vpFREE2 Forums

Gambling With An Edge-Feb 24th-Michael Konik

#1

Frank, I see Konik is going to be your guest on the Feb 24th show. I've read three books by Michael Konik. He's one of my favorite writers. He was the gambling writer for Cigar Afficianado Magazine for several years. Two of the books I've read, "The Man with the $100,000 Breasts" and "Telling Lies and Getting Paid" are collections of his Cigar Afficianado articles. They were very interesting books indeed.

I read "The Smart Money" when it first came out in 2006. I had no idea then who the guy was that Konik was working for, (the guy running the sports betting computer group)making those big time sports bets. But I think the cat is out of the bag now. I think it was Billy Walters, an old time golf hustler, poker player, bookie.

Billy Walters appeared on 60 minutes this past January 16th. If I could I would post a link to the Billy Walters segment, but I'm pretty dumb when it comes to that sort of thing. Maybe someone else could post the link. Anyways, I think you and Bob should take a look at it before you interview Konik.

P.S. The road trip is starting out rough. But it's just a matter of time. Show me the money, honey. Good luck.

#2

Billy Walters 60 Minutes video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVQDHOyi9MU

ยทยทยท

-------Original Message-------

From: Mickey
Date: 2/18/2011 10:25:58 AM
To: vpFREE@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [vpFREE] Gambling With An Edge-Feb 24th-Michael Konik

Frank, I see Konik is going to be your guest on the Feb 24th show. I've read
three books by Michael Konik. He's one of my favorite writers. He was the
gambling writer for Cigar Afficianado Magazine for several years. Two of the
books I've read, "The Man with the $100,000 Breasts" and "Telling Lies and
Getting Paid" are collections of his Cigar Afficianado articles. They were
very interesting books indeed.

I read "The Smart Money" when it first came out in 2006. I had no idea then
who the guy was that Konik was working for, (the guy running the sports
betting computer group)making those big time sports bets. But I think the
cat is out of the bag now. I think it was Billy Walters, an old time golf
hustler, poker player, bookie.

Billy Walters appeared on 60 minutes this past January 16th. If I could I
would post a link to the Billy Walters segment, but I'm pretty dumb when it
comes to that sort of thing. Maybe someone else could post the link. Anyways
I think you and Bob should take a look at it before you interview Konik.

P.S. The road trip is starting out rough. But it's just a matter of time.
Show me the money, honey. Good luck.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

#3

Thanks, Seussman for posting the 60 Minutes link. I have another link to an article written by Ian Thomsen, a senior writer for Sports Illustrated, telling the story of the computer group. It's a rather lenghy article.

The chapter called "The Computer Wizard" tells how it got started. It turns out that there wasn't a team of programmers crunching the numbers. It all started with a Michael Kent, a brilliant mathematician for Westinghouse back in the seventies. He wrote a program to statistically analyze the strengths and weaknesses of his company softball team and fed it into Westinghouse computers. His teammates loved it but there was no practical application for the information.

Kent moved into college football. Once he thought his program was good enough he started making bets with local bookies in Pittsburgh. He started making money. He quit his job and moved to Las Vegas in 1979 and started making his bets there. He grew very paranoid of the daily task of moving large sums of money into and out of the books.

He got introduced to a Dr. Ivan Mindlin, a not so sharp sportsbettor, but world class at manipulating people. Kent moved his family in on the operation and struck a deal with Mindlin. Kent would be left alone to do the computer work and Mindlin would move the money in and out of the books for a 50/50 split.

Kent, isolated from the hustlers of Las Vegas, thought that he and his family, Mindlin, and just a few others were the extent of the Computer Group. For all his mathematical brilliance Kent was extremely naive, just no street smarts at all.

There was no way in hell a manipulator like Mindlin was gonna keep the information under his hat. It was just way to valuable to him to cut others in on the information, of course, unbeknownst to Kent. Over the years hustlers grew rich on Kent's informaton. Kent made only a small fraction of what they made. It's like Billy Walters said in the 60 minutes interview "You're either the hustler or the hustled."

http://www.offshorebettor.com/images/COMPUTER.htm

If you have any trouble with the link let me know.

#4

Wow great stuff guys. We'll be sure to incorporate this into the interview. What you all are going to be getting on next Thursday's show is two gambling book authors interviewing two gambling book authors, who's books we have read cover to cover. It's what we should be best at and why we started the show.

It is our intention to make such interviews the focus of our show, and become the preeminent reviewers for such material on the planet.

We hope you won't be disappointed.

~FK

#5

In his writing Michael Konik had nothing good to say about the offshore sportsbooks. He was involved with them at a time when so many people were gettting stiffed for their money by books shutting down and not paying off. Here's an insider's account of what happened.

http://pregame.com/forums/blogs/johnny-detroit/archive/2011/01/28/sportsbook-industry-view-from-the-inside.aspx