of his people
were still there. And you know, unbeknownst to to most,
you know, there was still that those relationships that were
still intact. And and and and there was there. There
was while I was there, still things happening in the
casino with the in the count rooms and so on
and so forth. Yeah, and and and and and I
for what it's worth, I'm a big fan of the
movie Casino. I loved it. I thought it was a
very accurate portrayal. I thought Teshi was phenomenal. DeNiro was
great also, But Pat you even looked the part, I mean,
he really had that part down. And you know that
that is is hard. It is hard to beat that one.
That's probably my favorite gambling movie of all time.
Speaker 2: So, Patt, you played Tony Spilatro, did you have any
interaction with him?
Speaker 1: I did. I did have interaction with Spilatro, and I
was a really naive kid at the time and didn't
realize who I was dealing with and didn't realize the
danger or the risk that I was facing. But when
I was a real young sportsbook manager at Caesar's Palace
in my mid twenties, H yeah, I was cut into
by one of Spilatro's guys, and you know, I got
the typical wow, we can really help each other, and
you know what, we can work together and that kind
of stuff. And you know, I was too naive to
realize what was happening to or to the extent of
the danger that was before me, and I just ignored
it and went on about my business, went on about
my job, ignored it and act pretty much acted like
it hadn't happened. And that, in retrospect, was probably the
best thing, the best thing I could have done. And
one more thing about the movie. I don't know if
you guys remember Joe Pignotello. He was a gambler around
town and a restaurant tour He had a couple of
really really good Italian restaurants, and he was a phenomenal cook.
He was he was actually and I didn't know this
at the time, but he he was the cook for
sam g and Conna uh and they and they and
he owned a villa the s but later I learned
it was really Giancana's restaurant. And then he owned Vesuvios
on Desert in Road, right behind the right behind the Hilton,
and I used to go there fre frequently. He was
a great phenomenal cook. But Pegi and De Niro and
their crews were eating there all the time when they
were in twent filming casino and Joe, Joe was you know,
hitt hit bet a twenty year dollar or fifty dollars
one hundred dollars parlays when they'd come in all the time.
And then all of a sudden, he's betting five and
ten dimes, and you know, and then I really I
realized all those guys were those guys were eating at
the Zubios every night, and Joe was flushed with money,
and uh, you know, and he put he put it
over the colar.
Speaker 2: At one point in the book, you talk about visiting
some Caribbean sports books and meeting the legendary Ron Saco. Yeah,
why were you there? And how are those sports books
different from those in Las Vegas?
Speaker 1: Well there, they surprised me, uh at how professional they were.
I you know, I had the opportunity to see their
you know, their marketing departments, and their anti fraud departments
and and and their uh PR and and and they
were just a you know, a really well oiled machine
in their operation. And I didn't expect that.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I did see a couple of places that were very
much the opposite. They were just you know, boiler room
type operations, you know, not real sophisticated, and one in
particular closed up not too long after I was down there,
and I and I thought that was just a perfect
example of the risks of putting your money with an
offshore book, because you know, the one one of them
that I had become aware of was overnight was gone
and gone with the money. But why was I down
there at one point? And actually it was right around
or just after the two thousand and eight stock market
crash and recession, and all of us at station casinos
at that time were challenged with doing the best we
could to save the company and bring the company out
of some real serious financial difficulties for the first time.
And you know, so my my intent was to figure
out what could I do to really help this department
and help my company And and so I looked offshore
at that time, and I thought that someday this might
be legal nationwide, and I want to be in position
to take over one of these operators offshore and and
and and have it have a nationwide business when, if,
if the political climate changes and the legal situation changes.
So yeah, I was looking for two reasons I was there,
and that of course was the main reason, to try
to get into position to move if and when things
changed legally. And secondly, I wanted to see their computer
systems and the technology that they were utilizing. And you know, what,
was their product better than ours? And in some ways
it was, in some ways it wasn't. But it was
a very educational trip, a couple of trips, actually, And
I think it was a two way street. I think
opening those lines of the communication opened some eyes on
both sides of the of the.
Speaker 3: Ocean, and they were happy to open their doors to you.
Or was it because of the connections you had that
you had introductions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. I think it was primarily because of
the mutual friends and the contacts, and in fact, with
mister Shako that you mentioned. When I first met him
the first time, he kind of walked right by, didn't
say much, just grumbled the hello and kept going and Eric,
and then a few minutes later he comes busting back
into the room and says, which.
Speaker 3: One of you guys with Pittsburgh Jet's nephew?
Speaker 1: And I said, I am, And then he comes over
it gives me a big bear hug, and then why
don't you say so? And you know, from that point on,
you know, we had a much better relationship.
Speaker 2: So one of the books in that area, Pinnacle, is
widely considered like the best in the world. Did you
get to see that one?
Speaker 1: I never did see it firsthand, but I did know
the people that ran it. I knew the real very
classy lady, very professional lady that knew that that ran
the business. She was the CEO for many years, and
I did strike up a relationship with her at various
gaming conferences and function industry functions over the years. And
I think we have had a good u mutual respect
for one another. She respected what I did and my
reasons for towing the line with all laws and regulations,
and I respected the product that they put out.
Speaker 2: One of the reasons they could be better was they
had different rules or lack of rules than you had
to follow.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Having no gambling commission
or gaming gaming control board to deal with would make
life a lot easier as a as an operator, you know,
and you know, if you have a new product, or
a new contest, or change your payouts or a new
contest or anything, you know. In Nevada, of course, you
have to go through the regulators to to get approval
on all of those things. And I'm not knocking that
process at all. I think Nevada gaming gaming operators here
as far as sports is concerned, are the best in
the world. And I'm just speaking facetiously when I say
I would have loved to have not had, you know,
dot every every eye and cross every t in order
to operate the sports book within the regulatory constraints. But
when I look back at my career, and I think
that that was one of the best things I ever did,
was taking regulations and laws so seriously that that really
contributed to my longevity in the industry.
Speaker 3: You know, Nevada had the monopoly on sports betting in
the US for so long, and now it seems like
Nevada may be the worst state in the US to
actually be is sports better? The the idea that you
can't deposit without actually going to the casino and depositing,
and and whereas every other state you can sign up
on your phone and deposit, you know, and and right away,
and and we can't use a browser to to bet.
You know. It just seems like Nevada kind of shot themselves,
but a little bit in terms of, uh, coming up
to the modern age.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hear that a lot, Richard, and I respect that.
And I understand that, you know, for for real professional
gamblers like yourselves and and and and many others that
those inconveniences are are troublesome and and uh and and
and give you the impression that we're way behind times.
But I'll tell you what you know, this is I've
been out of it now for a few years, and
I've had the opportunity to rethink everything and and I
and I appreciate the stringent regulatory structure in Nevada, including
on the uh uh on the requirement to go into
a sports book physically to open an account. And I'll
tell you why. You know, uh, when I was with
Station Casinos, I mean that that I had, I had
a vested interest in that, in that and you know,
we had many properties, and it was advantageous for us
to to require people to come into the into the
sports book. You know, we were all over town and
we you know, the company had invested a lot of
money in in their in their bricks and mortar operations
and so and naturally, uh, you know, it was it
made sense to support that position. But that's not my reasoning.
Now now my reasoning is far different. But I come
to the same conclusion. You know, I see all these
problems going on around the country now and there and there.
It's just ridiculous. Now there's so many uh prop bet
scandals and so forth popping up, popping up all over
the place. You know it not a week goes by,
it seems, where there's not some some new scandal uncovered
or allegedly uncovered. But when people have to show up
in person and walk into the counter, and and and
and and fill out an application, and present their I
d that is a great deterrent to that, to the
this kind of foolishness that's going on everywhere else. So uh,
I think we got it right, I really do. And
I if it was up to me, if again, if
I can wave a magic wand I'd say, yeah, players
have to show up in person as because that's that
that alone is a major deterrent. And I love where
New Jersey is going right now. Also in trying to
prohibit customers from wagering on somebody else's account. I forget
what they call that regulation, and I'm not sure right
now if it ever passed and became long. I think
it did. But there they're prohibiting people from using joint accounts. Yeah,
and you know, and I can't tell, you know, the
technology exists today and I don't know if a lot
of book operators even utilize this, but I certainly did.
But you know, I could tell where people were betting
from down to the to the address they were betting from,
and I could tell if somebody's using somebody else's device,
and you know, and those are important tools both are
of the book maker and for the state.
Speaker 2: Back in nineteen eighty five, the Chicago Bears at a
defensive lineman William Perry, known as the Refrigerator.
Speaker 1: How did he change your world? Well, he did changed
the gambling world. And in that Super Bowl against the
New England Patriots, I was at Caesar's Palace at the time,
young sportsbook manager, and I put up the prop of
will the Fridge score a touchdown in the Super Bowl,
And it got so much media attention it took off
like wildfire. And you know, the coach Didka had said
that the Fridge would never touch the ball again. He
had said it multiple times, and of course in the
first half he comes rumbling in for a score. And
the great Walter Payton never scored a touchdown in that game,
which I still have hard feelings about. But we got killed.
We got killed on that prop. We had a good
game otherwise, but we got killed on that prop. And
I remember the next day, literally the next day, the
chairman of Caesar's World, Henry Glutt in Los Angeles, calls
me personally, first time, I think, the only time I
ever spoke to him in my life, and he calls
me my secretary gets me off the counter, and I thought, oh,
this is the end. I'm dead, and sure enough, he
congratulates me on the publicity and notoriety that I got
for the company and told me that we could not
have purchased that kind of marketing and positive pr for
Caesar's Palace. And he thanked me, congratulated me. And you
know who else noticed, ironically, it was mister Hilton. Mister
Hilton was well aware too, because it wasn't too long
after that that he called me to ask me to
build and run the Las Vegas Hilton Super Book.
Speaker 2: You were involved with some of the biggest price fights
ever to come to Las Vegas or anywhere, negotiating with
legendary promoters Don King and Bob Aram among others. Tell
us about that. That was a really fun part of
my career. I love dealing with those guys. I loved
being in the middle of the biggest fights in the world.
I loved putting those events together, operating them, booking them.
Speaker 1: Uh And you know, it just could not have been
more fun. And in fact, I tell the story in
the book about the Thomas Hearn's marvelous Marvin Hagler fight
at caesar Pallace, which was an air on promotion, and
I was a young executive at that time. But I
told myself that night, and I really I recognized, you know,
the the quality of the event. And I told my
you know, and I knew that we had just put
on one of the best sporting events in the world.
And and I told myself, are kidding me? They actually
pay me for this? Uh? And and and you know,
I just loved it. Uh And I love dealing with
those guys. You know, they both have such a bad rap.
Big people are always criticizing both of them. But I
actually liked both of them, including Dawn. We had a
great time together. We had we put together great events.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: Now, I can't speak to how he treated the fighters.
You know, there's always been allegations of him short changing
the fighters and so forth, and I have no knowledge
of that. I really don't know. But in my dealings
with him, whatever the deal was, he honored it. You know,
he would take advantage of you in the deal with
you let him. But but but he was committed to
making every event that he that he was a part
of with me successful and he worked really hard to
make them successful. Bob was as smart as could be,
and he taught me a lot. But he was, but
he was a little bit more difficult to deal with
for me than Dawn was. And they you know, one
thing that was very true and not exaggerated at all
publicly or in the media, that they hated each other.
That was true. And I got to see that firsthand
when I when we had one event that they co promoted,
and that was the Oscar de la Joya Tito Trinidad fight.
The fight was at Mandalay Bay, but we were the
co promoters at the Las Vegas Hilton. And that was
just such such a blast traveling with both of those
guys and seeing them ripping each other mercilessly off stage
and then come on stage and praise one one another.
Speaker 3: So you you actually built the West Gate, it was
the Hilton at that time. That book, which you know
is still one of the one of the great books
in town. So I mean, how did that come about?
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I did, and and and and that was
a fun fun also building something and that it wasn't
quite from the ground up because the shell was already built.
We just had to fill it in and we had
an enormous space to work with. We had twenty sixtylesand
square feet of space, to work with and and and
you know, we put it. There was a poker room,
and there was a bar, and a restaurant and and
and uh uh, security and bathrooms and everything else went
into that space. But it was a gigantic race and
sports book. And of course, you know, if you, if you,
if you could remember what the old sports start US
sports book was like, there was a lot of that
that was emulated at the Hilton for sure. And and
and in fact that that same blueprint was emulated at
other places as well. Mandalay Bay in most in particular,
was a was a pretty good copy of the old
Stardust in the Hilton sports books.
Speaker 2: Every day, probably or week, there was some game. Maybe
if the Cowboys cover or don't cover, it's going to
cost your company three hundred thousand dollars or some big number.
Did you actually sweat that, because you you had to
win some of those and lose some of those, and
that's just part of the business. How much did you
did you get ulcer sweating that? How did that work
for you?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I did sweat and I did agonize over decision.
When I look back at that, sometimes I get mad
at myself for taking it so personally and sweating games
so much because it disrupted my life in so many
other ways. You know, you couldn't enjoy your family, or
go to dinner and with the family and so forth.
And I regret that part of the business. But at
the same time, I know that without that passion, I
couldn't have been nearly as good at what I did.
I needed to look at every dollar at risk as
coming out of my own pocket. And I used to
tell the bookmakers, you book this like you're booking out
of your own pocket, and and that worked for me.
You know, some folks don't sweat. I remember the great
Bob Martin, the legendary oddsmaker and close friend of Uncle Jackson.
He didn't sweat at all, and and you know he
had giant decisions all the time, but it never phased him.
But I couldn't do that, just the opposite of that.
I was a nervous wreck sometimes in all honesty.
Speaker 2: So you.
Speaker 3: Talk about in the book that you would set the
opening lines, and would you I have two questions. One,
would you post your openers off off off what you did,
or would you compare that to somebody else's line before
posting it to see if you were way off from
something else. And my other question is, when you were
creating the line, were you trying to come up with
a number you thought would get equal action on both sides,
or would you sometimes pick a number that you actually
thought was off by a couple of points, but you
thought it would get you more equal action.
Speaker 1: Now, I never tried to do that. I did try
to put up numbers that I thought would would generate
two way action or what I would consider at the
end of the day the right number. Always tried to
put up the right number. But we did all of
the above. We put a lot of manual effort into
coming up with those numbers. We had computer printouts and
power ratings and so on and so forth that projected numbers.
We had consultants whose opinions we valued go into that number.
And then once computerized odds tracking programs were available and
you could see everybody else's numbers whoever was up before you, Yeah,
you would be. You couldn't not look at them. You
had to look at them and take that, excuse me
into consideration before putting up your own numbers. Sure. Now,
now there was certain sports where I had more.
Speaker 3: Say than in others.
Speaker 1: You know, in big events, my opinion would matter a lot,
But on day to day basket ball and so forth,
you know, I didn't. I usually didn't weigh in on
those things, at least not late in my career, the
last ten or fifteen years, I didn't weigh in on
daily activity at all. But on NFL I always did,
and on fights I always did. And on fights I
would put my opinion into those odds a little bit
more than anything else.
Speaker 3: Also, you know, for in the past, the Westgate the
Hilton was always the first to put up the Super
Bowl props, and guys would stand in line to you know,
to be the first to be able to get to
bet them. Was that during your time or did that
come after you left?
Speaker 1: Now? That mostly came after I left. Now, Like I said,
I was, I was always involved in props, it going
all the way back to you know, the early days
of at my early days at Caesars, and it expanded
while I was at the Hilton. And I was at
the Hilton for fifteen years, so the betting menu on
the Super Bowl certainly expanded over those years. But after
I left the Hilton and A came in and ran
it I mean, he took it to a completely different level.
He put up, you know, sheet sheet after sheet after
sheet of of of propositions on the Super Bowl, and
that worked for him and and that and his business.
I thought it was a little too much myself. I
thought that, uh, quality was more important than quantity and
uh and I was always afraid that the you know,
if you put out a million props, that there's going
to be a few in there that you got you
have bad prices on and and and and the sharp
guys out there are going to find it. You know.
The general public may may never look at it, but
but somebody will and if there's a mistake, they'll find it.
So I I didn't go that extreme. I never did.
The one thing that I disagree a little bit with
some of my colleagues on was college props. I was
never a fan of taking individual performance props on college players. Now,
the last few years, or maybe last several years of
my career at stations, I did wind up putting them up.
I did you know I would. I'm sure I would
have had props tomorrow on the or tonight, excuse me,
tonight on the college football Championship or you know, the
Final four and so forth. But I did it because
you had to do it at that point to keep
up with the Joneses Joneses. I didn't like it. I
didn't think it made sense to put kids in that
situation where their individual performance was determining the winners and
losers of betting propositions pros. I looked at differently, completely differently.
I agree. You know, I would book a lot of
props if I was in the business today on the
pros in spite of these terrible stories that have come
out on pro sports in the last couple of years.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well on college too, especially in the old days
when they weren't making any money. You know, a few
thousand bus to a college kid is is a lot
of money. I mean, now there are kids in college
making a million dollars.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, yeah, but like this story that came out
this week or last week, right at the end of
last week. You know, those are really small schools, some
of them, and those kids aren't making that kind of money.
And now you know, because these are crimes of opportunity,
in my opinion, what's happening, and and by being available
in their environment wherever they live and they see the
advertising and so on and so forth, and they nobody
has to go into the sports book. Nobody's on video surveillance. Uh.
You know, these these these problems are happening too often
now and it's become really troublesome. And and you know
with great, great old uh gambler, book maker, casino operator
in the old days, I'm talking about Meyer Landscape and
you know what, he was quoted uh many times as
saying that the integrity is the most important part of
the gambling business. And once you lose integrity, you've lost everything.
And he was completely right, and I agree. I agree
with him on that one hundred percent. And sports is
at risk now in America of losing credibility.
Speaker 2: One of the books that came out after You're retired
was Circa and it's It's some people consider it the
best book in Vegas these days. Do you consider it
that or have you thought about that? That's not in
the book. But I just wanted to ask a question
while I had the opportunity.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's it's a beautiful book. It's a beautiful
facility and there that pool deck is incredible and they're
very aggressive in book making and you know that that
that that is working for them. I look at that
property as the first property that build a hotel casino
around the sports book instead of the other way around.
Everybody else built a sports book in a hotel casino
before Sarka's different. Sarka built the whole the whole joint
is built around the sports book. And you know, that
was a huge gamble, a huge gamble for that property
and their owner, and I think it's working for them.
You know, drawing crowds downtown and competing downtown is not
an easy business model, but I think they're getting there.
Speaker 3: You know. It's it's interesting that in the book you
talked about how much you loved parlays, you know, because
the edge is bigger for the book on the on
the parlays and especially the way they're sort of many
books are raping the customer around same game parlays with
you know, twenty five thirty percent juice or whatever. Well,
what's also interesting is like when Circa limits players, the
first thing they do is take away parlays. They're not
allowed to bet parlays at all. When you get limited
at Circa. Yeah, it's so I.
Speaker 1: Don't understand that it's the first I've heard of that, Richard.
I can't defend it. That sounds strange to me. My
approach was one hundred and eighty degrees opposite that. You know.
I would take on just about all comers and parlays
almost as much anything they wanted to bet. And of course,
I mean, you guys are geniuses in this area. I mean,
you know how the theoretical advantage multiplies with each leg
of a parlay that you include in a parlay. So yeah,
I always wanted the math working for me. And by
the way, before we get off this discussion, I want
to get into that a little bit if you don't mind,
don't mind at all. Yeah, you guys, you know I
know how, or at least I think I know how
important analytics is to you and how you date, crunch
data and look at theoretical and mathematical advantages in the
gambling world. And and and you know, I think I
was one of the first guys, at least in the
Nevada industry, that brought in a full time analyst into
the sportsbook department. And and and I was so pleased
with uh with with moving in that direction. And I
remember telling people I said, this is like cheating. You know,
I felt I had so much advantage, you know, with
having having a great numbers cruncher and and oh yeah,
and Bob, I was speaking a little bit earlier about
a seminar that I attended that you participated in many
years ago, and that opened my eyes to analytics a
little bit. And shortly after that, there was a great
book that came out, uh, Freakonomics and yeah, and that
that really opened my eyes even further about you know
how how you know analyzing data like that could be
so useful for a book maker and I and I
took advantage of it for the rest of my career.
Speaker 3: Now, were you using analytics to analyze, uh, setting your
lines or were you using it to look at your customers?
Speaker 1: But well, not so much for uh uh make setting
point spreads or making lines, but in payouts, in parlay payouts,
teaser payouts, uh and and so for contest rules, contest
payouts you know, you know, uh, the house rules as
related to payouts changed dramatically once I had proper analytics. Yeah,
and I'll tell you another thing that I discovered late
late in my career. Now, this didn't surprise me at all.
I knew this was the case, but I could never
prove it. I did a did a real in depth,
in depth study of the prominent college UH football and
college basketball UH conferences versus the small conferences and the
you know, the the UH you know, lower level UH leagues,
and and I knew that we didn't make any money
on those on those leagues. And we made all the
money on the big conferences, you know, on the ACC
in basketball or what you know whatever. You made your
money on the big marquee games and leagues, and the
small conferences you make you make almost nothing. So there
could not be should not be the same limits on
the small conferences that there are in the big ones.
And when I read that story last week about the
you know, gigantic bets that were being placed on those
small conferences in those games, I said, well, they're just
inviting problems. They're you know, whoever took those bets is
inviting challenges.
Speaker 2: My last question for you, it's not in the book,
but one of your good friends, Chris Andrews, works for
the South Point YEP my cousin, and he would say
sometimes Michael Bonne, the owner, would come to him and say,
you know, who do we need tonight? Chris often would say, well,
we're pretty much square, were open anyway, doesn't matter, And
so Michael Gonn would say, well change the Cowboy odds
by half percent so we'll get more action and I
have something to root for during dinner. Did you ever
have an owner or a boss who would do that?
Speaker 1: Not really, No, there was pressure sometimes to do that,
but I really frowned upon it and I put that
to rest. I didn't didn't go along with that. You know. Chris,
of course I love and I think he's a great bookmaker,
best bookmaker in our family. And Michael Gone I have
nothing but respect for. But I and I can see
him doing that if one of his favorite teams playing, Yeah,
he wants to root for his team, if it's Nebraska
or the Cowboys or whoever it is. Yeah, yeah, No,
I didn't like that. I'll tell you one funny story
before before we conclude, though. One year we were going
through a really rough baseball season. You know, it was
just a drag where we were getting beat at the
day after day, and one time we lost about a
quarter million in baseball one day, you know, and all
the good teams were playing all the bad teams. You know,
it was the you know, the Yankees and the Dodgers
and the Red Sox and whoever was good at that time.
We're playing all the bottom dweller and and and so
we get you know, every parlay, every bet is on,
is on the good teams, is on the favorites. And
they swept the board and we got killed. And then
and then and then the next day there's the same
teams are still playing one another, and again all the
good teams went and again we got slaughtered. And the
president of the Confry called me out and told me,
he told me, literally, no more parlays against those bad teams.
You got to tell him, no more parlay against the
White Sox or and the reds or you know, and
the bad teams. And I said, we can't do them.
We can't do it. And he was seriously said no,
I'm telling that's it, no more. And so I go
running up. I go running across the street and go
running up to his office. And then we we can't
do this, I was pleading. I guess we're our reputation,
our credibility, it's going to be out the window. Uh.
And while I was having this discussion that the chairman
walks in wat's it and ask me, what are you
guys talk What are you doing? What are you guys
talking about? And we told him and and and he
he he says, he looks at the at the boss
and it says, are you fricking nuts? And then he
looks at me and said, I guess you were right,
but I dodged the bullet that time. That almost happened.
Speaker 3: And you know, the gambling business is so strong that
they often make money in spite of themselves. I mean,
you know, like they don't really understand the gambling part
of the gambling business.
Speaker 1: You know. Well, you know there was an old time
UH executive that I always used to say that winters,
you know, when I would be sweating and you know,
upset when we lost UH, they'd say, winners make gamblers.
And you know, over time that sunk in and I
knew he was right that they if they don't have
those days, there's nobody coming back. And and you have
to tolerate that in the business. Of course.
Speaker 3: I have one question before we go. Favorite restaurant in
Las Vegas that's not in the casino.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, but you know, I love Tuscany, an Italian
restaurant on the on the east side, on the south
southeast side, on southeast on eastern in Henderson. But it's
changing hands now, so I don't know how it's going
to be, but right now that that is one of
my favorite, my favorite restaurants, not in a casino. That
eliminates a lot of my favorite restaurants.
Speaker 3: Bob's too, Bob is always eating.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, there was a Greek restaurant here in Boulder
City where I lived that was my favorite, but the
owner retired and moved away a few years ago. You
know what, I got to think about that. That's a
much tougher question than I than I would then it
should be. But I got to think about that one.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm glad I've never tried Tuscany, so I will
check that out.
Speaker 1: Good and and and and the the owners are the
horse players and been around They've been around the block
a little bit.
Speaker 3: But you know what Damon Runyon said about horse players,
So what's that all horse players died broke.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And my good friend who passed away now a
few years ago, several years ago, Hank Goldberg. He was
a horse player, till the end. And you mentioned Jimmy
the Greek earlier that the same same with Jimmy the Greek,
uh just you know as well as he did in sports,
but I broke as a race player.
Speaker 2: If any of our listeners want to get in contact
with you, is there an email or something that you
can give out to our listeners.
Speaker 3: Or are you on any social media?
Speaker 1: I am not, but I'm contemplating it right now. I
am not. I tell people I'm waiting to see if
if they're going to catch on in social media.
Speaker 3: But no, I've never been on social media.
Speaker 1: I did get on I am on LinkedIn right now,
so that's the best way to reach me right now.
I'm debating right now whether to get on something else
like twit, Twitter or something right now with the book
just coming out, but I'm not right now.
Speaker 2: All right, Thank you very much, Art. It's a pleasure
listening to you. I've known your name for years. Glad
to finally meet you. Thank you very much, real pleasure
to talk to you, guys. Thank you, Richard, go out
hit lots of royal flushes everybody.
Speaker 1: Good day.