🏅Sports Gambling Hall of Fame Inaugural Class At Circa Tonight/Friday

jjgold · Aug 3, 2024

It’s so hilarious gambling Hall of Fame

Brock Landers · Aug 3, 2024

Well known names
Tremendous info

Wagerallsports · Aug 8, 2024

Billy Walters tells tales about new Sports Gambling Hall of Famers

LV REVIEW JOURNAL SUBSCRIPTION

When the Sports Gambling Hall of Fame was created last year, founder Gadoon “Spanky” Kyrollos said there couldn’t be one without the man regarded as the most successful sports bettor of all time: Billy Walters.

Walters said he feels the same way about Michael Kent, a math and computer wizard who wrote the code that launched the Computer Group — acknowledged as the first syndicate to apply sophisticated algorithms and computer models to sports betting.

“When I became part of the board of directors for the Hall of Fame, I told them there can’t be a Hall of Fame unless Mike Kent’s in the Hall of Fame,” said Walters, 78. “Make no mistake, there wouldn’t have been any Computer Group if it hadn’t been for Mike Kent.

“Mike Kent is the guy who originally did all of the handicapping. He put together the computer software program, the first of its kind, to analyze and handicap sports with. The result was he was way, way ahead of everyone else.”

Walters, a former member of the Computer Group, will introduce Kent and former Las Vegas bookmaker Gene Maday for posthumous induction into the SGHOF on Friday in a ceremony at Circa. Kent died in 2018 at age 74. Maday died in 1994 at age 66.

Kent’s day job in the early 1970s was developing nuclear submarine technology at the Westinghouse Electric Corporation in Pittsburgh.

At night, he developed a computer model that produced power ratings for the company softball team. Kent soon realized the formula could be applied to pro and college sports and wrote a revolutionary computer program to predict numbers against the Las Vegas line.

“He was certainly the beginning of a brand-new era,” Walters said. “Up until that point in time, everybody’s working with a pencil and piece of paper.

“It was almost like when golf went from Persimmon woods to metal drivers. It was a big bang. Lucky for me, I was a part of that.”

Kent beat a bevy of bookmakers in Pittsburgh before quitting his day job in 1979. He moved to Las Vegas, where Walters joined the Computer Group and moved millions of dollars in wagers while protecting the Group’s identity.

“When he came to Las Vegas, it took so much computer firepower to run the program, we were actually leasing space from the government on the weekend to use their computers when they weren’t using them,” Walters said.

The Computer Group won $25 million in one year, according to a 1986 Sports Illustrated cover story on gambling.

After the demise of the original Group, Walters started his own syndicate in the mid-1980s. He continued to work with Kent until Kent retired in 2000.

“I consider Mike to be one of my best friends I’ve ever had in my life,” Walters said. “I think Mike was a genius. I definitely put Mike Kent in the top-five smartest people I’ve ever met in my life. More than that, he was extremely honorable. Morally, he was as good a guy as I’ve ever known.

“What I realized in the early 80s was that I needed to recruit many more Mike Kents. I ended up bringing on 25 over the years and I had six really main guys with similar backgrounds to Mike.”

Jimmy Evarts, co-founder of the sharp offshore sportsbook Pinnacle Sports, is another former member of the Computer Group that will be inducted into the SGHOF.

‘Didn’t fill the hole’

Maday owned Checker Cab and also owned and operated Little Caesar’s, one of the last standalone sportsbooks in Las Vegas.

“Little Caesar’s, you walk in there and the carpet was taped together and you could cut the smoke with a knife,” Walters said. “The odds board was a grease board. Outside was a bank of pay phones that probably did more pay phone business than any other place in the world outside of the Stardust.

“Popcorn was free and coffee was free. There were penny slots. It was just that kind of joint. But Gene probably booked higher than anyone in the world did at the time.”

Walters shared an anecdote he planned to use at the induction dinner.

“I was in there one day and (former Las Vegas casino owner) Jackie Gaughan walked in and bet a quarter million dollars on a boxing match. This was the ’80s. He stood there and stood there for almost 10 minutes and he asked Gene, ‘What are you going to move the line to?’ Gene said, ‘Well, you didn’t fill the hole up,’” Walters said, laughing. “He didn’t move the line at all. That was Gene Maday. You talk about a Vegas character. He was a Vegas character.”

Wagerallsports · Tuesday at 4:32 PM

‘Never chase’: Pro sports bettor reflects on keys to Hall of Fame career

LV REVIEW JOURNAL SUBSCRIPTION

The Chicago Bulls were at the start of their 1990s dynasty when professional sports bettor Jeff Whitelaw discovered Michael Jordan was going to miss a game one night.

That valuable piece of information was not readily available when Whitelaw walked into the Caesars Palace sportsbook and saw Chicago was still a sizable favorite.

But instead of betting big on the underdog, Whitelaw informed then Caesars sportsbook vice president Vinny Magliulo that the man widely regarded as the greatest basketball player of all time was out.

“I said, ‘OK Jeff, well I appreciate you telling me, go ahead and make a play.’ He looked at me and said, ‘Are you going to change the number?’ And I said, ‘Not until after you make a play,’” Magliulo said. “The reason I did that is he knew it before me and he could’ve bet it multiple times and took full advantage and he didn’t do it.

“It was classy of him to give me the information, and the old school in me, the way I grew up, is to give him the opportunity for a limit play. The fact that he gave me that information and that I could make an adjustment after his bet was going to save me a hell of a lot more money in the long run. From that point on, we became close friends.”

Whitelaw said it was simply the right thing to do.

“It’s just my ethics. I try to do things the right way. As a result, usually I have a very good rapport with most of the books,” he said. “I always tell the books whenever I have an injury. If they want to give me a bet on it, that’s fine.

“The irony is back then his courtesy bet was more than most of the books take today. He gave me $5,000 on it.”

The 58-year-old Whitelaw, who won the wager, reflected on his 35-year career and changes in the industry following his recent selection to the Sports Gambling Hall of Fame. He will be inducted in August at the Circa sportsbook.

‘Had a knack for it’

Whitelaw was born and raised in Buffalo, where he attended the same high school as former NFL star Rob Gronkowski, Williamsville North.

Whitelaw was introduced to sports betting by his father.

“My dad gambled, so I would bet a dollar and things like that on the Bills and I had a knack for it,” Whitelaw said. “I decided at a young age that was really my passion. I really enjoyed it.”

The diehard Bills fan was a disciplined bettor from the start.

“I wouldn’t bet against the Bills,” Whitelaw said. “But I would bet on them when I would like them and I would pass if I didn’t like them.”

Whitelaw graduated from SUNY Albany and briefly considered a career on Wall Street before following the sun to Las Vegas in 1990.

He worked as a ticket writer for three years at the Barbary Coast sportsbook. His goal was to eventually run a book, before he switched sides of the counter to work with a pro sports bettor.

Whitelaw has turned a profit in 33 of the last 35 years and has consulted for a bevy of books along the way, earning renown for his expertise in props and futures, especially season win totals.

“When you hang a number or you’re thinking about a price on something, you’re not going to get a better opinion than Jeff’s,” Magliulo said. “He’s definitely one of the sharpest bettors of this generation and a class act.”

‘Betting against the public’

One of the myriad ways Whitelaw has won over the years has been fading the betting public, a trend he first noticed while working at the Barbary Coast.

“Whenever I would write tickets on the same team over and over and over, they would always seem to lose,” he said. “Then when I became a bettor, I noticed I was always betting against the public.

“Still, to this day, the public typically bets favorites and (the) over and I’m more of an underdog and under bettor.”

Whitelaw said the biggest keys to his success have been discipline and money management.

“Never chase,” he said. “There are always going to be games tomorrow, so if you miss a number, just pass and be patient and wait for a good opportunity. There always seem to be good spots.

“Use good money management and bet one unit or two units or three units, whatever your unit is, and always do some due diligence. Don’t just blindly bet a game because it’s on TV.”

‘It was way easier’

Whitelaw, who is now semi-retired, said it was easier to win during his heyday in the 1990s and early 2000s due, in part, to slower information flow.

“It was way easier in the 90s and early 2000s because when you would get information on something, you might not even hear about it for a day,” he said. “Now that you have (the social media platform X) and various things, it’s a matter of seconds or a minute. You have to do things instantaneously. The days of getting information before anybody else have gone by the wayside.”

There were also many more independent books and a much greater disparity of lines back then.

“Now the lines and totals are almost identical … and the lines are sharper,” Whitelaw said. “But back in the 90s, a game might be anywhere from 3½ to 5½, so you have a middle and you have a play, and the totals would be three or four points off.

“And arbitrage on baseball. The Yankees are playing the Red Sox. Caesars has the Yankees (-140) and the Mirage has the Red Sox (+150). It’s just free money. But now you don’t see that.”

Old school

Whitelaw, a math whiz and former competitive chess player, has always done his handicapping with a pen and paper.

“I’ve worked with a lot of people over the years but I’ve never used algorithms or things like that,” he said. “You can’t compete with a computer. But it’s more of a challenge to do it myself. There’s something to be said about doing your own handicapping and not relying on a computer simulating the game a million times.”

While it’s crucial for professional gamblers to remain objective, Whitelaw remains a card-carrying member of the Bills Mafia.

“I’m still a Bills fan,” he said. “I will bet against the Bills if I think I have an edge — with the exception of the playoffs.

“In the playoffs, if the numbers called for a bet against the Bills, I would pass and just root for the Bills.”

maltedhopsfrenzy · Tuesday at 4:38 PM

Obviously, this so-called ‘Sports Betting Hall Of Famer’ doesn’t drink…..

jjgold · Tuesday at 6:45 PM

What a bright guy

lol

patsfan · Tuesday at 7:47 PM

jjgold said:
What a bright guy

lol

The problem is less than 5% of people betting on sports follow his advice.

luigimangione · Tuesday at 7:53 PM

never heard of him, a for sure loser

MinnesotaFats · Tuesday at 8:34 PM

I chased overnight.

Had Dimertov 3500/1000

He fukking retires up 2 sets to 1

Just weird week of tennis betting. Every retirement in tournament I've had action on.

Wagerallsports · Tuesday at 9:09 PM

MinnesotaFats said:
I chased overnight.

Had Dimertov 3500/1000

He fukking retires up 2 sets to 1

Just weird week of tennis betting. Every retirement in tournament I've had action on.

That is a strange no-action run you are on

MinnesotaFats · Tuesday at 9:36 PM

Wagerallsports said:
That is a strange no-action run you are on

Oh no, that's a loss big guy.

NEVER seen it before, up 2 sets in a major, where the winning dude quits.

Wagerallsports · Tuesday at 9:43 PM

MinnesotaFats said:
Oh no, that's a loss big guy.

NEVER seen it before, up 2 sets in a major, where the winning dude quits.

Damn

jjgold · Tuesday at 9:48 PM

They’re called sports betting cons not Hall of FamerS

Wagerallsports · Tuesday at 10:03 PM

jjgold said:
They’re called sports betting cons not Hall of FamerS

There’s a Hall Of Fame Wall at Circa

I believe Bobby has taken pics and posted here