Locked In with Ian Bick - I Was America's Biggest Illegal Bookie — Then Got Banned From Every Casino in Nevada | Mathew Bowyer Pt. 2

Episode Date: June 21, 2026

Matthew Bowyer is back. He just got out of federal prison camp — and in Part 2 of his conversation with Ian Bick he's holding nothing back. Matthew opens up about what his nearly 6 months inside actually looked like — the stories nobody expected the prison politics the gambling economy behind bars and how he was labeled a snitch inside. Then the conversation shifts to what comes next. He owes nearly $10 million to the IRS with interest accruing at $60,000 every single month. He's been placed on Nevada's Black Book — banned from every casino in the state. He breaks down his biggest gambling swing ever how casino comps actually work the truth about counting cards why automatic shuffling tables hurt your odds and how to get a better edge at the casino. This is the most raw and revealing conversation Matthew has ever had. _____________________________________________ #casino #truecrimecommunity #gambling _____________________________________________ Thank you to NOCD for sponsoring this episode: If you're struggling with OCD or unrelenting intrusive thoughts, NOCD can help. Book a free 15 minute call to get started at https://www.treatmyocd.com/ _____________________________________________ Watch Part 1 With Mathew Bowyer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-U0P85OuwI _____________________________________________ Connect with Mathew Bowyer: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mathewbowyer5/?hl=en YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MathewBowyer5 Website: https://mathewbowyer.com/ Buy His Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FLHM4GJZ?ref=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_4MK75VR7J921G59H32J0&ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_4MK75VR7J921G59H32J0&social_share=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_4MK75VR7J921G59H32J0&bestFormat=true&csmig=1 _____________________________________________ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ _____________________________________________ Timestamps: 00:00 America's Biggest Illegal Bookie Just Got Out of Federal Prison — Matthew's Full Story Part 2 02:00 Adjusting to Life After Federal Prison and What That Transition Really Looked Like 04:41 Preparing for Self Surrender and What the Days Before Prison Really Felt Like 07:52 His First Day in Federal Prison and What Nobody Prepares You For 12:12 Navigating Prison Politics and Cars — How It Really Works From the Inside 16:00 Prison Culture and What Settling In as America's Biggest Illegal Bookie Actually Required 24:34 Daily Life Jobs and the Relationships That Defined His Time Inside Federal Prison 32:00 The First Days Shock and the Emotional Impact Nobody Talks About Publicly 39:00 Family Guilt and What Maintaining Relationships From Inside Federal Prison Really Looks Like 44:00 Contraband Phones and the Prison Economy That Governs Everything Behind Bars 54:00 Prison Gambling and Bookmaking — America's Biggest Illegal Bookie Inside Federal Prison 01:01:00 Drug Use Vice and Discipline Behind Bars — What Most People Never Hear About 01:10:00 Prison Tablets and Technology — How Modernization Is Changing Federal Prison Life 01:16:00 Nevada's Black Book — What Being Banned From Every Casino in the State Really Means 01:22:00 Owing Nearly $10 Million to the IRS With $60K Interest Accruing Every Single Month 01:29:00 His Honest Reflections on Gambling the Regrets He Carries and the Lessons That Changed Everything 01:43:00 Casino Strategies and the Discipline That Separates Winners From Everyone Else 01:55:00 The Lessons He Learned and What Finding Peace After Federal Prison Really Required 01:59:00 His Final Message on Second Chances Advice and the Mindset That Got Him Through Everything _____________________________________________ To advertise on the show, contact [e-mail] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/LockedInWithIanBicka Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In Toronto, every arrival is a statement, and nothing says it better than this. Cadillac Optic was the number one selling luxury EV in Canada for 2025. Find your rhythm across a seamless 33-inch display and an immersive 19-speaker AKG surround audio system. This city demands agility, and Optic delivers with precision to make every drive extraordinary. Let's take the Cadillac. Find out more at Cadillac Canada.ca. Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. Matthew Boyer just got out of federal prison, and he's back on the show.

In part one, we covered everything that led to his arrest. Now, he's sharing the prison stories he couldn't tell before, the politics, the gambling, the moment he was labeled a snitch his first day in prison. And then we get into what his life looks like now, nearly $10 million owed to the IRS, with $60,000 in interest accruing every single month. And being placed on Nevada's Black Book, banned from every casino in. the state. This is part two, and it's more revealing than anything he said in part one. You just recently got out of prison not too long ago. Yeah, I got out March 9th, so it's

been a few months, and the adjustment was interesting, going to a halfway house, and then clearly, you know, being on home confinement and wearing an ankle monitor was honestly amazing, because, you know, you know this process, right? When you're in prison, you have zero, freedom and then all of a sudden you get a taste of freedom and real food and seeing your family and then you get a taste of wearing ankle monitor which for me was really to be honest a blessing so and now I just got it off last Monday they didn't have you on like the new watch thing that they're doing it's weird I don't know if you saw the my Instagram post but I actually ruined one of my monitors by going into my spa I think I saw that

and they charged you like a thousand dollars or something I had to go buy one I mean I did sign for it that you can't go into scuba diving or you know a spa And to be honest, I went in my spa just kind of testing it. And then it buzzed for like two hours. And then it stopped buzzing. So I'm like, oh, it's fine. And then I went in a coal plunge. And then I was buzzing for 24 hours straight.

So I had to, you know, stay on a charger like a Tesla all day. Otherwise, you know this. If you, if it dies, then they consider you an escape. So I had to literally sit on the wall charging all day. So I had to call them and say, look, I need a new monitor. I broke this one. And they're like, all right, bring a thousand fifty cashier's check. And I said, okay.

So you had one of those GPS ones. Yeah. So like when I was on the ankle monitor, it was one of the frequency ones. So you have the box in the house. And you can't go beyond a certain amount during certain times. They'll plug in the times. Yeah, mine wasn't that way. But the GPS ones are the biggest pain in the ass because you got to charge them.

And mine never had to be charged. It was just like a little plastic thing flopping on your leg. Well, this one was a pain. It was pretty bulky. But the reason it was a pain is you couldn't charge it at night. They said, you don't fall asleep charging. It'll ruin it. So you could only charge it for a few hours a day.

So like you literally had to like treat it like a Tesla and just pull off the side of the road and charge your ankle for two hours a day. Yeah. It wasn't like, you know, if you could just plug it in and fall asleep, it'd be one thing that you couldn't. Yeah. So I saw you went in September. Yeah. So you saw me, I think a month before I went in, right? Yeah.

Yeah. When did you end up going in? October 10th. That was 2025 last year. Correct. So, you know, walk us through that day, the self-surrender what that was actually like versus what you expected it to be. You know, I had so many people, guys like you that have been through the process, but I've explained this to a lot of people that every prison experience has to be completely different because

there's so many variables, right? It's who are the prison guards? Who are the people you're doing the time with? I think those two things are probably the most important things that people don't really take into an account because every prison is different. They're all ran differently and who you do your time with is really, honestly, 80% of it, in my opinion. I think you would probably agree with that because if you do time with guys you get along with and it's it's it's kind of go smooth and you don't have any altercations or problems then your time there is a lot easier especially if you're programming you're working out you're playing pickleball or you know things that i was doing but if i if you have headaches or problems with people that experience

is going to be a lot different and that goes same thing with corrections officers right so my experience was um the night before my wife and i stayed at the rosewood hotel which is in san barbara that's one the nicest change in the world. And frankly, we couldn't afford it at the time because of my situation. But I'm like, screw it. We're just going to go have a good night and have some cocktails and show up hungover. And so I did. I had about five old fashions. We had a really nice dinner. I was bloated. I was, you know, you know that feeling where you just, you don't know what to expect, but you have an idea. And the unknown is always the worst in our head, right? So we stayed the night there. We had a great dinner and tried to make the best of the situation. I woke up the next day.

a little hungover. We drove about 45 minutes to the prison. And we pulled up to, at Lonepoke, there's a low, a medium, and a camp. And so we pulled up to the high security side, the medium. And it was weird. It was like the guard, you know, you hit a call button. They let you in. And basically said, what do you hear for? I said, well, self-surrender, my name. Sorry, I just pull over to the left and someone will come out and grab you. So for like 15 minutes, I'm sitting there. My wife's crying. You know, I'm at that realization of, I have five kids, I'm about to check into prison. I'm trying to calm her down. I'm trying to act like it's not as big of a deal as it really is to make her more calm, but in the reality, my mind's just racing, of course. And so I've never been to prison

before. And, you know, at the end of the day, it's losing your freedom. I've never, I've never have experienced that. So I'm sitting there waiting and the guard finally comes up. And he kind of flags me out of the car. So I get out, I say, can I say goodbye to my? My wife, yes. So I walk around, I give her a hug. She's bawling. And I say goodbye. Next to you know, I'm walking.

I never look back because I didn't want her to see me, you know, look back and give her that look. Like, I just want her to feel like I was confident. I was everything was going to be fine. So the calls, the corrections officer calls to the tower. They open the gate, barbed wire fences, the whole nine yards. I go in and immediately, you know this process. They take you back to this little area and just strips you down and says, get naked. you know spread your butt cheeks and cough and lift up your legs and do all that whole process

which is very demeaning at the same time it's definitely a way of trying to break you in my opinion so and they make sure you have no drugs on you etc and then they throw you this jumpsuit which for me was probably would have fit a 300 pound guy it was way too big uh so i throw this thing on and then uh the boots he gave me were steel boots that were very uncomfortable they're nine and a half i wear 11 uh you know my toes were cramped up in that and i was like like wow this is this is uncomfortable and you know at that point i was trying to have a little small talk with the guy but it really wasn't flying so i realized that having a personality and using any wit or any form of sales was not going to be a present so i just shut my mouth put me in the holding cell

and then that process started as you know you do a tv test you see a psychiatrist um they ask you if you're in a gang if you're suicidal uh if you're going to be affiliated with a gang when you're there, are you running whites, or you're running woods, you're running, you know, islander, whatever car you're running in. And that was kind of surprising to me because I was told that these camps are really, you know, not politic-y. And surprisingly, Lonepoch was, had a little bit of politics. And so anyways, after about two hours of sitting in a cell coming in, coming out,

meeting a case manager, finally, the guy walks me out to the camp, which is ironic. You come out the same gate you just came in. And this is where I thought I was on candid camera. He says to me, all right, you're going to walk about 60 yards there. And you see that post. There's a dirt track. I want you to just turn left and just keep walking. And I was like, well, I just checked into prison.

And now I feel like I'm checking out of prison. So I've kind of looking around. I'm like, is this real? Because, you know, you're in a very high security prison. And all of a sudden, you're kind of free, you know. And so I walk over to this camp. There's a track there. and I look over and I see a softball field and a weight pile and probably a hundred guys,

you know, working out or, you know, playing sports, shooting baskets. And they're all wearing gray sweatpants or gray shorts and wife beaters or white shirts. So I realized that I'm going the right direction. And as soon as I hit the corner of the track, some black guy comes up to me, he says, hey, you're running wood? And I said, I don't know what I'm running, you know, because I really, again, I didn't think politics were a big issue. And I said, I guess.

And he goes, yeah, you should run wood. than your white boys. Okay. So, you know, you stick out like a sore thumb. You're wearing this jumpsuit that everyone knows you're new. And so as you turn the corner, there's a guy waiting for you to take you over to laundry and get you settled in. So I go over to laundry.

I meet a guy named Crazy and Penguin. Two homies. They were tatted up from face down, you know, gang signs on their back of their head, et cetera. You could tell they've been down a long time, you know, been around the blocks. You know, they're kind of, they were kind, I guess, but they were just straight to the point. What size are you? You know, sizing you up to give you all the clothes, et cetera. So at Lumpo, they give you like a green, I described it as like a mechanic jumpsuit.

Or you literally look like you're working at an airport, like fixing planes. So it's kind of like a green khaki outfit, button up shirt. And then they give you sweats, a little bit of sweats, a couple, you know, pairs of shorts and shirts. And then you grab your really thin mattress. I don't know if that happened to you, but my mattress was so thin. And away you go. So off to the camp. So this guy named Brain, who was the homie that initiated me into the laundry room,

walked me over to my bunk. And as I'm walking over, everyone's staring at you because you're new. And they're sizing you up, so to speak. And you're trying to act like you're not nervous or scared, which in reality you're shit in your pants. At least I was. And so I walked over to the bunk. and within probably three or four minutes, I had two white guys right in my face, Dale and Catfish, who were probably 55 years old, maybe 60 even.

Same thing. Tattoos everywhere, you know, spiders here and there, all different, you know, prison-type tattoos. And they said to me, you run a wood? And I said, honestly, I'm sure. I mean, I really didn't know what to say, you know. And so we had a good conversation. They said, all right, well, you're running. going in with us. I said, okay, great. So within about two minutes, I had like five or six guys

bringing me items, right, a toothbrush, toothpaste, shower shoes, top ramen. And so it kind of felt nice to feel a little bit of like a, I don't know, part of a team, you know, even though you're just walking to prison. So that was great. My bunkie was 76 years old, a Jewish guy named Mickey, and he was truly the smartest guy in the prison. If you watch Shaoshenk Redemption, he was Andy Dufrain. I mean, he truly was. He was a little. lawyer. Every guy in the prison reported to him for help with the BPs and all the problems with legal issues. And so I got a moment with him and he ran independent because he really was part of like a Jewish car, I guess. And, you know, he was a really good source of just information.

But as I sat there and I was processed, another guy came up to me and he was independent. And to explain the cars in Lumpoke, it's a little different, I think, than where you're at. You have the island or car, you know, most of the Asians, and then you have the blacks, you have the whites, which are the woods, you have the homies, which are usually gangbangers or, or, you know, southerners, and then you have the Paisas. And the last car is independent car, which basically means you're on your own. You have no affiliation to a car. And for me, I was like trying to figure all that out. And this guy came up to me and says, look, the problem with you running with the woods is they're going to want you to do things. And I said, well, what do you mean?

by that, you know, do what? He's like, you know, it's a camp, so it's not overly politic-y, but there's definitely politics here, you know, running with a car. If you have a problem with someone, the car will back you up. If you're in the wrong, that car will beat you up, your own car. So I said, okay, I don't have a problem with that. And he says, well, some of these different, you know, cars are require you to wear, you know, shoes to the shower. They're going to require you to not speak to certain races. There's a couple different requirements. he's like, I recommend you run independent. And I was like, man, I just got here.

You know, I don't want to already backpedal out of the woods. And I felt like at least there I had some sort of, not protection, but just somebody to back me up if there's a problem. And so next you know, Dale and Caffish, they say to me, well, your paperwork's clean, right? And I said, yeah, sure. I mean, my paperwork is fine. I mean, what do you mean by that? You know, I know what paperwork is, right? But I didn't really understand it.

And I said, but I want to be up front with you. I do have some cooperation against the casinos. And they said, well, whoa, whoa, hold on a minute. And that's what I knew right away. I already had a problem. So, you know, within an hour of being there, I already have my first dilemma, right? Which is, they said, well, what is your cooperation? You spoke to federal agents?

And I said, honestly, when the FBI came to my home, I said, I didn't speak to anybody. I hired an attorney. I said, but at the end of the day, they were coming because of the casinos. They were coming through Resorts World. That's where my case started. I said, so yes, I did communicate with federal agents about the casinos, about how I laundered the money. And that helped me in my sentencing. I said, if that makes me my cooperation or my paperwork bad, then I totally understand.

And they said, well, that's probably going to be a problem for us. I tell you what, just come to a chow, sit with us, and we'll have you talk to the main rep of the woods. And I said, okay. And they said, his name is Bugsy. Well, Bugsy sounds exactly or looks exactly like he sounds. He's about 6'4, 260 pounds. He's got a tattoo of a pendulum on his stomach, and he's tatted up everywhere. It looks like an Aryan Brotherhood guy.

Really intelligent guy, actually, as I got to know him, but definitely intimidating. So, you know, I'm a person that I'm 51 years old. I'm not in my prime anymore, but I'm also a guy that I have no problems getting into fight. I'll handle myself. I get my asspee to get my asspee, whatever. But I wasn't looking for trouble. I just want to get in there and get out of there as fast as I could. I'm sentenced to a year and a day,

which I've been told would probably be somewhere around four to seven months, depending on FSA credits, et cetera, staying out of trouble. So I had a plan before I walked into prison. My plan was to define success and how do I do that? Get out of there as fast as I possibly can, build relationships with people and get along with everyone, earn and give respect, and just try to get in the best shape I can.

That was it, you know, and that plan was something I had to initiate every day and remind myself of. Clearly, here I am with day one already having a dilemma. So I said, all right, how do I handle this? And how do I, I'm not a rat or a bitch. I don't. But technically, in their mind, if you talk to a federal agent, you are a bitch, you are a rat. So I didn't really understand that because to me was a rat or a bitch with somebody puts a wire on, goes to meet somebody at Starbucks and starts asking probing questions and,

has a plan to bus somebody, right? That was my idea of cooperation. That's not the idea of cooperation in prison. And I learned that, to be honest with you. So, you know, come to Chow at 4.30. I've been there maybe two hours at this point. Go to Chow. I sit down at the Woods table.

And in the Chow Hall at Lumpo, obviously every car is sitting at their particular tables. And so I walk right over the whites. I sit down and I'm right in the middle. And, of course, there's Bugsie, you know, the big big dude and he says just sit here so I sit down and everybody is at that table is eating but they're just staring at me and listening to this conversation I mean everybody within the first eight to 10 guys so I feel like I'm getting sized up you know and I'm a little nervous but I'm

holding my own and just being honest as I always have been I said look here's the situation you know the casino that's where the investigation started with the federal government it led to me I laundered money through the casinos and when when the government came. They even pulled my wife aside and said, we're here for Resorts World in regards to her because she was a casino host there or an independent rep. And so I explained all that. And he said, all right, well, that's a problem for us because technically you did cooperate against the casinos, which is cooperation. And we can't have you in our car. And I said, okay. And it was a really hard pill for me to swallow because I kind of, you know, if I didn't want to be in their car, I wanted to be

my choice, not theirs. And so I automatically knew this was going to be bad in a reference to the way I was viewed in the prison. That's what bothered me the most. So here I am walking in and I already have, call it a checkmark against me with everybody in there because regardless of what my explanation is or what my reason is, they already look at me as a rat or a bitch. A lot of the people who come on the show talk about carrying things they can't shake. And sometimes the hardest thing to carry isn't what you did, it's a thought. Does that disturbing thought I just had mean I'm secretly a violent, terrible person? What if the darkest corner of my mind is the real me? And no matter how far you've come, it just keeps coming back. For millions of people, that kind of thought isn't a sign

of who you are. It can actually be OCD. Not the organizing stereotype. Real OCD is persistent, unwanted, intrusive thoughts that feel totally out of character, along with mental or physical behaviors you feel driven to do to get relief. These thoughts can feel very real, which is what makes them so upsetting. But it doesn't have to be that way because OCD is highly treatable with the right kind of specialized therapy. OCD needs ERP for exposure and response prevention, which is proven to be the most effective treatment. And that's where no CD comes in. NoCD is the world's leading provider of OCD treatment and it's covered by insurance for over 138 million Americans. All their licensed therapists specialize in ERP therapy and will help you learn to take the power

away from intrusive thoughts in live face-to-face virtual sessions. They also provide support between sessions when you need it most so you're never facing OCD alone. If any of this sounds familiar, visit nocd.com to book a free 15-minute call. that's n-o-cd.com. How many people are in this camp? There's about 320 guys there. There was three dorms, about 110 on each dorm. Do you think that's why it was political?

Because camps typically aren't like this. That's what I've heard. I think because Lompoc has the medium and low attached, and most guys are coming down from there, and they're kind of programmed to be in obviously a higher security prison, which the politics kind of travel with it, in my opinion. And I also believe that it wasn't nearly, you know, a lot of people have heard me talk about prison and I don't want to seem like I'm just this big baby because to me it was obviously a very traumatic experience leaving five kids behind. But I know clearly what I experience is a hundred times easier than a low, a medium, a high, et cetera.

So, but I'm just speaking of what I went through. That being said, I do believe that the politics were a little more present there because of all these guys that were coming down. For example, there was a guy who did time with, his name was Shadow. He was a homie. Really great guy. I got along great with him. He was like, yeah, I ran the medium and the low. And then he worked his way down to a camp.

So you can tell that he definitely knew how to run a prison and knew how to navigate, you know, the car. And you could feel that his presence was definitely a lot more real than most of the other inmates as far as experience of prison. But it wasn't like the cars were, you know, there was no. stabbing or there was no knives or anything like that. So thank God I don't have to experience that. I saw six beatdowns or fights in the bathrooms or one in a rec room or two in the rec room and four in the bathroom. So there were in five months in a week I did. There were six fights. So one per month. But that's probably happens at every camp, I assume. I don't know. Actually, I don't think I ever saw maybe something over like softball where it got heated. Okay. But I think the difference is like at the

camp I was at most of those guys are self surrendering there right from the street. Right. And not coming from like a higher security prison. Okay. I was coming from a higher one like a low to a camp. Right. But 99% of those guys self surrendered. Okay. And in a case like that, the guys that are trying to cause trouble from a high security prison, right? They get them out of there quick. Okay. That's just like at the low and medium or high security guys work their way down to a low. Sure. If you're still on that type of time, they're going to get rid of you. Right. So I think in this situation, scenario, it's reversed where, you know, a lot of guys work their way down to this camp. Correct.

That set the stage for it. And then, you know, the newer guys kind of adjust to that and that starts this never-ending chain. Well, to give you some dynamics, I would say there was probably 30 to 40 of the 300 guys were white-collar, you know, surrenders, self-surrenders. So the buses would come in from even Victorville and a lot of different areas of people coming in. and so they they would report either to a low or medium. In fact, what was it, the terminal island was closing when I was there. So a lot of guys were coming from there.

And so they were definitely other inmates coming from different prisons. So I agree with you. I thought there would be more guys like me, tax fraud or wire fraud or bank fraud, you know, just white, you know, caller crimes. But there was probably 30 or 40 of those. Now, when they kick you out of the car, what happens? Do you have to give them all the stuff back they gave you? So I was in an awkward position.

It's funny you say that. That's the first thing. I didn't want somebody to think I owed them anything. So I immediately went to everybody who gave me something. I said, look, I will gladly purchase you exactly what you gave me a brand new version of it. As soon as I can at commissary. You know, I addressed it.

I didn't wait. And they were all cool about it. I think maybe because I addressed it and I didn't want them to think like, you know, you gave me a pair of, you know, crappy shoes that I'm just going to take it. So I immediately, when I was able to a commissary, I refunded. everybody their stuff with brand new gear or whatever it was because I wanted no problems. For me, it was like the minute I got there, I just wanted to get along with everybody and truly build relationships with some of the people because I was going to be there for

at least four to eight months, right? And you know this. You spend, I tell people all this, you know, when you go to prison, you spend 24 hours a day with these people. When you have a best friend in life, you might see them twice a week for lunch or dinner. So if you think about, it, you're spending more time with the people you barely know in five, six months in my case than you would your best friend over the next 10 years. I mean, there's a lot of time you're spending with people that you, whether you like them or not, you're going to run across their path, going the bathroom, or taking a shower, going to eat, or just walking in another dorm. You can't avoid everybody. You could try, but it's really unavoidable.

Did people know who you were? A little bit. At first, the minute they heard the show, Hey, Otani Booky thing, then yes. That's when people started to know, but it wasn't as big of a deal as I thought it would be. I thought I would, you know, not that I would get like cloud for it or anything. I just thought people would be a little more interested. And frankly, I don't think they really cared too much. There were some people that were like, you know, wanted to know the nuances of the business and they were more intrigued about that. But as far as being the bookmaker of the scandal, it wasn't a big of a deal as I actually thought it would be. And there's a lot of Dodger fans there. I just thought with the amount of press that you had, that the prison would at least treat you like a celebrity. Because I was at prison with people that probably had less press or maybe similar. Right. And they roll out the red carpet. You know, like on day one when you get in, you know, you meet the warden.

They're making sure the prisons, everyone's looking after you and stuff. Because you had a ton of press. I did. And to be honest, there was zero extra attention, good or bad. I think the guards never, in fact, not one guard ever said a word about it. I never brought it up. No, I never met the warden other than like seeing him in a, you know, at a event there. But as far as like anyone really discussing the case, it would just be a few inmates here and there.

But other than that, nobody at the prison ever acknowledged it until ESPN came to the prison or until the Nevada game control board had two agents drive up there and serve me. Or until I had actual press, I had several interviews as well. So there was like three different instances where then it started getting a little bit more of the envy was in play because ESPN showed up literally at the prison. And the, I'm not going to call her the warden, but whoever was in charge of the, whatever her position was, her name was Ms. Geline. And she was like the warded of the camps and a very militant woman. She was not really happy with the press coming. And so I kind of, she basically made me come in and I had to sign some papers. And she's like, you don't have to do this interview.

And I said, well, that's fine. I'll do it. And she's like, you could feel the pressure of her wanting me to decline it just to get them out of there. And so when Tisha Thompson from ESPN came and then, like I said, the game and control board guys came and served me to put me in the Blackbook, she was not happy about that. I could feel it, especially getting attention, you know, because as you know, the prison doesn't want bad press. and this gave me an opportunity, if I chose to, to talk about all the things that were handled so poorly in a prison, right? We all know that every prison is different, but whether it's the guards, you know, doing things illegal or inmates bringing things in or all the different things that really are going on at a prison, you know. Okay, I have to tell you all about this sponsor because it's genuinely perfect for me specifically.

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No. In fact, they need. knew, but as you know, in a prison, they can't get on premise anyway. And no one knew where I was because I didn't come from my house. I did have a lot of press at my house for a while, and then that kind of died off because it was over almost, what, two years before I turned myself in from when I actually, when I first got raided. But there was no press there, no, for that. What was your very first prison meal? It was a cardboard pizza, that piece of cheese pizza that was literally like a hockey fuck. You could throw it against a wall. And I don't

don't think a piece would fall off of it. What do you get in there on like a what was it Wednesday? I got in, I turned in on the 10th and I think it was, it was a Friday. It was a Friday. Yeah, it was a Friday. Yeah. And the food was atrocious, man.

I couldn't believe the food. Now, I navigated that, which I talk about in my book, Controlled Chaos, which, you know, I'm writing right now. I navigated the food system dramatically different from day one to call it day, whatever it was when I was leaving. the change of day one to the last day was drastically different for me as far as food, just everything, really. I mean, just as you know, you get your feet sunk in. You kind of get situated.

You start to learn how to maneuver and how things work in there. And then you can finally start to make yourself much more comfortable. What about the first prison commissary item or a meal you ate? That was a shredded beef. And as you know, in the bag, you could buy carnitas, which actually, I don't know what the... No, we didn't have. I don't think we had shredded beef.

Really? We just had chili with beans was the only beef and then like the beef logs. Okay. Yeah, I don't think... I have heard of this though from other people, but it must be a newer item. It was pretty good. I had like 40 grams of protein. When I say pretty good, it's still bagged meat.

But as you know, in prison, bagged meat is way better than eating at the chow hall. So, you know, for us to go cook up some bag of meat and put some rice in it and, you know, some hot sauce. Honestly, not great food, but... much better than the chauhall i mean the chowl what do you think of the macro macro i actually did mind uh it wasn't it wasn't that bad because i i like sushi and i like tuna and i like that of course it's not you know high grade but i didn't mind it if you put a little bit of hot sauce in there and you know it was clearly really good for you as far as protein and my goal was to try to eat as clean as i could considering the amount of bad food that was present it wasn't easy but if you eat a lot of tuna

a mackerel and even the shredded beef or the cornitos, which is our currency there. What did you guys use for currency? Macrules and stamps or the popular ones. That seems to be the most popular. At Lumpo, it's cornitos. So pork is about $5. And for whatever reason, that's the trade there. Although if you go up to the low, it's stamps.

So it changes immediately. But cornitas was the currency there. Aside from the politics, you were just describing, what do you think surprised you the most? The first thing that surprised you the most? The lack of reform and education and opportunity for people to get some sort of assistance or help to reform themselves and educate themselves and also get to a better place than, you know, mentally to going home with like some sort of success or plan.

I feel like there's just, I'm just speaking about my experience at Lumpo. There's zero help. nobody cares. It's really sad because you have guys who barely speak English who want to learn. They had a, when I was there, the only classes I ever saw was a GED class and a Spanish class. That's it. Anything else that I signed up for was all carnitas I paid and then they just said I did it. You know, these programming classes, I have no idea what they even were. And so half of these guys in there, they truly need that education. They actually need, you know, assistance to build some sort of pattern so they have something to go home to. And it was really,

really sad to watch. There's zero of that. In fact, I pulled up to a class one time that I signed up for that I had to. And the guy, the same guy, brain, he came out to me and said, yeah, just give me two cornitos. You already done. I was like, oh, okay. So for $10, whatever that course, let's say, went on for eight weeks straight, apparently I signed up for it. So, and, you know, as you know, some of these programming of these classes are imperative to help you get FSA credits or whatever and shows that you're doing all these things. So I said, okay, great. For me, it didn't matter. But some people, they need that education or they need to, especially if you don't speak really good English, or what some people could do is learn to speak Spanish while you're there. If I was there

longer, I probably would have done the Spanish classes. How long do you think it took you to get settled in and actually feel like you were going to be able to make it? Because I know, like the first few days I was in. I was like, there's no way I could do three years. Right. And I think that's for any amount of time, whether you have a month or eight months or eight years, those first few days, you don't feel like you can do it. The shock and awe is real. I remember that night, have you ever seen the movie American Sniper? Yeah, great movie. And I read the book too. Okay. Do you remember when Bradley Cooper calls home his wife and they're on the phone and, you know, there's like a shootout, so to speak, and all of a sudden, you know, she can't hear him anymore and she's like calling his name.

crying. This is a stupid analogy, but the reality is that's how I felt the first night I called my wife and it's, I sound like a complete baby right now, but that's how I felt, you know, because I, I think prison was much harder experience for me, not to sound entitled or like a baby, but because I have this white glove service of how much money I was making and the lifestyle I was living, it was a harder fall. And it doesn't mean I'm privileged or I deserve more or anything. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying the fact is I was driving a Rolls Roy, so Bentley and Lamborghini. I live in a big home. I was on private jets every two weeks with millions of dollars. I never had to worry about money. Never even thought about money. And I had no respect for money, to be honest. And this was the first moment of like,

true like accountability for where I was and what I was going through. And I needed that, you know, for me because I started, I lost so much respect for how I earned money and how great my lifestyle was. and what matters to me most, which is really my family and being healthy and just having time and like, you know, being here today, you know, just having a latte and having access to go get something to eat when you want and real food. These things, when you get stripped of everything, it's the biggest wake-up call for me I've ever had in my life. And I feel like I needed it, actually, because I was getting a little too high on my horse, you know, just the accountability I needed. And so the self-reflection I had that first night was, I mean, shock and awe times a thousand.

And so when I called my wife on a prison phone, as you know, it's kind of loud. They're all lined up next to each other and everyone's talking. And I literally was like shaking like a little girl, like trying to hold back from crying. Just because when I heard her voice, it was like that, oh my God, do I miss her so much already? And so I've been six, seven hours, number one. Number two, I don't have that much time. You only get like 10 minutes to talk. I can't speak to all my kids.

I have five kids. How do I manage all this? And then at the same time, I just got thrown out of a car. I don't know where, like as far as my sleeping, you know, arrangements, I'm on this steel bunk with a mattress this thin. And all of this sounds like just a big baby. And I really probably was because I was so spoiled in my own life, you know? So that was a good moment for me, though, because it was like, okay, you got to grab your

balls, become a man again. and, you know, handle the situation. And that's when my mindset kicked in right away. I mean, I did have that little baby moment, though, for probably a good hour. And then that night was tough. I didn't sleep probably about two hours because, you know, you're thrown in a, in my case, I was in a dorm, 110 guys, kind of loud at first. And then about after the count at 10 o'clock, about 10.30 lights are out.

I'm laying there. And I'm just like, how in the hell did I get here? I'm sure you had that moment. And it's like, and like you said, no matter how much time it is, how am I going to get through this? Whether it's 30 days or five years, I'm sure everyone's had that question. Like, how do I gut through this thing? And in my case, I was very blessed a year and a day, knowing it's probably six months or whatnot. I mean, I just had to tell myself, you could do anything for six months or you could do anything for a year.

And, you know, for all the amazing life I've lived and all the trips and all the experiences and the moments and like this is what I got to pay for it, then you just got to sack up and be a man. And so that's what I told myself. And my mindset became stronger every day, as I imagine yours did. And then there was a point when I was in prison where it just became a groove of like, you know, this is my life, right? And you just accept it. And then there's a point later where when you're about to go home where everything changes

again, like the anxiety comes back and the reality's coming in. And then you feel like you're at the door, but you're not. And so that whole transition, these three different emotions that are so different, everyone experiences no matter how much time you have. But I go back to the entitlement. I feel like I earned everything I did in my life. I mean, whether it was legal, illegal, it doesn't matter. I did both.

And it was a really good accountability moment for me because truly I've been so blessed, you know, and I just kept telling myself, I have a healthy family. I have an opportunity to rewrite the script and come back and show my children that, you know, when you fall, you get back up every time and, you know, rewrite your story. And to be honest with you, to lose everything, I mean, as far as all the material stuff, I'll do it again. I'm excited about it. No, I would see a lot of guys, especially at the camp when they self-surrender, you know,

they really try to be in control of their home life. You know, they're calling their wife, seeing what they're doing. You know, the kids, they want to be kind of like the man of that. house and and be there with them when they're physically not and it kind of drives them crazy and it's hard to address what was that like for you yeah the lack of control um was very difficult because for me as a father and a husband the number one thing i've always reprided myself in is to provide and protect right so i just lost that so i mean i'll i'll live with that guilt the rest of my life um when you no matter who you are as a man a real gangster is is is

if you really want to, in my opinion, what a real gangster is is someone who does that, who provides and protects for their wife and their kids. And, you know, a gangster is not a guy who's running a gang. I mean, that's not a gangster to me. So I felt like I was a loser in that regard. And frankly, I was because I put myself in that position. And I had to look in the mirror and own that. So for that five months and a week or whatever it was, that was a constant reminder of like,

all right, you made some poor choices. Yes, you had an amazing life, but now you need to rewrite the script for your family. And you've got to just suck it up and be a man. And you can't control what's happening at home right now. And that's on me. I mean, it was hard pill to swallow, though, because I have a four-year-old boy, I have a 14-year-old daughter. And, you know, that's affecting them the rest of their lives.

And my older kids, it's still affecting them. They could swallow it a little bit easier. But at the end of the day, it's going to be something that we live with the rest of our lives. Were you worried at all that your wife wouldn't stick with you throughout your whole time in prison? Zero concern of that. Thank God. I mean, my wife is a unicorn. She's been, I don't know how I found her. I don't deserve her. I'm blessed. She's not only gorgeous, but just the loyalty, the woman she is. She is probably the strongest thing I've ever seen. And she held it down with my family and with my son. I mean, it's hard. She's running a business. She owns a clothing line. and to drive up eight hours every weekend to see me every single time she came brought the kids sometimes sometimes just herself to put herself through that and be strong mentally for my family and hold it all down i can't say enough about her yeah i mean and i never worried one minute truly and to this day like

our relationship is better now than it's ever been um it's always been great but it's we're so connected now and i have so much respect for her and um it's hard to, it's hard to put in words because when you go through something as traumatic as this, which people go through much worse, by the way, but for me, this is a very traumatic moment, you really get tested. You know, your, your faces all over the news. Your kids are being a little bit, you know, you know, haggled at school. You have paparazzi at your house almost every day for months, and you're losing everything financially. You're trying to keep a life. style going. You have all these challenges and yet our relationship got stronger because we continue

to just be there for each other and support each other. And to me, it's like if you if you can ride in the boat and things are great and when the holes start coming in, if you can plug them together, I mean, you really, you find out what you're made of. Now, when we first spoke, you had asked me for advice of what I think you should do when you get to prison. And I told you just stay away from the cell phones and the gambling. Sure. Were you able to do that? So cell phones were rampant there. I didn't have a cell phone.

But the last 39 days of my existence at Lompoc, I got in a SIS investigation because one of the guys there was hustling food out of the kitchen and commissary and items and protein and all kinds of things. And so I had money sent to his books, of course, to get extra food. well, they aligned the same name with my account and his and about 12 other guys that he was doing things with. So all of a sudden, 12 people's accounts were frozen, mine being one of them. So I got pulled into an SIS investigation. Before that happened, I went up to him and I said, listen, I'm not a snitch. So you tell me exactly what you want me to say, if anything. If you want me to say nothing, I'll just take it in the chin. If I end up in the shoe, I end up the shoe. And the guy was great. He's like, look, you have a family. You know, I just took some money for

you to bring you some extra chicken and food. Just tell them the truth. It's not a big deal. There you know. I said, okay, as long as you're cool with that, because I'm not going to sell you out. So as I asked, I just told them. I said, yeah, I bought some food and some commissary items, which is true. And so the last 39 days, my account was frozen. So I couldn't go to commissary. I couldn't call home. And I had no true links. And I wasn't receiving my mail. So at that moment, I decided because I did not want to be in the shoe for anything or extend my time. As I told you earlier, the most important thing to me was defining success and getting out, the fastest I possibly could get all FSA credits.

So there were moments where someone would have a phone and maybe I would jump on and say hello to my wife because I haven't spoke to her and have a very brief, quick conversation, just make sure everything is okay. But that was it. I stayed away from everything else. And in truth, there was a lot of things going on in there, drugs, alcohol. I mean, you name it. Gambling. I mean, pretty much everything you would think that happens in the streets are happening in prison, as you know.

And it's a lot more rampant that I thought. And Lumpoke has a million different ways to get things in there because it's huge. The prison is probably one of the biggest in the country as far as acres and et cetera. And it's attached to the Van derrick Air Force Base. And the camps are, as you know, are wide open anyway. In fact, you could drive on the street, and it's about 20 yards from the street to the track. So if someone wants to just toss something over as they're driving by, it's not easy to, not hard to get. And there's cameras, which are new, by the way.

I guess there was a TikTok that came out a little while ago at Lumpoke a few years ago, that had all these guys drinking and partying and that got out. and then the cameras got put in. So there was cameras on the dorms. There's cameras everywhere. So there's definitely some ways to prevent, you know, things happening. But as you know, everyone there is in prison. They're smart people and they figure out ways to get things done.

Do you remember your first time seeing like a bag get broken down, like what people are passing out the McDonald's or the contraband? Because I remember the first time I saw that, I was like, this is not prison. Yeah. It's nuts. I couldn't believe it. In fact, the, see, it was the night before I went home, we had the habit. I bought 40 burgers, 40 fries and underings for the guys because we had a little, like a little party for me.

It was really cool. And so I bought 40 burgers and fries and fed all the guys that I enjoyed spending time with. And it was like a little, my gift to them on the way out. And yeah, it all came in and the habit. And we transferred that into Tupperware, you know, as you know, or your stuff. So you get rid of the evidence. and then we just trash it. And that was in the rec room.

So you have a guy, you know, looking out and making sure that the guard's not coming in. And then you get rid of all the trash. And everyone's just walking around eating burgers. And, you know, you're not showing it to the guard, obviously. But you're just, you're eating a cold burger as fast you can. But it tastes amazing because it's from the habit or, you know, somewhere McDonald's or wherever. And so those moments are pretty interesting. You're like, wow, this is prison, you know.

And we, there's a lot of things that are going on in there that I was very surprised, you know, that you can't believe you're in prison. sometimes, you know, and there's moments where I got lost. Like, I didn't feel like I was in prison. You know, I'm playing pickleball for three hours, having a great time actually exercising and just kind of like I don't even feel like I'm in prison. And then all of a sudden, you know this, it's count time. And then you get this quick reminder or something happens and the anxiety comes up. And it's nothing compared to a low or a medium where people worry about getting stabbed or something serious. Someone's, you know, really getting hurt. But something happens. A fight or

or a guard is upset and, you know, they go on lockdown or whatever, and then all of a sudden it's a quick remote. Are you one of those media strategy people clicking through slides, scrolling spreadsheets? Yes? Good. This is for you. Because on Spotify, there's an audience that's different. Locked in. Loyal, invested. They're called fans. Fans don't just listen to music. They feel seen by it, like it belongs to them. So when your brand shows up on Spotify, that's who you're talking to.

And you're right next to artists like me. Lizzo. So, are you ready to talk to fans? Spotify advertising. You're among fans. Minder of shit, I'm still in prison. This is, this is no joke. Did they make you have a job? Yes. Yeah, my job was, I chose orderly because it was the- You could pay your way out of it? Yes. I did the same thing. That is correct. So the first month, though, I did the job. I cleaned toilets and mopped the floors. And I did it because the guys, the homies that were running the orderly program, they kind of mention they're tired of these lazy white guys coming in and paying for people to do their job and you know in these very serious in prison right some people have zero dollars i always tried i mean

even though i'm financially in a in a pickle you know in my life right now um i always realize people have it much worse and so in prison i tried to like truly help others you know by feeding people or giving them some of my commissary or guys that you know had no family no money no nothing and you can only do it so much. There's 300 and something guys, but if there were guys were kind and I could see they're struggling, I would help them, right? So in that process, you build relationships because, of course, you're being kind to people. And the homies that were running the orderly, I didn't want them to think I was just the normal, lazy white guy that was just going to pay everyone. So I just did the job and I did it well at first. And then about 30 days in, I said, you know,

I'm going to, I'm going to pay this guy to do it. And it's a hundred bucks to do my job, which goes a long way in prison, right? And it's only an hour and a half anyway, but who wants to clean toilets if you don't have to? So in that hour and a half, I would walk the track and get my extra four miles in or whatever I could as opposed to doing the job. But that was my job, orderly. And I chose that because a lot of people in prison, as you know, they want to work at the farm, in our case, at Lumpbook as a farm. And you could be there for like a normal job from 8 to, you know, 3 o'clock or whatever. And that feels more normal for them, like they're not in prison. And I get that. For me, I'd rather work out, play pickleball, walk on the track, spend my time listening to music, whatever, then actually working,

especially for the amount of pay. It was $12 a month for me. Some of these guys are in the dog program or like the farm, they're getting up to like $200, which is a lot in prison. But for me, I chose the orderly job. Now, as a former bookie, what did you think of the prison's gambling system? That was wild. When I say wild, there's two bookies there, one in the North Camp, one in the South Camp. And they both were offering the same odds, which are the worst odds I've ever seen in the history of gambling. I don't know about for you. So for, it was carnitas. That was the currency. So for every bet you make, it's three carnitas for two. Okay, that's the risk reward, right? That means it's minus 150, okay, on street numbers. So a normal bet, if you bet a football

game, it's 110 to 100, right? Because you have to lay the juice. Well, the vegan prison, was minus 150 because it's three for two and I was like you can't win at minus 110 you know over time how are these guys going to win minus 150 but they don't know their options and frankly they didn't really even know a lot of guys just were gambling because it was their board or you know something to do and as you know it kills time so these guys were offering three car nitas for two or six for four et cetera and so on and or 30 for 20 which at five bucks adds up right you're 150 to make a hundred And I just couldn't believe it. And then the parley payouts and the teasers they were offering are so much worse as well.

So parley pays a three-teamer, for example, if you were to bet in a sports book, is six to one. At Lumpbook, it's four to one. So one car need to get you four. So, you know, you're already against it as it is, but your odds are even worse. So the bookies there, there's two of them, they rarely lost. But they were coming, you know, to me for advice. and definitely it was helping. One of them was an Islander.

Great guy. He had no clue what he was doing. But again, because the odds were so good, it was hard for him to really lose. So I told him, I said, if you want to get more business, you need to, like, make these odds a little bit better because a lot of people aren't betting with you because they realize how bad the odds are. And you're going to win anyway. So why do you need to make it so bad?

And he's like, well, it's the way it is here. Yeah, so okay. So anyway, those two guys were running, you know, the north and the south camp. And a lot of people are gambling a lot more, ping pong or gambling on pickleball, softball games, basketball.

They didn't, tennis was there, but really wasn't being played much. And there was a little bit of soccer. But people were gambling on everything. Where do they get their lines from? He actually got it from ESPN, because we had, at Lonepuk,

we had a TV room, which had six TVs. And then in the North camp, which I ended, I started at South Camp, I moved to North. North Camp had TV in the dorm on each side. I had, see, one, two, three, yeah, four, four on each side. And of course, you know this. You can't touch a remote unless you, that's your TV and your car.

And in my case, I could never touch a remote because I was independent. So I never even, the first like 45 days of being in prison, it was actually during the World Series. Other than like watching it from a distance, I just didn't even watch sports. because I couldn't even change the TV. I had no access to it. I didn't want to piss anyone off. I was just really stayed away from even being kind of, I'm going to say less social than I normally was. And then maybe 40, 45 days later, I started to get to know people and who, you know,

who I want to spend time with to be more social. But the first like two weeks, I was definitely in that fog of like, okay, I got to get my bearings. You know, don't overstep your boundaries. Don't sit in the wrong chair. You know, the politics of the TV room and the chair. and everything, we're pretty serious there. And what's interesting about prison, you know, sports betting, now that there's this whole evolution of online gambling and just the apps and everything,

is that the lines don't change in prison. Like, it's not like something happens in the game and it'll change the spread or you're kind of locked into whatever you pick. Well, there's definitely no live betting, right? So, and there's no half times. So you're right. I mean, if the spread is minus three and it goes off at minus six, which is something I saw, you know, being a former bookmaker, I was like, the line's six now.

You gave it at three. And he's like he didn't really even understand it. But it wasn't like he had sharp professional betters there either. So it didn't really seem to matter there. Now, if you're running a real business, I mean, you can't give a line at minus three if it's six now. I mean, that three point spread is huge. So that's going to cost you. But when you only have 25 betters and they.

really don't even know what they're looking at. They're just betting because it's on TV. It's not really a big factor. But you are right. No halftime, no live betting. I mean, clearly, you know, the line is just okay, ESP at Sports Center, Falcons minus six, and that's what he's going with. And then he would go to the photocopy machine and then he'd write all the spreads out on the paper, usually take a picture of like a hot girl and put it on the thing. He'd photocopy it and then he'd walk around the dorm passing out the sheets. And then they call it a ticket. And then he would say, you can't bet if you don't win or you can't win if you don't bet. And he would walk around the dorm like soliciting.

It was really funny. And then he also ran a store. So he had, he was a bookie and then he ran a store as well. And for those of them watching it, don't know what a store is. It's obviously you're selling commissary items for people that need it on, on the spot. And it's usually a markup of like two for three or kind of the same premise as the sports betting. So he had a whole little racket going between the store and the sports betting. Yeah, the sports betting guys usually have a ton of commissary.

My cellmate was the sports book, and he just had piles and piles of commissary underneath his bed. Did you guys have pools, too? Like we had a football pool where everyone put in like two mackerel's, and then they go around, you know, survivor pool for every week of football. They probably had that. I just, I wasn't really into sports. I just started sports betting in prison. Okay. And one time, you know, I was trying to bankrupt my cellmate.

It was the bookie or whatever. So I put like $100 on like this 12 or 13 pick. Okay. And it almost hit. I hit 12 of them. The sons were on a winning or on a losing streak. Uh-huh. So I bet against the sons and they lost.

Yeah, and they won, yeah. Well, see, that's the problem. You couldn't hedge it. Like in a normal atmosphere, if you win, let's say, 10 out of 11, you have one game left, you can hedge it. You know, and you could have bet $2,000 because obviously, you know, 10 to 1 is going to pay gigantic, right? Or whatever, 500 bucks or whatever the number is and hedge that.

But in prison, that opportunity is not there. So when you're seeing it. that in prison, did you get the itch at all? You know, because you're bored, there's not much to do. Are you like, let me get back into this? What I actually would bet people on is pickleball. And then there was a little poker tournaments. We'd have like Fridays and Saturdays, you bring like two or three carnitas or maybe 10 carnitas depending on the game. And that was our form of messing around. And, you know, but there was no, it wasn't like we're putting up, you know, thousands of dollars or anything like that. But you bet carnitas, which go a long way in prison.

I mean, you use them for everything. Barber, haircut, tattoos. People are getting tattoos there. There was a guy with a tattoo gun on certain guards, you know? So you have, these carnitas are like, it's currency, right? It's just, it's money. So, yeah, we would bet on like pickleball matches or, you know, even horse betting, you know, hoops. We had a couple of foot races. I mean, you know, there's all kinds of stuff that you're just killing time. It's not even really about the money per se. And of course, you want to win just like anything but in prison for me anything to kill the time and and make it more you know just a better environment and more fun and that's really what gambling should be for it's when it gets out of control and people start losing money they can't afford which i've been there many many

times or you know start losing money they don't have that's that's when it's a problem now i will tell you there was a situation at a poker game that i was at where it was actually the first fight we were playing poker and it was a black guy and a guy in an independent car and they were bunkeys and they got into it a little bit about the guy you know basically slow playing his his poker chips or his hand and so he kept um he wasn't listening the guy said knock it off whatever and then he kept doing it and then finally the independent guy said just relax motherfucker and then within i'm not joking within a nanosecond the black guy punched him right there at the table. I mean, there wasn't any discussion. And so they both scored off and he punched him again. And then now we have this like moment where everyone just stood still.

I don't know if you saw this in prison, but one guy went around to break it up and he was a homie. So mind you, this is a black guy and a pennant guy. And the homie came around just to break it up because he didn't want them to go to the shoe or just, you know, have more trouble. And then the homies got mad at him. and said no no no no no they pulled him back and basically gave him to look like if you get involved you're gonna you're gonna have a problem with us even though you're part of our car so it was a really intense moment where the entire rec room was like everyone was just paused and it was really quiet and these guys are just staring each other and they're like shaking because you know their adrenaline's going and they're both like this ready to throw the guy already punched him twice but you could

see him like in his mind thinking and he's smart because he's independent it. So in this case, if he starts beating up the black guy, whether he does or not, he's going to end up getting his ass beat because it's one guy against a car at that point. And they're going to jump in and destroy him. So you could tell he was like thinking, shit, I just got punched twice. I don't want to sit here like a bitch and not fight back. But at the same time, if I do fight back, what are the ramifications? It was weird to watch that process of that moment. And it took like maybe a full minute of them just standing there like this. And that minute felt like 10 because, you know, it's quiet.

No one's moving. We're waiting to see what happens. And then finally, they just said, oh, he said, I'll handle this later. Smartly. There was no handling it later because, again, you're independent. And at that place, if you're independent, you're on your own. There's nobody coming to save you. And if you get in an altercation with a car, you're probably going to lose one way or the other you're going to lose.

Would you see guys get caught with cell phones a lot there? Yeah, there was vapes, cell phones. Oh, they're vaping in prison now? Oh, gosh, vapes were so. I would say that. I actually never saw that. Oh, man, I would say there was probably, I would say three out of ten guys had a vape. Literally, three out of ten.

And I would say six out of seven, or six or seven out of ten had a phone. Yeah, that sounds about right. Right. Alcohol was abundant there. I don't know about it for you. Yeah, they would do breathalyzer tests every Friday and Saturday night. Oh, really? They didn't do that.

there but they would randomly but it wasn't like every Friday Saturday but I would say that alcohol was pretty abundant and then spice I didn't know I didn't know what that was until holy Toledo that is the wildest thing I've ever seen in my life

these guys were like Dracula they're like walking in mud and they're just lost and they would sit in the rec room and just be like this like I don't even understand what's fun of that listen I don't judge people I've done a lot of that gambled millions of dollars I've done things people think I'm just an idiot and frankly I was. But to watch somebody like do spice and then like I've never even done cocaine. But at least I see why people do cocaine, right? They seem to have fun. They're partying. They're, you know, life of the party. I mean, these guys are just like dead zombies. Yeah, they would put the plastic chairs you get in the bathroom for people to crash out on. It's crazy. And then they were getting beat up over it. So if you're in a car and you're bringing the heat on the dorm because you're spiced out, then you're going to get you. ass beat. So I watched a guy getting his ass beat because he was couldn't get off the spice. And then

they moved him out of the bunk. They beat him up. And he continued to still do spice. Like he's really sad. He couldn't get off of it, obviously. And I don't know if you know this, but it's spice they can't detect in prison. So there's no test for it. So that's why they do spice over the other drugs. Of course, speed and Coke and all these other drugs, which are in there, you know, you get tested for it. But for whatever reason, spice, I don't know a lot about it, but they can't test for that. So the guys would just say that they're not feeling well, even if they're caught, and then you can't test them. So they throw them in the shoe for like the night and they pull them back out because they can't test dirty. With the cell phones, when they got caught for that, would they go to the shoe and come back or is it automatic shipped out?

No, it's 41 days in the shoe, but every day you're in the shoe is basically wasted. And those 41 days, you know, they always come back 10, 15 pounds lighter, as you know. and then, you know, their hairs are a mess and their beard or whatever, and they're just starving. And they come out and they're like, I'm like, man, I get it because having a phone, you know, these guys are on Instagram or calling their girlfriend's wives, whatever. It's hard, you know, to stay away from, especially they're bored. But, man, 41 days have lost time and then just being in the shoe. I thank God I never, did you ever go to the shoe?

Yeah, I did six months of the shoe. Six months? Yeah. Jeez, Louise. Crazy. Six months. Yeah, six months. Wow.

Lost a lot of weight in the shoe. I can imagine. Miserable experience. I fortunately for me, I never experienced it, but I learned enough about it. But what did you do six months for? The first, well, so it was kind of spread out to different locations. But the first time I got caught on a video wrestling and I was getting choked out. Okay.

When they caught the, they got into the phone, saw me squealing on the floor. Okay. And then they put us all under investigation. Then they transferred me to Danbury, but on the way to Danbury, which is my hometown, when you leave from the shoe during a transfer, every spot on the way you have to stay in the shoe. Then I get to Danbury and a guard reported that I used to date his cousin and I was friendly with him. So they put me in the shoe again there too. So I was waiting for like three months to get transferred. So that's why it turned out to be six months.

So it was about six months between the three spots, the transit, Fort Dix, and then Danbury. But at least in Danbury, because I was just on an admin hold and not under investigation, they let me get out to be the painter. So I'd paint the shoe sales. I was the orderly and stuff like that. Something to do at least. Something to do, but it was still miserable. It's like Groundhog's Day. I would just read.

I would read like a book a day. Wow. My parents would send books from Amazon. Never went to wreck because it was at like 6 a.m. and it was freezing. Always skip breakfast. I gave it to my celly when I had one. Okay. And you're just trapped there all day.

It was absolutely miserable. See, for me, being in the shoe would be really, really difficult because I like to move and work out and being stuck in a cell. I swear that would be so hard for me. That deterred me from really doing anything, to be honest. Like, I wanted a phone so bad. I truly did just to jump on the internet or call my wife or call my kids and actually have a conversation. It's on a recorded line that's raced and it's so loud. As you know, you're talking to a guy and he's kind of really loud next.

you can't even hear and you know you only have 300 minutes a month i mean there's a lot of limitations and i just told myself man i just i would i would have a hard time of a shoe um i'm already being a baby as you could tell just talking about being at a camp you know a lot of people that watch this are going like this guy's a what a baby you know a big deal i mean prison's prison and i think if you're going to use a phone renting it is a way to go what say it if you're going to use a phone in prison uh-huh renting it renting oh i think you said run No, no, no, renting. So like you go to someone, you give them whatever the currency is.

They're watching it for you because, you know, they're taking the risk. They're taking the risk and they'll run and grab it if the cops are coming or if they don't, then you're just tossing it. Right. Because it's not your phone, you know. Yeah. And you know this. We had a guy, literally, a black guy in the dorm running because he had a phone on them.

And they have to catch you with the phone. So they chased him throughout the dorm. And of course, he got to a point where he could chuck it. And he actually went to the phone. the shoe, but they couldn't charge them because they have to catch you with the phone. And as you know, if you chuck a phone, they'll just grab everyone in that area, throw you on the shoe until someone rats or, you know, they can prove it, which is wild. Did they have tablets yet?

Yeah, they had tablets in there. What are the tablets like in the feds? Because I never had those. They were okay. Listen, I watched probably 12 movies while I was there. The movie selections were decent and you could play games on them. I didn't have a tablet. I was, I wanted to buy one.

But the reason I didn't, I knew that if I did, I would kind of be stuck at my, my bunk just wasting time. And I'd rather work out. And so I didn't, I would rent someone else's and just, you know, give them like two carnitas to watch a movie so randomly. But anyway, they, they were decent. It helped. Some of the tablets I've heard now, you can actually FaceTime your family and do all these things. That didn't happen at Lumpo. Could you email on those tablets?

No. Oh, so it's just games and movies. Games and movies. How much were the tablets? $160 for the tablet. it and then each movie was like four bucks you know and that's linked to your commissary account correct now where the mp3 players still 120 bucks yeah yeah they were they were so the towel's only 40 bucks more yeah and it was you know bigger and a big screen i mean actually decent and then guys are getting

creative and they create like a hanger or like sit on their bunk before you could just lay in bed and watch it of course you know top bunk you couldn't but the bottom bunks they would literally create these like really cool little hangers and they can just kind of fall asleep and watch a movie every night. What kind of movies? They had everything. I mean, you know, older movies too. Like if you want to watch, you know, let's call it Patriot Games or, you know, movies from the 80s and then they have some of the newer ones. When I say newer, like, not brand brand new, but six months old. Could you buy the movies that they put in the TV room on the weekends on the tablets? No. Okay. No. But the rec room at Lompoc was decent. They had a foosball, ping pong, a really big

screen. They've actually played decent movies. And then the one at South Camp was a little older, but it was a library, but it also had, you know, movie nights weren't bad, actually. There was some decent movies they played. Now, you mentioned that the Gaming Commission came to see you. Can you tell us that story and what that was about? Yeah. So I, obviously, the Nevada Gaming Control Board handles the casinos or they're supposed to from, you know, doing criminal activity or allowing criminal activity. Clearly, the gaming control board failed, and that's why the government came in and did their job for them. So they look really bad. And in that process, when I got raided, that's when they came in and started doing their own investigation a little late to the party.

And because they look so bad and the government did their job for them, they're now slapping fines to the casinos and doing what they're supposed to do. In fact, when I was in prison, Cesar's got fined seven point something million because of me. Resorts for it was 10.5 million. So the fines started coming out after they did their homework. But the moral of the story is when I was in prison, they drove five hours from Nevada, came down, served me in front of an SIS officer. And basically it says that I have a hearing coming up, that I'm going to be voted to be in the Black Book.

And I said, well, I'm in prison. They said, well, you can be present. I said, well, how am I going to be present? And they're like, well, you could hire an attorney. I go, well, I don't have any money anymore. You guys, you know, I paid $1.6 million restitution, $10 million over IRS, you know, fines and everything else. And I'm not in a position where I can be there.

And they're like, well, your attorney could show up. And I'm like, well, that kind of puts me in a predicament here. So long story short, they served me. They're there for about 20 minutes. I just told them, I said, I think it's ironic that I'm in prison. the casino that committed this crime with me, allowing the money to be laundered, got a $10.5 million fine. I lost $13 million, just myself. My crew of people that came lost over $20 million.

So they got fined $10.5 million. So they netted profit. No one went to prison. And the company continues to just operate. But I went to prison. And now I'm being served. And I can't basically you're telling me I'm going to be in the black. So I'm no longer allowed to even walk in a casino, but they can continue to operate and make all the money they want.

I said, that sounds fair. Can you guys explain that to me? They're like, look, we're just the messenger. This is what we do. We have to govern the casinos. You're basically going to be voted in the Blackbook. And I said, okay, so long story short, fast forward. I just got, I'm sure you heard. I just got voted as the 39th person into Blackbook. And the hearing took place right when I was at the halfway house. And the Gaming Commission voted me. in. So I'll never be allowed to set foot in a Nevada casino or even a property that has a slot machine or any form of, you know, gaming the rest of my life. And they've never allowed one person back out of the blackbook. So they basically said, don't bother. I mean, you can try all you want. It's never happened. So what is the black book? It's basically an exclusion list where you

have either cheated, done something illegal, in some cases killed people, because there's a lot of mobsters, Anthony Spalatro, Frankie Rosenthal, these are the guys from the movie Casino. Those two guys are in it. And of the 39 people, they either cheated, did something illegal, and you're basically bad for the community for gambling, and you're not allowed to set foot in a casino for the rest of your life. Just in Nevada? Well, it's in Nevada now, but what happens is all these casinos work in sync.

So if I were to try Foxwoods, let's say by where you live, they're going to say you're not welcome your band. I may not be in their black book because they don't really have one. But basically being in the black book is going to spread throughout the country. Now, so with this, if you walked into a Nevada casino right now, how long do you think it would take them to realize and identify it to you? Do you even make it onto the floor? Are they stopping you at the door? Or do you think you could successfully sit down at a table and then they catch you?

The table, no chance. There is facial recognition in Nevada. And to be honest, I'm probably the biggest taboo guy in Nevada right now. So I don't think I'd last maybe three, four minutes because of that. If I sat at a table, I have zero chance because most of the dealers and pit bosses, they actually know me at most of the major casinos. And if I was found in a casino, that casino is risking massive fines. In fact, Resorts World just this week had another huge fine over $10 million for a five-year-old

gambling at a slot machine. A five-year-old? Five-year-old. Yeah. It's all over the news. I didn't see this. Wow. It's a five-year-old. You Google it when you leave here. And so clearly there's a lot of stuff

going on in the gaming world that they're really cracking down on or they need to be cracked down on. So me walking in would be no chance. Now, going to maybe Monte Carlo or Dominican Republic where I used to go, I might have a chance of that one day, but I don't think so. And to be honest, my wife and I are so over the gaming at the moment that I don't know if I'll ever even want to. Now those are out of the country or? Yeah, those are. So those aren't controlled by U.S. laws? They're not, but they do follow them.

Money laundering. There's still all those same. In fact, Monty Carlo, when I went, I got raided in October. I went in November of 2023 to Monte Carlo. I had a trip plan before I got raided. And we just said, screw it. We're going to go anyway because I was indicted, but I wasn't charged yet. So I went there and I sent them a bank wire.

And the wire was not from Matthew Boyer. It was from like my DBA. So when I got there, they rejected the wire. And I had no funds to gamble with because of that. So their laws changed because two years prior to that, I wired from the same account and they had no problem with it. So they've even tightened ship a little bit. And some like Dominican Republic, they have a hard rock there. All the regulatory banks and they're kind of following suit because of the money laundering and stuff like that.

How do some of these, you know, sites that aren't sanctioned the U.S. operate still continuously in the U.S. Well, if you're in Costa Rica, Costa Rica really allows a lot of sports books and people to come there because it really fuels their economy and they kind of, they don't really care. Some of these other casinos, though, like Dominican, Bahamas, they have a Bahamas, they have a Bahamara and Atlantis. They follow suit and they definitely are going to crack you for money laundering or these bank rules.

But Costa Rica, for sports books, that's where almost all these bookies use, their offshore websites because they really don't care. As long as you're your transacting business in Costa Rico, what you do or where it comes from, they're not worried about it. I remember when online gambling first became a thing when it was illegal though, they would go on what was at Borgata in prison on the app and do it. And I remember I did it one time. They never paid me. They stiffed you? Yeah, it was like a couple hundred bucks. Okay. Like I deposited. Was it Bavada? Bavada. That's what it was. Yeah. not Borgata.

That's a Canadian company. That was like one of the first ones before sports gambling was or any type of gambling was legal. Yeah, Calvin Aries was the guy that owned that. And there was some bad publicity for him for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, let's be honest, when booking was becoming bigger back then, there were a lot of companies that were popping up and doing that and not paying people.

It's true. And nowadays, you have fan duel and draft kings and, you know, you never have to worry about that because there's their major, you know, corporations now. But how do the sites that like aren't sanctioned get away with promoting it, like as actively as these other sites? Because they're not in the U.S. So if I was in Costa Rica, let's pretend my name was John Smith and I wasn't in trouble for what I did. And I was a bookmaker.

If I was in Costa Rica, as long as I don't set foot in the U.S., I can actively, you know, market and do whatever I want. And if I ever come back to the U.S. though, I'm going to be waiting for charges and you're going to get arrested, especially if you are big and you're receiving millions of dollars back and forth. And the money's coming from U.S. to Costa Rica, they're going to be waiting for you for not only taxes, but just for the illegal activity. And I know something that's like really big right now is these casinos are giving the influencers money to play with. And then they'll be online. Like I'll see like Adam 22 and a lot of these guys they're playing on, say, like, steak or whatever site. promoting it,

promoting it, playing, losing $10,000, $20,000, but then they get sued the companies saying that they just gave them that money to play with.

It's not their actual money. I've seen that, and that's kind of new. In fact, when I was in prison, Pauly Market and Kalshi, these are, you know, companies that are just

kind of taken over a lot of the sports betting world by doing stakes as opposed to, that's their way around it. It's pretty brilliant, to be honest with you. And they get the fee off of each,

Because I've used Kalshi before because what's interesting with that is so I guess, I don't know if it's at every state, but I know in like Connecticut, when Yukon was in the finals, you couldn't bet on Yukon on any other app, but you could on Kalshi. Sure. Because however it's laid out. So I think there's a lot of way to circumvent that. They also do things that are completely different. For example, through Pollymarket and Kalshi, you can bet the no on a team. You couldn't do that at sports books. you either bet UConn minus four or let's say they're playing Alabama, right?

In this case, you can bet, and there's like 10 teams left. I think the Alabama has no chance of getting the final four. All right. So I'll just bet the no and lay how many shares. You couldn't do that before. So they offer something that hasn't been, you know, been out there. And you can make your own spread. Yes.

But even greater, you could bet anything like politics or just anything. Like what's someone's going to say? Who's going to get fired next in the administration? You and I both know Owen Hansen, and they just won't, he won an Emmy last night. I believe that you could bet on whether he was going to win, because I saw that on his Instagram, you could bet if he's going to win the Emmy or not. You know, there's like a lot of different things that are out there that people create the market for now. But I read something interesting the other day, too, that they said a lot of these like bigger sites like Draft Kings or Fanduil will try to imitate that, like incorporate those features now into their platforms.

They have to. How are they going to compete with us? I mean, you could bet the weather, you know, if it's going to be 74 degrees or higher or lower tomorrow. I mean, there's so many things you could bet on now through the, you know, Kalshi and Pauly Market. They actually are taking over a lot of the business from the sports books. Draft Kings and Fandu are truly being hit pretty hard because of Kalshi. Now, we'll get back to gambling in a sec, but tell us about the rest of your prison sentence. How much time did you end up doing?

So I did just over five months. I think it was like five months in a week. and then I was released to the halfway house in Garden Grove. I was there for about a month and a half, maybe five, six weeks. And then from there, I got released to home confinement, which I was on that for about a month. What was a halfway house like? It was interesting. Man, I pulled up there, you know, just happy to be free, you know, to a degree, right?

You know, the halfway house circumstances are better than prison, but not much. The food is slightly better, but not much. a lot of TB dinners. But the people in the Garden Grove Halfway House, for me, there was 80 people, two apartments, they're all basically, and for me, there were, see, there was eight of them. I'm sorry, there was 10, 10 apartments inside a little complex with a courtyard, and there's eight people in each one. Two of them were women, so there were 16 women, and then the rest were men. And my roommates were Chubby Loco, who was a Mexican mafia. He did 18 years at Victorville Penitenti. He has Fuck the Feds across his face and a Rolls Royce tattoo right here.

Really kind guy. We got along great because, you know, for me, I don't care if you were a gangster or not a gangster. Other than a chomo, I'll talk to anyone. There were seven child molesters there. That was interesting to me because I didn't have to deal with that at Lumpoke. You know, I'm a father of five and that disgust me. So, but Chubby Locke handled that. So they weren't allowed in the TV room.

They weren't allowed in certain areas. They really stayed to themselves. And nobody spoke to them. And if you did talk to them, that was a problem. I didn't even think they were allowed at halfway houses. Oh, yeah, there were seven of them. And you could tell, sadly, that they're twisted. But, you know, we didn't speak to them, of course.

And one of my other roommates was Carl the German Davis. He was a Nazi little writer. And he did 42 years, I think he said, 40-something years. and he did time at ADX. So, you know, to go from a camp to, you know, sleeping next to a couple guys like that was interesting. I got along great with them, to be honest. I don't judge people, but it was just not the normal inmates I anticipated. And there were some people, guess who was at my half-a-house, Glenn Big Baby Davis from the Boston Celtics.

Oh, because he just got out. Yep, he was there. Did he know who you were? Yeah, he knew, but he didn't care. And Sarah King, the lawyer who took, well, was accused. I hate to even judge people anymore because after going to prison, I'm sure you saw this. There's a lot of people there that I don't think belong there and probably were innocent. There's a lot of people that claim they're innocent that weren't.

But anyway, Sarah King was there and she was, I think she was accused of taking $7 million from the law firm and blowing it at the wind. A big attorney from Orange County. So she was at my halfway house. in prison, I did time with Sunny, the guy from Theranos. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he was there. He was there. He was our bus driver, or I should say van driver.

And then also Troy, I can't think of his last name, but the guy who was accused of taking Eddie Murphy's wife's money, like $10 million. So that was a big celebrity case, too. He was at Lonepoke as well. I'm surprised you didn't run into Michael Avanotti or whatever his name is. He just got out recently around the same time as he. Yeah, and I think CZ was. at Longpoke 2, I think, for a little while before I went in there.

I had some friends from Oxford camp that transferred to Lompoc, but they'd be gone by the time you got there because I was seven years ago or whatever a long time ago. Yeah. Those are the famous people that I, you know, either met or saw. So the halfway house was interesting, though, because, you know, when you first get there, you can't leave and you don't have a phone yet. But once I got my phone after about 48 hours, that was just amazing to have a cell phone and, you know, not to be able to get on the internet and call your wife and kids when you want and

FaceTime and, well, you can't FaceTime at the halfway house, but, you know, those features are great. Did you feel free actually getting out of prison or do you even feel free now? I felt free for sure. Honestly, when I hit the car, when I first walked out of prison, I just jumped in the car and gave my wife a kiss and rolled the windows down and felt the fresh air, there was nothing more free than that, even though I still was, you know, under BOP custody. I think the fact that you can still move about a little bit, you know, just not being confined, even though I was in a camp.

I mean, again, being in a shoe, I have no idea how you did that. But that was really hard for me. Being told when you can go somewhere and what, you know, what time and what time you got to go to sleep and, you know, what time the lights are turned out, just all those things. Whereas at least at a halfway house, there's some rules, but they're less, right? and having, you know, some ability to order door dashing, some regular food. I mean, just all these little things. And also I knew I was so much closer to getting where I wanted to be, which is home with

my family. So it's like every step was like a new fresh, a breath air of freedom. And then once I put the ankle monitor on, it was like, then I had a, you know, I was working. I had a job. I mean, now, even today, I had to go to, before I got here, I had to go to probation to the Orange County Federal Court. building and do a random UA and you know that's always awkward the stage fright of sitting there holding your junk and trying to pee why guys just staring at you is i'll never get used to that no you mentioned

that you had paid you know over 10 million dollars to the government and stuff but i saw post the other day that it said you owe 30 million still is that true or no um so truth is i paid 1.6 and change in restitution um i sold all my assets as far as cars or rolls royce and all that crap um right now i have had to pay I had to file taxes on my 2003 Shohe Otani wire transfers and I also had to pay taxes on money well I am paying taxes on money that I'd never received because my tax attorney was so concerned that the United States government IRS would come after me for my website because it shows my website I took over a billion dollars in wagers in 2003 so it's hard to really figure out how much money I Because what's the profit and what's the...

Yeah, you know, and I got stiff from people. I didn't get paid on a lot of things. And so I had to actually pay taxes and I'm still paying taxes on money that I never received because we didn't want to underreport and I didn't want to overreport. So it was a really a nuance that we had to go through and a total science of figuring out how much, because it's not like I had a ledger of how much money I made. And obviously we had the my bank account. It was easy, right?

But a lot of the money didn't go through me. So we had to, you know, account for every dollar that came through any door possible. And that that was a challenge. But my point to you is just for 2003 alone, my tax return was like $13 million. So, you know, I'm having to pay taxes on that money and I didn't receive all of it. On $13 million profit. Correct. So how much does that come out to?

It's like six and change. right now like $5.7 million in federal taxes for 23 and when I was in prison I was paying $59,600 a month in interest. $60,000 a month in interest? Yeah, just why I was in prison. I still am to this day. You're still paying that. Well, it's more now because it's compounding. So how do you ever get ahead? I mean, truth be told, that was the least of my concerns. The answer to that question is I need to get a really big YouTube channel like you and a big podcast. I mean, honestly, I'm building a personal brand. I'm excited about my future, but I have some serious challenges in front of me. I mean, you know, right now it's probably 70 grand in juice because as you know, it's compounding. So it was

596 when I was in prison. I don't know. That adds 60k to whatever the number is and then now it's compounding. So it's probably 70 grand a month. By the time I end up really chunking it down, it might be 100 a month. So what are you do in a situation like that? Do you have a monthly payment plan now? You have a payment plan and they can only take a piece of what you make anyway because you still have to live. And it's like Jordan Belfour.

I think he owed $110 million. That's restitution and that wasn't taxes. Right. So there's no interest on that in most cases. But he's paid it down to like 102 or something like that. He's barely paid anything. Yeah, right? But it's similar in a sense that they can only take so much.

If I make $10 million this year, I think it's like a million. would go towards the taxes or I don't even know the exact amount yet because I'm not making that kind of money to be honest. Have you talked like an actual tax attorney to try to like are there programs to get some of it resolved or forgiven or? They don't really forgive. There are a couple things you can do. But the truth be told, my tax attorney is like there's nothing you can do right now.

You just need to make as much money as you can just get ready to start forking over checks. And that's kind of where I'm at. I've only been out for what, 60 days now. And I sell turf for a living. And, you know, that's not, it's not like I'm selling enough front and backyards of putting greens to make that kind of money. So, yeah, I'm going to have some serious challenges in front of me. But I'll be honest with you.

I plan on paying every single dollar of it. So when you're facing that type of money that you owe and you're a gambler at heart, do you ever think about, you know, gambling again? Of course. To make that back? Absolutely. Because, you know, what's that saying? When you're down, you're chasing money, that's when, you know,

a true gamblers, of course, you know, at his prime. I've been in positions where I've owed $2 million and I've went to the casino and made it and came back and had four. So, yeah, it crosses my mind. But my situation and what I put my family and my wife through in particular, there's zero chance I'll ever be doing that. I mean, I've had people hit me up on my phone like crazy since I've been out of prison. Hey, you know, I was your customer.

Can I get you, you know, going again? And of course, the thought goes through my head. It'd be great to turn on my, you know, my booking business again and start making real money, but there's no way I'll ever put myself in that position. As much as I enjoyed that part of my life and, you know, clearly just went to prison for it. When I say enjoyed it, I mean, just the perks, the money. I'll never put my wife and kids through that again. And truth will be told, the ups and downs and all the wild rides, that was a period of my life that I'm done with.

I mean, I'm still going to have those in a different way, right? I have challenges owing the government all this money, but I'll attack it differently. And, you know, I've made it a lot of money legally. So it's going to be harder. I'm not going to, you know, lie to myself. But I'm excited about it. I plan on public speaking, doing motivational speaking to people, hoping that I can impact and inspire people's lives on a positive note.

You know, I get a lot of people that reach out to me in my social media that are going through serious addiction, gambling, alcohol, drugs, all kinds of things. and I give out free advice all day long. I don't get paid for it. Do I plan on turning that into a business and a community? Sure. But if I can help somebody and saves them from going to prison or ruining their life or I've had people say they're going to kill themselves.

I mean, it's sad. And I just try to talk them off the ledge the best I can. But my point is if I can make money by helping somebody, it's the first time in my life where it's a win-win. My whole life has been, I was a commodity trader, right? So in that process, people would come to me. I would advise them on soy beans, pork bellies, whatever, and I would get a commission. And I would hope they would make money, but most of them lost.

It's just not an easy thing to invest in. Eventually, I became a bookmaker. And for me to make money, if you're my customer, I need you to lose. So every business I've been in has really been like a lose for me to win. Finally in my life, I have an opportunity for it to win-win. And that's a dangerous position to be in because if I can make money and somebody else is benefiting from that, whether it's winning in life or mindset or making money, then the potential is very big. I feel like there would be some type of like consultancy type of job that, you know, that even with your past, that could open up. I think so.

I mean, you never know. Maybe I'll work for our draft kings or a fan duel or maybe I'll, I mean, I would love to go speak to NFL, NBA teams, MLB teams and talk to. to young guys who are literally coming up in the ranks and avoid them from making the same mistakes of gambling. Because I see all these guys now, these athletes that are ruining their lives, gambling on sports because they get caught in a pickle with this addiction or they owe somebody money

and then they start rigging games or doing things that just ruin their career. And I mean, what if they had a shot at being, you know, NBA baseball or MLB baseball player or whatever? And now they're, I mean, I saw it when I was in prison and right before I went to prison, and these guys are, the careers are over. Yeah.

It's really sad. I mean, they have potential to be a star. It could be making millions of dollars doing something they love. And one little addiction could just derail all of that. Maybe it could be a voice of reason for that, you know? No, something I was curious to ask you about was guys like you and you were just describing someone already had hit you up to get back into it. And then you see like that gambling scandal in New York that happened while you were in prison. Why are these things still operating?

why do people still go to the private person when there's literally all these options that are legal that they could go to and might even get better perks? I'll be honest with you. I don't, listen, bookies will never die because think about this for a second. If you want to gamble and you want to go to draft kings, you've got to open an account. Everything's going to be in front of the government. You're going to have to claim everything, every dollar wire transfer. It's all going to be traceable.

If you bet with a bookie, he meets you at a bookie. he meets you at a sandwich shop or gas station and pays you $8,000 you won that week or you paid him $8,000, there's no trace of that. And you can get credit. See, people forget that credit is everything for a gambler, especially guys who don't really have the money. They're betting money they don't have on credit knowing that, hey, I'll deal with that next week. I got money coming later. I'll figure it out. Draft Kings, there's no credit.

You've got to put the money up front. You've got to use your credit card, your ATM, you've got to send a wire. So it changes the dynamic drastically. The word credit is always going to be more accessible to gamblers. Because if you think about most gamblers, they're really betting over their head with credit, whereas draft kings or fan duel or any legal format, it's going to be more controlled, which is better for them. But credit-wise, bookies will always be around.

So speaking of casino credit, how does that work at the casinos? Casino credit is based on two things. It's your reputation and how much. you bet per hand and you know your history let's call it and then secondly it's really money in the bank i had two million dollar credit lines at four to four different casinos eight million dollars in credit at one time but i had probably 300 grand of the bank so people ask you all the time how could you have eight million dollars in credit with 300 grand of the bank because i was going to a casino literally every two weeks and whether it was a two million dollar deficit a loss or win i would always

pay it within 30 days. And how I paid it was, of course, in my case, bringing duffel bags of cash, wire transfers back in the day from other people. Because back in the day, you could actually send, when I say back in the day, I meant 10 years ago, I could have a wire transfer sent from you to my cage under my name. Nowadays, you can't do that because of all the money laundering and the changes of all the rules. You have to send it from your bank account to your casino account. So they've gotten really tight. A lot that has to do with my case, sadly. But nowadays, you can still get a lot of credit, but they're going to be tighter about it.

But my point to you is, as long as you're paying your credit line and you have that reputation of showing up and clearing it, they're not as concerned with your bank balance. That's gotten completely different now. I mean, you used to be like 300 grand. There's no way they're going to give you a $2 million credit line. That was back when I was gambling. Now they're going to say, well, you have to have at least $2 million. in your account if you want a $2 million credit line. But basically it's based on that.

How much money is in your account? Of course, what you do for living, all those things are factors. But the reality is, it's your reputation and how often you've been going to the casino and paying and playing. And do you bet or play according to that limit? That's important. If you have a million dollar credit line, you bet, let's just say $1,000 a hand, that's way too much credit. They're not going to give you a million dollars. There's no point in having a million dollar credit line with $1,000.

Now, if you're betting 20 grand a hand, then, of course, that dictates a million-dollar credit line. What are normally the terms of a credit line? It's 30 days, usually. You can ask for 60. Some will even give you 90. It just depends on your history with a casino. But usually within 30 days you have to pay. If you don't pay within 30 days, they will drop the check into your bank account.

And that's really what you're signing as a marker. It's a check against your bank account. Yeah, I saw like recently in the offset case that TMZ posted the bounce checks. Correct. From, I think it was the hard rock or something. Right. So in a situation like that, what happens? So, okay, they'll run it through your bank, and that's because they have to have a criminal

record of you bouncing the check. And then if you don't make it right, then usually if you're not communicating and working it out with them, they'll turn in Nevada, they'll turn you over the district attorney's office. You'll then receive a 10% penalty charge from the district attorney's office, and they'll give you a work with a payment plan for you of up to one year. And so let's say you have a million dollars. Obviously, you're going to pay 10%.

So now it's $1.1 million. And in this case, you pay like 90 grand a month for one year straight. And if you don't do that, you can be prosecuted thrown in jail, actually. That's why the Nevada casinos have the best collection agency in the world. It's called jail. I mean, if a bookie had a jail as an agency to collect, every debt would be paid. Now, in regards to the credit line, what are the benefits? if you have a lot of money to even utilize a credit line.

I can understand if you don't have the money and you're trying to risk as a gambler, but say you have $2 million in the bank, wouldn't it just be easier to go grab the money and bring it yourself? No, because then the transaction of dealing with that. And then also, if you have $2 million credit line, let's just say, for example, and then you bring money on top of that, it just gives you more money management, you know, more liquidity to move, you know, to move about. So you never want to be trapped and out of money in a casino.

I mean, I've been there many times where you literally have no more money. As a degenerate gambler, that's the worst thing in the world, number one. But number two, you need that flexibility. So the more money you have, the more available credit or, in your case, post up and credit, it gives you more flexibility to gamble accordingly too. And you should be gambling based on your credit, you know, whatever you have to work with, right? Money management is everything in gambling. And discipline is, of course, number one.

But if you, let's just say you have 10 grand, you go to a casino and you bet 10 grand the first hand. I mean, obviously it's, it's up or down and you're done. And if you go with 10 grand and you bet $100 a hand, you have plenty of flexibility. You can, you know, go up and down accordingly. And flat betting for the term, for those of you don't know what that is, that's if you bet the same amount of every bet you make, whether it's blackjack or sports, it doesn't matter. So if you're flat betting, you never, there's no variance. So if you're $100 better, you're going to about $100 a hand, the entire trip. So most of the first of you're going to about $100 a hand, the entire trip. So most of people, you don't want to flat bet because the odds are against you, right? Over time, you want to

have variables. And so if you're counting cards in blackjack, you want to bet more when the count is in your favor. But even if you're not counting cards, if you're betting when things are going more in your favor, clearly, you have a better edge of actually having a chance of winning. Because you're betting with momentum, you're betting when things are going in your favor as opposed to chasing, which is what most people do in gambling. They start losing. They start betting more. And they think, go, I've lost four and a row. I can't lose five or 10 or 12 or whatever. Well, believe me, it happens all the time. So that's the last thing you want to do. If there's one thing I would give advice to people. This spring, denim gets a softer, lighter update. Introducing Old Navy's

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Number one thing ever. Just bet more when you're winning. period. I think you see that in backer out a lot too. People bet against the streak. Right. And they lose their shirts because it can hit say player 20 times. It does. But you also see like sometimes on the online games too. Right. Because you can lose so much quickly online, but it goes against the streak and then people increase their bet. Eventually it's going to hit banker though, like on the other end. But I guess you have to have a high bank roll in that situation. Listen, the casinos have that figured out. You can cost average your bet, right? So you start off betting

a thousand and then it loses you bet two thousand it loses you bet four thousand but there's a table max for a reason so eventually you're going to get to the table max and you can't win it all back so you're stuck and you know it's called progressive betting i'm very familiar with it it does work over time you know like consistently until you get your pants you know pulled down and you're you're done you might win 20 trips in a row and the 21st trip you're going to lose everything you want over 20 trips and more so progressively negative progressive betting is in my opinion is unless you have a huge bankroll and you have specified limits with the casino up front. In my case, it was $150,000 a hand.

So that was the max I could bet in Baccarat. And then I would bring in my entourage to bet up to $300,000 so I could get down more. That's how I circumvented the limit. So part of my strategy of bringing in people, I call it my little entourage of friends, is I would give them a bankroll to come in so I can circumvent the limits to give myself an edge. So if I want to bet more than what the table max is, I now just can signal, hey, Ian, you know, give you a signal, you bet the max, 20,000, 40, whatever the limit is. So now I could bet 150. That's my max.

And then you could bet 20 or 40. And then if I have three or four people doing that, you can get up to 300,000. It's called a table aggregate, which is the max they'll take. That's how I circumvented limits. But most people run into that problem because, like I said, there's a table max. they're not prepared for oh i just lost 16 in a row and i'm at the table max well if the table max is only 25 000 and you just lost starting at 1,000 2,000 you're you're dead because now you've lost let's call it 150,000 just to get to there and you can't bet 150,000 so that that system is dead

now if i've seen some guys a guy named ed tyler very professional bockrat player he did all negative progressive he would write down but he had a like a system where if it hit a certain amount like I think it's eight even though he lost he would just start over because he believed basically that and I might be wrong in the number but he believed that if the streak's already gotten that far it could go for 1620 so I'm just done I'll take the hit and I'll rework the program by just starting over and over time you know of course you're gonna you're right you're not going to lose seven eight in a row consistently so you could just get grind grind He doesn't make a lot, but he wins more trips than he loses.

And he gets the perks, too. He gets all the comps. So it's kind of a, if you can use it, there's a guy named Don Johnson. That's a famous blackjack player. And he was very famous for working the comp system. And that's what I tried to do better than anyone. That's why I got my wife licensed as a host. She was making $30,000 in every trip I went.

Paid regardless. When lose or draw from me, she got $30K. Well, that's basically another form of a, discount for me. So I would negotiate with the casinos. Let's say I bring two million. I get a 20% discount if I lose over a million dollars or more. That was in stone. I would get $50,000 in chips walking in. I would get a $25,000 shopping spree for my wife at like a, you know, one of their stores. And of course, airfare, so private jet, Rolls Royce picked up the airport and all the perks of the room and all the food and everything you can imagine, nightclubs, all of that. All of it calmed.

So the value of all my comps were usually anywhere from 100 to 150,000 per trip, at least, sometimes more, depending on how many people I brought, if I brought my kids. And that discount or that hustle was factored into the equation of, okay, over time, he's going to lose this much amount of money so we can give away all these perks. But I would try to negotiate to where I would limit how much, you know, of an edge they have. If I can cut it from 53% down to 51, yeah, maybe I have a 1%, you know, they have an edge of 1%. That's very minimal. But now I'm getting all these perks and all this fun and memories and great moments and times. That's what I tried to do as I got deeper into my, you know, casino revenue of gambling across the country.

Will the casinos keep comping someone that's winning consistently? They will and then they'll cut you back. So the cosmopolitan, for example, I crushed them. I won like $5 million. And every trip I went, they took something away. So it got to a point at the end where they would allow me to have the room and food for free. No more perks. No discount.

No promo chips walking in. No more gift card for my wife. All of that was gone. But I kept going there because when I would go to like Caesars, I would blow a million or $2 million. I just couldn't beat them. But Cosmo with all the less perks and way less of an advantage because of the perks not being there, I just kept beating them. It was just, you know, luck, pure. It's not like I was doing anything different. What game were you playing there? Baccarat. Baccarat. Yeah, I played a little bit of blackjack

and then they backed me off. So most places wouldn't allow me to play blackjack at the end because I was actually counting. But I still was a gambler, so the count wasn't perfect. And to explain that to you, you know, if I'm betting blackjack and the count is like plus 12, which is huge. Of course I'm betting the max bet. But if it was only plus two, I'm such a degenerate gambler. I'd still bet a lot of funny the pros who are serious pros in blackjack they're only going to bet really high when the count is plus like really high right if it's only plus two they're going to lower their bets down well that makes it more obvious and they now have softwares that dictate that they just look at when you're betting plus counts you're basically an advantage player they call it an advantage player

they're going to kick you out or cut you back to like limits that aren't even worth it how hard is it though to actually count the cards and stay focused is you have people come up you have a girl coming to ask if you want drinks. You have to say your wife or girlfriend. You have your friends. Like you have to be probably extremely dialed in. You do. And you can't be drunk. If you can't, if you can, it's hard. I would really try to distract, you know, the pit boss from trying to pick up on what I was doing. But I would use chips to keep the count because I didn't want to, you know, I was drinking or having fun with people. So I would get $25 chips and I would tip the dealer like 25 bucks every hand because whatever who cares about don't your bet in 25,000 so 25 dollar you know tip

chips for them to bet and I have a stack of them so if the count was plus eight as an example and then all the cards come out and went from plus eight to plus four I would just take those eight chips I'd take four of them off and move them over at the side and I wouldn't make it obvious that I'm doing that of course and play with my chips during the hand and talk and drink and kind of screw around but I'm still counting the cards as they're being laid out and also I would play at a private table playing at a private table. If you have a bunch of random people coming in and out, it changes everything. I didn't really care because I could still count the cards, but the distraction was a little too

much, so I'd rather play always at a private table. Can you win 1V1 in Blackjack? If you're counting cards, yes. But if you're not, it's hard. You can't win in anything literally over time, any casino game. If you're not counting cards or having edge, there's zero chance over time. So do you think it's more advantageous to have multiple people at the table? it doesn't really matter if you're not counting.

It's just luck at that point. And a lot of people hate when random people come in, they don't know to play and they're hitting 16 against a five. And I understand that, but it doesn't really change their cards much. Because it comes down to luck still at the end of that. I mean, I understand the argument.

There's nothing worse than a person who screws up your hand because they hit or stayed on something they shouldn't have. And then that card would have affected it. But over time, it's still luck. It really doesn't matter. You have no chance over time other than like hitting and running and playing like once a year or, you know, five times a year. But if you go consistently, you got no chance over time.

Do you trust these auto shufflers? No. I've been seeing a lot of clips on those, especially at the newer casinos. Yeah. Well, think about it. You can't count cards on an auto shuffler. So that prevents that because you're just constantly just throwing the cards back in the deck. I personally like, even if I wasn't counting cards, I like shuffler.

I like shuffling and changing the deck just for superstition slash momentum. Because I believe if you're gambling and you have no edge, if you bet just according to the runs, you actually have a somewhat of a chance of winning sometimes. And what I mean by that is this, like, in my opinion, I'm the guy who, if it's going good, I'm betting as much as I possibly can. I try to. Of course, I have moments I chase like everybody else. But my point is, when it's going bad, I'm lowering my bets.

If it's going good, I'm betting as much as I can as it's going better, right? So if I win four hands in a row, the fifth hand, I'm going to be betting a lot more than I did the first four. A lot of people are different than that, though. If they lost four in a row, the fifth hand is when they're betting their biggest. That's polar opposite of what I believe. Now, you are correct earlier when you said the odds are you're not going to, you can't lose a hundred in a row, right? So eventually, yes, it'll catch up. But I've seen more runs, you know, on the positive side.

And then guess what? if you let's just say you're a hundred dollar player you bet a hundred bucks you win you bet 200 bucks you you bet 400 bucks right the same progression that i were talking about earlier the other way is where you can make a killing a guy who walks in a casino with only two grand can make 150 200 000 if he progressively bets that way yeah you're most likely going to lose your two grand but you know what if you win 150 it's like could be life changing for a guy with two grand right so that style of betting was more of my style. The problem with me is there was never enough. I would win three million and I wanted six. And so, you know, when I walk in a casino, if you don't have a plan or a goal, just like anything

in life, it's really just a dream. So it was never really enough. The only time I went home with money, it was when it was the end of the time where I had to go home, you know, and I won a lot. Don't get me wrong, but I lost the shit time too because of that. Like I would have been up $2 million during a trip and go home losing $800,000. It's like, how in the world did you leave a loser? You were up $2 million. Okay, I understand. Set aside a million.

Take a shot with that. If it runs out, stop. I didn't have that governor very well. It was just, I would go for the throat. What do you think goes through your mind? You bring in, say, $500,000. You're up to $2 million. Why can't you stop?

It's because at that point for me, I'll just speak for myself, it wasn't about the money. Of course it is. I mean, you're gambling for money. But I also was gambling because I was such a degenerate gamble. I loved the rush and the action that I just wanted to be in action. So I would treat it as a business to a degree. And then the degenerate side of me would actually ruin that.

Does that make sense? So yeah, I just reached a goal. Let's say, I don't know what they have one, but let's just say 500,000 and 2 million. Well, any smart person would say, you've made enough. It's great. Shut it down. For me, it's like, well, I could turn two into four. And more importantly, I want to keep playing because I love it.

I enjoy it that much. So that's where the business side of it was bad for me. If I was a little bit more business oriented and had, okay, if I reached $2 million, shut it down, take $300,000, take a shot with that, and then that's it, you're done. I would have been a lot more successful. But I wasn't comfortable. Let's say I went to Dominican. A great example. I'd go there for seven days, jumping up playing with my whole family.

Well, on day two, I'm up $2 million. okay there's no way you should leave this island a loser right but six more days or five more days left there's no way i'm not going to gamble for five or six more days so if i did lose that example i just told you the 300 grand i'd go dip right back in the kitty because i couldn't stay away from the tables the discipline was lost and that was what killed me in gambling i was a pretty good gambler but i was really bad at that the the money management and discipline area of there was just atrocious i was at managing the actual bets. I didn't chase too much, but that decision right there was probably my biggest killer. Do you have a really good swing story where you went up, lost it all, and then

went back up and walked away? I think the best story I have for you was, I described this in my book, is when I went to the Dominican Republic, I had a $2 million credit line. And I'll never forget it. I was back in my room, like, I don't have much hair, but I wanted to pull what little bit I had left out. I was so mad. I had $88,000 left. and there was like three days left of the trip and I I asked them for a credit line extension. It's called a TTO, which is a temporary extension for the trip. They'll usually give you like a 10% 20% TTO. So 200,400,000, which would have you give you enough room ammo to still play and have a chance, right?

$88,000 for me was nothing. It's a lot of money. It's more now than ever, but at that time it's one bet, two bets on a black check hand, 25, I was betting 25,000, three hands at a time, or in Baccarat 150,000. So they said no. They had me boxed in. I'm in a different island. I'm in Dominican at Hard Rock.

And I was pissed. I was pissed because I was good for the money. I was a great customer. And I wanted to gamble more. So I don't really play dice much because I love dice. The most exciting game there is. But for me, because I just described my personality, I bet every number. And so one roll, the dice, it's all gone, right?

So I was so pissed. So I reserved the dice table and I walk over with my wife and two of my friends. And I said, I'm going to fuck this place up. I was just, you know, being pissed and arrogant. So I put $88,000 on the table. I think it was $25,000 on the pass line odds. And then I had a few dollars left for like a six or eight or whatever. It wasn't much.

So I rolled, I rolled like a four or a 10 nothing. And I finally I rolled the point. So boom, I doubled that amount of money. Now I take it. and I spread it same thing. Pass line, odds, and I rolled for 47 minutes. Okay, that sounds like not a long time, but on a dice table by yourself, where there's no one else to pay out in the table.

3.2 million. Paid the $2 million credit line. This is the one time in my life that I was so upset with like three days to go on the trip. I cashed out the $1.2 million, and I shut it down. I left. I was so, because they wouldn't give you that extension, I wanted to shove it right up their rear. So I cashed out the 1.2 and they kept saying, hey, you know, I got a cashier's check. Why are you done playing?

Because once you get a cashier's check in a casino, you can't play anymore because you have their check. So they're not going to let you play on credit unless you cashed a check back in. So that's why I did that. I took the check knowing that I wouldn't play anymore. So I forced my hand and forced their hand. And I went home with $1.2 million. And that was the best roll of our 47 minutes, $3.2 million.

And when I rolled seven, there was. There was over a million dollars on the table. So I really had four million and changed, but obviously that money was gone. But I had every number max out. There was a dollar I could bet except for like the, I call them the feature bets, you know, like a big six or I didn't bet that. But every number I had was maxed out with max odds, come bet. There was no more money I could bet on the table. Can you explain how the tax aspect works?

I know that there's the new laws with the, you could write off 90% of your losses and people are upset that it's not 100. anymore, but you can't actually deduct those losses from your income. Like if I went and gambled $100,000 right now and lost it all, I can't write it off against my actual income from, say, like, a job. Correct. But you can write up 90% of, let's say you lose 100 and then you go make 100. You can write off 90% of what you, you know, against that. The problem is you used to be able to write off all of it.

So if I won $3 million and then I went back and lost $3 million, there's no net tax, right? Now it's only 90%. That's the law change. But you're right. You cannot write off your losses against your regular income, which is funny. You bring this up. So my charge and why I went to prison was money laundering, guilty, bookmaking, guilty, falsified tax return. I still claim not guilty. Falseified tax return is not tax evasion. Tax evasion is when you tell the government, fuck you, I'm not paying you any taxes on the money you made. A falsified tax return. is putting in a tax return, that's false, right? Well, in 2022, they say that I reported, I should have reported $4.6 million on my return. Well, I sent the government, I don't know with the exact amount. I think it was like $600 grand that year. Well, the reason I did that is wasn't because I was telling the government, fuck you.

To be honest with you, I paid millions of dollars in taxes over my lifetime. I always paid taxes because I didn't want to have the FBI at my home. but you weren't I was not allowed to write off bets that I made against my business because it was illicit funds. So I did write off hedging bets against my business, which should offset how I made my money. For example, if you bet the Bengals with me through my website for 100 grand and I take 100 grand of my money and I go bet it through Resorts World, you lose, you go 110,000. I lose. I just lost 110. $0 for me was made.

I offset the entire bet. Obviously, there's $0 made. I shouldn't be paying taxes. They're saying that I had to pay taxes on $110,000. That's where I feel that I got a real reamed pretty bad. But that's the loss. I was doing an illegal business. So that's where, so answering your question,

there's a lot of laws that I think aren't fair for, you know, gaming because of that. And in my case, I couldn't offset the bets or I couldn't write off the losses on the bets of what I hedged. What's something that you've learned now through going to prison that you didn't learn, you know, after you had lost everything but before prison? Well, something I learned is that no matter how much money you make and how much fun you have or whatever you go through, you have to evaluate, you know, before you commit a crime, is it really worth it? And, you know, I was a bookmaker for, I don't know, 30 years, truly. I mean, depending on what level of a bookmaker you were. And a lot of people tell me, well, you did five months in prison. Was it worth it?

To me, the answer is always yes, because it was worth it, not because I had so much fun and I made so much money. It's because there's a period of my life that transitioned me to the next period. And I've learned so much about myself and self-reflection of where I'm going. And to be honest with you, the challenges that I've, lie in front of me are very big. But I believe that our past is really what makes us who we are going forward. And I'm not perfect. I made a lot of poor choices. But I learned that you really have to think about everything before you do it and make sure, you know, there's a, I think it's Susie

Ormond that has a 10, 10, 10 rule, right? Which is think about every major decision you make in your life. How does it affect you in 10 days, 10 months, and 10 years? And if you really do that, you're going to think a lot more thoroughly about every decision you make, whether it's getting married, which is probably the most important decision you ever make in your life, who you're married to, buying a house or starting a business, whatever. And in my case, that's something I'm trying to do more as I get older, and especially now because I'm never going to do anything illegal again. Because going to prison for me was so difficult because I have five kids.

If I was a single guy, like I'm not trying to compare it. there are two situations, but if I was single and I was younger, going to prison would have been so much easier for me because of my outside, you know, logistics. It's not easier for me as far as you and I went through the same experience, but I'm just meant what I'm being pulled at from the outside, not being able to be there as a father and a husband, et cetera. So now for me to go back to prison would be even more dramatic, right? Round two, you know, and I'm, I would already know what I'm doing.

I mean, it would just be so much different. So to answer your question, I really think things thoroughly before I do them now even more. And I've learned so much in retrospect of what I went through. Do you feel at peace now? Are you happy? I'm so at peace with my life. I mean, you know, you have that, of course, a little devil on the side of your head. Like you said, you owe all this money to the government and, you know, you've been through so much.

And, you know, do you want to go gamble and try to get it all back? And there's always those little things that, that, you know, you know, you know, you want to go gamble. pull at you, but I'm so much more at peace of just the basics of life. You know, like, I truly enjoy, I'm so much more present with my wife and with my kids or with my friends or even just like the basics of life, I just appreciate. When I walk out of here and I jump in my car and I roll down my window and I drive out of here, it's just different, you know, and I would have never had that appreciation without going to prison. I think you could even attest to that many years later. There's a lot of things that you probably will never look at the same because you,

went to prison. And I think everybody should go to prison for like seven days. Just just a short stent. You know, I don't wish that up on anyone. But I think they would just seven days would be enough of a taste to like truly respect and have the gratitude of things in life that we all take for granted. Well, Matt, I appreciate you coming back on the show today. And, you know, I wish you the best in your journey going forward. And, you know, I'm glad we got to meet last year and become friends over this process. How about this? I'll come back in like two years and I'll be debt free and I'll have a big business and we look back at this moment and laugh and you'll say hey you did it. I think it's very possible. I don't count anyone now, especially when you've made a lot of money before I look at,

you know, at the time my situation, $500,000 was my restitution and I was like, wow, I'm never going to pay this. This is a lot. Right. And like I thought that what I was going through was just a once in a lifetime thing that I got that money. And then, you know, getting out of prison. and rebuilding at Whole Foods, it still feels like you're never paying it back. Of course. But now I'm down to, you know, 185,000 and opportunities like the Mr. Beast thing came up. I never in my life thought I would have access to getting a $250,000 wire in one shot again. And, you know, you look 10 years later, it happened.

So I think anything's possible, you know. A business in a way is like gambling in the sense where there's luck and, you know, things happen that you wouldn't expect and you're taking risks and stuff like that. So to me, I've seen it all in that sense. So I don't count anyone out with that. And you just got to keep pushing. I mean, you look at Jordan Belfort. I was watching a clip the other day.

He makes hundreds of thousands of dollars speaking, you know. And that's someone that made money illegally with the stock market, but reinvented himself and was able to build back. So it's not impossible. Listen, in life, you never undervalue yourself. You have to be confident in everything you do. You know, Jordan Belfour has done a great job of that. plan on doing something similar we'll see uh i never i never bet against myself and i always bet on myself so we'll see absolutely thanks for having me man