Iam not a bookmaker,” Gadoon Kyrollos tells me as we walk through the Hard Rock Casino in Atlantic City, playing penny slot machines. “I’m a sports bettor.” Kyrollos is actually one of the highest-rolling sports bettors in the United States. He bets millions of dollars each year on sporting events, from NFL games to the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. He’s known throughout the gambling world by the name Spanky, and in his hoodie, sweatpants, and backpack, he very much resembles a 40-year-old version of the Little Rascal. His backpack, however, isn’t carrying school books and snacks. It’s filled with bricks of cash, nearly $150,000 worth.
“Bookmakers hang a number,” he explains, as he pantomimes holding a gun sight up to his eye and pulling the trigger. “And I snipe ’em.”
Despite the bag full of money, Spanky is transfixed by the penny slot machine, pumping one bill after the next into it. On his cellphone he consults a spreadsheet that tells him how to play this particular machine so that it is “plus EV,” or positive expected value, meaning the player has an edge over the machine over time. “This is some real insider shit I’m showing you right here,” he tells me, referring to his spreadsheet, which has formulas for dozens of different slot machines plugged into it. “I mean, it’s probably an edge of, like, $12, but if you were walking down the street and saw $12, you’d bend down and pick it up, right?”
It’s important to Spanky that I understand the difference between bookmaking and betting, because a lot of people don’t understand or appreciate the distinction, including the Queens district attorney, who charged Spanky with bookmaking in 2012, a charge he says stemmed from a widespread misunderstanding of this business.
That misunderstanding stands to spread like wildfire. Last year, the Supreme Court repealed the Professional and Amatuer Sports Protection Act of 1992, paving the way for individual states to lift restrictions and regulate bookmaking. New Jersey, where Spanky has lived his entire life, was one of the first states to do so, and in less than a year it has experienced a gold rush. There are now 10 physical and 14 online sportsbooks in New Jersey that have collectively already handled more than $1.5 billion in wagers. Seven other states have moved quickly to follow New Jersey’s lead, with 29 more currently considering sports-wagering bills in their state legislatures. But the way the business is taking shape in the United States troubles many professional gamblers, including Spanky, who has invited me to Atlantic City so I can learn more about what he calls the “dying art form” of bookmaking. He and I will pool our money, with me putting up 1 percent of the stake, and he will show me how to bet like a pro. Then I can see firsthand how the corporations that are taking over the sports betting industry in the United States have killed off the art of bookmaking, and how they’re killing off the professional sports bettor in the process.
As we walk down the Atlantic City boardwalk on a cold Monday night in March, the 40-year-old Spanky quizzes me on my knowledge of sports betting. “If I said you should bet the over at 134.5 and you see the number is 135, do you bet it?” “No,” I respond, not entirely sure whether I got it right, but careful to not show any hesitation. “That’s right. What if I said you should bet the Lakers +7 and the number is 7.5, do you bet it?” “Yes,” I answer, this time more confident I was right.
“See, you know what you’re doing. But you’d be surprised how many people have trouble with that.” I don’t tell him that I wouldn’t be surprised at all. We stop at the edge of the Ocean Casino at the end of the boardwalk. Spanky hands me the backpack. “I gotta leave you here. You don’t want to be seen on camera with me.” Why not?, I ask him, trying to mask my concern. “They don’t let me bet in there. And if they saw you talking to me, they probably wouldn’t let you bet, either.”
According to the industry research firm Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, sports gamblers fall into seven different categories: casual dabblers, status seekers, super fans, action chasers, would-be pros, high rollers, and sharps. These personae exist on a spectrum, where some of them develop into others as they climb the ladder from casual dabblers to the vaunted sharps—the players who can beat the house edge on a regular basis. Spanky has at one time or another been all seven. Today he’s known as a sharp player by every major bookmaker in the world. Which means his bets are often limited. For some bookmakers it means his action isn’t welcome at all.
Spanky shakes my hand and turns and walks off down the boardwalk. I take a deep breath, sling the backpack, heavy with cash, over my shoulder, and head into the casino.
In the less than one year that bookmaking has been legal in New Jersey, a number of European companies have swooped in to offer their services to the racetracks and casinos licensed to book sports bets. These companies offer a turnkey operation complete with quantitative analysts, technology for things like mobile wagering, software and modeling for profiling bettors and managing risk, access to data from sports leagues, and worldwide pools of liquidity. For a casino or racetrack unsure of how to run a sportsbook, or wary of getting involved in the highest-risk offering in the gaming business, these companies are making offers that can’t be refused. “To borrow a cliché, the U.S. is viewed as the land of opportunity within the industry,” says Paris Smith, CEO of Curaçao-based Pinnacle, one of the largest sportsbooks in the world. “It is also seen as a prize to be won for European operators and suppliers that have had to endure the maturation and saturation of its markets in recent years.”
But for gamblers, especially the professionals, the rapid expansion of some of these European companies in the American market is alarming. The European model of bookmaking is seen by many as hostile to winning players. During a panel at this year’s MIT Sloan Sports Analytics conference, entitled “Skin in the Game: Sports Gambling’s Emergence in the U.S.,” moderator Jeff Ma challenged one of the panelists, Sharon Otterman from the U.K.-based bookmaker William Hill, over its perceived practice of aggressively limiting and banning winning players. Otterman defended her company by saying, “We have a business. We’re not a not-for-profit.”
Professional sports bettor Alan Denkenson thinks the explanation is much simpler than that. “It’s easier to book your money with squares,” he tells me. He is still allowed to bet with William Hill, though “right now I’m one of their sharper bettors because they’ve thrown everyone out. One day when they throw me out someone will take my place. … When you make a few big bets you’re allowed to lose. If you grind it out to get to $20K you’re going to get thrown out.”
It isn’t just William Hill, either. DraftKings, the daily fantasy sports company that has pivoted into bookmaking in New Jersey, has signed a deal with Kambi Group, which is headquartered in Malta and takes a similar approach to so-called sharp players. And players don’t have to win $20,000 to attract attention, either. “I was just following baseball games and making bets on ‘runs scored in the next inning: yes or no,’” says “Captain” Jack Andrews (not his real name), a professional gambler who lives in New Jersey and comments pseudonymously on gambling forums and Twitter. “By mid-September I was down $600 betting at DraftKings and I noticed I could not bet more than $100 on any of those inning bets.” Andrews then saw his bets on every sport were limited, including the NFL. “Nobody should be afraid to take any bets on the NFL because it is highly efficient. The number has been hammered into shape by the time the weekend rolls around.” To prove it, Andrews tries to make a baseball bet on his phone. He is limited to a maximum bet of $30.26. “Thirty dollars? Really? DraftKings has bragged about how many different bets they’re taking, a half a million a day, and my $50 is really too much for them?” (DraftKings declined to comment for this story.)
Not being able to bet more money is a death sentence for professional gamblers. “I work on very small margins and so does any pro sports bettor,” says Bill Krackomberger, the creator of the gambling app KrackWins and star of the Showtime docu-series Action. “For every 100 that goes over the counter, we’re very happy with 102 or 101 coming back. I know it sounds crazy. I have to be able to bet five and six figures on a weekend in order for it to be worth a living to me.”
The situation, then, is existential. If this is the direction the industry is headed, professional sports bettors may soon be no more. There will only be bookmakers and squares. And once the bookmakers are done feasting on the squares, there will be nothing.
“It just seems so un-American for a company to say, ‘Come on, take your shot at us, we’re here for the gamble,’ and then when you do they say, ‘No, you’re too smart, we only want to take the action of people who don’t know what they’re doing,’” says Captain Jack. “It’s predatory. They’re being encouraged to walk into a buzz saw.”
In 1993, the Mt. Carmel Feast in Jersey City had all the elements of a modern carnival: rides, corn dogs, skill games where you could toss rings or pop balloons to win stuffed animals. But down an alleyway, behind the church, there was another game—one that wasn’t open to the general public. Groups of young men crowded around a table taking turns rolling dice, playing an old carnival game called “over/under,” where players bet on whether each roll would be over or under a seven.
“Bookmakers hang a number,” he explains, as he pantomimes holding a gun sight up to his eye and pulling the trigger. “And I snipe ’em.”
Despite the bag full of money, Spanky is transfixed by the penny slot machine, pumping one bill after the next into it. On his cellphone he consults a spreadsheet that tells him how to play this particular machine so that it is “plus EV,” or positive expected value, meaning the player has an edge over the machine over time. “This is some real insider shit I’m showing you right here,” he tells me, referring to his spreadsheet, which has formulas for dozens of different slot machines plugged into it. “I mean, it’s probably an edge of, like, $12, but if you were walking down the street and saw $12, you’d bend down and pick it up, right?”
It’s important to Spanky that I understand the difference between bookmaking and betting, because a lot of people don’t understand or appreciate the distinction, including the Queens district attorney, who charged Spanky with bookmaking in 2012, a charge he says stemmed from a widespread misunderstanding of this business.
That misunderstanding stands to spread like wildfire. Last year, the Supreme Court repealed the Professional and Amatuer Sports Protection Act of 1992, paving the way for individual states to lift restrictions and regulate bookmaking. New Jersey, where Spanky has lived his entire life, was one of the first states to do so, and in less than a year it has experienced a gold rush. There are now 10 physical and 14 online sportsbooks in New Jersey that have collectively already handled more than $1.5 billion in wagers. Seven other states have moved quickly to follow New Jersey’s lead, with 29 more currently considering sports-wagering bills in their state legislatures. But the way the business is taking shape in the United States troubles many professional gamblers, including Spanky, who has invited me to Atlantic City so I can learn more about what he calls the “dying art form” of bookmaking. He and I will pool our money, with me putting up 1 percent of the stake, and he will show me how to bet like a pro. Then I can see firsthand how the corporations that are taking over the sports betting industry in the United States have killed off the art of bookmaking, and how they’re killing off the professional sports bettor in the process.
As we walk down the Atlantic City boardwalk on a cold Monday night in March, the 40-year-old Spanky quizzes me on my knowledge of sports betting. “If I said you should bet the over at 134.5 and you see the number is 135, do you bet it?” “No,” I respond, not entirely sure whether I got it right, but careful to not show any hesitation. “That’s right. What if I said you should bet the Lakers +7 and the number is 7.5, do you bet it?” “Yes,” I answer, this time more confident I was right.
“See, you know what you’re doing. But you’d be surprised how many people have trouble with that.” I don’t tell him that I wouldn’t be surprised at all. We stop at the edge of the Ocean Casino at the end of the boardwalk. Spanky hands me the backpack. “I gotta leave you here. You don’t want to be seen on camera with me.” Why not?, I ask him, trying to mask my concern. “They don’t let me bet in there. And if they saw you talking to me, they probably wouldn’t let you bet, either.”
According to the industry research firm Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, sports gamblers fall into seven different categories: casual dabblers, status seekers, super fans, action chasers, would-be pros, high rollers, and sharps. These personae exist on a spectrum, where some of them develop into others as they climb the ladder from casual dabblers to the vaunted sharps—the players who can beat the house edge on a regular basis. Spanky has at one time or another been all seven. Today he’s known as a sharp player by every major bookmaker in the world. Which means his bets are often limited. For some bookmakers it means his action isn’t welcome at all.
Spanky shakes my hand and turns and walks off down the boardwalk. I take a deep breath, sling the backpack, heavy with cash, over my shoulder, and head into the casino.
In the less than one year that bookmaking has been legal in New Jersey, a number of European companies have swooped in to offer their services to the racetracks and casinos licensed to book sports bets. These companies offer a turnkey operation complete with quantitative analysts, technology for things like mobile wagering, software and modeling for profiling bettors and managing risk, access to data from sports leagues, and worldwide pools of liquidity. For a casino or racetrack unsure of how to run a sportsbook, or wary of getting involved in the highest-risk offering in the gaming business, these companies are making offers that can’t be refused. “To borrow a cliché, the U.S. is viewed as the land of opportunity within the industry,” says Paris Smith, CEO of Curaçao-based Pinnacle, one of the largest sportsbooks in the world. “It is also seen as a prize to be won for European operators and suppliers that have had to endure the maturation and saturation of its markets in recent years.”
But for gamblers, especially the professionals, the rapid expansion of some of these European companies in the American market is alarming. The European model of bookmaking is seen by many as hostile to winning players. During a panel at this year’s MIT Sloan Sports Analytics conference, entitled “Skin in the Game: Sports Gambling’s Emergence in the U.S.,” moderator Jeff Ma challenged one of the panelists, Sharon Otterman from the U.K.-based bookmaker William Hill, over its perceived practice of aggressively limiting and banning winning players. Otterman defended her company by saying, “We have a business. We’re not a not-for-profit.”
Professional sports bettor Alan Denkenson thinks the explanation is much simpler than that. “It’s easier to book your money with squares,” he tells me. He is still allowed to bet with William Hill, though “right now I’m one of their sharper bettors because they’ve thrown everyone out. One day when they throw me out someone will take my place. … When you make a few big bets you’re allowed to lose. If you grind it out to get to $20K you’re going to get thrown out.”
It isn’t just William Hill, either. DraftKings, the daily fantasy sports company that has pivoted into bookmaking in New Jersey, has signed a deal with Kambi Group, which is headquartered in Malta and takes a similar approach to so-called sharp players. And players don’t have to win $20,000 to attract attention, either. “I was just following baseball games and making bets on ‘runs scored in the next inning: yes or no,’” says “Captain” Jack Andrews (not his real name), a professional gambler who lives in New Jersey and comments pseudonymously on gambling forums and Twitter. “By mid-September I was down $600 betting at DraftKings and I noticed I could not bet more than $100 on any of those inning bets.” Andrews then saw his bets on every sport were limited, including the NFL. “Nobody should be afraid to take any bets on the NFL because it is highly efficient. The number has been hammered into shape by the time the weekend rolls around.” To prove it, Andrews tries to make a baseball bet on his phone. He is limited to a maximum bet of $30.26. “Thirty dollars? Really? DraftKings has bragged about how many different bets they’re taking, a half a million a day, and my $50 is really too much for them?” (DraftKings declined to comment for this story.)
Not being able to bet more money is a death sentence for professional gamblers. “I work on very small margins and so does any pro sports bettor,” says Bill Krackomberger, the creator of the gambling app KrackWins and star of the Showtime docu-series Action. “For every 100 that goes over the counter, we’re very happy with 102 or 101 coming back. I know it sounds crazy. I have to be able to bet five and six figures on a weekend in order for it to be worth a living to me.”
The situation, then, is existential. If this is the direction the industry is headed, professional sports bettors may soon be no more. There will only be bookmakers and squares. And once the bookmakers are done feasting on the squares, there will be nothing.
“It just seems so un-American for a company to say, ‘Come on, take your shot at us, we’re here for the gamble,’ and then when you do they say, ‘No, you’re too smart, we only want to take the action of people who don’t know what they’re doing,’” says Captain Jack. “It’s predatory. They’re being encouraged to walk into a buzz saw.”
In 1993, the Mt. Carmel Feast in Jersey City had all the elements of a modern carnival: rides, corn dogs, skill games where you could toss rings or pop balloons to win stuffed animals. But down an alleyway, behind the church, there was another game—one that wasn’t open to the general public. Groups of young men crowded around a table taking turns rolling dice, playing an old carnival game called “over/under,” where players bet on whether each roll would be over or under a seven.