Eight

Persona Non Grata

All spring I work as a writer, flying around the country for interviews, meeting deadlines, being responsible. One of the stories I write—a fictionalized tale about the world’s biggest sports bettor—will hit the newsstands in late summer. If anyone asks me about it, I plan to say that it isn’t really any one guy’s story, that it’s a composite portrait of everyone and everything I know about how sports betting works at the highest levels. This is sort of true. I worry, though, that sophisticated readers will think Mr. Konik knows a bit too much about the inner workings of the world’s biggest wagering syndicates to be just a mere observer.

If my magazine articles about gambling have awakened new suspicions in Stevie the Pencil, he’s not saying. A few weeks after the college basketball season concludes, in April, when baseball becomes the object of America’s sports obsession, Stevie and his girlfriend Judy are in Los Angeles to watch a few ball games. I’ve suggested lunch somewhere flashy, something Hollywood—Wolfgang Puck’s place, perhaps—but the Pencil says that would make him uncomfortable. He just wants something simple. Italian maybe. “Nothing fancy,” he requests. “That ain’t me.”

The four of us rendezvous at a cheerful Mediterranean café on the Sunset Strip, a few minutes from my house. How strange it is to see Stevie in mufti, away from the pressures of the sports-betting world. Looking at him in his Yankees jacket and T-shirt, you would never suppose he’s one of the most important figures in the world of sports gambling, the man who sets the point spreads at the premier casino in Las Vegas. Throughout lunch I try to gauge how much he knows, how much he believes, how much I can continue to get away with. He must know I’m connected to Big Daddy by now. He must. But then how can he let me keep playing? A few more glasses of Chianti and I might ask him. Yo, Stevie, what’s the deal? Who’s paying you off?

Fortunately, I make it through the afternoon without any significant faux pas. Either he knows I’m Big Daddy’s boy (and doesn’t care for some reason) or he doesn’t know (and isn’t particularly curious). So I don’t have to pretend I’m a Hollywood big shot, or a degenerate gambler, or the smartest sports handicapper in the Western Hemisphere. I just have to be me: a guy who truly enjoys betting enormously large sums of money at Stevie’s casino.

A month later, however, when I’m back in Vegas for the annual World Series of Poker, my real and imagined personas collide. I’m a high roller. I mean, that’s the role I’ve been playing. Thirty thousand dollars on a college basketball game? A hundred thousand on a football game? Two hundred thousand on the Super Bowl? No problem! So when I run into Stevie the Pencil at Binion’s Horseshoe, where his girlfriend Judy works as a blackjack dealer, I have trouble explaining what I’m doing playing in a $220 poker tournament, trying to win a $10,000 entry into the Main Event of the World Series of Poker.

A meager ten grand is supposed to be hardly worth my time.

“I like to use it as a warmup for the real thing,” I say, neglecting to mention that competing for an entry into the “real thing” is about all my heart can handle. The truth is, I’d considered simply buying in for the World Championship. I figured it would be a good tax deduction against my sports winnings. But actually plunking down $10,000—of my own money—was too frightening for my low-rolling constitution.

So here I am at the Horseshoe, with the other scufflers, trying to win my way into a game with the big boys. And here comes the Pencil.

We chat briefly while I play, and I can’t detect any obvious surprise or confusion in his eyes as he observes my action. He knows; he must know. He’s got to know I’m merely the spawn of a much bigger fish.

Then I win the tournament.

And when I do, I cry for joy. I’ve made it into the finals of the World Series of Poker. I’m going to be competing for the title of World Champion—and more than $1 million. I don’t tell Pencil Stevie about the tears part, the elation the next day when he calls to see how the tournament went. “Oh, fine,” I say nonchalantly. “I won it.”

“You won it?” Stevie exults.

“Yeah,” I say, like what else is new?

 

In July, when the sun scorches the Mojave and any sensible person is far away from Nevada, I’m in Las Vegas for writing-related business. Magazine article research. Real-world stuff. And I can’t resist a trip to Caesars Palace to visit the boys. Not going would be like traveling to my hometown and not seeing my mother.

The Pencil is gone by the time I get there. (This particular day is possibly the first one in a decade that the man has left before 7:00 p.m.) But Gino the Suit is still at work, and in addition to setting me up for a comped sushi feast, he shares an unusually candid conversation he recently had with even bigger suits than he. The gist of which is this: The new owners want to run Caesars Palace, one of the great gambling joints on earth, like a motel, not a world-class casino. Thus, despite his best efforts at educating the paper pushers upstairs, Gino thinks he’s going to have a tough time offering me the limits I enjoyed last year. “We could do record numbers,” he laments. “But they won’t let us.”

The Suit is smart and articulate and charming. But I can read between the lines: Don’t plan on milking Caesars Palace for hundreds of thousands of dollars in the upcoming season.

I haven’t spoken to Big Daddy since March. I’ve been putting off calling him, procrastinating until just a few weeks before the football season starts. Truth is, he makes me nervous. Viv says she can detect this in my voice when I’m on the phone with him. She says I sound frightened.

Maybe it’s because I can’t quite figure him out. My theory is that while sports gambling is most certainly about the money, for Rick Matthews it’s really not about the money. This is a game that measures its winners and losers by the amounts they add (or subtract) from their bankroll. But, more telling, it’s a game that almost nobody can conquer. Big Daddy is the man who can beat it. He’s the man who sends thousands of bettors and bookies scrambling for the phone when he releases one of his plays. He is the source.

And I think he loves it. He loves it enough to put up with the hassles, with the annoyances, with the rules being changed on him every season to make what he does even harder than it already is. He loves being a winner. And I suspect he’ll never grow tired of that. Still, were Big Daddy to become disgusted enough with the state of his business—and I can sense, from his regular sermons on the transparent hypocrisy of his tormentors, that he is getting close to this threshold—he might just take his tens of millions, unplug his phones and computers, and play golf every day.

I just hope that day is not today. Like an infatuated teenager clinging to a distant object of affection, part of me is scared to hear that he and I might officially be over.

Not only is Big Daddy polite and engaging when I reach him on his cell phone—“Howya doin’, pards?”—he’s eager to continue our partnership. “I did great with you last year. Every week you didn’t play we lost. You’re my good luck charm, 44.” He instructs me to confirm my limits at Caesars Palace and to get back to him soon. He says this season I’ll be set up with a full-time radio and charger, so he can reach me at any time.

I ask if during the new campaign there might be any way of avoiding having to withdraw the money from Sarge and deposit it every weekend.

“Sarge is no longer with the organization,” Big Daddy says matter-of-factly.

Lack of discretion? Or maybe something worse? I want to ask, but I know better. “We gotta have some way of getting at the money if something should happen to you. Maybe we’ll set up some sort of joint account. Someone they would never connect to me in a million years. That way we could leave the money set. And we could make some plays early in the week, too. Before you get there.”

I tell him I like that idea. Sure, counting half a million dollars is exciting the first two or three times. But I’d rather be spending the hour that it takes at dinner with my girlfriend. I come away from our phone call slightly giddy. Looks like we’re still in business.

The following Monday afternoon, however, Big Daddy tells me he just got out of a lunch meeting with Bruce Loren, the president of the Tropicana. “He asked me if I was partners with this Konik fellow,” Big Daddy reports.

Seems some people have been asking about me, especially since the magazine story came out. “I told him flat out, no,” Big Daddy says. “I guess in retrospect we both sort of regret you writing that article.”

I tell Rick what I’ve been telling everyone who asks: it’s a composite, a pastiche of everyone. Big Daddy likes that explanation, but he thinks the Tropicana is going to be a bit too hot to fool with for now. “There may be an opportunity in the future,” he says. “I just think we should stay away from them for the time being.”

I give the boss man a rundown on our current relationships: cordial at Caesars, still good at Harrah’s. “But I don’t know if that will last if we keep having seasons like this last one,” I remark.

“Now, 44, that’s not necessarily so,” Big Daddy replies. He says my perspective has been colored by my experiences at Caesars and the Hilton. Irv Rosenbaum at Harrah’s, he explains, might not be as jumpy as Super Moe and Pencil Stevie. Irv might think he’s got the best of it and figure he’ll just keep letting me gamble until I destroy myself. “And besides, pardsy,” Big Daddy repeats, “you have no idea what I’m doing on my end to keep you cool. No idea at all.”

I tell Big Daddy I don’t need to know—as long as he’s satisfied with the results. Clearly, he’s sensitive to the fragility of my situation and will do everything he can to keep me in play. I just want to stay alive for enough weeks, enough games, to keep the money mill churning and the fantasy wheel spinning. I want to live it up before I die.

 

Vivian packs her short dresses, the ones she wears only to dens of iniquity. I assemble my betting paraphernalia—the sports schedules and point-spread charts and ledger books. We’re going back to Nevada.

How sweet it is: the stretch limo waiting at the airport; the charmingly overdecorated suite with a stunning view of the Strip; reservations for the fancy steakhouse. The 1998 football season and another spectacular Las Vegas weekend begin—except that, unlike the other coddled pigeons roosting in their gold-trimmed nests, I have a decent chance of flying the coop with more birdseed than I arrived with.

A new Brain Trust courier, a gentle older man with a mop of gray curls who, for reasons that remain unclear to me, goes by the nickname “Rhubarb,” comes to my suite at Harrah’s with a phone. Unexpectedly, Sarge, who I learn has been reinstated on short notice, arrives shortly thereafter with $300,000 in cash (and a half-smoked cigarette he leaves on my desk). Big Daddy has nine football plays for me—$297,000 worth of action. While Rick surveys what I imagine to be his notes, he mumbles a running narration: “Let’s see here, pards…. What are we gonna give ’em? I tell you what, pardsy-wardsy, it’s tough…. Course, that’s why nobody can beat the game, right?…Let’s see, Mr. 44…hmmm…Here you go. They’ll like this.”

After Big Daddy has dictated the shopping list, I go down to the cashier’s cage to deposit the money and buy “chocolate” chips, $5,000 brownies. As the ladies behind the bars count my money. Irving Rosenbaum charges through the swinging glass doors.

“We’ve got to talk,” he says solemnly. He has the haunted look I’ve seen before in unhappy sportsbook managers, and I don’t like it. He motions for me to follow him, but I indicate that my money is being counted and I don’t want to leave. “What’s up, boss?” I ask.

Irving tells me, in so many words, that I’m through. His frazzled explanation includes “a lengthy meeting with the vice president of operations,” “Harrah’s not wanting to extend themselves too far,” “Harrah’s is not ready to handle the kind of wagers” I make, and so forth.

The truth is, I won. I won a lot. More than $200,000. And after investigating me, Irv Rosenbaum probably determined that the chances of my winning in the future were quite good. And casinos, of course, do not want consistent winners taking money out of their tills.

I’m genuinely angry, filled with the same righteous indignation I’ve heard from Big Daddy when he’s sermonizing. They’re kicking out the one individual in the whole joint who can give them a fair fight. Instead of subjecting the messenger of bad tidings to a philosophical rant, I channel my frustration into the kind of prosaic complaints a member of the service industry like Irving Rosenbaum might fathom. I tell Irv I can understand if this was a corporate decision—but the timing, after I arrive in Vegas with my girlfriend, after I’ve shunned Caesars in favor of Harrah’s, after I’ve put $300,000 on deposit in his cage, that’s just wrong.

He apologizes and admits the timing couldn’t be worse.

I fume a bit longer. Harrah’s is comfortable taking only $10,000 bets—and that’s on NFL sides; it’s $5,000 on college and $2,500 on totals. Reminding Irving that $300,000 worth of loose gambling money is about to leave his casino, I storm off to my room.

Big Daddy takes the news calmly. “I knew you’d stumbled into a good situation there,” he says. “I knew it wouldn’t last forever. But I’m a little surprised they shut you down so fast, before you even got out of the box. Someone must have told ’em something.” He urges me to go back down and bet them at $10,000 a pop. Then I should proceed down the street to the Barbary Coast casino and see what it’s willing to do.

When I return to the Harrah’s sportsbook. Irving is gone. His assistant says he’s in a meeting; is there something she can help me with? I tell her I’d like Mr. Rosenbaum to meet my girlfriend—another apology opportunity—and that I’d like to bet some games at $10,000.

The assistant calls Irving and informs me that, in fact, they don’t want any of my bets. Not for any amount. “So they’re that scared of me,” I mutter, shaking my head in disbelief. Obviously this is less about Harrah’s policy and more about Irving and his colleagues sniffing out my relationship with Rick Matthews.

I trudge up the Strip with Vivian on one arm and $300,000 in cash on the other. I’m so furious I’m almost hoping someone tries to mug me so I’ll have legal cause to bash his face in.

At the Barbary Coast, a grimy joint on a prime corner across from Caesars and Bally’s, I put on my comp hustler act, the one in which nothing matters more to me than scoring a hosted dinner at its famous gourmet restaurant, Michael’s. How much do I need to bet for all the free Château Lafite and rack of lamb I can handle? The assistant manager, a fellow named Kevin, says I can bet $5,000 on college and up to $20,000 on pros, as long as it’s not right before post time. I feign ignorance of that term. “You know, right before the game. We need time to move the line around, get some action on the other side, even things out.”

“Oh!” I say, wide-eyed. “I get it.”

For $35,000 worth of play, Kevin assures me, everything will be taken care of. Considering I’m expected to drop $1,750 in juice if I’m lucky enough to go 50–50—the vig on $35,000 is $3,500—a comped dinner (even in a restaurant where a chilled shrimp appetizer costs $32) isn’t exactly giving away the store. I bet $38,000 worth of games. It’s immediately apparent that the fellows at the Barbary Coast aren’t used to seeing this much money in one pile. To me, after a season of perspective-skewing, Big Daddy–style gambling, it seems like nothing. All those games I just bet wouldn’t equal even one wager at my usual Caesar-Hilton-Harrah’s limits.

Viv and I find a quiet bit of lawn on the corner of Flamingo and Las Vegas Boulevard and call Big Daddy. He instructs me to put the rest of my money on deposit at the Palace, play two or three games off my shopping list, and investigate the opportunities at Bally’s. “We’ll get all your money in play, 44,” he says, chuckling. “You’re just gonna have to work a little harder.”

Little Mikey Brown, charming as ever, welcomes me warmly at the Caesars counter and chats loosely while he counts the $250,000 I’m putting in my account. We talk of sports and casino hosts and Japanese restaurants. I’m only sorry Little Mike isn’t running the show at Caesars. It would be a blissfully low-pressure deal. Of course, he’d probably get fired after a few weeks on account of a guy like me taking out a couple hundred thousand every weekend.

Mikey tells me he’s spoken to the Pencil: I’m full RFB. I tell him thanks, but that won’t be necessary, since I’m staying somewhere else. But if he’d like to write up a comp to the sushi bar, we’d enjoy that. He couldn’t be happier to oblige.

Before a late dinner, we go back across the Strip, bet two more games at Barbary Coast, and do a fact-finding mission at Bally’s. The prospects there are bleak: Bally’s takes only $10,000 on pros and $4,000 on college. But if I’d like to work out a special arrangement, a supervisor tells me, I should come in tomorrow and talk with the manager, Jay Muccio. Too bad, I think to myself, since Bally’s has most of the games on my order list.

After an entire evening of bet shopping, I’ve managed to get only $100,000 into play. Given my profit-sharing formula—I figure that I’m good for slightly less than 1 percent of all the money I wager—it’s been a lot of work for a not very large return.

And then I realize: My conception of money has gone completely haywire.

For the privilege of betting on football games, staying in swanky digs, and eating like I’m going to the electric chair, I’m getting paid more than the average American earns in three weeks.

I survey the neon glow along the Strip and say out loud to no one in particular, “Vegas.”

 

“I need outs,” I announce to Viv, who’s in our suite getting ready for dinner.

“You need to get out?”

“No. I need outs. Outs: places to bet.”

She gestures to the glittering lights outside our bedroom window. “Well, it’s not like there’s only a couple of casinos in this town. Why don’t you just open accounts with all of them?”

“I wish I could. It’s not that easy,” I say, looking down the boulevard. “Most of these joints, even the big boys here on the Strip, they’re scared to take a bet. I’d have to run around to ten different places to get down even a fraction of what the Brains want to bet on a single game. Plus, the point-spread number would get whacked out of shape, and our plays would get hijacked, and—anyway, it’s impossible. Besides, I’m pretty sure Big Daddy already has local runners working in most of the casinos. He needs me for the big out-of-towner action.”

“Have you tried them all?” Viv asks.

Actually, I haven’t. We sit down at the living room coffee table with Showbiz magazine’s complete list of Las Vegas casinos (and restaurants and cheesy shows). I make three categories: cultivating big action (four), scared of big action (twenty-two), and indifferent but possibly open to big action (four).

After dinner and before driving to the outskirts of town for a party, Vivian and I go on a fact-finding expedition to some of the joints that allegedly welcome high-rolling chumps. We stop first at the Rio, which is rumored to be attempting an upgrade of its class of player, looking for premium customers. We talk to a host who says this is true, but not in the sportsbook. “They don’t take hardly anything. I feel like telling the boss over there he should put up a sign: ‘No gambling allowed.’ ”

At the MGM Grand, a host introduces us to Lenny Dip, the sportsbook manager. He tells me that the limits I want to play are nearly twice what they normally deal, but that he’ll talk to the casino manager and see if he’ll make an exception. And by the way, he asks, when do I bet? And on who? And why? We leave after Lenny promises to call on Monday—which, I suspect, is about as likely to happen as my hitting fifteen out of fifteen numbers at keno.

Early Saturday morning, I stroll across a strangely deserted Las Vegas Boulevard to visit the boss man at Bally’s, which made it onto our “possibly open to big action” list. Jay Muccio seems nice enough. The only problem is that he’s the self-described “best friend” of Gino the Suit over at Caesars Palace. So I play it straight. “Ask Gino about me,” I dare Mr. Muccio. “He’ll tell you I’m a smart, winning player. Maybe I’m not the kind of bettor you want.”

I tell Muccio that I can’t bet enough at Caesars to satisfy my gambling appetite. “Plus,” I continue. “I’m a very smart shopper, and sometimes the point spreads might be more attractive here at Bally’s.” I suggest that if we can build a good relationship, including the commensurate comps. I’ll be happy to give Jay and his store some substantial business.

He says he’ll have to run all this by his boss, the vice president, but if all goes as he would like, I’ll be able to bet as much with Bally’s as I do at Caesars. How Gino the Suit will handle Muccio’s inquiries makes me anxious—but, as with the bulk of the Brain Trust operations, it’s out of my control.

Big Daddy has nothing else for me the rest of the morning. Since I’ve bet only $60,000 worth of games at the Palace, I’m really glad I didn’t take Stevie up on his RFB offer. The (unwritten) Code of Comp Conduct says that in return for all the free booze and furniture and grilled John Dory garnished with white truffles, you’re supposed to give the casino a shot at winning a large serving of bankroll fillet. Even though I know Caesars Palace is going to end up paying me in the long run, at least in the short run I want them to feel like they have a reasonable expectation of busting me.

My friend and gambling buddy Timid Joe Corcoran stops by Harrah’s for a late lunch. He’s been playing in a backgammon tournament at the Riviera, bleeding money. While Viv naps in the bedroom, we sit in the living room of my suite, talking odds and probabilities, sweating the results of the few games I’ve got outstanding.

Timid Joe is originally from Wales, and he repeats what he claims is a common maxim in his homeland: “ ’Tis better to milk your goat than roast it.”

I recall his advice as the results begin to trickle in. Predictably, the Gods of Gambling play their usual perverse joke. For the day I go 5–1. If I were playing at my usual limits, ’tis I who might be roasted by my casino hosts.

The Barbary Coast, I know, can’t be too pleased with the results. Nor can Caesars, I reckon, since Caesars would like to see volume above all. Big Daddy can’t be too happy. And I’m not, either. Somehow the prospect of a complimentary $500 orgy of gastronomy, courtesy of the casino, makes it all seem a little better.

 

The next morning, two hours before the early NFL games commence, I dash across the Strip to Caesars Palace. I’ve got plenty of business—five potential bets—to give my new best buddy the Pencil, assuming the numbers are right. Only two of them are. But before I depart, Pencil Stevie tells me to hang around for a minute since he’s going to move some lines. “You might see something you like,” he says, doodling the letters “K” and “C” on an old newspaper.

Indeed, when he changes the Kansas City Chiefs from 4 to 4½, I tell him I’ll take it. “Who’s your best pal?” I joke. Stevie smiles and points at me, like the Fonz. I know he’s glad to have a smart-money player taking the other side of a game on which he’s clearly imbalanced.

We chat momentarily about the Hilton corporation’s failed bid to buy Caesars; about Starwood, the new owners; about his faulty computer system. The Barbary Coast, Bally’s, and Jay Muccio never get mentioned.

Across the boulevard at the Barbary Coast sportsbook I introduce myself to Dale Lutz, the top man there. Dale is small and older and, it seems at first glance, a bit rough around the edges. I don’t get the impression he’s particularly bright. He doesn’t have the polish and shmooziness of the Caesars boys. Dull Dale, however, is perfectly cordial. He’s pleased to meet me and pleased my dinner at Michael’s was good and pleased I’ve come in to give him some business. Dale, in general, is pleased.

I tell him I want to bet the Lions game. He asks me for how much. I say the supervisor I originally met said I could bet $10,000, but more if the casino needed my team. Dull Dale says he’s heavy on the other side, Minnesota, so if I want to bet $20,000, go ahead and be his guest.

Everywhere in Las Vegas the game is pick, meaning the bookies figure the game to be exactly even. There’s no point spread. But Dull Dale is posting the game as Minny –1. Betting Detroit, I get an extra point that no other casino in town is offering. The bonus comes into play only if Minnesota wins by exactly one point, and the statistical likelihood of that is slim but not negligible. So this extra point gives me a couple of percentage points’ better probability of winning a game that the linemakers figure to be a toss-up. Obviously all of the Barbary Coast’s customers have been betting the Vikings. My large action on the Lions is not only tolerated but welcomed.

None of my other numbers are available. So I bullshit briefly with Dale before going back to Caesars to do some more shopping. Dale tells me anytime I need a room to give him a call. “We got some nice suites,” he says, and he’s serious.

Before leaving the Coast, I take a hotel elevator to a high floor and, after checking for surveillance cameras, find a dark corner to call Big Daddy. He’s pissed that I took so long to contact him but pleased to hear the deal I got on the Lions. Although he doesn’t say so, I know the head of the Brain Trust appreciates having an associate who is so steadfastly honest he doesn’t report the bet as pick and keep the extra point for himself. A less scrupulous fellow would say he got Detroit at pick, sell his first-born in the hope that the Vikings would win by exactly one point, and pocket $22,000.

I have $165,000 worth of action on four games. After the first half I’m winning all three of the morning contests. At the end of the second half nothing has changed. I’m still winning. This is turning into a very big weekend. With one game pending—the 49ers giving 9½ to the Panthers—I’m up $138,000. A win would put me at $168,000, a nice haul to begin the season. A loss would still net a $105,000 profit.

Back at Bally’s, Jay Muccio tells me politely but firmly that, upon further review, he doesn’t want my business. Seems he read the article I wrote about expert handicappers, and he figures I’m in a partnership with the king of the sports bettors. “If I let you play here,” Muccio says, “it would be like owning a grocery store where eggs cost me twenty-four cents and I sell them for twenty-three.”

I don’t protest vigorously—it’s a hopeless cause—but I do save some face, reciting my practiced explanation that the article was a composite portrait of several big-time sports bettors and that it represents everything I’ve learned about how sports betting works in Las Vegas. Nonetheless, I tell Mr. Muccio that if I were in his position I wouldn’t want my play either: At the end of the season I’m going to be a winner. “I’m the best sports bettor Las Vegas has ever seen,” I announce pompously. “They’re going to be dedicating statues to me.”

Assuming Muccio will report our chat verbatim to Gino the Suit, I take the opportunity to lay a little cover, dropping unsubtle hints about the “neural networking computer” I’m supposedly using to beat the point spreads. He seems genuinely fascinated with my improvised hog-wash and jokingly suggests that I report my inside information to him before he opens his lines. In the meantime, Muccio tells me I’m welcome to play at Bally’s, but only for the house limits: $4,000 on college and $15,000 on pros. We shake hands and part as quasi-friends.

As we depart, Viv puts her arm around me and says, “My dear, you don’t have much of a future in this town.” I fear she may be right. I’m cursing myself for publishing a magazine article that paid me $4,000 and will end up costing me an incalculable amount more.

Back at Barbary Coast Dull Dale, upon further review, doesn’t want to get too “extended.” I’m back to five and ten in his joint. I’m sure it didn’t help my cause that I went 7–1 for the weekend. Still, if I ever want a room, give him a call. I tell him I’ll be back Friday night and walk out of the casino with $162,000 in cash.

At Caesars, Viv and I watch San Francisco squander our $33,000. Periodically I check in with Big Daddy for orders. To accomplish this, since I don’t have a room at the Palace, I must find an empty bathroom stall, occupy it as though I am using it for its usual purpose, and have a furtive conversation. Big Daddy tells me to look for a key number (San Diego +3) on the late game. Otherwise I’m to get my money and meet Sarge and his pistol outside the side door at 5:00 p.m.

The kickoff passes without the necessary line change, so Viv and I leave the Palace sportsbook with $478,000 stuffed into my bag. (It’s so heavy the shoulder strap leaves a welt on my trapezius.) According to my quick calculations on a cocktail napkin, this is $10,000 more than I’m supposed to have. But I’ll have to double-check when I return to the room across the street.

We pile into Sarge’s pickup truck, a battered Chevy stinking of stale smoke, and while we make the short commute to Harrah’s, he regales us with a tale of being stuck in a casino elevator. The moral of this particular story seems to be, When a security officer asks for your name and identification, give him an alias. “Anyone wants to know, just think fast and come up with a name. Your best friend, or something.”

Back in the suite, I triple-check my figures. Indeed, I’m $10,000 long. This, I deduce, is because of a simple clerical error at Caesars. They just gave me too much. Innocent, naïve bumpkin that I am, I don’t even consider for a moment that I could put this found money in my pocket. Instead, I report the discrepancy to both Sarge and Big Daddy, both of whom think Caesars might ask for it back. But in the meantime, Big Daddy says he’ll put an asterisk next to my running balance.

Once again I realize that Big Daddy and I have what biologists would call a symbiotic relationship. I love that he’s introduced me to the adrenaline-drenched world of high-stakes sports betting, a milieu whose mythological secrets I would otherwise never learn. He, in turn, must love having an associate handling hundreds of thousands of dollars of his organization’s money who is either too stupid or too honest to take advantage of a five-figure accounting error.

When we check out of Harrah’s, Chicago George, one of the chief hosts, tells me he’s read my article. I ask him which one, though I’m certain he means the one about the big sports bettor. George tells me he’s seen a few of my pieces, actually, and he’s enjoyed them all. “You definitely know your stuff,” he says. “Not the kind of player this store wants, believe me.”

We have a breezy chat about the gambling business. I do nothing to hide my sophistication; he does nothing to hide his contempt for the way Harrah’s runs its operation. While we talk, I notice other casino executives loitering in the VIP lounge, pretending not to look or listen. I’m the big fish that evaded their usually reliable net. They want a vivid mental picture so they don’t make the same mistake their colleague Irv Rosenbaum made.

As the limo glides toward the airport, leaving the garish lights of the Strip behind, I know that Vivian is right: My days in Las Vegas are surely numbered.

 

First thing Monday morning, the Pencil calls me at home, “Hey, Michael,” he says, “we got a little problem.”

Before he can finish his sentence, I tell him I know, they gave me too much money—I was going to call him myself.

He says he appreciates my being a good sport about it. Assuming I want to stay at Caesars during the upcoming weekend, I can make good when I arrive on Friday. I tell him that’s fine with me. The Pencil says he’ll put in my reservation—at full RFB. “And, Mikey,” he repeats, “thanks again.”

A Mr. Jason Muggers from the Las Vegas Hilton calls my office. Seems he’s the senior vice president of casino operations over there, and he’s been passed a letter I wrote some time ago describing my unpleasant experience at his property. First he asks if I’m the same Michael Konik who writes about gambling in all the slick magazines. I tell him that’s me.

“I’m a loyal reader,” Muggers says. “I love your stuff. It’s very smart, very sophisticated, very entertaining. You obviously know what you’re talking about.”

I thank him.

Muggers goes on to explain that I of all people must know that they’re running a business and that they can’t afford to gamble too much with a smarty-pants. Higher limits are typically reserved for longtime “good” casino customers, players who regularly blow off buckets of money at the tables. What Muggers means to say is that the Las Vegas Hilton will extend its limits only for suckers.

I repeat my usual mantra about how when I make a sports bet I’m taking the worst of it (laying 11–10 gives the house a 4.54 percent advantage off the top), relying only on my gut convictions. Funny, I remark, how a gambling house doesn’t really want to gamble with me.

Muggers is polite—he invites me for lunch—but adamant: “We would love to have you back to the Hilton, Mr. Konik. But we can only offer you the regular house limits.”

I thank him and explain that unless my bankroll takes an unexpected nosedive, that won’t be happening anytime soon.

 

Since Sarge is preoccupied with “other matters,” which I frivolously imagine involve gunplay and car chases, Big Daddy himself delivers my money when I arrive in Vegas early Friday evening. After I climb into the leather sanctum of Rick’s luxury SUV, he uses the occasion to deliver an impassioned monologue on the state of sports betting in Las Vegas. The short version: The bookies are a bunch of pussies with the collective heart of a common flea.

Keeping an eye on the side entrance of Caesars Palace, where syndicate runners congregate to talk with their handlers on cell phones, Rick reveals that he’s had to resort to an electronic voice modulator—a “voice changer,” he calls it—if he wants to call a sportsbook on one of his phone accounts. “You want to see terror, 44,” he says, shaking his head, “look at the faces of these sorry sumbitches if I try to come in their casino. It’s like Qaddafi walked in.”

The result of Nevada’s ineptitude and inhospitableness, he claims, is that the Vegas sportsbooks will chase away all their business, primarily to bookmakers in the Caribbean, who have gotten licensed and bonded in countries like Antigua and Belize. “These sorry-ass Las Vegas sportsbooks have got a monopoly. They’re the only ones who can take a bet in America without fear of going to jail, and the way they handle their business, they’re gonna scare all the money away to these offshore guys,” Big Daddy predicts. “It’s no wonder their volume is off fifteen percent this year. They’re killing themselves.”

Big Daddy confides that John Trotter, the sports manager at the Mirage; and Super Moe, from the Hilton, have been spreading rumors about me. The story—an utterly false one—is that I’ve been seen playing in the casinos with Rhubarb, Big Daddy’s shaggy-haired associate. Fact is, I haven’t played any casino games; I’ve seen Rhubarb once, when he handed me a phone at my Harrah’s hotel room; and John Trotter and I have never talked.

“Your name and face are all around town like you’re a wanted man,” Big Daddy tells me, chuckling.

In the old days, he explains, when Bob Martin was the linemaker in Las Vegas, the people who ran the sportsbooks weren’t afraid of the so-called smart guys. Bob Martin, according to Rick Matthews, would post his opening line on Sunday afternoon and let the ten “smartest people on Earth,” the best sports bettors in town, bet his line. This way he would find out how and why the wiseguys were betting and could subsequently move his number to reflect his newly gleaned knowledge. Now, guys like Pencil Stevie and Nick Cerruto won’t fool with big line moves—2-point swings early in the week—for one simple reason: “They don’t have any guts,” Big Daddy says. That the gentlemen running a gambling establishment are a bunch of spineless jellyfish is somehow repugnant to Big Daddy, who grew up believing that real men live by their wits and are willing to back their convictions with their bankrolls. By his code, if two people have a difference of opinion, the best way to settle the argument is to bet on it.

We watch limousines disgorging passengers. The sky is growing dark, and the neon begins to glow. “This is the only segment of the gambling business where the people who run it have regressed and the players have gotten smarter,” Big Daddy explains. “You’ve got a bunch of not very smart people controlling a very large industry. Of course, their bosses don’t know how dumb these people are. Don’t ever forget this, 44. In the valley of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”

I nod thoughtfully. Rick Matthews nods back.

I nod again. “So, business as usual, right?”

“Yes, sir. Now go pick some winners, son,” he says. I climb out of his truck and join the herd pouring through the Palace’s doors, another gambler in search of a lucky streak.

 

Shortly after I arrive in my suite, the phone rings.

Someone from Caesars management is on the line. “Mr. Konik, we want to know if everything is agreeable with your room. Do you need any extra towels? Are you comfortable?”

Before I can mumble an affirmative answer, Big Daddy comes on the line, cackling like a hyena. “How ’bout that voice changer?” he howls. I laugh along with him. It’s funny (and a little shocking) to hear the solemn boss of the Brains playing like a little boy.

“You ready for business?” he asks.

“Shoot.”

Big Daddy gives me “a whole rope” of plays, twenty-four of them. “This is everything for the whole weekend,” he says, seriously. “Not a word to a single human being.”

I stare down at my messily scrawled notes. The entire Brain Trust game plan is staring back at me. This little sheet of notepaper, this rectangle of Caesars Palace stationery, is worth millions of dollars to bookmakers and bettors around the world. And it’s sitting on my desk, as seemingly inconsequential as a reminder to meet Lee from marketing for drinks.

While Big Daddy looks over his list, deciding which plays to give to the Barbary Coast and which ones to “Mr. Caesar,” he mumbles softly to himself: “Hmmm, yeah, we’ll give him some business, see how he likes it”; “Yeah, they’re gonna love you when you bet this one”; “Let’s see if we can’t give you enough to bust you tonight, 44.” Rick ultimately decides to give twelve plays to the Barbary ($66,000 of business) and twelve to Caesars. If all the numbers are right, I’ll bet almost all of the $250,000 Big Daddy’s given me tonight.

First I go to the Barbary Coast, and I can tell immediately that they still love me, despite the lower limits. That love grows even larger when I bet eleven of my twelve games. Phil, the night manager on duty, tells me I’m the casino’s biggest customer. “Well, there is one guy who bets $12,000 on a game—but only one game.”

“Unlike me,” I say. “The idiot who bets every game on the board.”

“No, no!” Phil reassures me. “You did very well last week. And maybe your good luck will continue.” How kind the bookies are while the word “sucker” is still emblazoned across your forehead in shining letters worthy of the Wayne Newton marquee. I thank the Barbary people for their encouragement and skip back across Las Vegas Boulevard, blending into the crowd of weekend revelers.

Back at Caesars I bet the other half of my rope—including five total plays, which always seem to raise suspicions—leaving only $14,000 for the next morning. Unless Big Daddy sends over some more dough, I’m not going to have much to do except order room service and sweat the games.

There could be worse ways of earning a living.

 

After a long night of carousing with Viv, I get an early morning call from Kathryn Matthews-Reynolds. I croak a recitation of football teams and point spreads from the previous evening, barely able to open my bleary eyes. After I finish, she says they’ll get back to me when she learns “where they’re at”—meaning her brother and the rest of the Brains—leaving open the possibility that more money might be forthcoming.

No one from the Brain Trust ever calls. In the meantime, I monitor my games, which seem to be falling about 50–50. As Viv sagely notes, having a modest losing week at this point wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Indeed, it might be for the best.

Alas, fate—and Big Daddy’s handicapping acumen—foils that scenario. We go 7–4 at the poor little Barbary Coast and 9–3 at Mr. Caesar. For the day I win another $72,000.

The Barbary has seen enough. When I pop in to check on its Sunday NFL lines, Dull Dale, the manager, informs me that the Barb can’t take more than $2,000 a game from me. “They don’t want to gamble,” he says, referring to the corporate types who apparently make these decisions. “It makes me sick. You come in here and bet me eleven games on a Friday night and they don’t want your business.” I commiserate with him, professing disbelief. Of course, I believe it all too well. This is the true Las Vegas.

“So they ran up the white flag already,” Big Daddy comments, laughing bitterly when I inform him. “How did you do over there, anyway?”

“Seven and four this week; seven and one last week.”

“Well, good for them,” he replies, chortling. “Now they can get all their money back two grand at a time.”

“I guess I could write them a nice letter apologizing for winning.”

“Oh, they’d appreciate that, I’m sure. Hey, 44, you want a title for a good book?” Rick Matthews asks. “I got one. The Big Lie. That’s Vegas for you, pally.”

 

At the end of the day, while I’m hanging around the sportsbook, watching the scores and waiting for Viv to get dolled up for dinner, the Pencil comes out from behind the counter to shake my hand. “Hey, Mr. K,” he says warmly, “I just want to thank you again for last night. You dealt with our little mix-up like a real gentleman. No controversy or nothing.”

This is how I handled the “little mix-up”: I walked up to Little Mikey Brown, presented him with an envelope with $10,000 in it, and said, “I believe this is yours. Now, what’s a guy gotta do to get a buffet comp around here?”

This gesture has earned me some much-needed goodwill from the boys at Caesars Palace. Gino the Suit comes down from the executive offices to lay a hand on my shoulder. “I just wanted to thank you personally for how you handled Friday night,” Gino says. “That was a very classy, very honorable thing to do, and let me tell you, I don’t see that too much in this business. So I wanted you to know that it meant a lot to me personally and to all the management at Caesars Palace.”

“We both know I don’t have to steal anything to break you guys. I’m going to win all your money on the square,” I say.

Gino grins. “You may be right about that, Michael. But as long as we can pay the light bill, we still got a chance.”

Perhaps. Of this I’m sure: My life expectancy at Caesars Palace has just increased by at least two weeks. With luck, I might even make it through the end of the football season. Stevie confides that his sportsbook did a lot of business today—and won a big number. He suggests that as long as his side keeps winning, he’ll consider taking some bigger bets from me. “I don’t want to commit to that yet,” he says. “But we’ll see. And don’t be afraid to ask. I’ll tell you straight up if we need it.”

I get the sense that my business might actually be welcomed at Caesars, that the Pencil and the Suit aren’t just my new best pals, but that they’re imaginative enough to see how cooperating with the smart money could be beneficial to their bookmaking operation.