I'm not much of a gambler.
Oh, I buy non-winning lottery tickets, but other than that...
The few times I've been to a casino, my limit was ten bucks. I'd use that ten bucks - in the form of a roll of quarters - on the slots. As long as I was "winning," I was good. But once I'd exhausted the ten bucks, that was it. (Reference to a roll of quarters pretty much dates my casino trips, as I understand that the slot machines are no longer coin opp.)
Once I did win $200 playing the slots, and that was definitely a walk-away-from-the-machine moment.
The few times I've been to the track - and these times are in the way, way, way back - I pretty much stuck to the ten buck rule, placing $2 bets on horses I chose for their name or the color of the jockey's silks. If this strategy yielded any small success, I'd plow a few more bucks into betting on a few more ponies. But I never won very much at the track - nothing to compare to my fabulous $200 casino win.
And back in my waitressing days, I played the numbers once or twice.
This was in the era when many restaurants had someone in house - someone who worked in the kitchen or the bar - who had a side hustle running numbers.
In the days before state lotteries, playing the numbers was a big deal. (You "played your numbers" and you won if your numbers came up in some published non-manipulable number - say, the last few digits of the national debt - that appeared in the newspaper.)
Overall, gambling just isn't my jam.
But I do enjoy occasionally reading about gambling. And occasionally even blogging about it, as I did in April when I wrote about Shohei Ohtani getting ripped off by his in-over-his-head gambling interpreter.)
So I was all in on an article I saw a couple of months ago in the Washington Post. I have to admit that I was a bit in over my head in trying to follow the convoluted plot of the story, which focused on a bookie-related scandal that's been roiling Las Vegas. Central to the scandal is one Mathew Bowyer, who was the bookie for Ohtani's interpreter.
With all the avenues of legal betting - Las Vegas? Hello? - I was surprised to learn that there are still bookies, a profession I thought would have died out with the numbers game. But bookies, it seems, bring major league gamblers a number of benefits. Gamblers may be given a credit line, or better odds. And gamblers who don't want their name out there can gamble anonymously.
Bowyer is more than a bookie. He's a card player, a baccarat sharp, a tournament golfer, "a dojo operator, day trader, landscaper, real estate developer."
Bowyer’s revenue source should have been a problem for the casinos hosting him. Federal anti-money laundering laws forbid the casinos here from allowing suspected bookies or other criminals from wagering at their tables. Nonetheless, employees up and down organizational charts at some of the largest properties on the Las Vegas Strip welcomed the action of Bowyer and his partners, according to interviews and confidential records reviewed by The Washington Post.
They comped Bowyer millions of dollars in discounted losses and perks, vouched for the legitimacy of his funds in internal correspondence and lifted restrictions on him for the promise of seven-figure cashier’s checks. They even gave his wife legal income for bringing in her husband’s action. All the while, they catered to him, comping penthouses and villas, shuttling him on casino-owned jets and pairing him with [NBA Hall o Famer and well-known gambler Charles] Barkley.
I'm not up on all the nuances of bookie-hood, but I guess that it's a bad idea to have bookies gambling because they're washing ill-gotten (i.e., illegal) cash that came from illegal sports betting. Or something.
Anyway, the numbers are staggering - especially to this roll of quarters gambler. And because of the money he brought them, some casinos were happy to have Bowyer in their shops, even if they were at least unofficially aware that, as a bookie, he was a no-no.
Averaging $30,000 a hand at times, Bowyer lost up to $1.5 million in a single session. To keep his business, the Venetian gave Bowyer more than $3 million in “comps,” which can include forgiven losses, hotel rooms, jet trips and more....In total, Bowyer lost $3.6 million at The Venetian, according to multiple people with direct knowledge. Boyajian won more than $300,000 from the Venetian, which suspended his credit line last year because of his debt to other casinos and slow repayment, according to a person with knowledge of his gambling.
I realize that $3.6M ain't what it used to be. But, yikes! Imagine running up a tab of that magnitude at just one of the casinos you frequented. Baby needs a new pair of shoes, indeed.
Anyway, now the Feds and Nevada state gambling authorities are involved, breathing down the necks of the casinos that had dealings with Bowyer.
The whole thing is just plain crazy to me. Guess that's why I've never been much of a gambler.
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