Betting on sports has never been reachable or high-stakes. But with the invasion of businesses in the game, the experts are feeling pumped and routinely getting banned from plying their trade. Is this the end of this professional sports bettor?
I am not a bookmaker,» Gadoon Kyrollos informs me as we stroll through the Hard Rock Casino in Atlantic City, playing with penny slot machines. «I am a sports bettor.» Kyrollos is in fact one of the highest-rolling sports bettors in the United States. He bets millions of dollars each year on sporting occasions, from NFL games into the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. He’s known throughout the world by the title Spanky, and in his hoodie, sweatpants, and backpack, he resembles a version of the Rascal. His backpack isn’t carrying snacks and school books. It is filled with bricks of money.
«Bookmakers hang a few,» he explains, as he pantomimes holding a gun gearing up to his eye and pulling the trigger. «And I snipe’em»
Despite the bag filled with cash, Spanky is transfixed from the penny slot machine, pumping one invoice into it after the following. On his cellphone he consults a spreadsheet that tells him how to play with this specific machine so that it is»and EV,» or positive expected value, meaning that the player has an edge within the system with time. «This is some real insider shit I am showing you right here,» he tells me, speaking to his spreadsheet, which has formulas for heaps of different slot machines plugged in to it. «I mean, it is probably an edge of, like, $12, but in case you’re walking down the street and watched $12, you’d bend down and pick it up, right?»
It’s very important to Spanky that I understand the difference between bookmaking and gambling, because a great deal of people don’t know or appreciate the differentiation, such as the Queens district attorney, that billed Spanky with bookmaking in 2012, a fee he says stemmed from a widespread misunderstanding of this business.
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