New "Insider" Column: NFL Week 15 Picks

By Pauly
San Francisco, CA


"Hey guys, I got this great stock tip... ever hear of Zynga?"
It's time to pimp my latest column for Wicked Chops Insider. I'm writing about sportsbetting and shared my picks for Week 15 of the NFL season. Just a heads-up, Insider is a paywall site, but gosh darn it... I'm worth it.

Here's the link: Dr. Pauly's Picks - NFL Week 15.

I almost had a perfect Week 14 going 4-1 with my selections. I'm sure I'm gonna jinx myself by saying this, but the "Step into the Teaser" picks have been 3-0 so far this year.

Also, I have to commend F Train on his stellar piece on Insider capturing The Rise and Fall of Ray Bitar. If I were to pick a Top 10 piece for poker writing in 2011, F Train's article would definitely make my list.

New "Insider" Column: NFL Week 13 Picks

By Pauly
San Francisco, CA

I wrote another column for Wicked Chops Insider. The topic? NFL and sports betting. I'm divulging my Week 13 NFL picks including a tip I got from a chicken in Chinatown. Yes, a chicken.


I'm also putting my money where my mouth is and betting my picks in Las Vegas this weekend. Yep, I'm heading to Vegas this weekend for the 8th annual Holiday Classic otherwise known as the #WPBT -- a gathering of poker bloggers that spawned out of an annual trip to Vegas with my brother. I'm surprised that the group is still going strong, but then again, I'm not because that's a testament to the cool people involved that I've met over the last eight years. Sure, blogs have become dinosaurs in the nebulous social media universe and we can't play online poker together anymore, but that is not going to deter 50 or so people from converging on Sin City for a weekend of debauchery. Man, eight years? Has it been that long? It's been a wild ride for sure.

New "Insider" Column: NFL Week 11 Picks

By Pauly
San Francisco, CA


It's a dawn of a new age. I'm now a contributor to Wicked Chops Insider and will be providing weekly picks in NFL games for the rest of the season.

Check out my Week 11 NFL picks for what teams I'm backing on Sunday, and it also includes my pick for tonight's Thursday Night Football match up between the NY Jets and the Denver Broncos.

Just a heads-up... if you didn't know, Wicked Chops Insider is a paywall site and you're going to have to sign-up for a monthly or yearly membership if you want to see my picks and gain access to all of Insider content.

For a mere $25 (annual) investment, signing up for Insider is a sweet deal to gain privy access to long-form articles on various topics in the poker world and gaming industry. Toss in my football picks, and you're getting tremendous value. You'll know in a couple of weeks whether I know my shit, or if I'm a mush. Either way, you'll know if you should tail my picks, or fade them!

Click here to register for an Insider account.

And you can catch a sneak preview of my first column... Pauly's Picks: NFL Week 11.

Good luck. Godspeed.

The Degen Market

By Pauly
San Francisco, CA

A slanted photo of a bloody Al Pacino in his role of Tony Montana from Scarface hung high up on the wall above the check-out counter. The weathered photo sat inside a plastic cover, like one you'd use to protect a comic book. Pacino, adorned in a pinstripe suit, held a machine gun in his right hand.


The photo is hung so high up on the wall, it's almost at the ceiling. Pacino hovers over the top shelf, where the "expensive" booze was stored -- mostly a couple of dusty bottles of Patron and one bottle of Johnnie Walker Red. I couldn't figure out if the photo was an homage to the owner's favorite fictional character, or if he left it there as a message to would-be robbers. Maybe he was bragging about being a fourth-rate drug dealer? After all,no one believed he was actually paying rent on a corner store in Pacific Heights by inflating the price of cigarettes and selling cheap wine that might cause unexplained bouts of blindness. The owner had to be doing something shady -- either laundering money for a criminal enterprise like an off-shore online casino or using the store as a front to move a significant amount of weight of an illegal white powdery substance that's none of my fucking business.

Above one of the four clear-doored refrigerators that lined the wall, another photo inside a plastic cover where the overpriced generic milk and orange juice were on display. Shaquille O'Neil, grinning ear to ear, stood next to the store owner. Both of them wore snazzy suits. By the looks of it, the photo was at least a decade old, when Shaq first arrived in Los Angeles to play for the Lakers. Plus the owner looked much younger and had significantly more hair then. He was actually smiling. In the two or so months I lived around the corner I never saw him even smirk. He was the type of guy who woke up with a scowl on his face and he only grew angrier throughout the day.

It was obvious that the bodega owner's two idols were Shaq and Tony Montana. It could've been a lot worse, like Kobe Bryant and Charlie Sheen.

* * *
Growing up in NYC, I was spoiled with the convenience of a local neighborhood bodega. When I lived in Las Vegas, I missed bodegas the most because Vegas neighborhoods, a few miles away from the casinos on The Strip, are so spread out that it's impossible to walk anywhere, besides, it's always 110 fucking degrees outside. I didn't have an authentic bodega experience in Los Angeles because big business muscled out all of the immigrant-owned stores and replaced with a low-frill, generic version known as 7-11. Sure we had a 24-hour one three blocks away, but a homeless guy was camped out in front and if you wanted to buy anything, you had to pass by the puke-inducing grey meat-like tubes roasting on some sort of grill contraption next to the cash register.

I moved to San Francisco a couple of months ago and realized the corner bodegas are essentially liquor stores that also cigarettes, condoms, soft drinks, and junk food. Yeah, you can buy hard liquor and wine in bodegas here. In NYC, you could buy a six pack at a bodega, but you could only buy hooch at a liquor store. And in case you were wondering, the 7-11 around the corner from me in the Slums of Beverly Hills didn't even sell beer or wine.

A couple of bodegas are located within walking distance of my house. The closest one is something that we call the Degen Market. True story. My roommate Halli gave it its nickname because the owner is a degenerate gambler.

Halli refuses to buy anything in the store after she got into a verbal joust with the owner. He was fretting over the score in a baseball game while shouting into the phone (presumably to his bookie). All she wanted to do was buy a pack of smokes and get the hell out of what she described as "the creepiest store north of the Mission." But the owner, originally born in Jordan, was more focused on bitching about his bad beat in mixture of Arabic and baseball lingo than ringing up a pack of of cigarettes.

During her self-imposed ban of the Degen Market, she'd walk a couple of extra blocks to a different bodega. There's one with a beautiful new awning and colorful murals on the walls outside the store. It's better lit, smells much nicer and has plastic baskets to put your fruit and other "real" food items in. The nice corner store even had a deli counter and that owner was more jovial and shot the shit with you while he made sandwiches. He had an extensive selection of cheap and expensive wines and almost thirty different kinds of beer.

It was a totally different scene a few blocks away in the Degen Market where the only bottles of wine were in jugs or cardboard boxes. The selection of booze was sparse compared to the average bodega. The primary liquor shelf was stocked with cheap spirits -- lots of Smirnoff products and a brand of Caribbean rum that I never heard of before.

The Degen Market is an anomaly for the yuppie neighborhood that had a smattering of hipsters and neo-faux-hippies (a.k.a. Trustafarians). You know the types -- the elite one-percenters who felt like they were doing their civic duty by voting for Obama. On any given moment, you'll find someone pushing an uber-expensive German-made baby stroller that cost more than the blue book value on your car. Every sixty seconds, three women in black yoga pants stroll down the street with a tightly, rolled-up mat tucked under their arm.

The Degen Market is also on the same block as a couple of antique stores and a pet spa designed especially for the spoiled pets of Pacific Heights that prescription-pill riddled wives of hedge fund managers bring in once a week for a full-on treatment, which transform their canines into spiffy and pristine ornaments. You don't want the neighbors to think you have a mangy dog, which is a dead giveaway for subversive anti-capitalist activity. Otherwise, the plutocrats will rat you out to Homeland Security for being a pinko-commie hash-head who spends their weekends downtown in front of the San Francisco branch of the Federal Reserve building with wooked-out anarchists angrily chanting for the end of the corporate welfare state.

* * *
I've been hoarding water. It's a little quirk that I've picked up ever since I moved to California. It's the fatalist in me. I figured I can survive a short-term emergency situation like an earthquake or tsunami with a shotgun and water. If it's only a temporary breakdown in the system, then I can successfully ride our riots and looting with a Mossberg at my side. The water is to live on, the shotgun is to keep a million or so unprepared zombies away from my water stash and my girlfriend. If by somehow the Bay Area is hit with an 8.0 magnitude quake or higher and I somehow survive the damage, then I'll have to walk out of the city several miles to a safe house. Blackjack insurance might be a stupid bet in any casino, but I'm gonna need a shotgun and/or a samurai sword to get the fuck out of dodge if/when the shit hits the fan.

I learned it's never foolish to prepare for a worst-case scenario -- especially when you live in city prone to natural disasters. I was convinced that I was not crazy after watching footage of post-apocalyptic New Orleans after Katrina blew the roof off the Superdome and thousands of refuges turned the football stadium into a real-life rendition of Lord of the Flies with walls covered in splattered blood and fecal matter.

I think the owner of the Degen Market is suspicious that I have been buying out large quantities of his bottled water. He hasn't said anything... yet.

* * *
The massive freezer in front of the checkout counter looked like it had not been opened in a few months, maybe even a few years. The ice cream inside was years past its expiration date. All you had to do was take one glimpse at the sketchy-looking freezer, and you'd know instantly that you didn't want anything inside.

That, of course, made me suspicious and curious. What was really in the freezer? If I were to hide something in plain sight, I'd do it in an obvious spot where no one would want to look. For example a large sum of cash, a severed head, or some sort of contraband hidden snugly underneath a couple of bruised cartons of Häagen-Dazs ice cream. Didn't they go out of business a few years ago?

The Degen Market looks like it was hit with a first wave of hysterical people during an natural disaster. Most of the shelves were barren, save a few random canned items and microwaved popcorn that no one deemed a necessity during a potential apocalyptic situation.

Two TVs sat on top of the fridges and a closed-circuit screen was anchored to the ceiling. I had seen enough episodes of The Wire to wonder if the FBI, CIA, NSA, DIA, or DEA had tapped into his surveillance cameras to monitor the activity at his store. The more I thought about it, the more paranoid I got.

You could view the security cameras and both TVs while sitting behind the check-out desk. During the days, an old woman watched the news and talked on the phone. When the owner was minding the store, he always had on a different sporting event on one, if not both of the TVs. His viewing was not limited to American sports. I caught different European soccer matches and even one match that included two teams from the Middle East. The writing at the bottom of the screen was in Arabic. I tried to make small talk.

"Who's playing?"

"Shabab Al Ordon and Al Wehdat."

"So who do you have?"

"Al Wehdat."

I looked up at the screen completely puzzled at which team was which. I pretended to know who was who and nodded. "Ah, well good luck in the future."

* * *
The owner was not a drug dealer. He was not a money launderer. He was a run of the mill broke dick. Halli said that she's seen the owner play poker at one of the local card rooms just outside San Francisco. Ah, he's living the American Dream... leave an oppressive Middle East country, work your ass off to buy your own small business, drive around in a Detroit-made convertible, and then at the end of the day, empty out the cash register and drive to the closest casino to test your acumen at a card game against crazy Asian gamblers. Only in America.

As if being a degen sports bettor wasn't enough, he also had the fever for poker. If he had any skill, he'd be able to siphon off enough chips at the cash game tables to cover his sports betting loses, but the poker gods don't shine any love on him at all. Much like the sports betting gods, his prayers often go unheard and always unanswered. No wonder the owner sits behind the counter with a sullen grimace, like a man plotting revenge on the neighborhood bully who lit his puppy on fire.

I hatched a plan. By week 2 of the NFL season, I'd be booking bets for the owner. By the end of week 8, he'd lose so much money that I could go down to the store at any time and take anything off the shelf -- including the Patron. Is that what anyone wants in life? The freedom and power to walk into a store and take something without paying. Anyone can buy something with fiat currency. It takes a special circumstance to wield the sort of power like a druglord like Tony Montana or the hooligans from Goodfellas, and walk onto another man's property and take anything they want.

Of course, the main goal was to own the pink slip on his car by the end of the year and eventually own the store outright before the Superbowl.

What would I do with a bodega? I have no fucking clue, but the idea was so fucking crazy that I had to give it a shot.

And no. I didn't think about losing. If Las Vegas taught me anything it's that the house always wins. Always. Degenerate sports bettors will always be who they are. It's in their DNA. They've been conditioned by society to think that chumps are the working stiffs, and that they are the ones really living on the edge. No matter how much they win, they'll eventually donk it back off. The house always wins. Casino owners pad their pockets with every day addictions. It might take a couple of weeks, it might take a couple of years, but over the long haul, it's nearly impossible to out run the juice laying 11/10. Shit, it's a tough battle even if you're getting reduced rake at certain online sportsbooks. Bottom line it's a daunting task to remain a winning sports bettor over time.

Investing isn't that easy. If it were, the guys down on Wall Street wouldn't have to bend the elasticity of rules or put politicians in power to create new rules to make their crimes "legal." The financial services industry is so corrupt that very few people think twice about breaking so many rules to make a buck, and if by chance their outrageous bets shit the bed, then can simply extort ask the government for handouts (at taxpayers' expense) when they eventually go busto.

But grinding out an income as a bookie? As the saying goes, "It's a hard way to make an easy living."

Superstitions, Jinxes, and River Rats

By Pauly
San Francisco, CA

I'm always afraid to write about baseball because I don't want to be a jinx. No one wants to be a jinx and become a social outcast and pariah, like the weird kid in grammar school who everyone avoided at lunch time because he smelled like cat piss.

Baseball is a game wrapped in superstitions, jinxes, rituals. Babe Ruth was an unlanced boil on the collective arses of New Englanders for almost a century. Even Red Sox third baseman Wade Boggs ate fried chicken before every game and if he didn't he was doomed to go 0-5 at the plate, so he made sure he ate fried chicken -- no matter what. During winning streaks, players won't wash their uniforms or socks. Players won't step on the foul lines when running off the field. And everyone in the dugout doesn't even talk about or recognize a no-hitter when it's happening.

Superstitions are utterly stupid, because once you give in to a superstition, your life becomes ruined because you become enslaved by your biggest fears of breaking whatever ritual you created to make yourself feel less anxious. Yet, I only adhere to one -- I never carry around $50 bills. Grubby told me about it in 2004 when I first got into playing poker in casinos. Since then I refuse to touch $50s and if one crosses my path, I get rid of it as soon as possible.

I used to have another ritual which occurred whenever I traveled. A quick back story -- I have a recurring nightmare that I die in a plane crash -- so, to assuage my fears, I rap my closed right hand on the outside of the plane just above the doorway before I enter and I'm greeted by the flight attendants. I dunno when that ritual started, but I stopped doing it a couple of years ago. So if/when I die in a plane crash, I don't want that added extra pressure following me into the afterlife because I didn't quell any superstitions before I stepped onto the plane.

I'm supposed to smart enough to know that whatever I do will alter the future, as much as I'd like to think I can affect the outcome of a game or prevent a plane crash. Even though I know my actions, like writing about the Yankees on my blog, won't affect the game, I have been silent for a few weeks because I don't want to be bogged down with guilt that I jinxed the Yanks. No one wants to be a jinx.

As my buddy Joe Speaker proclaimed, "Jinxes are true. You and I and the American People know it's not true, but it really is."

Yeah, I don't want the jinx label, but I also won't adhere to any sports-related superstitions, which is why I still wear my Yankees visor backwards when they're in desperate need of a hit. Some cautious habits never die, even if it's a silly superstition. You know, hokey religions with light sabres and shit. Then again rally hats are waaaaaaay more inventive than that fucking insane cracked-up Rally Monkey that the L.A. Angels of Anaheim uses to fire up the crowd.

I hate to be known as a jinx among my sporting peers, because some of the most random people are slaves to superstitions, especially die-hard sports fans. Oh, and how can I forget about hard-core superstitious annoying-as-shit sports bettors?

I know, because I'm one who grows more and more superstitious and intense whenever there's sums of money on the line. Take this summer for example -- I was covering the WSOP in Las Vegas during the NBA playoffs leading up to the Finals against Miami. I had bet big on the Dallas Mavericks to win the entire Championship along with individual bets on each game they played en route to the title. I watched one game with AlCantHang at McFadden's Pub (formerly the Tilted Kilt) inside the Rio Casino. I never go to that joint anymore after the Tilted Kilt left, yet we had to watch the game there due to lack of space in the sportsbook and adjoining bar, which were packed with fans and bettors. Alas, I went to the pub with Al because we had no other alternative... yadda, yadda, yadda.... the Dallas Mavs came from behind wins (and covering the spread) in one of the most exhilarating games I had sweated in a very long time.

I made some good coin that day and thus, a new superstition was born. For the rest of the series, I wanted to watch every game with Al at McFadden's.


Sweating the NBA playoffs at McFadden's
with AlCantHang and Michele the Cougar
The one time we broke the streak and skipped McFadden's, the Mavs didn't cover (incidentally, when I watched Game 7 of the NHL playoffs with my colleague Lance, my bet on Vancouver shit the bed because Al wasn't with me!). As much as I know that neither myself, Al, or McFadden's will affect how many three pointers Dirk Nowitzki will drill or how many fouls the refs will call -- I still wanted to cover my ass and placate any potentially superstitions that induce a spike in sport betting anxiety. That means sometimes giving in to superstitions -- whether it's wearing a "rally cap" or watching a game in the same place with the same people.

I guess that's why I saved any baseball commentary for the infamous "NYC sports thread" -- an email thread with a small group of NYC sports fans that includes my brother, college buddy Jerry, and da Rooster, that has been running for few years now specializing in topics on all things sports in New York City -- lots of Yankees, Knicks and Jets chatter with a smattering of Miami Hurricanes football, hockey, boxing, trying to pick up Latina women on the subway, UFC, and English soccer.

Yesterday, if you polled the universe, I don't think not too many people had an inkling of faith in AJ Burnett. The locker room prankster is beloved among his teammates, but he's struggled down the stretch. AJ was scheduled to take the mound in Game 4 against the Detroit Tigers with the Yankees down 2-1 in a five-game series , and on the verge of being eliminated from the playoffs. All hopes rested upon the shoulders (more so the right arm of their weakest link in the chain) of AJ, who once achieved perfection ten years ago when he tossed a no-hitter, but his best days were way behind him. As a degen gambler, I frequently bet the OVER (combined run totals) in AJ's games and never dared betting on the Yanks whenever it was his turn in the rotation. I had no faith in him during the season and had even less confidence in the playoffs.

Even my mother, who is nothing close to being a religious person, knew the writing was on the wall with AJ on the slate to pitch. She all but declared the Yankees dead on arrival at the start of Game 4 and sent me a text message stating the only hope the Yanks had was to "pray for them."

Wow. When a native of the Bronx is looking for spiritual help, you know it's a bleak.

That text stunned me. My mother had not-so-secret disdain for AJ Burnett. I'd estimate that 75% of the text messages she sent me over the last two years occurred on days when AJ pitched and usually resembled something like... "AJ sucks."

No one had confidence in AJ. The bookies in Vegas set the line with Yankees as the dog. Yanks fans, even the most diehards, had little to no faith in AJ. We all prepared for the worst,. The bookies. My mother. Everyone calling into the Mike and the Mad Dog radio show. The guys in my email thread. Even me.

The wiseguys in Vegas bet the Yankees, because they love betting dogs in the playoffs, especially on a veteran team that was on the brink of elimination. Even with AJ on the mound, they bet the Yankees anyway. That takes huge balls from my perspective as a fan -- but they viewed the situation differently -- AJ would be on a short leash and Girardi would yank him before the game got really ugly, and at some point it would come down to the Tigers bullpen holding off an offensive surge from the Yanks in the late innings. I had a similar outlook, which I told my brother yesterday morning, that I had a feeling that AJ would get rocked early on and eventually get yanked in the second inning after giving up two runs, before Phil Hughes put out the fire and pitched five solid innings in relief as Yanks rallied and came from behind to win 7-4.


Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.

Curtis Granderson bailed out AJ Burnett big time with the bases loaded. If Granderson doesn't catch up and chase it down that fly ball for the crucial third out to thwart a Tigers rally in the first inning, then the Yanks are looking at a deficit of 2-0 or potentially 3-0. At that point, the lynch mob would start chanting AJ's name and he'd be dead by the seventh inning stretch.

Right place, right time. Or as Yogi Berra succinctly stated -- "Hit 'em where they ain't."

But the ain't in that instance was Granderson on his horse making the the first of two sensational catches during his defensive patrol of centerfield (his second catch fro the 6th inning is pictured above). Granderson's outstanding catches symbolized the Yankees season, because he bailed them out in more ways than they'll ever know. Even if the Yanks lose game 5, Granderson put them in a position to advance to the next round.

After Granderson's first inning heroics, AJ Burnett should name his next kid after Granderson, or buy him a Lexus for Christmas, or pick up the tab to steak dinners every time they're on the road, because if Grandy doesn't make that catch in the first inning, then AJ Burnett gets whacked. He'd go missing for a few weeks, before his corpse was found floating in the East River, with chunks of his bloated face eaten up by river rats.

Hot Sauce

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA


I was bored, so I put in the bet.

Sunday morning. I sat in the well-lit living room of what will soon be my apartment in San Francisco. My girlfriend was still sleeping and I had the entire place to myself. I sunk into the couch and tried to imagine what football season would be like in the new flat. One of the benefits of the narrow Victorian architecture was an elongated hallway, which ran the entire length of the building. Lots of space to pace when sweating bets.

The middle of August is one of the slowest time of the year for degenerates in American professional sports. The preseason football games had yet to begin and I craved a taste for action. Any action. I had not wagered on sports since I left Las Vegas. Although I fled Vegas as fast as I could, I logged a decent summer playing cash games (the Pokerati mixed game at the Palms was a blessing), but I made a killing riding the Mavericks' streak in the NBA playoffs and also fading the public's sentiment for the Heat in the Finals. I also dabbled in baseball courtesy of a system from AlCantHang, but that was all before the All Star break, before variance eventually caught up to us. By middle of the WSOP, I stopped visiting the sportsbook windows and sat on my NBA profit, which I eventually used to fund the move (from Los Angeles to San Francisco), and pay for trips to Colorado and Chicago.

A little taste.

I flipped through the cable stations and tried to familiarize myself with the channels. I'm not much of a TV junkie anymore, aside from watching a few reality shows about addictions (Hoarders and Intervention). I watch a shit ton of sports, but probably only watch about 50% of sports on actual TV with my laptop(s) picking up the rest of the slack. I have a theory that the ability to watch almost any sporting event online increases the chances of me betting on it.

I'm not addicted to the deviancy of betting to win money. Rather, I prefer the physical and visceral attributes of betting on sports which can only be achieved by watching the event as it unfolds in real time. I've sweated games via radio and constantly refreshing Gamecast -- and even those experiences don't compare to the physical stimulation I get when watching a game I bet on.

Then again, nothing can be more boring in life than watching two teams you don't care about. That's why fantasy sports added another reason to watch meaningless games. The primary reason I'm not that into soccer is that I maintain my distance to the sport because I'm afraid that if I catch the bug... then I'd get completely hooked on a sport that is always on. Soccer (er, football) is the most played sport on the planet (except pocket pool), so that means there's always a game on at any given time, and someone with a propensity to bet on sports like myself would lose his entire life savings if I showed any interest into soccer. As is, I only bet during the World Cup (I made a killing last year betting Spain as per a tip from Benjo) and whenever I'm hanging out with Brits for an extended amount of time and I tail their picks.

I love any sports you can wager on. Otherwise, if I'm forced to watch two random teams or a random sporting contest, then I find it utterly boring and completely meaningless. Ah, that's why I love proposition wagering because it's the gambler's hot sauce. Sprinkle it anywhere, and you have an extra spicy time -- from betting on where flies will land on a pile of shit, to betting on which bags come out first at airport baggage claim, to betting on the WNBA.

Hot sauce.

Anyway, so I feel your pain if you don't like sports, or only have a passion for a particular sport and you get stuck sweating games because your friends/family happens to love a different sport.

Example... the Pittsburgh Pirates. It was early in the baseball season and I was sweating a game on my girlfriend's iPad. She had no clue, but I bought an app with her credit card that allowed me to stream MLB.tv games. I got a tip on the Pirates, so I bet them and sweated the game. They were ahead until their bullpen blew it in late innings. I shot a text to Mean Gene, a Pittsburgh resident, about the demise of his lowly Pirates. He wrote back that he knew I had bet on the game because "why the hell would a Yankees fan, who was living in LA, sweat a Pirates game unless he had money on it."

Mean Gene is a smart dude. But he understands hot sauce.

Sorry for the tangent... let's return to the original flashback to a sunny Sunday morning in San Francisco. I sunk into the couch and flipped through the cable TV until I came across the San Francisco Giants pre-game show. Ah, yes...fear the beard. I had a flight to catch later that evening and was just killing time before I went to the airport. I did what any sensible human did on a Sunday morning -- I scorned religious service and bet on the Giants. When in Rome...

The Giants prevailed and I won my first bet since I left Vegas. I was more thrilled that the three hours I wasted watching a Giants game was worth the investment. But that small bet was just be the beginning of a remarkable streak. I started off 1-0 with the Giants bet and ten days later, I ran up my bankroll to new heights after a 13-3 clip.

I stuck to a few basics and rode two hot teams -- Milwaukee and NY Yankees. Holy shit, the Brew Crew has been on fire and I've managed to step off the gas on the rare nights they lost. I also faded a couple of struggling teams -- the Mets and the Twins. Sounds so simple, but at this point in the lengthy baseball season, it gets hot as balls in August and teams with no chance give up and go into zombie mode. So when a demoralized team gets behind early, they have no fight in them and practically concede a loss. Timing and psychology are just as important as who takes the mound at this point in the season.

I know that by writing about a streak will thereby end said streak, which is cool because I'm pulling the plug on the baseball betting for a while (maybe for the entire regular season). I strengthened my roll just in time for the NFL season and in the meantime, I'm shifting back into day trading mode. Yeah, without legalized online poker and scant offerings as a poker writer, my options to earn a living wage are slim to none. I dabbled in day trading and investing in commodities earlier in the year and had a nice score in silver, but stopped when I moved to Vegas for the WSOP. Now that my summer vacation is almost over, I've been slipping back into a weird routine of going to bed early to wake up at the crack of ass to monitor the markets. Trading hours on the West Coast are a fucking bitch.

I'm trying to snag one last score before I get out of the game and ride out the financial shit storm. Don't all crooks attempt "one last score" in heist movies before they get sucked into a suicide mission?

The summer slowly fades and baseball becomes an afterthought to the looming football season. Without online poker giving everyone a steady fix, I have a feeling that local bookies are going to make a killing in the upcoming months. If you're looking for hot sauce and don't live in Vegas, not too many people will be slinging it these days.

2011 WSOP - Day 22: Slowdown, Rocky Mountain High, and Chau Giang Confirmed Alien

By Pauly
Las Vegas, NV

Some days, you need to ease off the pedal.

The braintrust WSOP were well aware of the craziness of the seven-week fiesta of poker when they concocted the schedule. This weekend marked the mid-way point of the preliminaries. In sports terminology, I likened it to the middle section of a regular season (with the Main Event being the "playoffs").

Last week was overwhelming even for a veteran reporter. With the hard-stop times, we had seven events running at once. Even all the Adderall in Las Vegas couldn't jack me up enough to cover everything. That's why I often spend a couple of days without even peeking into the Pavilion, where all of the Day 1s take place. Heck, sometimes I don't have enough time to check out all of the Day 2s inside the Amazon Ballroom. Alas, such is the 2011 WSOP. It's bigger than ever, but it's impossible to cover everything.

I tried not to freak out due to the hectic schedule. It's a daunting task and instead of pulling out what little hair I had on my head, I too a Zen-like approach and covered stuff as it happened. My goal this summer was to write a few good pieces a week, have fun, and make some money gambling -- whether it's sportsbetting or actually playing cards. As much as I spend several weeks in Vegas every summer, I play a lot less poker than you think. Sure, we might fart around the Pai Gow tables, but that's more blowing off steam and getting free drinks for $1 tip. I simply don't have the time to grind it out at the poker tables when my time could be better allocated for sleep or writing. This year, I made the conscious decision to add more gambling to my daily regimen.


I finished off the NBA playoffs with a profitable run hammering away at the Dallas Mavs. I pissed away $500 on the damn Vancouver Canucks, and I was stewing with ire, so much so, I could have torched a car and tussled with riot police. But right now, I'm in the middle of a heater betting on baseball courtesy of my new baseball tout -- AlCantHang. The guy knows Marlboros, SoCo, meat products, and baseball. We're not betting everything -- only when something pops up on Al's radar. He's a man with many vices, but sportsbetting is not one of them, so when points out a match up with value -- I jump all over it. So far, so good.

Our next step into building a baseball betting syndicate is trying to program KevMath to predict over/under totals for the second half of the season, and as soon as his internal AI interface figures out trends, we're gonna rake in some serious cheddar betting on baseball. Yes, yes, yes... onlytotal d egens bet on baseball, but we're not degening it up. Rather, we're investing.

That sounded very convincing, even I bought it. By the way, I know a Ponzi scheme I can get you into. Just drop off a $10,000 check to the press box and we'll happily invest it for you in derivatives and other mortgage-backed securities.

Sorry for the tangent...

So the last two days have been very calm at the WSOP, all things considered, because only four events were running. Refreshing for sure, to be able to catch a breath. One floor guy mentioned it was rather boring because he was used to running around like a chicken on crack with its head cut off. It's at this point of the WSOP when people hit the wall (a second or third time), and people lose their shit, whether it's staff, players, or even media. The WSOP is like climbing a mountain. Most people don't make it to the top, but the most tragic stories are the ones who reach the summit, but die on their way down.

Me? I embraced the slow Tuesday and slowly shrugged off my hangover. In the late afternoon, I hung out with AlCantHang in the sportsbook sweating our bet on the Colorado Rockies. Once that game was over, I sweated the 5K PLO 6-handed event which still had several of the top PLO players in the game. One table was a true table of death -- Chris Moorman, durrrr, Peter Jetten, Devilfish, and Jason Mercier. I kinda wished I could see the hole cards in that game.

I wandered around the start of the $10,000 HORSE Championship. My friend Shirley was playing and she had a rough table. My other bud, Jesse Martin, was in the event. He shared this tweet about HORSE history: "Mori Eskandani explains that HORSE was invented when Archie Karas said 'Add Razz and I'll play,' to the regular SHOE game."

Speaking of Mori, he was playing along with Archie Karas.

Chau Giang was wandering around laughing his ass off at random stuff, mostly the fact that Phil Laak was seated to his right and reading poker books. He thumbed through one book about Omaha 8, while that game was being played.

"I don't know how to play this Omaha stuff," he said. "I need all the help I can get."

Chau was in rare form. According to Jimmy Fricke, Chau walked around in a hoodie -- which made him look like E.T. Yes, it's true. Chau Giang phone home.

I'm convinced that many of the most successful people on Earth are aliens or alien hybrids. I already have proof that KevMath is a cyborg. The Micros swear that Erik Seidel is one as well. I've had run-ins with dozens of Pai Gow dealers that are bots. But aliens? They all flock to Sin City and many of them are scattered over the WSOP. Among my suspected list of aliens is Chau Giang, Phil Laak, Mickey Appleman, Robert Williamson, and Tom Dwan.

When I was done alien hunting in the 10K, I headed to the Palms poker room to play in Dan Michalski's special Pokerati mixed game (half-PLO and half-NL). I've turned a small profit in the game over the last few weeks and it's really more about having fun, drinking, and socializing then trying to make some big bucks. Fun times for sure.

Sometimes you lose focus in life and worry too much about work and other petty bullshit. I definitely tweaked my mission statement this summer to incorporate more time away from the Rio hanging out in different parts of Las Vegas. The WSOP experience is not limited to just the Rio. Last Monday, for example, I headed downtown to Binion's for an old school night of steaks and poker with some friends. And you've already read about my hijinks from Monday night at the Gold Coast. Some of these moments would never have been possible if I just stayed at the Rio for 18 hours a day watching every tournament at the WSOP. I'm sure a few grumpy readers are pissed I'm not live blogging stuff anymore. As one colleague pointed out, "You're clearly accumulating new material for the sequel to Lost Vegas."

Hmmm... I never thought of that before. Could be a good idea.

* * *
That's it. For a quickie wrap, head over to RISE Poker and check out my WSOP Day 22 Recap.

Follow @taopauly for Twitter updates throughout the day.

Also, help support indie writers and buy my books: Lost Vegas: The Redneck Riviera, Existentialist Conversations with Strippers and the World Series of Poker, and my recently released novel, Jack Tripper Stole My Dog. Both are also available for Kindles and iPads.

Black Monday: Another Round of DOJ Indictments; Shutdowns Include Doyle's Room, TruePoker, Bookmaker.com, BetEd, and FunTimeBingo

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA


Hat tip to Kevin Mathers for the info on the latest round of indictments from the DOJ which targeted sportsbook, and in the process a few online poker rooms like Doyle's Roomwere nabbed as collateral damage. Here's the official press release.

The covert investigation is something out of The Wire or out of a Hollywood pitch meeting. The Feds (a joint task force with Homeland Security, IRS, and Customs Agents) created a fake payment processor, Linwood, and the online casinos, online poker rooms, and sportsbooks approached them to do business. The Feds acquired a plethora of inside info during their two-year sting, which they used to build a case and bring down a new batch of online gaming sites.

Domain shutdowns on Monday included DoylesRoom.com, BookMaker.com, BetEd.com, TruePoker.com, 2Betsdi.com, Funtimebingo.com, Goldenarchcasino.com, Betmaker.com, Betgrandesports.com, and Betehorse.com.

BookMaker is one of the larger online sportsbooks in the sportsbetting industry. I don't have an account there, but I had one at BetEd. Just last week I had the VIP manager offering me an unbelievable bonus to fund my account.

The even nabbed a Keno and bingo site. Professional Keno Player Neil Fontent just lost his sponsorship and I know he's pissed. And how about all those grandmas sitting at home and hopped up on pharmies? What are they gonna do now without Funtimebingo.com?

By the way, Doyle Brunson left Doyle's Room recently. The Godfather bailed before the shitstorm. Good timing for Dolly, eh? Or did he get tipped off ahead of time?

Will there be more indictments to come? Is this the end of everyone who ran over and migrated their online rolls to the Merge network? Is this the Black Friday for the sportsbetting world, or is this just one of many more shakeups in the online gaming world?

* * *
I'm starting a running link dump as info comes forth, feel free to drop links into the comments....

First of all, CrazyMarco and gang at QuadJacks Radio are broadcasting live about the breaking news of the second wave of indictments. Listen here.

Gambling web sites, international bank accounts seized in federal sting. (The Republic)

Online poker "payment processor" admits U.S. charges. (Portfolio)

Baltimore feds target online gambling. (Baltimore Sun)

More Domains Seized. (Subject Poker)

Inside the Indictments and Inside the Press Release (Subject Poker)

Black Friday continues-True Poker and Bookmaker indictments 5/23/11. (2+2)

Feds Seize More Online Gambling Websites (G911)

The Ghost Hand: Maryland law enforcers aim to take the pot by secretly sitting at the online gambling table (Baltimore City Paper)

Black Monday? has a list of the laws violated by the sites in question and links to the indictments. (Pokerati)

Linwood Affidavit. (Scribd)

Ten More Sites Seized in New Poker-Related Indictments (Bluff)

Thanks again to KevMath for his research assistance.

Stay tuned for more info...

Sportsbetting Podcasts: Trap Games, Blackjack Fallacies, Conquering Risk, and Syndicate Betting

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA


I listen to a bunch of spotsbetting podcasts, but these days I'm enjoying the gang at PreGame.com the best. They recorded several last week that touched on topics ranging from blackjack, to the Kelly Criterion, to the UIEGA, and of course my favorite topic -- what really goes behind the scenes in the sportsbetting world.

RJ Bell and his crew have been doing a kick ass job at PreGame, so I wanted to give them props for their hard work by mentioning a few gems to you that I enjoyed recently.....

Betting Dork: Interviewing Elihu Feustel, the author of "Conquering Risk: Attacking Vegas and Wall Street" with Gil and Elihu Feustel

Betting Dork: Interviewing Jeffrey Ma from the original MIT Blackjack team with Gil and Jeffrey Ma

This Week in Sports Betting: Anatomy of a Trap Game with RJ Bell and Vegas Runner

This Week in Sports Betting: Syndicate Betting with RJ Bell and Philly Godfather

The first podcast with author Elihu Feustel was amazing because he shared a few juicy stories about a couple of hairy situations with sportsbooks, like the time Pinnacle canceled his multi-team teaser on a card of NFL pre-season games, and how he butted heads with several sportsbooks at Harrah's properties. Gil and Elihu also chatted a bit about the UIGEA toward the end of the Betting Dork episode.

The second podcast with Jeffrey Ma had a few enlightening moments, especially when he dispelled the myths about blackjack and his interesting take on the sports betting market.

My favorite podcasts with RJ Bell are the ones when wiseguys (like Philly Godfather and Vegas Runner) come on and give you a real and honest glimpse on the vagaries of the sportsbetting world. This week they shared some insight on the shadowy, yet sophisticated underworld of syndicate betting and how to avoid trap games (black holes for sports bettors). And yeah, I love the Ice Cube intro music... It Was A Good Day. Fitting anthem for sportsbettors in the postmodern era.

Oh, and just in case you missed it, check out Change100's This Week in Sportsbetting episode she recorded last month. I was invited by RJ to chat about Black Friday, but I was visiting Machu Picchu and couldn't make it so my better half, Change100, filled in for me as a guest and did a better job than I could explaining Black Friday fallout.

Hello Rock Bottom, My Old Friend

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA


I gave a friend of mine in London a tip on Cocoa futures earlier in the week. It'll be good for a quick pop if he wanted to gamble on a spike in cocoa prices. The political situation in the Ivory Coast has grown worse and worse every day. How bad has it gotten? Mercenaries are burning people alive and the French sent in troops. While the Anglo-American Junta are cockblocking Europe, Russia and China for control of the remaining oil reserves on the planet, the French want to make sure they have control of coffee and chocolate. The French have refined tastes. Us boorish Americans want to refine oil. Petrodollars are king.

Gold is too expensive for a small-time investor like me. Plus, I'm no Dan Shak. I am, however, a silver bug. My passion for the precious metal began as a hedge against a declining dollar. Silver has doubled in price in a year. I have long positions (there's my disclaimer) and since December, I've been telling everyone I know to do their own homework about silver, yet to be wary of all of the silver conspiracies and disinfo out there (but the Silver Bears are fucking hysterical though). Another colleague joked that if he was tailing a mutual friend's basketball picks, then he'd be able to buy silver, per my recommendation. Silver passed $40 and it's racing toward the all-time high when the Hunt Brothers attempted to corner the silver market in the 1980s. I've read about some projections that suggest it's going to the fucking moon (in the hundreds of dollars), but I'm targeting $45 by Memorial Day, $50 by July 4th, $60 by Labor Day, $70 by Halloween, and $80 by the holidays and over $100 this time next year.

Yeah... silver, cocoa and basketball.

As you know, I've been struggling with betting on baseball. It's hard to quit cold turkey, but I've re-focused my attention on basketball, which has always been my bread and butter much like the pick and roll. I had a decent Friday night and missed hitting a 3-team parlay with the Clippers. The fucking Clippers, the lowly Clippers, the red-headed step-child of the NBA. I heard whispers that the Maloofs want to move the Kings from Sacramento to Anaheim (I'm not even 40 yet, but I was about to type... I remember when I was a kid and I'd open up the newspaper to check the standings and back then the Kings were in Kansas City), which would put three teams in SoCal and the Clips would still be mooks of the NBA.

For Saturday, I swapped addictions. My girlfriend went out of town and all hell broke loose! Instead of betting on baseball, I dove head first into soccer (both British and French leagues), NASCAR, and golf. I've often joked that NASCAR is even more degen than baseball, and that I wouldn't hit rock bottom until I was betting on NASCAR.

Well... hello, Rock Bottom, my old friend...I've come to bet with you again, because the lines softly moving, left its point spread while I was sleeping, and the over/under that was planted in my brain, still remains, within the sound of silence.

I'm a half-step away from attending my first Gamblers Anonymous meeting after I pulled the trigger on a NASCAR bet. I took the keen advice of Buffalo66 (yes, he's from Buffalo and I know what you are thinking... 'what the hell would a Yankee know about NASCAR?'). B66 has been sharp with his NASCAR selections this year, so I decided to tail him for shits and giggles.

I'm an Ipswich fan only because a British colleague Simon (aka the Suffolk Punch) is a huge supporter of the Blue. I decided that I was going to get behind the Blue as well after Simon told me a bunch of former Ipswich players were extras on the sensational 1980s film Victory! starring Pele, Sly Stallone, and the greatest living actor... Michael Caine. I got into the spirit of Ipswich and started consuming Blue Hawaiian rum drinks and watched every single John Wark videos on YouTube. I needed a gambling fix after I gave up baseball, and figured soccer would be a dose of methadone to keep away the "shakes." I made a wager on Ipswich to beat Crystal Palace in an English League Championship match. I woke up at 6am to write for an hour before I sweated the game. And what a game it was... some teenager named Josh Carson scored two goals and Ipswich held on for a 2-1 victory. I can definitely get into this soccer, er... sorry, football fever.

I also bet on Benjo's hometown of Lille in a French league game. They were a favorite and I knew I could watch the match online. It's on in the background as I watch the Yankees-Red Sox game on mute. I can't stand listening to Joe Buck, who is Bob Costas Lite. If I want Bob Costas, I'll listen to Bob Costas, not some vanilla-flavored yes man.

When I lived in Atlanta, I religiously watched the Masters. Last year, I tuned into the freak show because it was Tiger's first major back after he cheated on his Scandi wife she found out on it, and she teed off on his face. But this year I needed incentive to watch the Masters, so I placed a prop bet on Tiger's third round. I'm pretty sure I'm betting with the sheeple on this one with a UNDER 70 bet, which means he's gonna shoot a 75 today. But I don't care... at least I'll feel as though I'm not wasting my time by listening to Jim Nantz's snooze-worthy commentary.

The soccer bets and the Tiger bet are simply tiding me over until the NBA games tip off. I'm going back to basics and fading the Washington Wizards on the road.

OK... so French soccer, British soccer, NASCAR, golf, and the NBA. Is there anything else I could bet on today that is not baseball? Wait, there's a college hockey game on right? Michigan vs. Duluth-Minnesota. Any one know anything about college hockey?

Down With Diseased Monkeys

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA


Every once in a while, a lyric gets stuck in your head on constant repeat which becomes more distracting than entertaining, and eventually drives you utterly insane. When I was in college, the Captain Crunch theme song invaded my brain for an entire semester. I blamed the ether that one of my fraternity brothers stole. His nickname was "Luggage" and he swiped ether from the chem lab. My inner axis shifted ever so slightly after that brief experiment.

At the present moment, there's a catchy hook playing on a constant loop inside my head...

Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful but now I'm on my way
But when I think it's time to leave it all behind
I try to find a way but there's nothing I can say to make it stop

The song is aptly titled Down with Disease and performed by one of my favorite bands. I dug the title so much I considered using it for the Las Vegas manuscript, and at one point the working title was Down with Disease: The Redneck Riviera, Existentialist Conversations with Strippers, and the World Series of Poker. Luckily I came to my senses and determined that Lost Vegas was more appropriate title.

My disease du jour is sports betting. I haven't had an itch festering so badly since the Spring of 2007. My monthly income was much higher four years ago when I was grinding cash games online and before the fall out from the UIGEA completely squeezed the freelance writing market. I often used the Charles Barkley defense back in 2007 -- "You don't have a gambling problem if you can afford to lose." I didn't necessarily have a losing year, but I experienced a few massive swings that negatively altered my mood and extracted all the fun out of the process of sports betting. I miraculously emerged from the bender with a profit, but I got lucky because mostly everyone else in my situation crashed and burned before they ate the pavement when they hit rock bottom. I had enough semblance to slam on the breaks when I was ahead before it got too late and I ended up another senseless tragedy of Sophoclean proportions.

But that was four years ago in what seemed like a galaxy, far, far, away.

The fucking itch is back. The feeling can only be described as if a small monkey burrowed itself underneath my skin and it's trying to kick it's way out. The omnipresent itch is threatening a mutiny. All out anarchy. Itches create leaks. Leaks create messy problems. Messy problems induce life tilt. Life tilt leads to depression. Depression leads to self-destructive behavior. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Sports betting is a huge life leak, but it's also a life sweetener, or a bottle of hot sauce that spruces up mundane aspects of daily life, which is why it's inherently dangerous. Finding the perfect balance between entertainment, merriment, stroking the ego is essential to healthy lifestyle. It's when you cross over the proverbial demarcation line in the murky, cloudy grey area that you takes strides away from the light and rush toward the dark.

Sports betting is a vacuous vice that sucks you into a vortex of degradation and spits you out into the musty basement of a church, sitting in a semi-circle, sipping a sludge-like substance masked as instant coffee, and re-hashing bad beat stories with other recovering addicts.

Betting on our national past time of baseball is dangerous because of the 162-game season starting in April and ending in October. Football is condensed into Sundays (with a bail-out game called Monday Night Football, one of the most evil inventions ever created) and bettors have a week to make a decision. But baseball is an everyday temptation, just like junk food and vapid reality television. Despite my many battles with multiple vices and frolicking on the perilous fringes of Sin City, I somehow avoided betting on baseball. I had drawn a line in the sand and it was baseball. I knew that whatever morally hazardous behavior I engaged in would always be kosher as long as I wasn't betting on baseball. It had become my self-imposed Mendoza Line of sports betting.

That is, until a week ago.

I sent Mendoza his pink slip. I embraced the relaxation of the rules just like the thugs on Wall Street celebrated when the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed in 1999. Within a decade, Wall Street gamblers nearly imploded the entire financial system after betting on the unregulated derivatives market and repackaging toxic debt as low risk investments.

Sometimes inside information is too damaging because it entices you to take risks you normally would never otherwise. Greed is one of the most rehabilitating of the Seven Deadly Sins. Greed is Gordon Gekko's mantra and the primary cause of the majority of self-destruction in the financial and gambling world. I've been privy to a barrage of tips over the last week. I set aside a tiny portion of my March Madness surplus and decided to fart around on a few games here or there. My plan was to wait until I got tipped off to what Billy was steaming... if the time/points were right, then I'd tail his pick. I entered the Killing Fields with every intention of being an "opportunity investor" by taking advantage of added value due to fluctuations in the betting lines.

It takes money to make money, and I was aware of the hazards of betting on baseball. My buddy Plump is a very savvy bettor and former college player, so he gave baseball shot a few years back. The results were not good. He got an ass whooping. A different friend of mine lived in Vegas in the early 1990s. He and his college buddies using a computer model to predict run totals in baseball. After a horrid losing streak a month into the season, he spiraled into hell and by Labor Day, he had become a full-blown heroin addict. Talk about a pair of pillars of death -- being a junkie and a degen baseball bettor.

I studied the so-called prospectus and accepted every risk before I took the plunge. I opted for a conservative route on Opening Day and cherry picked the best of the best. One game. Just one game. Alas, the monkey's itch flared up. Searing jolts of vibrating anxiety rocketed throughout my body and I succumbed to the impulsiveness of the inner action junkie. The revolution had begun and I also bet on CC Sabathia and the Yankees.

Viva la revolucion!

That was such a rube mistake, yet I pulled the trigger anyway, intoxicated on three decades of loyalty to my Bronx Bombers. I knew better than to bet on hometown teams, especially the Yanks, because every sharpie in Vegas will preach that east coast teams (Philly, NYC, Boston) in every pro sport are usually overvalued because of the stubborn-fanatic following by their lifelong fans. Millions of them. Betting like mushes. As a result, the punters on the east coast bet with their hearts instead of their brains, which is why I always went the opposite route, the road less traveled, and faded my hometown teams as an emotional hedge. Little did I know it was the correct strategy that the wiseguys exploited for decades.

I nearly jizzed myself after an auspicious start to the baseball season, going 2-0 with a well-informed bet and an impulse buy. The moment of glory was short-lived and the slide began. I lost one, then another, then another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another.

I whiffed on ten consecutive bets.

I couldn't believe it. Wait, what? Ten? Are fucking shitting me? How can you lose ten baseball bets in a row. Overs shit the bed. Unders shit the bed. Aces got smoked. Chumps looked like Cy Young. I felt like one of the players on Butler chucking up brick after brick during the championship game.

The 10th consecutive loser nearly shattered my left testicles into seven thousand pieces. I had bet the Pirates and sweated the action courtesy of my girlfriend's swanky iPad and my newly purchased subscription to mlb.tv. She had just left for a trip to NYC and fortunately left her new toy with me. I had unfettered access, but instead of dicking around on Angry Birds or playing backgammon, I fired up the MLB app and streamed the Pirates-Cardinals game. I freaked out the hipsters who lived upstairs from us every single time I shouted, "ARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!"

They must hate me. If it's not the random expletives I scream at the television, it's probably the Tito Puente records that I blast at 3am. During the game, I chatted with Mean Gene, a lifelong Pirates fan, who sat in his local corner pub and played video poker while the game flickered in the background. We were trying to determine which one of us was having a more pathetic existence. I felt as though I was the biggest loser in the world who wasn't a TEPCO executive. After all, Mean Gene lived in Pittsburgh and was a life-long fan so his actions were perfectly acceptable behavior, whereas, I was a self-absorbed degen gambler who should have been writing fluffy pieces about the poker industry, but instead, got schwasted, ripped bingers, and didn't blink twice about betting on the yellow marauders.

"Go Pirates! ARGGGGGGGHHHHH!"

The Pirates lost -- sigh -- and for a moment I understood the emotional turmoil that plagued Pirates fans for decades. I had walked a mile in Mean Gene's moccasins (well maybe not a mile, but at least nine inning worth) and when the Pirates made the final out, a rumbling lingered in my stomach, like the nauseating moment before you puked up a batch of lime-green bile. Alas, I keep my cookies down and regain composure, but for a moment I understood why beleaguered Pittsburgh natives escaped their summer of despair by extolling the quarterbacking virtues of a known sexual predator.

0-10. Sweet Jesus. OH. FOR. TEN. Talk about one of the worst streaks in my entire life -- and it happened in less than 100 hours. I smacked my head on the pavement. Rock bottom, eh?

I had to quit. Cue the bass line to Down with Disease.

But wait...I'm not a quitter. I'm stubborn and stuck it out for another day. I finally snapped the losing streak and improved to 3-10. I kept firing away, but once I reached 5-15, I reluctantly threw up the white flag. It took a lot of courage to surrender because it's so friggin' easy to keep firing away...and firing away...and firing away.

I try to find a way but there's nothing I can say to make it stop.

On Thursday morning, my CrackBerry chirped a dozen times. Text messages. Vital intel from a friend in Vegas. He updated me on morning line moves, but I was still foggy and groggy at that hour to pay attention. I stayed up late, too late, eating spiked brownies and hitting the hash pipe during four hours worth of Ken Burns' documentary on the Civil War (I got sucked into the 1863-64 campaigns and determined that Sherman was a far better tactician than Grant). I passed out shortly before dawn and could have used an extra half hour of rest, but Thursdays in the major leagues is also get-away-day which meant that a lot of teams scheduled early afternoon ballgames. The first one was slated for 12:35pm ET or 9:35am west coast time. I never told my bud that I was going to stop betting on baseball. I crawled out of bed and eventually stumbled into the coffeeshop to grab a quick breakfast before the Yankees-Twins game started at 10:05am PT. I got distracted by the TV in the coffeeshop that reported a 7.4 earthquake in Japan and I missed a valuable window of opportunity to tail a pick that the betting syndicates were pummeling -- the UNDER in the Reds/Astros game. I mentioned the tip to Iggy and he said "Great American Ballpark is a hitter's park" and that 8 runs was vulnerable. The syndicates moved the run line from 9 to 8. I didn't like the number but it didn't matter because by the time I tried bet, the first pitch had been thrown and I got shut out.

Murphy's Law would have told ya that the final score was going to be 3-2. I missed a winner by thirty seconds. Fuck me. I needed to get my fix somehow after getting shut out, so I quickly forgot my ban on baseball betting. I decided to fade the public and bet against the 0-5 Red Sox. The -190 moneyline on the Sox was inflated because of 1) east coast bias, and 2) everyone was betting with the 'Sox have yet to win a game, they have to win eventually' mentality. I bet the Indians the other way for +164. I really put in that bet expecting to lose. That's no way to live life -- expecting to lose like that -- but something extraordinary happened and the Indians won a nail bitter by the score of 1-0, and the Sox dropped to 0-6 for their worst start since 1946.

Yes, I won my last ever baseball bet.

And that's my last bet...for now. The difficult part begins while I resist the urge, the temptation, the insatiable desire to be taunted by that fucking monkey who is hiding somewhere underneath my skin. If you keep scratching an area on your body long enough, you will eventually draw blood.

Can I get the monkey out before I bleed to death?

Feed Me Billy's Picks

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

"Please, dude, feed me Billy's picks when you get them," begged Plump, a poker buddy who used to play college baseball. "It's never entirely wise to be on the other side of Billy. He's a sick fucking freak. I'd give him a friendly neck massage of he was stressed."

If you bet on sports, then you know about Billy Walters -- the J.P. Morgan meets Phil Ivey of the sports betting world. Bookies won't take Billy's action because they are afraid of him. As a result, Billy has to employ hundreds of runners from the farthest corners of the planet to place bets for him in Vegas, with regional bookies, and online at offshore sportsbooks.


During the March Madness run, I tailed many of Billy's picks. It's usually easy to find out what he bet after his runners put in the bets, but by then your value has decreased because the sportsbooks adjusted the lines and you're not getting the best possible number. But this Spring, I obtained Billy's picks a few minutes before the rest of the street heard about them. I won't say from whom, but I'm definitely benefiting from the relaxed rules regarding using phones in Vegas sports books, so word travels fast. I'm convinced that Billy was part of the reason why the NGC outlawed mobile phones in the sportsbooks in the late 90s and early 00s. But, the suits eventually realized that Billy and other betting syndicates were able to obtain real time line changes due to subscription services over the intertubes. The cell phone prohibition was a futile effort and has since been rescinded.

The ultimate goal is to find out Billy's bet before he bets it. In other words, find out what Billy is going to do before he moves the line. That critical piece of inside information is nearly impossible to unearth unless you work for Billy, or a competing syndicate, or an actual sportsbook. But the cliche fits -- time is of the utmost essence. The sooner I learn about Billy's bet, the better chance I'll have to get a decent number by shopping around as quickly as possible. In the end, that's how you end up making money over the long term as a sports bettor, which you can even apply it to Wall Street as a stock speculator. You can also come out ahead if you predict which side Billy will eventually bet and bet that number before he moves the line, and if he moves the line substantially, then you're fucking golden.

I explained to my buddy Plump that in the time frame I get Billy's picks and shoot him a text, the lines have already moved. Billy's picks are only helpful for him if he's dealing with his local corner bar bookie in the Midwest, and that's only if the bookie was not on top of up-to-the second line moves. If Plump exploited any lag time in updating the lines, then and only then could he make money on Billy's picks.

On Saturday an hour before tip off, my source in Vegas revealed that Billy was steaming the UNDER in the UCONN/Kentucky game. I was leaning toward the under, but didn't pull the trigger. I quickly changed my stance from a lean to a GO when I heard Billy buried UNDER. I jumped all over it and all I could see in my head was an image of a waterfall but instead of water, hundred dollars bills were cascading down the side of the cliff. The line only moved a point so I was still getting some value. I clued in Plump and he couldn't have contacted his bookie fast enough. The Midwest line only moved a half point because his bookie is a little slow. Plus it was always good to know if I might be able to manipulate a lagging bookie in the future.

And the outcome? Easy money.

It was more like printing money. I finally knew what Federal Reserve felt like, creating money out of thin air! That's what makes sportsbetting so fucking alluring and attractive, the fact that any mook at any given time can get free money.

That is to say if you bet the right side, and in some dire cases, the right side of the fix.

Over the weekend, Plump and I tailed the biggest swinging dick in Vegas and made a nifty profit. In just one afternoon, I made more money than I could as a poker writer in five weeks of freelance work, ergo, now you know why I haven't been writing much about poker.

I made my picks for Monday's championship game once the final two teams were set on Saturday night hoping to lock in the best prices because I anticipated the lines to move (against me) I went with my gut and went with the favorite UCONN -3.5 and the OVER 128 total. I kept a percentage of my roll in reserve to pounce on any major moves in my favor. I said a Hail Mary in Latin that Billy or the wiseguys weren't going to bury the other side of my bets.

About two hours before Monday evening's tip off, the line in Vegas moved from 129 to 131. I poked around a couple of online books and noticed the line had moved to 131.5. By the time I talked to Plump, the line had moved again to 132. At that point, everyone in the know knew that Billy and company were steaming the OVER. I couldn't have been happier. Call it genius or blind luck, but I bet on the same side as Billy before he moved the line. The line moved a total of 4 points since I locked it in. Over the long run, bettors will be profitable if they lock in the best possible numbers.

By the way, I don't know how Plump finagled a 128.5 total with his Midwest bookie! Now, we definitely know who to call in the future when I have an old tip on a Billy bet. That's why it's always important to have different avenues to bet. I'm fortunate to have access to Vegas casinos, offshore books, and the traditional bookie. If you're smart, you have a couple of bookies, multiple accounts, and people you can trust in Vegas to make a bet for you without fucking it up. In addition, it's imperative that you shop lines to boost your edge. If you want to purchase a new TV or a car, you're going to do some research and check out a different stores to compare prices before you make your purchase. Same goes for betting on sports.

None of us (pundits, bookies, Billy, Charles Barkley, the Pope) expected a black swan event to kick us in the junk on Monday evening. I figured this year's March Madness had already been chock full of black swans (how else could you explain VCU and Butler in the Final Four?), so the championship game should play out as expected -- UCONN winning by 5 or 6 with at least one team scoring 70 points. Alas, the unexpected became the norm; black is now white, and white is now black. Something peculiar happened on Monday, perhaps it has to do with Planet X, or solar flares, or Fukushima radiation, but no one could hit a fucking shot in the first half. The CBS suits were cringing at their fugly product, wit their finger on speed dial ready to call up Charlie Sheen and beg him to run onto the court and drop his pants. Butler looked worst than atrocious; they were simply pathetic. I couldn't help but think that VCU would have given UCONN a better run for the money.

Another friend of mine from New Zealand was watching the game at work (it was Tuesday at noon the next day for him) and he shot me a text message, "We should suit up." The Kiwi had a valid point. Could we do worse? I'm out of shape and haven't played organized ball since my senior year in college (I started at shooting guard for my fraternity in a highly competitive intramural league, which incidentally drew more fans than the varsity team at my D-III university) and couldn't run down the court more than three times without having chest pains, but I'm confident I could have hit at least one shot out of ten. Both teams were horrendous in the first half and I hadn't seen any individual shoot that poorly, let alone an entire team (er make that two teams), since John Starks' anemic performance in Game 7 of the 1994 NBA finals.

A black swan shit all over on Billy's grand parade and we both lost the OVER bet. Oh well. If given the chance, I'd make the same bet again, especially if I was gifted four extra points. I wondered how much Billy lost on the OVER? $500,000? $1,000,000? More? Or did he make some/all of it back on a second half bet?

On a positive note, once I knew my OVER bet had shit the bed, I saved face on a second half bet. The total was set at 68. Both teams had struggled to score 41 in the first half combined. Even my girlfriend, who barely paid attention to the game and multi-tabled two Rush MTTs while playing Angry Birds on her iPad, declared the UNDER was going to be a lock. She was right. I shoved all-in with the rest of my online bankroll and hammered the UNDER 68.

And it wasn't even a close sweat. Both teams scored 53 total points in the second half. I recouped my losses from the OVER bet and then some. UCONN pulled away and cruised to an 8-point victory to win their third title since 1999. I cashed a UCONN money line bet at -175 and they also covered the spread. Printing money.

"We're going to Sizzler," I joked to my girlfriend.

In reality, we ate dinner at a deli. Pastrami tastes so much better after you bailed yourself out of a hole. I had a profitable Final Four and bounced back after a lackluster NFL playoff season. The good news is that I now have a sturdy bankroll just in time for the NBA playoffs. By the end of June, I'll either be completely busto, or will have generated enough money to fund the second leg of Phish's summer tour.

I will never have the balls, discipline, or passion to be a full-time professional gambler, but if I pick my spots carefully, I can supplement my paltry salary by betting on a few games here or there in order to pay for a month-long bender at the end of the summer.

Easy money, right? All I have to do is continue to cherry pick the best bets on the board and hopefully I'll get lucky and get an opportunity to tail a few of Billy's NBA picks.

Live Sumo Is Rigged

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA


I first read about it in the New York Times after Kid Dynamite pointed out an article: In Text Messages, Signs of a Rigged Sumo Fight.

Yes, live Sumo is rigged. Confirmation of the scandal is a small victory for the tin foil hat-wearing Alex Jones disciples, not to mention a menagerie of pissed off gamblers in Japan who bet on the wrong side of the fix.

Sumo wresting is to Japan what baseball is to America. It's their national past time, a sport deeply rooted in religious traditions. Sumo champions are treated like gods among mere mortals. Their portraits are hung all over major cities in homage to their skill, power, strength, and honor.

The underbelly of the Sumo world recently reared its ugly head. I'm positive that rigged matches in Japan occurred for centuries, but those calamities were dealt with in a discreet fashion.

In the 21st century, it's tough to keep suspicious minds away from questioning the legitimacy of matches. Sumo, much like American professional sports, has an incestuous and symbiotic relationship with big business interests. The public's fervent following has blurred the lines between sport and entertainment. It came to no surprise that Japan's national past time was also plagued with their own scandalous affairs, including wrestlers caught using illegal performance enhancing drugs and rigging matches.

Yeah, live Sumo is rigged. So what?

Sumo was the last bastion of hope. It's disappointing to see that one of the last honorable sport had veered away from its competitive tradition. They are one step away from becoming an absurd spectacle, like America's pro wrestling circuits. Japan was one of the few cultures in which a man was measured by his integrity. Taking a dive was a dishonor yourself, let alone a sincere dishonor to the entire Sumo community of wrestlers, trainers, promoters, fans, and even the guy who gets paid to wipe the arses of ginormous wrestlers.

The Yakuaza's nefarious tentacles infiltrated the Sumo world and as a result, Japan's ruthless mafia were the masterminds behind dozens of embarrassing gambling-related scandals. Some of the scandals branched out into other sports. Most recently, a former Sumo wrestler-turned-bookie who worked for the Yamaguchi-gumi (the baddest and most dangerous faction of the Yakuza), got busted in a baseball betting ring. Supposedly, one of the bosses from Yamaguchi-gumi offered the wrestler a salaried job as a bookie. The boss sent the wrestler a "tout sheet", which handicapped baseball games. The wrestler then forward the tout sheet to his full roster of clients. Those suckers turned around and made wagers with the wrestler-turned-bookie based on their intel. Whether the information was legit or not, it didn't really matter because gambling addicts can't so no, but they love the "psychological cushion" that accompanies a tout sheet or any inside information on a game that they think gives them a tremendous edge versus the rest of the gambling public. Doesn't matter if it's the NFL or Japanes baseball...degens are looking for an excuse to bet big.

When I was a kid, I remember when I first learned that sometimes sporting events are fixed. To this day, my old man and our neighborhood bookie, Nine-a-Half-Fingered Vinny, swore on their mothers' graves that the second Sonny Liston-Muhammad Ali fight was fixed. Liston got knocked out on a so-called phantom punch. Who knows is Liston was really afraid of getting killed by militant African-American Muslims, or if a wiseguy gave him a truckload of cash to kiss the canvas? When I found out that some boxing matches were rigged, I lost interest and never really became a boxing fan, instead enjoying the early days of the WWF (a few years before Hulkamania went runnin' wild and before WWF had to change their name to WWE).

Bottom line -- no matter what the event (Sumo, boxing, college basketball, U.S. Presidential elections, online poker) -- if huge sums of money are involved, someone will try to manipulate the outcome for their own financial benefit.

Gordon Gekko said it first: "Greed is good." But the money is even sweeter bet on the right side of the fix.

* * * *
For more betting scandals pertaining to sports betting, I also penned... Syracuse Point-Shaving Rumors Debunked; Major College Basketball Betting Scandal Averted?

Super Bowl Picks, Super Bowl Hangovers, and Cokehead in the Bathtub

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA


Super Bowl. Super Sunday. I hope you woke up early and prepared with a Super Breakfast.

By the way, here's my favorite quote about former President Bush 2.0 from Hunter S. Thompson after the two met for the first time when W showed up at Hunter's 1974 Super Bowl party in Houston...

"He knew who I was, at that time, because I had a reputation as a writer. I knew he was part of the Bush dynasty. But he was nothing, he offered nothing, and he promised nothing. He had no humor. He was insignificant in every way and consequently I didn't pay much attention to him. But when he passed out in my bathtub, then I noticed him. I'd been in another room, talking to the bright people. I had to have him taken away."

By the way, check out an excerpt from Thompson's article in Rollins Stone on the 1973 Super Bowl.

So the Super Bowl. AlCantHang dubbed it as the battle of the "Green Bay Flyovers" vs. "the Pittsburgh Rapists." Hey it could have easily been the New York Foot Fetishists vs. the Philly Dog Killers.

I'm not a tout. You have to be sharp to sell your picks. But, I'm not a complete self-loather who thinks he's shrouded in bad luck, so I won't tell you to fade my picks either. I've gotten a bombardment of emails, text messages, DMs, BBMs, and phonecalls asking me about my picks. The majority of these people are not sports bettors. A bunch are from the poker world, but a lot are just friends who aren't obsessed with gambling. They think that I'm the guy to go to when it comes to betting, which is a nice ego boost, but it also puts a lot of pressure on my shoulders because I don't think I'm better than the average sports bettor. I'd hate to tell people who I'm betting on, and then they piggyback those bets, only to come out on the shit end of the bet.

I'm someone who wants to help out friends when they seek out my help. I know my close friends wouldn't hold me responsible for their actions, but someones people like to pass the blame onto others, and in instances involving money, it can definitely be a pain in the ass. At best, I'm a break even player and I make sure they know that.

So here's my take... it's going to be a close game.

Someone (I forget who, my apologies for being a lazy pothead) left a comment and said that it's so close you have to take the points. That echoed my sentiments. So when the bookies released the spread, I went with the dog. Because I bet Pitt +3, I figured that if Pitt won, then it would be propelled by their tenacious defense, so I bet the UNDER at 46.

Since then, the lines fluctuated from -2.5to -3 and the UNDER dropped a slow as 44 and vaccilated between 45 and 44.5 for the last few days.

Anyway, since so many asked about my bets...

Pitt +2.5
Pitt +3
Pitt +120 (money line)
Pitt +130 (money line)
UNDER 46
UNDER 45
UNDER 44.5
National Anthem OVER 1:50 -180
National Anthem OVER 1:54 - 200
Coin Toss: Tails
Will BOTH teams kick FGs over 33 yds: YES

For 95% of you, this vernacular is standard every day speak, but I need to give an explanation to a couple of non-betting friends...

- The MONEYLINE is a bet that Pitt will win outright (no point spread). For example, +120 means I get $120 for every $100 that I bet. On the other end, if Green Bays is -130, you have to bet $130 to win $100. So yeah, if Pitt wins then I win wagers for $120 and $130 or $250

- The UNDER is a bet that the combined score will be under that total.

- Yes, you can bet on how long it takes Christina Aguilera sings the National Anthem. Listen to a podcast about it here: Exotic Betting on the Super Bowl.

If you want to bet online, you can sign up for a Sportsbook.com account here.

As you can tell, I'm wishing that Pitt wins a low-scoring affair so I can ship moneyline bets and the bets with Pitt getting. OK, that's it. I wish everyone luck today,whether they are at a party, in a bar, or watching it at home.

* * * *
P.S. Enjoy the food, booze, and other narcotics that you might be ingesting, snorting, inhaling, shooting, inserting today. Oh, by the way, time to share a little advice that I've picked up along the party circuit just in case you were wondering "How do I cure a Super Bowl hangover?"

Tips to for Curing Hangovers:

1. Be proactive and drink lots of water while drinking. Booze dehydrates you. I usually drink one glass of water for every two beers, or one water for every shot.

2. Before you crash, drink a glass of water and take 2 Advil (ibuprofen) before you go to sleep -- if you don't pass out in a bathtub first!

3. If you wake up and have "Montezuma's Revenge", pop an Imodium to help your pipes stop leaking.

4. If you wake up with a pounding headache, take 2 more advil and drink some sort of fizzy water.

5. If you have an upset stomach, drink ginger ale.

6. If you feel like total ass, then I suggest one of two things: 1) bring in the heavy artillery and eat some painkillers -- 7.5mg of Hydrocodone (Vicodin, Lortabs) or 5mg of Oxycodone (Percoset), or 2) avoid hangovers... stay drunk.

That's it. My unsolicited medical advice.

* * * * *
UPDATE... Sunday night... 7:20pm PT

That's it. The football season is over after Green Bay triumphed over Pittsburgh 31-25.

The bookies got the best of it this year because of chumpstains like me bet Pitt and took the points. Most of my wagers shit the bed, but even though Christina Aguilera fucked up the national anthem (doesn't that get her tossed into Gitmo?) she kept it on the long side to win a much-needed prop. I also saved some face with a hedge (parlay GB -3 and the OVER), 2nd half bets (Pitt -3 and +23.5), and exotic props (C. Aguilera's long anthem, A. Rodgers +175 MVP). Alas, after a fugly day...I was in the hole.

At least the game came down to the final possession giving me a fun sweat. Plus the food was great. Change100 is quite the amateur gourmet chef. I decided to not let Joe Buck tilt me this year and I muted the game whenever it was on (and listened to my buddy Jonas' Background Beats mix instead). I only cranked up the sound for commercials.

Kudos to Green Bay and all the Cheeseheads scattered about this great country of ours. The Packers opted out of the Brett Favre circus and they brought the Vince Lombardi trophy back to the hinterland of Wisconsin. In that same time frame, Favre fanned the flames of the sporting world's freak show, while he donned two jerseys representing Gang Green and Purple People Easters, got embroiled Penis Gate (be careful who you send pictures of your pecker to) and had his personal life pecked away by the media vultures. But that didn't compare to the harsh realization that it was finally over on the fateful day when a battered, fragile, wounded warrior limped onto the battlefield only to have his soul and legacy ripped out of his body on national TV.

The epilogue on the Brett Favre era in Green Bay has come to an end.

* * *
UPDATE.... Monday morning... 2/7/10 at 10:10am PT...

The online sports books are in a tizzy over the OVER/UNDER payouts because Christina Aguilera fucked up the lyrics to the National Anthem. You can watch Aguilera's Super Bowl video here.

But who won exactly? Check out this article... National Anthem Prop – Who Won?

Also... the Vegas sportsbooks had a rough day. It wasn't like the ass-kicking after the Giants upset the Patriots a few years ago, but it seems as though the bookies got killed having to payout parlays with Green Bay (minus points) and the OVER. I put in that exact parlay as a hedge -- and it prevented me from losing even more money.

And Flipchip snapped some photos at sports books on the Las Vegas Strip yesterday.