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came across this article from maxim mag. an interesting read.
Wizard of Odds
“Jake” is a lot like us — he watches sports, knows his stats, and hates honest work. The difference: as a pro sports gambler, he makes more in 48 hours than we do in 10 years.
Maxim, May 1998
Adam J. Slutsky
I first met Jake in the enormous poker room at The Bicycle Club, one of the nicer casinos in southern California. Somewhere north of 50, Jake struck me as a slightly more polished version of Captain Quint from Jaws: thinning black hair tinged with gray, two-day-old stubble on his face, jeans looking like a family of four had lived in them for a week. But the gold Rolex Daytona he wore said this guy’s exterior was a facade, that he was a well-disguised wolf among sheep.
We were both waiting for a seat to open up; I was biding my time for a game of four- to eight-dollar Hold ’Em, while Jake was on the board for $50-to-$100 dealer’s choice. We got to talking, and for one reason or another—it must have been my honest face—Jake confided in me that he was, in fact, a professional gambler. He went on to say that he was quite successful, too.
When I told him I was a writer, he clammed up for a bit, but I asked him if at a later date he might consider granting me an interview. He took my card and grunted that he’d think about it. A few weeks later, at about 3:30 a.m., my phone rang. It was Jake. He was in an exceptionally good mood—winning a quarter million in the course of an evening would put a rise in my shorts too! He agreed to do an interview, providing it was done under his conditions. Sleepily, I agreed, not really knowing what I was getting myself into.
The interview took place under “controlled” conditions all right—namely, on his 45-foot luxury yacht, Sea Ray. When I arrived at the dock in Marina Del Rey, Jake, wearing a Lakers cap and impenetrable sunglasses, scowled at the sight of my miniature tape recorder. Before I could put him at ease, he ripped it from my hand and tossed it in the water, then subjected me to a rather embarrassing policelike pat-down.
With his suspicions quelled, we boarded his yacht and motored out to sea at a speed of about 20 knots. After an hour or so, when land was just a speck in the distance, he turned the sonar on, found a rocky ledge, and dropped anchor. Then he fired up a fat Cuban, and we finally got down to business.
MAXIM: When did you first start gambling?
JAKE: Junior high. My friends and I bet on everything. Of course, there wasn’t much money involved, just bragging rights. But as I got older, the stakes increased. We all had jobs in high school, and one of us usually lost his entire paycheck on a weekly basis.
M: Did you ever get in over your head?
J: All the time. Once, in high school, I had to tell my dad that I’d knocked up some girl and needed to borrow money so she could get an abortion. Eventually, I told him the truth—that I had made bets I couldn’t cover. He was fucking furious. I thought he was going to beat the living shit out of me.
M: I take it he was against gambling?
J: My dad was an auto mechanic…an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay kind of guy. But when he died, I used what little money I got from his life insurance policy to start my career as a professional gambler.
M: I don’t think he would’ve been too pleased with that.
J: Dead is dead.
M: What made you decide to be a professional gambler?
J: To be honest, I really wasn’t cut out to do anything else. I went to a local college but dropped out midway through the first semester. I was failing everything—I just hated studying, hated going to class, hated the routine. But I loved the thrill I got from sports betting.
M: What happened next?
J: I put my nose to the grindstone for the next few months, working like 60 or 70 hours a week, doing all kinds of jobs, just to accumulate cash. It was my last hurrah as a working stiff. The day I turned 21, that was it—no more nine-to-five bullshit for me. I used the money I’d saved plus what I got from my dad’s life insurance policy to start my bankroll. All together, I had somewhere around $80,000.
M: What happened your first few years?
J: I read all the major sports magazines and all the newspapers. Injury reports, trade rumors, info on practices, everything I could get my hands on. It’s funny, I hated studying in school, but this I didn’t mind. And I did OK…enough to eat and pay the bills.
M: Any run-ins with bookies back then?
J: Yeah. A few. One time, I had a really bad weekend—I lost almost every game I picked [pro and college football], and I knew I was gonna come up short. At the time, the bookie I was using wasn’t the kind of guy you came up short with, if you get my drift.
M: Think he would have hurt you?
J: No doubt in my mind. According to him, he never killed anyone, but a few of the people who crossed him probably wished he had.
M: What could he do to someone to make them wish they were dead?
J: How about sticking a lead pipe in their ass? That bad enough?
M: Uh, yeah. So what did you do?
J: I knew this guy who ran a chop shop for stolen cars. Well, my bookie drove this beautiful Corvette. So I stole his car, sold it to the chop shop, and then used the money to pay him back. Funny, huh?
M: Nice work if you can get it.
J: Actually, since the money was so good, I agreed to steal a few more cars. But on my second gig, I got caught boosting a convertible. Lucky for me I didn’t have any priors, so they reduced my charge to a misdemeanor.
M: When did you start doing well—making what you considered good money?
J: It was almost 10 years to the day that I really started to make bank, and by that I mean a monthly profit of five or six thousand dollars. My methods really hadn’t changed at all—I was still working my butt off doing my homework—but all of a sudden, I just got really lucky. No explanation. A couple years after that, I was making three or four times that a month—but I was also betting $5,000 a game, three or four times what I used to bet. And now my bets are anywhere between $10,000 and $100,000 per game.
M: Plenty of women once the money was good?
J: Oh, yeah. I’ve been married four times. The only one I regret losing was number two. I had just started doing really well, and I didn’t want to lose that momentum, so I didn’t make time for her. I just wanted to keep my nose to the grindstone and keep scoring.
M: What’s the most you’ve ever won on a single bet?
J: $275,000, although it cost me 30 grand, so the adjusted total would be two-forty-five. Every year, down in Florida, they have powerboat races—cigarettes, scarabs, formulas—from Miami to the Bahamas. Real Miami Vice stuff. One year, I had a boat entered. I wasn’t driving it, of course. I just owned the boat. Another guy, a real rich motherfucker—I think he owned 20 gas stations across Florida—also had a boat entered, a boat much bigger and faster than mine. He also wasn’t gonna drive it. Anyway, I bet him $275K that my boat would beat his.
M: Why? You said you knew his was faster.
J: Oh, it was. Much faster. But I paid off his driver— $30K. Strange thing was, it wouldn’t have mattered. The guy’s boat blew one of its engines not long after the race started. Maybe my dad was helping from above.
M: What’s the most you ever won in a single day?
J: $763,000. It was over 48 hours, though, not just one day. I won every single football game I bet—college and pro—30 or 40 games. Even if I tried, I couldn’t lose. The fucking golden touch. They say it happens once in every serious gambler’s life. I’m a believer.
M: What’d you do to celebrate?
J: I went out and bought a Ferrari. But on the way home, I got T-boned by a delivery van. I wasn’t hurt, but the car was totaled. I guess it was God’s way of letting me know that my luck had run out. Funny, I couldn’t win a bet to save my life for weeks after.
M: Any moments worse than that one?
J: Oh, yeah. Probably the worst was when I had to call my son during his sophomore year of college and tell him he couldn’t register for the second semester.
M: What happened?
J: I was having an absolutely horrible weekend. No matter what I bet on, I lost. But rather than be smart and take the weekend off, I kept doubling and tripling my bet, thinking that when I won, it would all even out. Only problem was, I didn’t win.
M: How much did you lose?
J: A fucking lot—let’s leave it at that. My son was registering for the next semester in a few days, and he needed to pay for it—but I didn’t know if I’d have it.
M: What happened?
J: I called him back the next night, after the Monday night football game, and told him everything was OK.
M: You bet that much on one game?
J: Desperate times, desperate measures. Besides, if I had lost, I probably would have offed myself and my son would be set for life—I’ve got a big-ass life insurance policy.
M: When you make a bet, do your emotions come into play?
J: I used to get real emotional about my bets. Gave myself a nervous breakdown in the process. Now they don’t faze me. I’ve learned not to sweat the little things. Once the bet is made, that’s it. Over and done with.
M: How much money have you made as a professional gambler?
J: Without sounding like a braggart, I’ll die a very wealthy man. I’ve got plenty of money in the bank, a nice stock portfolio, a few houses, an apartment in New York City, and a shitload of toys—you know, boats and cars, things like that.
M: I don’t get it. If you’ve got so much, why keep betting at all?
J: I’m addicted. Not only that, I enjoy betting. For me, it’s better than an orgasm. Much better.
M: What about your friends? What do they think?
J: I don’t have friends, just acquaintances. Friends want too much from you. We can discuss politics, the weather, the price of tea in China, whatever, but sooner or later, everyone just wants to know my picks.
M: What advice would you give to the would-be professional gambler?
J: You want to know what it takes to be a professional gambler? An even temper, a cast-iron stomach, a brain like a sponge, balls of steel, and a lot of fuckin’ money. It’s got more ups and downs, twists and turns, than any roller coaster on the friggin’ planet. And it’s never boring. You only live once…This is the way to go. Now the interview’s over. You write. I’m gonna fish.
Wizard of Odds
“Jake” is a lot like us — he watches sports, knows his stats, and hates honest work. The difference: as a pro sports gambler, he makes more in 48 hours than we do in 10 years.
Maxim, May 1998
Adam J. Slutsky
I first met Jake in the enormous poker room at The Bicycle Club, one of the nicer casinos in southern California. Somewhere north of 50, Jake struck me as a slightly more polished version of Captain Quint from Jaws: thinning black hair tinged with gray, two-day-old stubble on his face, jeans looking like a family of four had lived in them for a week. But the gold Rolex Daytona he wore said this guy’s exterior was a facade, that he was a well-disguised wolf among sheep.
We were both waiting for a seat to open up; I was biding my time for a game of four- to eight-dollar Hold ’Em, while Jake was on the board for $50-to-$100 dealer’s choice. We got to talking, and for one reason or another—it must have been my honest face—Jake confided in me that he was, in fact, a professional gambler. He went on to say that he was quite successful, too.
When I told him I was a writer, he clammed up for a bit, but I asked him if at a later date he might consider granting me an interview. He took my card and grunted that he’d think about it. A few weeks later, at about 3:30 a.m., my phone rang. It was Jake. He was in an exceptionally good mood—winning a quarter million in the course of an evening would put a rise in my shorts too! He agreed to do an interview, providing it was done under his conditions. Sleepily, I agreed, not really knowing what I was getting myself into.
The interview took place under “controlled” conditions all right—namely, on his 45-foot luxury yacht, Sea Ray. When I arrived at the dock in Marina Del Rey, Jake, wearing a Lakers cap and impenetrable sunglasses, scowled at the sight of my miniature tape recorder. Before I could put him at ease, he ripped it from my hand and tossed it in the water, then subjected me to a rather embarrassing policelike pat-down.
With his suspicions quelled, we boarded his yacht and motored out to sea at a speed of about 20 knots. After an hour or so, when land was just a speck in the distance, he turned the sonar on, found a rocky ledge, and dropped anchor. Then he fired up a fat Cuban, and we finally got down to business.
MAXIM: When did you first start gambling?
JAKE: Junior high. My friends and I bet on everything. Of course, there wasn’t much money involved, just bragging rights. But as I got older, the stakes increased. We all had jobs in high school, and one of us usually lost his entire paycheck on a weekly basis.
M: Did you ever get in over your head?
J: All the time. Once, in high school, I had to tell my dad that I’d knocked up some girl and needed to borrow money so she could get an abortion. Eventually, I told him the truth—that I had made bets I couldn’t cover. He was fucking furious. I thought he was going to beat the living shit out of me.
M: I take it he was against gambling?
J: My dad was an auto mechanic…an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay kind of guy. But when he died, I used what little money I got from his life insurance policy to start my career as a professional gambler.
M: I don’t think he would’ve been too pleased with that.
J: Dead is dead.
M: What made you decide to be a professional gambler?
J: To be honest, I really wasn’t cut out to do anything else. I went to a local college but dropped out midway through the first semester. I was failing everything—I just hated studying, hated going to class, hated the routine. But I loved the thrill I got from sports betting.
M: What happened next?
J: I put my nose to the grindstone for the next few months, working like 60 or 70 hours a week, doing all kinds of jobs, just to accumulate cash. It was my last hurrah as a working stiff. The day I turned 21, that was it—no more nine-to-five bullshit for me. I used the money I’d saved plus what I got from my dad’s life insurance policy to start my bankroll. All together, I had somewhere around $80,000.
M: What happened your first few years?
J: I read all the major sports magazines and all the newspapers. Injury reports, trade rumors, info on practices, everything I could get my hands on. It’s funny, I hated studying in school, but this I didn’t mind. And I did OK…enough to eat and pay the bills.
M: Any run-ins with bookies back then?
J: Yeah. A few. One time, I had a really bad weekend—I lost almost every game I picked [pro and college football], and I knew I was gonna come up short. At the time, the bookie I was using wasn’t the kind of guy you came up short with, if you get my drift.
M: Think he would have hurt you?
J: No doubt in my mind. According to him, he never killed anyone, but a few of the people who crossed him probably wished he had.
M: What could he do to someone to make them wish they were dead?
J: How about sticking a lead pipe in their ass? That bad enough?
M: Uh, yeah. So what did you do?
J: I knew this guy who ran a chop shop for stolen cars. Well, my bookie drove this beautiful Corvette. So I stole his car, sold it to the chop shop, and then used the money to pay him back. Funny, huh?
M: Nice work if you can get it.
J: Actually, since the money was so good, I agreed to steal a few more cars. But on my second gig, I got caught boosting a convertible. Lucky for me I didn’t have any priors, so they reduced my charge to a misdemeanor.
M: When did you start doing well—making what you considered good money?
J: It was almost 10 years to the day that I really started to make bank, and by that I mean a monthly profit of five or six thousand dollars. My methods really hadn’t changed at all—I was still working my butt off doing my homework—but all of a sudden, I just got really lucky. No explanation. A couple years after that, I was making three or four times that a month—but I was also betting $5,000 a game, three or four times what I used to bet. And now my bets are anywhere between $10,000 and $100,000 per game.
M: Plenty of women once the money was good?
J: Oh, yeah. I’ve been married four times. The only one I regret losing was number two. I had just started doing really well, and I didn’t want to lose that momentum, so I didn’t make time for her. I just wanted to keep my nose to the grindstone and keep scoring.
M: What’s the most you’ve ever won on a single bet?
J: $275,000, although it cost me 30 grand, so the adjusted total would be two-forty-five. Every year, down in Florida, they have powerboat races—cigarettes, scarabs, formulas—from Miami to the Bahamas. Real Miami Vice stuff. One year, I had a boat entered. I wasn’t driving it, of course. I just owned the boat. Another guy, a real rich motherfucker—I think he owned 20 gas stations across Florida—also had a boat entered, a boat much bigger and faster than mine. He also wasn’t gonna drive it. Anyway, I bet him $275K that my boat would beat his.
M: Why? You said you knew his was faster.
J: Oh, it was. Much faster. But I paid off his driver— $30K. Strange thing was, it wouldn’t have mattered. The guy’s boat blew one of its engines not long after the race started. Maybe my dad was helping from above.
M: What’s the most you ever won in a single day?
J: $763,000. It was over 48 hours, though, not just one day. I won every single football game I bet—college and pro—30 or 40 games. Even if I tried, I couldn’t lose. The fucking golden touch. They say it happens once in every serious gambler’s life. I’m a believer.
M: What’d you do to celebrate?
J: I went out and bought a Ferrari. But on the way home, I got T-boned by a delivery van. I wasn’t hurt, but the car was totaled. I guess it was God’s way of letting me know that my luck had run out. Funny, I couldn’t win a bet to save my life for weeks after.
M: Any moments worse than that one?
J: Oh, yeah. Probably the worst was when I had to call my son during his sophomore year of college and tell him he couldn’t register for the second semester.
M: What happened?
J: I was having an absolutely horrible weekend. No matter what I bet on, I lost. But rather than be smart and take the weekend off, I kept doubling and tripling my bet, thinking that when I won, it would all even out. Only problem was, I didn’t win.
M: How much did you lose?
J: A fucking lot—let’s leave it at that. My son was registering for the next semester in a few days, and he needed to pay for it—but I didn’t know if I’d have it.
M: What happened?
J: I called him back the next night, after the Monday night football game, and told him everything was OK.
M: You bet that much on one game?
J: Desperate times, desperate measures. Besides, if I had lost, I probably would have offed myself and my son would be set for life—I’ve got a big-ass life insurance policy.
M: When you make a bet, do your emotions come into play?
J: I used to get real emotional about my bets. Gave myself a nervous breakdown in the process. Now they don’t faze me. I’ve learned not to sweat the little things. Once the bet is made, that’s it. Over and done with.
M: How much money have you made as a professional gambler?
J: Without sounding like a braggart, I’ll die a very wealthy man. I’ve got plenty of money in the bank, a nice stock portfolio, a few houses, an apartment in New York City, and a shitload of toys—you know, boats and cars, things like that.
M: I don’t get it. If you’ve got so much, why keep betting at all?
J: I’m addicted. Not only that, I enjoy betting. For me, it’s better than an orgasm. Much better.
M: What about your friends? What do they think?
J: I don’t have friends, just acquaintances. Friends want too much from you. We can discuss politics, the weather, the price of tea in China, whatever, but sooner or later, everyone just wants to know my picks.
M: What advice would you give to the would-be professional gambler?
J: You want to know what it takes to be a professional gambler? An even temper, a cast-iron stomach, a brain like a sponge, balls of steel, and a lot of fuckin’ money. It’s got more ups and downs, twists and turns, than any roller coaster on the friggin’ planet. And it’s never boring. You only live once…This is the way to go. Now the interview’s over. You write. I’m gonna fish.
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