The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Colin Cowherd Podcast - Insane Sports Gambling Stories on Mike Tyson, Mickelson, Ohtani, Mayweather, The Mob

Episode Date: February 18, 2026

Colin Cowherd is joined by Art Manteris, a veteran bookmaker, to discuss sports gambling. They dive into some of the wildest sports gambling stories ever told — from massive celebrity bets to shocking moments involving Mike Tyson, Phil Mickelson, Shohei Ohtani, and Floyd Mayweather Jr. — plus unbelievable stories tied to organized crime and the Vegas betting world. How big were the bets? Who really beat the house? And what actually happens behind the scenes when millions are on the line? This conversation pulls back the curtain on high-stakes wagers, celebrity gambling rumors, sportsbook strategy, and the reality of how Las Vegas operates. If you’re into sports betting, Vegas history, or jaw-dropping gambling stories, this episode is for you. Follow Colin and The Volume on Twitter for the latest content and updates!  #Volume See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I was so excited. I just flew from Naples back to Chicago, and I read it. It's called The Bookie. Inside the high-stakes world of sports betting, a legendary bookmaker's tale of gangsters, celebrities and the art of the game, all the proceeds from the bookie are going to arts, two favorite charities, World Wildlife Fund and Blood Cancer United. This is fun for me because, as many of you know, if you've listened to me for years, I've talked a great length about my Las Vegas being my first job out of college. Well, one of the people that was at the center

of it and around it, one of the most recognizable people who was built. building his own career was Artman Terrace, who started at Caesars, moved to the Hilton, where I spent almost every Saturday and Sunday as a young sportscaster. So let's start with that. There's so many things to get to. And I want to take this, because a lot of this stuff, I want you to explain to the audience. Some of this stuff I knew. I am briefly in the book.

And yes, I did introduce you to your wife, Sue, beautiful, elegant, smart. all the great things, and I hope she's doing well. I know she is. Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful kids. Absolutely stunning, beautiful kids. So, thank you.

When you think of Caesar's Palace, I'm a guy from a small town. You go to Vegas. You think Caesar's Palace, you know, it's Harry Gluck, it's big money. It's like just Steve Wynn is becoming this big architect in Vegas. And you, Caesar says, Art, get in here. and organize our sports book. And I'm reading your stories. It was a mess.

And it's amazing that this industry has grown so much. Take the audience to when you went into Caesars, the back room to organize their sports book and what you saw. Well, you're right that in the early days of the sportsbook industry that I joined in 1980, it was far different from the industry today. and there wasn't a whole lot of procedures and policies in place. And some of the sports books were pretty chaotic. Now, in fairness to some of the other executive at Caesars,

they were hoping to do and wanting to do the same things out that I did. And certainly the finance and audit people were a big help. And once they knew that they had somebody that wanted to clean things up, wanted things to be run legitimately and properly, and within the gaming control board standards, client standards. Yeah, they were very, very helpful also. But, but yes, it was chaotic in those days. There was very few house rules, very few standards of operational standards. And I think I was able to establish a lot of those policies that are still in place today in a lot of casinos.

Yeah, you and Chuck Esposito were the two guys I always trusted. I always thought you guys had kind of an every man quality. And I don't think people understand this. There were people that I knew like Lem Banker. I didn't know Billy Walters at the time. And Lem could be very manipulative, rest in peace, and very much a showman. And, you know, Lem wanted what Lem wanted. But when you started in this business, you know, I'm very naive. You know, I just figured, you know, the big guys had phone accounts, but they weren't working the edges. It was a big operation. But you had real run-ins with Billy Walter or a Lem banker. Let's talk about the most famous of the gamblers, Billy Walter, and how, art, you, listen, you're paid by the Hilton or Caesars. This is a legitimate operation.

Those guys didn't want to play by your rules. Well, you know, I respect the folks that you're mentioning. Yeah, I certainly respect their abilities as handicappers. They were both top-notch, and I respect that. But they were adversaries. You know, they weren't friends and partners or colleagues. They were adversaries. And certainly that left a real divide. And so, no, I didn't get along real well with certain high-end, sophisticated players.

You know, they threatened my bottom line. And, you know, and I said to a few people in recent weeks that, you know, you know, maintaining compliance, maintaining the gambling license of a company I always viewed as my top priority. Second was guest service for everyone. And third was revenue. But nevertheless, the bottom line in all of that, yeah, you know, guest service is great, you know, having great television screens and audio systems and computer systems that function properly. that's all an important part of the business. But making money is still the bottom line. And it's still,

after all of a sudden, it's still about making money. And there were certain people they wanted mine, and I wanted theirs. And that doesn't always lead to the most comfortable of relationships. So I didn't know what runners were until I met people like you or Chuck Esposito. And, you know, I'd sit down and be asking a million questions because I was curious about the industry and I always love betting football. and you had to battle runners. A runner is somebody who is making bets for a whale, making bets for a billy. And, you know, he just can't walk in. He can get banned or you're going to have limits on him.

And his way around that is, I'm going to have 30 guys spread them around the city. Could you tell? Because, you know, you had your guys, your tellers. Could you tell that's a runner, that's not? I mean, how difficult was that for you, that game of cat and mouse? Well, it was difficult. And in Nevada, there's, there are regulations prohibiting what's called messenger betters. And that, you know, slang term is runners, of course, but that, but they are folks that are paid to wager on behalf of others.

And by the way, just coincidentally, in recent months, New Jersey has passed laws banning proxy wagering, as it called in their, as it's called in their regulations. And that, that prohibits people from using other people's phone accounts. And that's, you know, very, very similar end result. In answer to your question, sometimes, not always, but sometimes. You know, I mean, there would be certain tip-offs if you believed somebody was runner. And certainly, with today's technology, you could see point spread movement around the industry. And, you know, my long-standing statement to my staff was, well, either this guy has ESP or he's working, with somebody else.

Because if the line's changing across the industry simultaneously as somebody's playing, that's a pretty fair indication of where the source of those funds might be coming from. But there's no tried and true standard answer that gives me or anyone else the ability to determine that definitively. It's a pretty tough question to answer. But there are indications. And I always tried to err on the side of caution rather than the. side of leniency. You know, there's a story. When I was a kid growing up, the most well-known

NBA official was Earl Strong. He was very boisterous. He was very much theater and charismatic. And there's a story in your book about, and this just goes to show you the lengths. You didn't have the internet back then. I mean, it was basically you tell a story about to get to figure out because gamblers felt like, oh, he has a tendency to blank as a ref or do this. It's not rigged. It's not throwing a game, but referees are human. They have tendencies for years and years.

There were certain officials that just were willing to give the road team. Maybe Steve Javvy for years, I always was told that, hey, he'll go into a harsh arena. He'll give the road team the call. He won't be intimidated like maybe young refs or college refs. But tell the Earl Strom story, because I thought that was fascinating. Well, there was a very sophisticated gambler who I was friendly with, very friendly with. I actually played softball together. He was a terrific slow-pitched softball pitcher and one of those old timers that really knew the game.

And we were very friendly. I didn't realize the extent of his sophistication as a sports better because, again, he wasn't making most of his bets in person. Others were. So I didn't put two and two together for quite some time. But later, he did tell me the story of how he would track Earl Strong because he believed that he had strong tendencies. And he believed that his officiating could dramatically affect NBA totals. And he, you know, his total bets were based in large part on where Earl Strom was going to be officiating. And as you said, there was no internet back then.

So he literally had it. You didn't know who was officiating the games. Well, he had somebody following Earl Strom to determine what city he was flying to. That just cracks me up. Basically, Earl Strom had spies. Oh, Earl's in Detroit tonight. Bet the over. Yes, that's right. That's right. So what happens in your career? I fell in love with boxing when I moved to Vegas. And there are times it could be a Pachiala Mayweather fight or a Buster Douglas Tyson fight where by, by proxy, you have information that is kind of viewed as inside information. What do you do when you know something, maybe you shouldn't know, you stumble on it, or you're so connected, Art, you just find things out, right? In those instances, if you could take the audience through one or two of those,

where is that a dilemma for you? It absolutely is a dilemma. And, you know, for many years, particularly after you left you left las vegas i got real involved in boxing i was very involved in signing uh big fights and operating the fights and being part of the publicity tours for for various big fights and i never saw i never thought anything about it it was just part of my job and i and i love doing i love being around boxing i love running sports books yeah and so so um you know it didn't it didn't bother me i didn't feel any any any any great conflict until the Mayweather-Pack-Yell fight. And in that fight, I did find out some very, very important inside information.

And it left me in a real dilemma before the fight. I was told straight up that Pachial was hurt and could not win the fight. And when you watch the fight, that's exactly what happened. He was a one-armed fighter that night. He immediately had shoulder surgery shortly after the fight. and it became crystal clear to me that there must be a very clear separation between participation in sports, including on the promotional end, and gambling on sports. And I've preached that message ever since.

And I did work for the NBA as a consultant for many years, and of course they love that message, as did the other leagues, you know, because I would be at various conferences and speaking engagements. And, you know, I felt a great deal of camaraderie with the leagues on that issue. That's why, Colin, the embracing of gambling now by the leagues had been surprising to me. You know, I mean, I knew that there was going to be some cooperation, data sharing, for example, for in-play wagering, video signals into casinos and sports books, of course, is another form of cooperation. and that I certainly expected, but the amount of official sponsorships and official partnerships with the gambling companies, that has really surprised me.

And I think that that message can't stand. It's not going to stay there forever because there's going to be pushed back inevitably. And I look around the world, the world of sports gambling. you know, you look to Europe where sports gambling has been legal now for something like 25 years or 30 years, and sports book advertising is not legal. And there's great pushback now in the UK and Ireland and the Netherlands, in Germany, and elsewhere around the world. The U.S., of course, is still going 100 miles an hour the opposite direction. And, you know, I think that's a terribly mixed message that the least.

are trying to send right now. You know, they tell their players and their staffs, the coaches, and even office personnel, how they must stay away from gambling, how evil gambling is. And yet they're signing these partnership agreements. And in some cases, even wearing gambling company logos on their shirts. So I think it's confusing to a lot of young athletes. And it's going to continue to cause problems. until there is a day of reckoning.

And I hope that the leagues address this issue themselves rather than have it imposed upon them. Yeah. And let's, you know, prop bets are something I think that worry people. I've said before. I worry about not not betting the spread as much because games are monitored. You always knew and you predicted this and you told the NBA when you sat down with David Stern, watch the officials. It's not going to be about the players. It's going to be college kids because they don't have any money and it's going to be officials.

And so what's interesting is the Tim Donagy situation happened. And it was, I will say this, and I've talked to Tim Donagkey. It was, let's take it back because I, for years, argued, Vegas is the ally of the pro leagues. They don't want it. Listen, the margins are thin on this stuff. The last thing they want is for there to be. illegal gambling. They'll tell the leagues, we're getting burned on this game or we're getting burned by this official. So let's go back to the Tim Donagy situation where he wasn't necessarily

changing outcomes. He was changing overs and unders. And take the audience back, because I want to get them into your book. Were you shocked by Donagy? I was caught off guard. I did not see that it was happening. And I had great regret about that. And I talk about that in the book. I wish I had caught it. It would have been very difficult to see, though, because we did not get bet on those games or those totals. So there was no unusual money flooding into the Las Vegas casinos, like there was, for example, in the Arizona State point-shaving scandal of the mid-90s,

which was easy to see. And I was so proud of the industry for seeing it, doing the right thing, notifying the leagues, notifying, in that case, the NCAA and of course the Nevada Gaming Control Board, having everything documented, videotaped, et cetera. We handled the situation perfectly. So I took great pride in that, and I took that part of my job seriously monitoring for those types of improprieties.

The Donahey scandal, though, was very upsetting to me. You know, and seeing David Stern before the media when that was first reported was heartbreaking. He was genuinely crushed, hurt by what had happened. It was plain to see. You could see the pain on his face, and that's all I felt, too. But today, it's, you know, far different. And, you know, mentioning the prop bets, I've never been an advocate of prop bets on college athletes. I did wind up doing it the last several years that I was in the business, but I had to to keep up with the Joneses.

By that time, you know, in the late 2018, 19, in early 20s, you could not have prop bets up on the college football championship game or the final four. You know, it was expected by that time by your consumers and you had to accommodate your consumers. So I did do it. but I never liked it. But what's happened now in the last couple years with, you know, in pro baseball and pro basketball has been very surprising and devastating to me. And that is going to be very tough to control. Prop betting and in-play wagering has become a very fun, enjoyable pastime for thousands and thousands of consumers. So it's going to be hard to roll that back.

but on college sports, it should be rolled back. And I am a strong advocate of the industry doing away with wager on college sports, or individual athlete, athletic performance. Today's show brought to you by our presenting sponsor Hard Rock Bet, Florida's Best Sports Book. I know it's tough with no football. But like the song says, I will survive. Hard Rock Bet, always something to bet every single night.

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Hey, it's us, the Jonas brothers. And guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, name? Huge news. We created our own podcast called, Hey, Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it.

We just contributed to a... We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special. So how do we actually come up with a name, Jonas, guys. I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about

what we should call it. Well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers. This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit

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Odin Kirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an acapella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement home. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The French Open is one of the toughest tests in tennis,

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Open your free, our heart radio app, Search learn the hard way and listen now. I want to go back to the Tyson Buster Douglas fight where Mike Tyson, I think, was a 42 to one favorite. I can remember going on the air and saying it's the safest bet of all time. In fact, a friend of mine, a friend of mine was at the California Pizza Kitchen at the at the then time new Mirage. And we were at the California pizza and the fight was that night. And he goes, hey, I'm going to bet $10 on Buster Douglas. I said, just buy a chicken, California pizza chicken, barbecue chicken pizza.

That is a way better bet than Buster Douglas, some guy from Ohio. Of course, I was exceptionally wrong. Go back to that fight. What happens in your space when it is the upset of a decade in any sport? Is that a miserable experience for you? Well, I didn't even book that. fight. I didn't take wages on it. I thought if I considered it an out price, meaning it was ridiculous. It wasn't a competitive event. Buster Douglas had fought it to Hilton about a year earlier and lost

to Tony Tucker and did not impress me at all. He, you know, he was lethargic and, you know, just uninspired performance completely and didn't look good at all. And I'd seen him in some other fights too on his way up the ladder. Not very impressive to me. Tyson, of course, was annihilating everybody at that time. But in retrospect, Buster Douglas had lost his mother shortly before the fight. And he dedicated his next fight to the memory of his mom, fought the fight of his life. He really did fight a terrific fight that night. Tyson, on the other hand, was an emotional wreck in his personal life.

And I came to learn later. In this case, I learned this insight information after the fact, not before the fact. But I was told by a very good friend and my personal physician, who happened to be Mike's personal physician also, and also the chairman of the Nevada Athletic Commission that Mike had been suffering from an STD

and was under heavy medication at the time of the fight. And it wasn't the first time that he fought under those conditions. The first time in the Trevor Berwick fight, it didn't, it didn't, hurt his performance at all. Second time it did. Yeah. By the way, by the way, Colin,

that 42 to 1 that you're referencing, that was Jimmy Vicaro at the Mirage book the fight. And he put it up 1 to 27, making Tyson a 27 to 1 favorite over Douglas, and all the money was on Tyson. Every ticket was on Tyson. He said, somebody put up a lot of money,

you know. And so he, He ratcheted the odds all the way up to 42 to 1 and then got some great publicity about it afterwards. And still telling stories about it to this day. When the Supreme Court rules, sports gambling is legal, how does it, and then almost simultaneously, the draft kings, the fandals, we have a deal with hard rock bet. They have been a great partner for me. They don't force me in to make silly bets. They're, you know, it's a big, broad relationship with shows that we've built for them beyond just picking occasional football games.

But how does it affect the sports book in general? Again, I spent my Saturdays at your Las Vegas Hilton sports book. I parked in the back parking lot. I came in and I parked there all day. I should own stock in the company. Has legalized gambling all the, the various companies where people can now bet on apps. How does it affect the sports books in Vegas or Atlantic City?

Well, the sports books in Las Vegas have not been hurt by the proliferation of sports gaming across the country. Now, this year is a little bit of an anomaly. The Super Bowl handle was significantly down in Las Vegas. And there's probably several reasons why. Number one, it wasn't a great marquee matchup. It was. It was, you know, two teams were good.

They were, especially that Seattle defense was really awesome. Most of the season is in through the playoffs, of course. But nevertheless, there wasn't the big name guys. You know, there was no Tom Brady, no Dan Marino, no, you know, no real marquee names in the game. The prediction markets may or may not have been a factor. Yes. And everybody having gambling in their own backyard now. it may be a factor.

So, you know, I'm still analyzing that to know exactly what happened. Las Vegas, to me, is undoubtedly still the most exciting city in the world. I still love it. I still love living here, and we're not going anywhere. But right now, the industry does have to take competition very seriously and get their arms around our own practices here internally from, you know, parking fees and costs of drinks and add-on fees to hotel rooms and so on and so forth. Those things do have to be addressed now industry-wide.

And I think they are. You know, people who build and run these places aren't dummies. They're getting it now. Yeah. I mean, one of the reasons my company, the volume, embraced hard rock bet is because they had brick and mortar businesses. And I've said, guys, I've spent, I went to the Hilton. I was at Caesars. I want to have a relationship.

Hard Rock Bet, as you know, is building one on the strip. And my take has always been. I love the in-person betting experience of a sports book. I also like the ability to go on a nap. But when I went to Hard Rock Bet and I can hang out in their sports book, I'm like, oh, my God, I felt like I was at the Hilton. Maybe not as grand quite as the Hilton. I mean, let's be honest. When you were running the Hilton sports book,

what percentage of betters are marks, squares, and what percentage are sharps and pros? Oh, boy, that's a good question. I wouldn't put everybody solely in one of those categories and not allow for a huge middle ground. There's a lot of people that are in the middle between the two, and some are shaded more towards a sophisticated side, some not so much. And in today's world, you know, shows like yours and the data available online, the ability to investigate what's going on is so much greater than it used to be. You know, and it just, just, you know, following certain information networks online. Yeah. You know, it's far different than in the old days where the old timers used to brag about getting newspapers at the airport from people coming off the plane.

Yeah, I mean, that's long, you know, obviously long gone now and get, you know, so access to information is so much greater today. And data analysis is a very formidable part of sports handicapping today, which didn't exist in those days. And but not everybody is one extreme or the other. You know, it's not every, you know, one segment of the market isn't just coming in and betting on their favorite team because it came from that town. and the other segment, you know, doing sophisticated analysis. There's a lot of people in between. And one thing that I do point out in the book also is most guys have an opinion on sports. And if they have an opinion on sports, they generally think their opinion is better than the next guys.

Right, right. Yeah. And if they think their opinion is better than the average guy, then they think they can beat sports gambling. Yeah. And, you know, most cannot, but some do. You know, I tell the story of my uncle, Jack Franzy Pittsburgh, Jack, who was a successful sports handicapper for 60 years. Isn't that crazy?

Never worked a full day in his life. Worked a half a day once and quit. But that was it. Well, I've always argued sports gambling has the hold is smaller than a lottery. People we have, lotteries are legal everywhere, but they hold half the money. And you have almost no shot to win. I can on any given Sunday, this year I hit 59.5% on my NFL bets. That's pretty good number. That's great. That's terrific. Yeah. Very, very good. But you're right. The margins in sports are not

that great. And it's a very expensive department to run in most cases. You know, the technology involved, the staffing involved, the management, the, you know, the data analysis in today's world, which is a big part of the game. Those things are not cheap. And when you're running on very thin margins, you know, it's tough to make a lot of money. And that's another reason that I just don't, it doesn't make sense to me for companies to be spending

enormous amounts of money to be in marketing partnerships with the leagues and teams. You know, they're better. If people want to bet sports, they can find a place to bet sports. They could find the app. They could find the casino or sports book in their, city or in their geographic region, you don't need to be bombarded with sportsbook advertising

at every break in the game. Listen, there's a lot of golfers, for instance, are kind of legendary gamblers. They're not part of a league. I mean, even the PGA doesn't run Augusta or the British Open or the U.S. Open. And golfers, I mean, these days, they make money on YouTube. They make money on teaching. They make money, curses from winning events. Golfers have always sort of lived their own sort of life art.

They kind of doing their own thing. There were rumors about Phil Mickelson forever. I read Alan Shipnuck's book on Phil Mickelson, which I don't think Mickelson liked the book, but I actually thought like Wolf of Wall Street or the Oliver Stone movie, the Gordon Gecko character. Actually, Oliver Stone wasn't trying to make him likable, but young people found him to be heroic.

They Oliver Stone later acknowledged that he didn't want to make Gordon Gecko likable, but it made all these young guys that want to be stockbrokers. I read Phil Mickelson's book, and I'm like, okay, Phil Bet. He was a voracious eater, a voracious liver, a voracious better. So let's talk Phil Mickelson, who had a legendary reputation. When did you discover Phil liked a bet occasionally? late 90s. Late 90s, he was a frequent

Las Vegas customer. Was he a good better? Not especially until later on. But he was just like most average people coming. He made a ton of money so he would bet a little bit, he would bet more than most. But that's the only thing that separated him from the casual fan, other fans that would come in

and bet their favorite teams or conferences. And he was a very likable guy. Nobody ever had any problem with him personally. He treated the staff very courteously. He signed autographs periodically. He was a very likable guy. And I have no grudge against him. I do think that he got caught up.

He got in over his head and he started associating with people that he shouldn't have been. It being a high-stakes athlete like that, a very competitive athlete. But at the end of the day, he did what he should have done. You know, he got out. He stopped playing. He kept his mouth shut. And in one case, he had to pay restitution. And he did that. And, you know, if I ever saw him or had the opportunity to speak to him again, I would love to. I would be glad to see him. I admire him as an athlete. And I admire him for the steps that he's taken since he stopped gambling. So give me something the average fan would be surprised. about with sports gambling. I think of myself as a square, but more in the middle than a full square. I'm pretty, I'm unemotional.

I kind of go in. I've always said, I bet numbers. I don't bet teams. I bet numbers. I don't bet players. I look at a number. Now, I had New England plus four and a half of the Super Bowl. I did have Sam Darnold under two touchdown passes, but I got smoked.

But, give me. By the way, that 50, nine. I might be calling you that same thing. Is, are there sports that you make money that I, I wouldn't believe? Are there certain sports that it's you guys like hockey? The people that bet hockey, I would guess, really know hockey. Are there sports that are trouble for a sportsbook operator? I imagine you do pretty well in the NFL, but let's take hockey.

Who bets hockey unless they know hockey? Is that a tough one? Your analogy is spot on. But things changed in Las Vegas quite a bit when the Golden Knights opened up here in Las Vegas. Okay. You know, prior to that time, our decisions on hockey were minuscule. But you're right. There was a lot of sophisticated players, betters that bethockey and not so much the general public.

But that all changed overnight. And the city just totally embraced the knights. They were so good their first year, right out of the box. And it followed, right when they started. Their first season started, followed that horrible shooting on the strip at Mandalay Bay. And the city was just shocked. And then all of a sudden, this team came into our lives. And everybody in town was rooting for them.

And they had this slogan, Vegas strong. And everybody, you know, you'd see those signs all over the city. And the city loved them. And I, as a bookmaker, started getting killed in hockey game after game after game. And they came so close to winning it all where we would have gotten carried out if they had won the championship. That was the biggest sweat of my life as a bookmaker. But yeah, now since then, yeah, hockey's much bigger part of the betting handle in Nevada than it used to be. But football is still the king of betting sports.

You know, it really is. Football is just made for sports gambling. You know, people have a week to do their homework and to all. argue with their friends and compare opinions and shop for numbers and, you know, and then, and then, you know, everything, everything culminates on the weekend. And, and, and, and that, that is, That is still the biggest betting sport in Las Vegas and in America. Basketball is strong. The NCAA tournament is gigantic also.

Baseball is probably the lightest of the major sports, but because of the numbers of games, that total handle does add up to a lot. But by comparing individual game to individual game, baseball is far behind the others, the other major sports. Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers, and guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, name?

Huge news. We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to a podcast. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts. We're starting a trend. But this one's extra special.

So how do we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers. This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, where people could call in and say, Hey, Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast.

But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you can. get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite.

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with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the ice. Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The French Open is one of the toughest tests in tennis, and I know firsthand because I

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This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying. and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise. Breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines.

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And for more, follow Timbo Slic Life 12 and the TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. I can remember this is very early days when I was, I got out of school in the high school, 82, 86 college, and I went to Vegas. And I picked up on a couple trends. I knew the Pac-12 at the time, Pac-10. generally well. And I always thought that I knew the Pacific Northwest teams better than the

sports books because I was from up there. And I remember one year I hit seven of eight bets on Oregon State. I just, I always felt USC was overplayed in Vegas. So I tended to bet against USC and bet for the Northwest schools. I do remember something and it's very fuzzy because I moved there, Tony Spilatro was there. I once walked into a restaurant on Spring Mountain Road and saw Tony Spalatro. started eye on me and I thought, he thinks I'm a news guy. I'm like, I'm a sports guy. I'll give you a pick. Leave me alone. So I was, I wouldn't go to the bathroom. I'm like, there's Tony Spalatro and a table of mob guys. Ned Day was a reporter at Channel 8 doing, and I'm like, I'm not, I'm not going near the bathroom. So, but the point was there was a story, and I don't

remember, it's very fuzzy, but there was Ivy League football. And there was a syndicate or a bunch Sharps on the East Coast that were beaten up on sports books and the only people that met Ivy League Football knew Ivy League football. And if I recall, some of the sports books said, we're just not letting you bet it. Do you remember that with Ivy League football? Yeah, but it wasn't just Ivy League football. It's the smaller conferences in general. And I finally did a study and was able to approve, I was able to prove what I had theorized for many, many years. I think it was 2020. I brought in an analytics firm, and they analyzed a lot of data and finally documented

that we made very, very little money, almost a break-even on all the small conferences that we booked. But the major conferences, we did very, very well. So the more viewers of any event, that's our bread and butter business, in my opinion. That's where we made our money. If it's a marquee matchup, Alabama and Auburn, or some U.S.C. and UCLA, in our case being so close to Southern California, those are the matchups you like as a bookmaker. And I always took much higher limits on the power conferences and the Wii conferences, very low limits. And the sophisticated betters didn't like that, of course, because that's where they had their best opportunities.

And you're right. They knew more than me, certainly more than the industry in general. When you get a situation like Otani, and I defended him, I'm like, listen, folks, he doesn't speak our language. Okay. Communication's a problem. Every state has different tax laws. when you're making so much money not only with the Dodgers and baseball, but overseas on merchandise, if you go to Japan, he's on every billboard. He's bigger than, he's Taylor Swift times 10. And I said he's got 30 revenue streams coming in. I can see him getting used by an interpreter. When the Otani story came down, what was your initial reaction? And do you have any insight into that? I don't, I did, I did have some experience with the fellow that was, allegedly took the wagers and the bookmaker that was involved.

He was a, he was a player around Las Vegas. And he did raise some red flags as a player because he was a very big player without a known source of income. So he did raise, raise red flags. And he was not allowed to frequent certain places around Las Vegas. Yeah, no, that story was just horrendous and so dangerous for Major League Baseball. I do not have any inside knowledge on what happened there. The story, you know, I have some personal thoughts about it, but not something I should say or would say publicly because I don't have any evidence or knowledge behind the scenes,

but other than the fact that, you know, that it was very dangerous for the leagues. And it comes to the point, you know, my overriding point on all of these discussions and in the book is about the integrity of sports. And you know who said it best was in the 1930s or 20s, Meyer Lansky, you know, the mobster and bookmaker and the illegal casino operator. But he's the one that's stated many times that our games must be credible. and if we lack integrity in our gaming product, we lose everything. And he's exactly right. And the leagues have got to wake up to that reality today. And I'm not blaming the league at all for the for the Otani situation as far as gambling is concerned.

But I do fault the leagues for their sudden 180 degree turnaround and embrace of gambling. It's too much, too fast. Yeah, I mean, I can remember years ago when Tony Romo wanted to go and join some fantasy, football business in Vegas. It was small potatoes and the NFL would not allow it. And then three years later, they own half a fan duel, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there was most of my career, we weren't allowed to advertise during an NFL broadcast. The city of Las Vegas itself could not advertise in the Super Bowl. You know, we were just totally vilified. And, you know, now all of a sudden, You know, my question for the leagues is, were you guys right then or are you right now?

Or is there a happy medium in there somewhere? And I think there may be. I hope there is. Well, I mean, Vegas, by the time I got there, you did have Tony Spilatro. You did have mob reporters. But it mostly dried up. You know, a lefty Rosenthal, who, by the way, his car got blown up. There's a Marie Callender's now there.

That is where I met my first wife, Kim, was at that Marie calendars where she was a waitress. And before I'd go to work, I'd go get my corn, bread, and chili every Wednesday and Thursday. So, but let's talk about, was there a, you know, Billy Walters and Lem banker, you know, that's not mobsters, that's sharps. Were there situations early in your career where, you know, when you were at Caesars, there was a mob presence in the day? desert. Did you ever, did you ever feel threatened? Were there ever moments where it got a little dicey for you? Yeah, but I was so naive at that time. I didn't, I wasn't as scared as I should have been. I did deal with, when I was at the Stardust, I did deal with Spalachos running, you know, who was a regular customer. And he pretty much called his shots. He would dictate the terms of

his wagers. In other words, he would tell them to change the price and he'd get his his price. And that, you know, that's just not only unusual, which craze for a bookmaker to do that. But then when I went to the Barbary Coast, I was dealing with him there. And he came in, the same felons came in and bet 16 college basketball games. We were taking a dime $1,000 on college basketball. Most of the bets were small conferences. And he bet 16 college basketball games for 1100 each, gave me 165, 16,500, and out the door he went. And it wasn't until later in the evening, I realized I undercharged him $1,100. I was short, $11,100. It should have been $17,600. And I was freaking out. I was petrified at what was going to happen. That was a big shortage for me,

biggest of my life as a young ticket writer. I called Jimmy McKeero, told him what had happened. He knew I was scared, and he told me, don't worry about it. Turn your drawer in. I'll talk to you tomorrow. And so I did. And then I came to find out later on that Jimmy covered that shortage out of his own pocket the next morning and opened my eyes.

And at that point, I knew which side of the counter I wanted to be on and who I wanted to work for and who I wanted to emulate. And that was a very, very valuable lesson for me. When do you think the Spalotro and those guys, because when you say they changed the lines, basically what you're saying is they went into the Starbucks and they went into the Stardust and said, I'm not going to bet it at minus four. It's going to be minus seven. Well, that obviously. Plus.

Yeah. Yeah. That's long gone. Instead of plus four, it's plus seven. when was the time that the that the mob had no control? Did you notice like the influence didn't matter? Because they obviously did that at the stardust for years, but that didn't carry on. By the time I got to town, that's not the way it worked.

When did that end? Mid-80s. I was at Caesar's the first time in 84 to 86. And one of Spalachros guys did approach me there. And I knew he was a Spalachro guy. But, you know, I just treated him like every other customer. But eventually, you know, he started hanging around, kept trying to talk to me. And eventually said, you know, we can do some great things together.

We can help each other. And, you know, he planted that seed and repeated it a couple days in a row. And then, you know, I realized what he was doing. realized that, you know, he wanted to get into me. Sure. Cutting into me. And I just laughed it off. I just brushed it aside, kept doing my job, never answered, never said no, never said anything about it, just laughed and kept about my business. But I should have taken it much more seriously. And had I responded negatively,

had I've gone to corporate security or the police or gaming control board or anybody else, Who knows what would have happened? I don't know. In retrospect, I'm glad I handled it the way than I did, but I really was too naive to know what to do. And by accident, did the right thing. Yeah. Well, Art Man Terrace, it's called The Booky. For me, there were just so many fun stories. I was your typical small town, rural Washington, naive kid, obsessed with my career. And it was people, honestly, you and Chuck Esposito, Roxy Roxburgh, who I knew of didn't get to spend a lot of time with him. But it was people like that that actually kind of taught me a little bit behind the ropes. I've always been indebted. I've always been indebted. has been fascinated. And I'm just so happy for your success. Your family's beautiful, by the way. Absolutely stunning wife and kids. And do you ever now, now that you're removed from it, do you ever say, hey, I just want to go bet. I want to go bet a football game. How can you not, right? No, no, I don't. I don't. I still am tempted sometimes in boxing because I've come to really, really like tennis, especially the majors. But no, I don't. I never, as an executive in the industry,

I never felt comfortable in going to other people's sports books or opening an app elsewhere. And so, no, I'm not tempted to do that. Others around me may answer differently, including family members, but not me. Art, it's great to see you. Thanks for giving us 45 minutes today. and say hi to Sue and congrats on all your success and in your remarkable career. Thank you, Colin. It was great talking to you. I love watching you all over the years and watching you rise in the industry to where your your rise has been phenomenal, but not that surprising. I saw it coming long ago. All right. Thanks, man. Thank you. Love all you. Hey, guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast.

called Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it, but, you know, tired and sick. Tired and sick.

Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel,

help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Turn someday into right now with Buddy by Jake Radio,

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