Although there are many books about gambling published each year, including mine, I really didn’t have a handle on how lucrative the market could be until I read this story about the stupid hype around a forthcoming “winner tells all” book:
Here’s the story from the New York Times:
In the world of gambling, secrets do not last long, and it is not always easy to tell when someone is bluffing.Those two maxims could weigh on the minds of editors at Simon & Schuster over the next year as it prepares to publish “The Smart Money: How the World’s Best Sports Bettors Beat the Bookies Out of Millions.”
The book is said to be the true story of the Brain Trust, a group of professional gamblers that legally wagers hundreds of thousands of dollars in Las Vegas each week on college and professional football games, making it one of the most influential forces in the gambling world.
The book’s author was a participant in the group for seven years, first as a courier betting the syndicate’s money, then as the operator of his own, smaller gambling ring affiliated with the Brain Trust. The proposal identifies him only as 44, an identity adopted, the author said, to protect the privacy of some of the participants in the gambling ring.
Books about gambling have been hugely popular in recent years, and the proposal for “The Smart Money” reads like an edge-of-the-seat thriller, one made all the more intriguing by the likelihood that it is true. David Rosenthal, the publisher of Simon & Schuster’s flagship imprint, and Marysue Rucci, a senior editor there, agreed two weeks ago to buy the book for an advance of roughly $500,000. Publication is scheduled for October.
Simon & Schuster hopes to add an extra element of suspense by having the author wager some of his advance on the number of copies of the book sold in the first year: exceeding a certain number wins 44 a bonus, while falling short of the mark means the author has to return some of his advance.
But both the publisher and the author face several potential pitfalls. While all gamblers lie sometimes, changing the identifying details in a purportedly nonfiction book leaves readers in the uncomfortable position of not knowing which parts are really true. And it turns out that the supposedly anonymous players in this gambling drama are, in fact, very well known. A few hours of Googling and database searching by a reporter led to the real identities of 44, the Brain Trust and its principal character. The author is Michael Konik, a freelance writer who worked for several years for Bill Walters, a Las Vegas developer who is one of the country’s biggest sports bettors.
The book proposal identifies the leader of the gambling ring as Rick Matthews, describing him as “the kingpin of American sports betting,” a philanthropist, restaurateur and Southerner who, by dint of being “one of the greatest golf hustlers of all time,” is “a millionaire several times over.”
Those descriptions make it relatively easy to determine that Rick Matthews is actually Mr. Walters, a Kentucky native who now spends much of his time developing golf courses in Las Vegas. In a telephone interview, Mr. Walters, whose gambling history has been explored many times in magazine and newspaper profiles, confirmed that he is Rick Matthews.
For years Mr. Walters has run the Computer Group, a betting syndicate that uses computers to analyze reams of information on sports teams and players, placing enormous bets when it determines the point spread in Las Vegas books is out of line with its own calculation. Mr. Walters has been indicted at least three times in federal or Nevada state courts on charges of illegal gambling, but the indictments have been dismissed each time; he has never been convicted of any gambling charge. In 1999 The Las Vegas Review-Journal named him as one of the 10 most influential nonparticipant figures in sports.
Mr. Walters and others also said 44 was Mr. Konik, a television commentator on poker matches for Fox Sports who has written extensively about gambling and golf. Among his several books is “The Man With the $100,000 Breasts and Other Gambling Stories” (Huntington Press, 1999), which includes a profile of a high-stakes golf hustler who is a thinly disguised Mr. Walters.
Mr. Konik, reached at his home in Los Angeles, declined to discuss whether he was 44. Mr. Rosenthal, the publisher, also said he had no comment about Mr. Konik’s relationship to 44.
In an earlier telephone interview, arranged by his literary agent, Jennifer Joel of International Creative Management, the anonymous 44 sounded much like Mr. Konik. In the interview, the author said all the events to be described in the book were true and were based on an extensive journal kept during his tenure at the gambling group, from 1996 to 2003. According to the proposal, the author recorded in the journal his gambling wins and losses, brushes with the law and “the stunning sensation of actually holding $1 million worth of cash in my hands.”
But the author said he believed that he needed to change identifying details of people in the book because many of the participants in the gambling ring, as well as the peripheral characters in the casinos and elsewhere, are not public figures. As such, their abilities to sue successfully for libel or defamation are greater than they would be if they intentionally sought publicity.
The author also said that while all of his gambling activities were legal, not everyone who knows him is aware of his gambling venture, and he would rather keep it that way. The details revealed in the book proposal, however, seem unlikely to allow that to happen. The proposal details the author’s start-up of his own gambling circle, which he calls “the Hollywood boys” and which includes some well-known but as-yet-unidentified celebrities.
Mr. Rosenthal, the publisher, said he did not think that the book needed an anonymous author to succeed. But so far, at least, he said he was willing to honor the author’s desire to remain unknown. “He’s not a C.I.A. station chief, but he has some specific reasons for wanting to keep his identity under wraps,” Mr. Rosenthal said. “It’s important to him, which I respect. But I think I could do it either way.”
Half a million dollars to rehash the same old tripe about “beating the house?” WTF?
This clearly illustrates that there is no justice in this world. I spent months dillgently researching and writing a book on gambling prohibition in America. The book is well-documented and relevant to today’s policy confusion over Internet gaming. Yet, after being strung along for months by one publisher and offered a ridiculously low print run and obscenely high cover price (which would have consigned the book to immediate obscurity), I’m only now getting a chance to sign a contract that gives me a chance of actually seeing people read the book.
I think I’m going to call Konik’s agent and see if she’ll take me on as a client. After Roll the Bones, I’ll pen the “true story” of my brief, action-packed careers in casino security and surveillance. Hell, I’ll even throw in a chapter about the Mr. Peanut days (I didn’t dance, but that link seems appropriate. BTW, What is the deal with the “mashed potata” dance? It seems a bit too onanistic for mainstream consumption.).
I have had the opportunity to handle millions of dollars in chips and cash, and to see drunken casino patrons vomit on themselves. That’s got to be worth a few hundred grand, at the very least.