High Rollers: A History of Gambling (Documentary)

[Music] a few things in American history have stirred the passion of its people more than the seductive allure of gambling it's vice its diversion it's entertainment there's the lure of getting something easily for almost fun for some gambling is a romantic diversion that's the adrenaline rush it's the risk it's the chance to be James Bond walking into a casino in a tuxedo for others it is a monster that devours both reason and bank accounts they become addicted to that high they become addicted to the action the government uses it to tax its people gambling is the only addiction that government promotes and then investigates it when they lose control becomes a springboard robbery and even murder while some cities embraced it selling their soul in the process initially when Vegas opened our Vegas was was run by the bomb moralists expelled it as a destructive vice say lynched by people for running gambling casinos a hundred years ago gambling has produced some of the most colorful characters in history America's high rollers are men and women with steel nerves and big bankrolls void of emotion and willing to risk it all they care only about one thing the name of the game is dub' as horses elves win or lose we're cold-blooded gamblers stay with us as we examine America's love affair with risk-taking and the chase for the almighty dollar as we present high rollers history of gambling in America [Music] at the turn into the 21st century the symphony of gambling plays loudly throughout America it rings and clangs to the tune of sixty billion dollars a year in legal gambling alone it has made Las Vegas the fastest-growing city in America and has revived an old tradition on the muddy waters of the mighty Mississippi it is bringing a new pride to a once conquered people and dreams of riches to the less fortunate but America was built on a gamble and legislating its lure has been as difficult as throwing snake eyes Americans it seems have gambling in their blood gambling has always been a very important part of the American psyche it was founded by people who gambled their lives they took these terribly dangerous sea voyages often dying of diseases God here didn't know what they were going to find if you look back on your own youth in your own boyhood you'll find the kids you grew up with were gamblers and nobody told them to be when I was a kid the two most common forms of gambling was shooting marbles and flipping baseball cards and the term for keeps to play something for keeps as part of the language kids who weren't afraid to risk them gambled and played for keeps gamblers come from all economic backgrounds but it's the high-rollers or whales that today's betting operators covet here you go there's $600,000 the true whales are people that have five million dollar credit lines ten million dollar credit lines these players can have a serious effect on a casinos bottom line a big-time player is someone that can turn your lights off knock your head off give you a stomachache put you to sleep not every gambler in America is a high-roller but for the gambling operator going after the whale or penny-ante poker player the mantra has always been the same you've got to have a hook you've got to get the person in once they're in then you can work that magic which is separating people from their money gambling in America has its roots in the soil of its earliest inhabitants those that lived here and those that gambled their lives on the prospect of a new world both would have a profound effect on how Americans view gambling no people have embraced gambling more than the original Americans they experienced gambling as a sacred ritual games of skill like lacrosse and a crude form of checkers matched players against one another played with equal enthusiasm were games of chance such as dice and the throwing of bones and there were times when they too played for keeps I remember some of the stories my grandmother told me in our ancient history where people was bet quite a bit horses and other prized possessions were typical wagers made by the original Americans who saw gambling is a practical and peaceful way to redistribute wealth among their tribes yet at times wagers exceeded tradition when goods were not available to wager it was not uncommon for a man to risk his own freedom and slaving himself to those in which he lost ultimately though gambling among Native Americans was about this sacrament of community I think that the camaraderie that goes on I think the nationality of one tribe playing against the other that goes on those are much more paramount and much more important than actually what is one the Native American attitude towards gambling was replaced by a more divisive approach the moment the first white foot hit the shore of North America when the English arrived in Jamestown in the 17th century they brought with them a sense of risk-taking that was reflected in their love of gambling dice and cards were well established forms of gambling in England and were soon used to pass the idleness of the new world by sixteen ten seven racehorses had arrived in the Virginia Colony the popular English Gentry sport of horse racing soon became an every man's sport attended by a rowdy and informal group of spectators the settlers were establishing their own identity and gambling was a perfect reflection of the new attitude but the colony soon became debt ridden and the English aristocracy blamed that on the overindulgent colonists propensity to gamble the answer to the problem was the problem itself the English decided to hold the lottery the hypocrisy had begun if the government could benefit from gambling it could easily justify its use the colonies needed ways to raise money there was no infrastructure there were no banks there was no tax system there was no real easy way for the colonial governments to raise money so lotteries were seen as just the easiest wave for the next century lotteries funded everything from new roads to the building of great educational institutions like Harvard Yale and Princeton the lottery was seen as a practical and benign form of taxing that benefited the country other forms of gambling however were not as readily accepted by the opponents of gambling the more lists lambaste at cockfighting and bear baiting is inhumane the aristocracy had different concerns there was the notion that gambling encouraged idleness when you needed every hand to work as you were trying to carve out a foothold in a strange land the battle lines had begun to form on one side with a moralist and the government on the other side were hard-working men and women with limited diversions as long as gambling looks like it's controlled and is not widespread there tends to be not a great cry for prohibition but when it hits all of society particularly the poor then lawmakers say hey we've got to get rid of it and sometimes they exempt themselves in a move to stop the growing problem of corruption England banned any and all lotteries that were designed to support the colonies the colonists would have to find other ways to support themselves on the verge of independence the government once again found itself in need of cash General George Washington had a war to fight and the colonial coffers were nearly bare with the support of the populace the first national lottery was established to fund the Revolutionary War 100,000 tickets were sold with prizes ranging from $20 to $50,000 to be paid in Treasury notes so for a five-year period although the government goal of 1 million dollars was not reached enough money was raised to provide a temporary reserve that same year while composing the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson proclaimed gaming corrupts our disposition and teaches us a habit of hostility against all mankind accordingly he kept meticulous records of his backgammon and card winnings the years following the Revolutionary War saw unprecedented growth in America's population the hard-fought independence bred a new attitude and gambling was soon enjoyed among all classes of society more important to this growing acceptance of gambling was the emergence of a backwoods hustler with political ambition during the early 1800s no one enhanced the reputation of gambling and the West more than Andrew Jackson described by a friend as the most rollicking roaring game cocking horse-racing card playing mischievous fellow that ever lived Jackson brought common man risk-taking to the American forefront it was a backwoods jurist he was of course a retired general and he was a leading political figure he killed one man in a duel which apparently came about as a result of an argument about a debt settlement from gambling as a child Jackson bet against grown men at the local cockfights during his college years he gambled away his inheritance on a dice game but it was horse racing that Jackson was most passionate about he owned horses he had really quite a famous horse Truxton is known as a fairly famous early match race against the horse called Graham prior to the match race Jackson subjected Truxton to a severe training program that many felt was too rigorous by race time most of the betting action fell on Greyhound farmers bet tobacco plantation owners their cotton Jackson remained confident you must risk to win he often said and in his race he did just that Jackson not only had a string of horses at stake but also all the clothes he could take from the house including some of his wife's Truxton won in straight heats and Jackson quickly purchased the loser greyhound after the race Jackson described himself as eased in my finances and replenished in my wardrobe after being elected president Jackson frequently attended the National race track just outside of Washington he was regularly joined by enough congressmen that votes were suspended until the last race was run gambling and made the big-time that was still technically illegal but before long commercial gambling took hold the New Orleans where the first casinos dubbed carpet joints were introduced gambling became so rampant during the early 1800s that legislators openly discussed legalization until pressure from law enforcement officials happily on the take persuaded otherwise seething in the background with a moralists small the growing in power they were compelled to do something before the gambling epidemic completely overtook America their response was brutal and would become one of the seminal moments in the history of gambling during the 1820s and 1830s entire cities were built around gambling one of those was Vicksburg Mississippi known as the liveliest place in the whole southwest located on the Mississippi River Vicksburg was a tough quick-tempered town built on the river trade gambling halls or hells as the moralist referred to them had made their way into the respectable parts of the community this brought consternation from the anti gamblers that were trying to rid themselves of the stigma of frontier incivility along the river a lot of towns like Vicksburg's developed which were just filled with these gambling hell's the gamblers would set up shop everywhere and run what we're almost universally crooked games in 1835 the townspeople devised a plan to expel all gamblers from Vicksburg warnings were posted throughout the city demanding all professional gamblers leave Vicksburg within 24 hours most of the gamblers complied as one witness observed the majority of the gang terrified by threats of the citizens dispersed in different directions without making any opposition a few gamblers however barricaded themselves inside one of the local hell's refusing to leave the vigilante force made its way through a popular gambling area of Vicksburg called the landing they marched from hell to hell and forcefully raided each one the mob then targeted the gamblers pulled up inside the casino with guns drawn they charged the betting parlor after several shots were exchanged the mob dragged the betters outside and hung them in the City Square Vicksburg was cleansed the gamblers would have to look for another venue to ply their trade they found it steaming slowly down the Mississippi River the events in Vicksburg sparked a gambling revolt citizens throughout the Mississippi Valley began to band together and reclaim their cities from what they termed the evils of gambling gambling was on the run and so are the gamblers they headed to the well-established riverboat system along the Mississippi and Ohio rivers where loose money and a bounty of eager amateur gamblers awaited you know if you were a card shark or a hustler the riverboat was perfect because you'd have different marks come on the boat on each stop and maybe you'd go down river aways and you'd scam some people they'd get off the boat and then you move on to the next town and you could do your thing over again and the next time that you got to so it was the perfect setup you know you are always one step ahead of the law you're always one step ahead is somebody that you scammed the riverboat Network was developed to help southern plantation owners ship their cotton and goods to the northern industrial cities the gamblers unwelcome at first eventually found a way to make the right people happy the riverboat captain's was all against gambling and they would put gamblers off when they caught him gambling they would put him off on an island strand them throw him right off and then finally some of the gamblers started paying the riverboat captain's off they would give him money to stay on there and so then they would run their own gambling game all the way along they would pain the captain from their exterior the river boats were odd-looking contraptions layered with deck space and topped by billowing smoke stacks and the cargo hold deckhands and the slaves of the traveling plantation owners would gamble on dice and cards upstairs the white gamblers played in luxury main salons the boats lumbered their way up and down the river at a pace that was perfect for the professional gamblers who used the time to play out their elaborate schemes the people they were playing against didn't realize that they were working in teams they would have different partners different people would come and go but they were all together they just traveled around in these teams and worked that way and fleeced these people boarding the boats at different stops the gamblers would pretend not to know each other with hand signals and body gestures one gambler would tip off the hand of the unsuspecting prey to his partner seated at the table sometimes bartenders and boat personnel were enlisted as accomplices the professional gamblers bag of tricks contained a formidable arsenal cards were routinely marked and shaved to the dealer's advantage the cheats sometimes went so far as to use crudely designed mechanisms that would produce the desired card with the flick of a lever on the river cheating was rampant [Music] at its peak during the mid-1800s there were over 2,000 men gambling on approximately 700 river boats the riverboat gambler was a romantic figure bent on adventure living on the road and dressed to the tease he would work a boat until the last passenger was cheated from his money most of the cheating however was done within the games themselves and one game stood above the rest as the cheapness gained there was free card monte was a game of sleight of hand in which it was the gamblers trick to flip three cards in such ways that you couldn't follow the motion of them one card was the card which he would you identify and unfailingly put your bet on the wrong card the greatest of the three-card Monte throwers was George Devol ahead button brawler considered the king of the river deval considered himself the most daring gambler in the world six feet tall and powerfully built Duvall was a combative man who often used his inch thick skull to headbutt his opponents killing many of them he had an agile mind and a quick hand and for 40 years he cheated and brawled his way up and down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers traveling north or south in the main salon are down below Duvall won millions of dollars over the course of his 40-year career he was feared and revered by the soon to be fleeced and despite his notoriety never had a problem finding a game but Duvall had one serious weakness the Faro table Faro was the most popular gambling game in America because it offered the player near even odds and was simple and quick to play but somehow Duvall lost a fortune playing the game involved the deck of cards and a layout the layout had a replica of each card from a chosen suit usually spades laid out in order playing against the house the player would place his bet alongside one or more of the cards on the layout the dealer then turned over the top two cards from the dealer's box those with a bet alongside the first dealt card lost those backing the second one simple enough except most of the time the decks were stacked to the houses advantage Duvall knew that Faro was just as easily rigged as the games that he controlled but he played anyway born and raised a gambler he just couldn't help himself he just likes the gamble even if he loses it's the thrill of it he just likes the gamble and there's a lot of people like that Duvall's partner of many years was william jones AKA canada bill he too made a fortune gambling on the Mississippi only to lose most of it the Faro table the two epitomized the heart of the gambler one day's the men waited for the next boat to arrive Canada bill spoke the words of the true gambler there's a story that between boats George went over and he was having a drink at the bar and counted a bill he went in sat in on Pharaoh game and he was losing blue Luzi and George his buddy looked over and shook his head and walked over to him and tapped him on the shoulder you know and he said Bill you know what you realize this game is crooked and Bill looks up at him and he says George I know it but it's the only game in town near the end of his life George Devol wrote in his memoirs it is said that I have won more money than any sporting man in the country I will say that I didn't have sense enough to keep it but if I had never seen a feral bank I would be a wealthy man today for 40 years George Devol kept himself afloat as a riverboat gambler and in the end died an American legend by the time of Duvall's final bet the Civil War had lay claim to the riverboats of the Mississippi the romance of the river quickly gave way to the needs of the war effectively ending the era of the riverboat gambler but after the war the river rose to play one more bet a bet that turned out to be one of the greatest gambling events of the 19th century as trains were replacing river boats as the desired mode of transport during the late 1800s the war for the fledgling commercial shipping business on the Mississippi was bitterly fought between two riverboat captains John Cannon of the robert e lee and thomas leather of the Natchez the two men had a fierce nth public rivalry each claiming to have the fastest boat at the public's urging the two men agreed to hold the race newspapers in the United States and Europe proclaimed it the race of the century it would begin in New Orleans and end in st. Louis people would line up all along the banks and bet on who's gonna win a lot of money was bet on that race before the race cannon had the robert e lee stripped bare leaving only the essentials and he accepted only a few passengers travelling to cairo a river town halfway to st. louis leathers seeing an opportunity to make money allowed both passengers and freight to board at 5:00 a.m. the boats left New Orleans with a full head of steam the leaner robert e lee got the jump on the Natchez but by Vicksburg that matches had gained as spectators cheered from the riverbank cannon reveal the surprise he had arranged for a refueling boat to sail alongside the steamship mid river and by Memphis was more than a half hour in the lead in Cairo the Lee made its only stop and his passengers disembarked victory for the robert e lee was assured when without the safety of any passengers in mind cannon steamed blindly through a thick fog bank exiting the fog the robert e lee cruised to victory six hours ahead of the matches the gamble paid off cannon had beaten the odds and won the right to claim the robert e lee as the fastest boat on the greatest river in america the era of riverboat gambling had closed with the century's great race but professional gamblers had long since left the river for the gold mining towns of the frontier were loose money and lawlessness had created the western version of a gamblers dream [Music] prior to the Civil War while riverboat gamblers were enjoying their golden age thousands of other gamblers have been lured west gold was flowing from the hills and the devil-may-care attitude of the frontier made the perfect setting for a high roller whenever you have a frontier it consists almost entirely of young men who are out there risking their lives in the hopes of finding whatever it is gold or silver there's a lot of hard work during the day and not much to do at night so what they do is in fact they sit around and gamble they started gambling on cattle drives the gamble on blankets the gamble on horseback they gamble on stagecoaches the frontier was untamed and rough cards and revolvers were drawn with equal passion and Accord communities like Dodge City tombstone in Virginia City sprang up overnight money flowed deep and quick and as one City dried up another was born professional gamblers transient by Nature moved from town to town setting up shop just long enough to remove the gold dust from the pockets of miners who would then replace their losses the next day from the local mines the mother lode was in the hills of California and for the professional gamblers San Francisco was the mecca to which they traveled just one year after gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill San Fran says who was teeming with hundreds of gambling establishments it was described as the greatest carnival of gambling in history gambling was everywhere and California invented during the gold rush the modern casino these were big halls with Faro tables and roulette tables and anybody could come up and make a bet and they didn't care if you were a citizen of Mexico or China or the US or you could speak the language everybody was allowed rich or poor the competition among the casino operators was so intense that straight dealing became a prior gambling in San Francisco was actually an admirable vocation gamblers were viewed as respectable members of society they were not considered to be people who took advantage of other people from the discrete and smoke-filled dens of Chinatown to the waterside hovels on the Barbary Coast casinos took on the flavor of their neighborhood the center of gambling activity could be found at the extravagant casinos lining Portsmouth Square inside the casinos violence played as customers enjoyed free food from the bar chandeliers lit classic works of art as beautiful women urged gamblers to bet higher and more often at the tables gamblers sat next to bags of gold dust cheerfully wagering the days take the biggest attraction in Portsmouth Square was a charming and attractive woman named Eleanor Dumont the first woman card dealer to appear on the California gambling scene operating out of the bustling Bella Union casino Dumont created such a sensation that within the first year of her arrival every casino had a lady dealer there were distinct advantages to having a woman dealer at the time it was considered a pleasure to lose to a lady when a man was cheated by a woman dealer usually he would just chuckle condescendingly before digging deeper into his satchel of gold dust in 1854 during the height of her popularity Dumont disappeared she surfaced a few months later in Nevada City the California mining town north of San Francisco where she opened the new Bella Union on Broad Street it wasn't long before she unveiled an odd way to lure in her customers she opened up her own gambling hall and she started growing a moustache and then they started calling him Madame mustache and then people started coming from all over to sit at her table just to see her mustache and so that was great for publicity and so she kept the mustache he would not shave it off and when she died that was in her will that her mustache was not to be shaved off back in San Francisco gambling was enjoying one of its finest hours but there was opposition technically gambling was still illegal and those opposed to gambling were becoming frustrated with compliant police forces that accepted bribes during the day and would throw them back on the aiming tables at night one of the resentful was the editor of the San Francisco daily evening bulletin James King San Francisco was growing as a worldwide destination King was concerned with its image within the pages of his paper he conducted a vicious campaign against the gambling he printed the names of the city's notorious gamblers and by 1856 had divided the city on what to do about the so called gambling epidemic during King's anti-gambling campaign Charles Cora a popular Faro dealer was charged with murdering a federal marshal King saw an opportunity and he jumped on it he must and will be hung King proclaimed at the trial defense lawyers convinced the jury that Korra had acted in self-defense and the result was a hung jury Korra was ordered to stand a second trial and was placed back in prison still King was incensed gamblers we warned you remember Vicksburg he wrote in the bulletin referring to the vigilante justice of 20 years past but Kings abusive tone backfired he was murdered the next month by rival newsmen James Casey an outspoken opponent of Kings views Kings supporters rally behind their new martyr they stormed the jailhouse where Korra and Casey were held dragged them out of their cells and hung them although the gambling halls of San Francisco would continue to prosper until the end of the century the message was clear the moralist would do anything to avoid allowing the country to fall deeper into moral despair after the Civil War Deadwood South Dakota was like most frontier towns founded after gold was discovered in the Black Hills was a town full of beer blood and beautiful upstairs girls over time nearly every High Roller made his way through Deadwood Bat Masterson the poker playing gunman in the silk top-hat Wyatt Earp sometimes lawman all times gambler and Doc Holliday the dentist gambler with a fast trigger all gambled and fought their way into Western Lord after stops in Deadwood Wild Bill Hickok went to Deadwood for one reason to gamble and provide for his new bride in need of a lawman Deadwood welcomed him with open arms Hickok had survived numerous gun battles during his years as a lawman by the time he reached Deadwood many a man had him on the top of their hit list Hickok was well aware of the dangers that followed him wherever he went well the Hickok never sat with his back to the door that's that's the legend he always set against the wall because he always figured that somebody's gonna come in and shoot him in the back they couldn't shoot him face to face they figured the only way they're gonna get me is in the back because he was too fast the newly-married Hickok was eager to make money at the poker table on August 2nd 1876 Hickok walked into the number 10 saloon hoping to find a game this one day he walked in and somebody else was sitting in a seat and he just went around and sat with his back of the door who knows why he did that Hickok was in the middle of a hand when two-bit hustler Jack McCall entered the saloon and that's when Jack McCall saw his chance and went over and shot him in the back of the head still clutching his cards Hickox hand hit the table two aces and two eights forever to be known as the dead man's hand McCall was acquitted of the murder but was later hanged after bragging one too many times about killing the king of the pistol ears the era of the Wild West gambler was over gambling continued to have its successes and failures especially lotteries which prospered throughout the country for the remainder of the century the failure of one however turned out to be the downfall of them all the Louisiana Lottery the first lottery to cross state lines crumbled and disgrace after 20 years of corruption laws prohibiting the use of the mail system for interstate lotteries were adopted by the end of the century virtually all lotteries in the United States were outlawed but the focus on gambling had shifted back to a popular pastime which would produce some of the most fearless and calculated high rollers America has ever seen around the turn of the century horse-racing made a comeback as the choice of both bookies and betters bookmakers have been the facilitator of horse betters since the 1700s bookmaking got its name from the phrase taking book or keeping logs of bets in a book the role of the bookmaker in horse racing is to study the horses in such a way that he can accept bets based on the odds of a horses chance at winning if a horse was not expected to win high odds were given to the better say ten to one therefore if a better wagered $1.00 on ten to one odds and won the bookie would pay the better ten dollars in order to survive the bookmaker would have to balance the action to reduce his exposure during the late 1800s bookmakers were never more popular horse racing in the late 1800s had an incredible boom and the scale of it was as broad as it is today I mean in in 1897 there were 314 racetracks in the United States triple the number today it was a huge industry one of the main ingredients to the success of horse racing was the wire room using the recent invention of the telegraph wire rooms allowed people to place a wager without having to physically go to the track still the big money was wagered on site where bookies handled most of the betting and without a central governing authority watching over them they had the freedom to do as they pleased many of the bookmakers in that era had their own racing stables which we might today consider an amazing conflict of interest but so did many of the great gamblers inside information and bribes were commonplace one gambler the calculating and shrewd pittsburgh phil smith figured out a way around the problem he was losing money because the races were just so corrupt and he didn't see a way to overcome the dishonesty until he had an idea he met a jockey by the name of todd sloan and said listen I'll make a deal with you I'll give you $400 for every race you win he said I just want to know that there's one jockey here that I can bet on with confidence he cleaned out the bookies just betting on slowing horses and and left town before they knew what was happening Pittsburgh Phil revolutionized horse betting he was a master of analyzing information and calculating odds Pittsburgh Phil tried to take the gamble out of gambling yeah excellent memory a very fast mind good sense of numbers we found that if he ever watched to a horse race remember everything that took place in that race Pittsburgh Phil knew a good bet when he saw in one match race he backed one of Racing's great horses Henry of Navarre Pittsburgh Phil would go from bookmaker to bookmaker to say five thousand five thousand ten thousand five thousand and according to ones famous race but there was another big gambler who was going down the st. line of bookmakers betting on the other horse and finally Pittsburgh Phil's rival just said to him I said let's let's just stop messing around what do you want to bet they've been a hundred thousand man-to-man race ended and the dead heat but during his career as a professional gambler Smith won millions of dollars by knowing the probabilities his last gamble however went against expert opinion Pittsburgh Phil literally gambled on his last breath he was lying on his deathbed in the sanatorium in North Carolina he asked his doctor and a doc you know how much time as I got left and the doctor said well 24 hours and Phil said a bench of 10,000 I make it past 24 hours so he and the doctor each rolled out a $10,000 check Pittsburgh Phil lasted 24 and a half hours and reportedly died with that check in his hand the polar opposite of pittsburgh phil was industrialists and barbed wire salesman John bet a million gates Gates was a millionaire that looked at life as a gamble where anything was worth a risk he wants bet on how long it would take for a fly to land on a wet sugar queue on another occasion he wagered on two raindrops as they trickled down a train window gates viewed all of his activities whether in the business world or as a gambler as just different forms of gambling and risk-taking and when he was not engaged in business he was gambling on a scale that was staggering to his contemporaries there was a day where he went to the Saratoga racetrack betting with the bookies and lost three hundred seventy-five thousand in the course of an afternoon but in the era of rising Victorian morality gates gambling habits brought dismay from his fellow industrialists Gates was actually viewed contemptuously by JP Morgan and many of the society types of that era who just kind of recoiled at these stories of his gambling but he said this is part of human nature you might as well tell the wind to stop blowing is to tell people to stop him ironically elements of the same industrial economy that made bet a million gates a rich man also brought on the reform movement that eventually wiped out legal gambling the government used sweatshops child labor and 16 hour work days as rallying points for reform the moralist went after prostitution and gambling gambling became a sort of incidental victim of the regulatory reform movement of the turn of the century by 1910 except for a few states horse racing the principal national form of gambling was outlawed reform stopped legal gambling for over a decade but gambling was resilient by the end of World War one racetracks had slowly begun to reopen gambling was still illegal but bookmakers found a way around the law it returned with modified forms of betting the bets were presumably spoken bets or agreed upon between individuals of course this was nonsense they were bets made with bookmakers but bookmaking was allowed by agreement to simply go on and they say creative way away from the track illegal gambling continued with the new cast of characters the underworld had been involved in drugs and prostitution for years with gambling now illegal they saw new possibilities distribution networks were already in place and could be used just as easily for gambling what transpired was the lay off bet and the man most responsible was a well-connected bookmaker named Arnold Rothstein by all description he was smart unscrupulous and a good businessman gambling simply was his way of making large sums of money he was probably the first man to do what was known as lay off betting lay off betting was the answer for small-time bookie who were faced with a large bet that they couldn't handle they would simply call in a bigger bankroll like Rothstein had their bet covered in case of a loss many times this meant crossing state lines it also required authorities to look the other way he was constantly fixing and grafting and paying off and that's where he found his edge he found politicians and those in law enforcement or whoever who were vulnerable to low pay scales and he paid him off and found an edging to get out of tight situations for Rothstein no bet was too big especially if he knew the outcome before it took place in possibly the biggest fixing scandal in sports history Rothstein became known as the man that almost ruined America's cherished pastime Arnold Rothstein was the man who the people pointed the finger at who financed the fixing of the 1919 World Series which almost destroyed baseball the 1919 Chicago White Sox for the best team in baseball they were also the most underpaid led by pitcher Eddie Cicotte II and including the great Joe Jackson eight players decided to deliberately lose the World Series in exchange for a big payday the players approached New England gambler Joseph Sullivan who agreed to pay the players a total of $100,000 to be split among them all they had to do was to assure Sullivan that they would purposely lose the series the players agree Sullivan did not have the bankroll that covered the players payoff so he approached the big bankroll himself Arnold Rothstein the extent to which Rothstein became involved is in dispute but most accounts agree that Rothstein was aware of the fix and in the end profited from it Rothstein a victim of his reputation was implicated with the players the story stayed on the front page for over a year during grand jury testimony sacani and others admitted their part in the scheme but somehow between the grand jury and the actual trial all confessions had mysteriously disappeared lacking any evidence the judge threw the case out of court clearing Rothstein and the players it is generally accepted that he did not organize the throwing of the series he profited from it he knew about it it took advantage of it and he made money from Rothstein was free but the damage to his reputation had been done he will always be remembered as the man that fixed the World Series gambling in the underworld had come together during the summer of 1919 and for two decades the bond would strengthen prohibition was about to become law and would give more power to an underworld intent on providing the people with their vices meanwhile hidden in the desert was a tiny dusty town waiting for its turn to become part of gambling immortality the twenties roared through the era of prohibition on a steady diet of bootleg liquor and backroom gambling with the majority of states having long since criminalized gambling making it difficult for law enforcement officials not on the take to uphold the laws one state decided to relieve itself of the aggravation as the bottom began to drop out of the nation's economy in the 1930s the state of Nevada made two changes to their legal code that set the stage for gambling Renaissance in 1931 Nevada looked around and said we need a way to raise money the big issue was divorce they liberalized their divorce laws but threw in well we've got these casinos we might as well legalize them and tax them so in 1931 Nevada real eagle-eyes casino gambling on the decision to legalize gambling the Hartford Times wrote perhaps Nevada is merely being honest in writing laws which are hypocritical II evaded almost everywhere else with the opening of Hoover Dam in 1935 Nevada was ready to welcome in a new era the hot and dusty cowboy state was about to remake itself now all Nevada needed was an audience some actors and a little bit of panache it found all three 300 miles away in Los Angeles fortunately for Nevada Los Angeles had just elected a new mayor determined to enforce the city's anti-gambling laws in charge of instituting those laws was captain guy McAfee the commander of the Los Angeles vice squad he was also a longtime operator of his own illegal gambling operation McAfee made an easy decision he quit the force and moved to Las Vegas where he bought the Paradise Club a fledgling gambling hall on highway nine guy McAfee was a guy who did step up and and leave Los Angeles under the umbrella of law enforcement and he did it with a certain savoir faire and business savvy that captured a lot of people's attention McAfee and his Paradise Club inadvertently set the tone for what would become a long-lasting relationship between two cities he basically showed that it could be done that you could run a gambling hall in a saloon and give away things to people and show him a good time and remember customers first names and make it a viable business and once it became a viable business then other business minded people were drawn to it next to open were the El Rancho Vegas the frontier in the Apache club and the boulder Club all built to cash in on the new Oasis by 1945 over a billion dollars a year in gambling revenue was flowing into Las Vegas cash registers businessmen and investors took notice one businessman attracted to Las Vegas was Benjamin Bugsy Siegel chief of mobster lucky Luciano's Los Angeles operations Siegel looked at Las Vegas is the second chance-- City a place where he could resurrect himself and put aside the dark past and become a mogul and legitimize something that was quote-unquote illegitimate and that was gambling Siegel had a vision he would build the ultimate Hotel and Casino backed by East Coast mob dollars Siegel is succeeded in building the Flamingo he did want to build a major Hotel in Las Vegas and he did want to give it sex appeal style and glamour and he did that by inviting Hollywood stars in the Jimmy Durante 's and sophie tucker's and people like that and making it real and making it the place where everybody in America could go and commit sin legally but there was nothing quite like the original Flamingo when he built it a steady stream of Los Angelenos made the pilgrimage across Death Valley the desert that separated the two cities they arrived to find a palace ringing with the sound of clanging coins and glowing with the sight of elegantly dressed patrons but behind the glamour stood a man with a dangerous and well-earned reputation Siegel was the man who built the Flamingo he was also known as the president of murder incorporated the mobs feared group of hitmen Siegel was like the portrayal of mobsters and movies he was involved in in all sorts of illegal activities and he had a volatile temper and allegedly was not above taking a man's life if he snapped while the paint was still drying on the flamingos seagull was being harassed by his East Coast mob financers the building of the Flamingo had experienced massive cost overruns and when the mob discovered that Siegel had been siphoning money into his own bank account during construction his fate was sealed the man with the murderous past was executed with a flurry of bullets says he read the newspaper and his girlfriend's Beverly Hills home others would have to carry on what Siegel started the mob happily obliged and within a couple of years had their hands in many of the big hotels mobsters were pumping millions of dollars into the properties Bugsy Siegel of course and some of the original entrepreneurs in Vegas were basically mob joints it was an entree to all sorts of odd characters and people on the other side a lot of come to Las Vegas feel welcome and feel like they belong and feel like they had control here the mob had a feature of all of his films every hotel was mob-connected matter of fact the town was better than very few robberies and if the Jenny killings would be done they would kill it outside the state of Nevada because they didn't went over the federal government again the mobs grip on Las Vegas turned into a stranglehold corruption glamour and money made for a powerful and intoxicating elixir Las Vegas was naughty but nice and people poured in to see what it was all about gamblers from all walks of life stood side by side betting on blackjack poker roulette and Pharaoh and the slot machine invented in San Francisco a century earlier was on its way to becoming the most popular gambling game in the world in Las Vegas patrons bet gleefully and with style poolside and in casinos night and day it was the country's first 24-hour City a century after the riverboat days where cheating was rampant honest dealing was an unspoken rule in Vegas additionally there was no moral or political opposition to get in the way in gambling had the complete support of law enforcement sure the mob ruled by intimidation but as locals said no one was ever killed that didn't deserve it following World War two Las Vegas boomed like an old western mining town between 1950 and 1958 hordes of tourists were lured by the fireworks at the Nevada Test Site 60 miles north of Las Vegas over 100 atomic tests were recorded during the 50s creating a bizarre backdrop to the booming city they usually set the bombs off at like five or six o'clock in the morning and from the Flamingo Hotel I could see the bombs go off and I can see the mushroom go up in the air and all of that effect that it had on gambling here was that it brought a lot of people here to look at it and have brought a lot of people and to work on the bomb Las Vegas had created an atmosphere unlike any other gambling had ever experienced one gambler that came to Las Vegas to try his luck was Nick the Greek Dan Dallas the man with a reputation is one of the best gamblers in the world he had served his apprenticeship in Canada where he excelled in poker after one $250,000 win he decided to try his luck in the States his first target was the big bankroll Arnold Rothstein Rothstein was an inferior player but had the money to outlast Nick the Greek eventually taking him for over $100,000 but Rothstein was the exception most gamblers that played against Dan deloused did not have such deep pockets dan deloused went on to make millions before heading to Las Vegas Nick the Greek was always a player he was one of the highest players around here and he always seemed to be able to get money he was quite popular because everybody wanted to see him play and he played probably four or five times higher than anybody else by the time Nick the Greek arrived in Las Vegas he was nearing his 70s his best days were behind him and he like so many others went to Las Vegas for one last chance at hitting it big he had wagered over fifty million dollars during his life but what separated him from most other high rollers in history is that he usually did it with other people's money he always seemed to stay in money if he got broke he always had some people from Hollywood that he could get money from danda lows tried in vain to regain his touch in Las Vegas one evening he lost over two hundred and sixty thousand dollars of borrowed money after that he could barely find a game he was not compulsive he insisted instead he was a real gambler he once declared a real gambler wants to grab life by the throat rape it toss it over the shoulder they want the excitement of not knowing if it's bread or caviar on the plate tomorrow they are the kind of gamblers who in times past became Columbus Jesus for Jesse James danda lows died on Christmas Day 1966 money had to be collected to pay for his funeral by the 60s the Stardust the dunes and the Tropicana all popped up from the desert dirt the sands however stood above the rest they start getting entertainers and everybody came to see him when they were popular and every hotel had top entertainers and of course Sammy Davis and Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin they were all two sands hotel and that was the best hotel in town at the time there's great stories about the Rat Pack and and Frank and Sammy and Dean going out after they performed in the Copa room at the sands and then going out and dealing some hands of blackjack and people would just come to the tables and they want to be part of that there's these great American icons and here they are in the casino and they're dealing hands and you know even as dealers they turn over their cards and they'd show what they were hiding because bottom line was they didn't want to win they were playing with the houses money they wanted the gamblers to win and what they were doing was they were creating an energy and a buzz and a sense of place gambling had found a safe harbor in Nevada instead of fighting over whether or not gambling was morally or legally acceptable gambling was celebrated as a viable form of entertainment for the first time the government and the casino operators were partners out in the open and with the blessing of the citizens in just 30 years Las Vegas had transformed itself from a dusty to horse town to a glittering gambling extravaganza but while Nevada was establishing itself the federal government was trying to get its hands in the gambling pie two events would lead to a bigger take for the feds one was the resurrection of an old forgotten machine the other a sweeping investigation of organized crimes linked to gambling to be televised to the nation in hopes of gaining political support it was a gamble and that backfired parallel to Nevada's incredible rights to gambling stardom America's racetracks were trying to re-establish themselves as well the reform movement of the early part of the century had succeeded in closing most tracks until the 1930s when race track officials dusted off an old disregarded machine that eventually led to a racing resurrection this time the track operators had the full support of local governments in the midst of America's greatest financial crisis in the 1930s over a dozen states real eagle-eyes horse-racing feeling that it could be controlled the existence of a depression with state governments going broke encouraged States to get into the business of horse racing again the states have no way of taking money from the bookmaker except by busting him and then you've killed the Golden Goose bookmakers had been circumventing the anti bookmaking laws by taking bets orally without records policing was virtually impossible more importantly there was no way for the government to determine how much money was being exchanged the answer to both problems was found just in time for the 1940 Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs Matt Wynn the owner of the track brought out of the basement some of those old pari-mutuel machines that he had bought 30 years earlier dusted them off and found that the pari-mutuel was okay within the laws in Kentucky the paramutual system involved collecting bets into one large pool which kept track of all the wagers made and it is called pari-mutuel meaning betting among the participants in the game they are now not betting against a bookmaker when you bet with a bookmaker he's at risk if you win the bet he's got to pay you when you're in paramutual betting you are betting against the other participants at the track the amount of money that's bet on any given horse determines the odds on that horse the pool exactly reflects the measure of popularity if you wish of a given horse if a lot of money is bet on that horse the odds go down if very little money is bet on orous the odds go up the machines were hit at the Derby and all parties stood to gain now the pair of mutual pool also has another political device attached to it the state which regulates it can cut the pot from the top and then what's left over is divided among the winning players one part goes in taxation another part goes to the horse owners as purse money and the third part goes to the track for administration and whatever profit they can get from it the new system replaced the on track bookmaker and paved the way for racetracks and state governments to enjoy a fruitful partnership that would reestablish racing is one of the most popular Gamble's in America off-track bookmaking however was still illegal with states now in on the hand the federal government took a place at the table their ante was an investigation and to organized crimes involvement in interstate bookmaking by the end of World War two mobsters Frank Costello and Meyer Lansky had complete control of interstate gambling the federal government certain that the proceeds from the mobs illegal wire rooms were financing other activities decided to act ambitious Tennessee senator Estes Kefauver saw it as an opportunity he would hold televised hearings against the mob this would bring organized crime into the open and provide a windfall of publicity for his own political ambitions the Kefauver committee was given the greenlight in 1950 to investigate organized crime and among other things its connection to gambling Kefauver got into it according to newspaper people who interviewed him at the time simply because he thought it was a subject that was going to have a lot of political juice or if you wish merit Kefauver believed that the country would rally behind him if he could make the connection between gambling and organized crime what he got instead was an exercise on the fifth amendment frank costello testified for three days to a packed courtroom his testimony was more spectacle than informative he showed his disdain for the proceedings after being questioned by a frustrated panelist you must have in your mind something you've done that you can speak out to your credit as American citizen did so what are they paid by tax the investigation moved beyond the cat-and-mouse game key fibers investigation widened to include the sports world here with the help of a gambling tool called the point spread his luck changed before the point spread bookies would give odds on a team's chance of winning if one team was a heavy favorite a better would have to wager a great deal of money to win a little because of the risks this system was unpopular with sports gamblers to increase the action bookmakers developed the point spread the point spread leveled the field by handicapping a dominant team with points if a team was favored by two points they would have to win by three for the wager to pay off if they won by two or less the wager was lost the bookie also benefited because of the built-in Commission the better has to bet $11 to win $10 the extra dollar goes to the bookie well that opened up the whole field because it took a relatively one-sided situation and made it even and competitive with the points breath what you try to do is try to balance the action so that half the people bite out of one side and half the better the other side and with the Commission the bookmaker could sit back and enjoy the profit without worrying which side won the points bred attracted more gamblers but it also made sports more vulnerable to scandal betting on football and basketball where the point sprint was efficient but it also led to the possibility of corruption and the fixing of games and in fact this did happen now a handful of ball players got the idea they were able to control the point but because of their superiority show instead of winning by 20 that they were favored by they cover the win by 12 or 13 unlike the 1919 World Series baseball scandal with a point spread a player could fix a game without having to actually lose until the Kefauver investigation the extent to which players wear shaving points was unknown that all changed the 1951 when Junius Kellogg a star player at Manhattan College came forward to blow the whistle on the corruption that had infiltrated college basketball the number one sport in the country following sensational disclosures of alleged fixing last year a basketball games for gamblers students cheer coach Ken Norton and player juniors Kellogg who informed his coach when offered $1,000 to trawl recent game the coach says we know and we feel nice I do that this is no local matter that if our boys can be approached they certainly must be approaching by the boys throughout the country Manhattan was just the beginning within months City College of New York and Long Island University basketball programs also felt the point-shaving scandals next was basketball powerhouse Kentucky led by star Alex Groza in all over a dozen players from seven different college teams were busted for point-shaving behind the fixes were Salvatore selasa a businessman who saw a way to relieve himself of a substantial debt he reasoned that by fixing the games he could bet on the outcome with certainty surprisingly bookmakers frowned on fixed games the bookmakers had an interest in preventing fixing and point-shaving because they were taking bets based upon a line if that line was being interfered with by the actions of the players they stood to lose Kefauver finally had something to show for his efforts he had blown the lid off of amateur sports where kids on meagre allowances were susceptible to bribery in addition it set a precedent for future investigations Chief Albert had so much publicity success with his hearings though they did not at any point prove the bookmakers really were the foundation stone of organized crime keep hours hearings paved the way for other hearings next up was the McClellan committee led by Senator John McClellan and Attorney General Robert Kennedy in the early 1960s Bobby Kennedy declared a war on crime with its connection with gambling probably the most important law that came out of the McClellan hearings and Kennedy's war on crime was the interstate wire act it made it a federal crime to use a wire that crossed a state line or national boundary if you were in the gambling business and if you were using it to send gambling information Kennedy's investigation closed the door on interstate gambling leaving the states to decide how to regulate gambling within their own jurisdictions each state responded differently Nevada developed its own regulatory system and in 1964 New Hampshire re legalized the state lottery which had been outlawed nationwide since 1930 this set off a wave of lotteries along the East Coast through all the investigations of the 50s and 60s gambling emerged stronger than ever with television and the point spread bringing more people into the fold team sports had replaced horse-racing as the betters favorite gamble and Las Vegas awaited with open arms [Music] the investigations of the 50s and 60s created an influx of professional gamblers from around the country to Las Vegas the second-chance city held its arms open and welcomed a new player into the fold of legalized gambling the professional sports bettor the calculating evaluator of human talent they were a sports bettor and they couldn't do it in their hometown without getting in trouble and creating a scandal but they could do it here not only be legitimized but be lionized sports gamblers are different they are not frivolous wagers intent on taking their chances with casino odds stacked against them they spend all week evaluating and disseminating information planning for the weekend when they live or die during the football baseball or basketball seasons one of the best is frank lefty Rosenthal a man who sees sports gambling his parked like the great horse player pittsburgh phil smith Rosenthal did his best to eliminate as much of the gamble before putting his money on the line sports wagering is not an exact science most casino table games are sports wagering is an educated opinion there is no way to humanly determine that a football game is six seven eight nine or forty conversely you walk into a casino we take paradise there are thirty six exact combinations on that particular paradise exact science mathematics who's to say whether the Dolphins are -6 or +6 there's your distinction exact science versus educated opinion the name of the game is double use versus else win or lose we're not what you might call sports enthusiasts we're cold-blooded gamblers prior to relocating to Las Vegas Frank lefty Rosenthal was well known by the FBI as an astute gambler that had been handicapping and providing inside information for the Chicago mob he had been arrested numerous times for his illegal gambling activities most of the charges were eventually dropped things got serious for lefty in 1961 when Bobby Kennedy dragged him before the McClellan committee accusing him of bribing Oregon State football player Michael Bruce at the hearing lefty took the fifth amendment 37 times and returned home free of any formal charges a couple of years later he was indicted on the charge of bribing a New York University basketball player to throw a game in 1968 he moved to Las Vegas Rosenthal had all sorts of legal problems that became celebrated in the movie casino but his background was is a sports bettor and apparently one of the savviest sports bettors in the world and he was a guy who knew the number when Frank Rosenthal first came to Las Vegas legalized sports gambling was still in its infancy aided by television exposure sports had never been more popular but Las Vegas was not geared up to exploit the potential of sanctioned sports wagering there were only by my recollection three freestanding buildings that would accept a wager these buildings were known as sports books one man that frequented these wagering houses was Jimmy the Greek Jimmy the Greek Schneider was a small-town handicapper that took the nickname of the renowned gambler Nick the Greek danda loose with his new nickname he was able to market himself as a big-time handicapper Jimmy the Greek I don't think was a big deal in Las Vegas but the public perception and public perceptions everything was that he was the man in Las Vegas he had the the look and he had the talk and he had the gold chains and he had to stuff that look and felt like Las Vegas to people he wasn't a winning player it wasn't a professional gambler he was a commercial handicapper Jimmy the Greek inadvertently thrust himself into the limelight when he set the point spread or line for the 1969 Super Bowl between the New York Jets and the Baltimore Colts one of the things that made Super Bowl betting and sports prognostication so well publicized was the worst line ever put on a game and that's when Jimmy the Greek announced that the Baltimore Colts in 1969 would beat the New York Jets by 17 points New York quarterback Joe Namath predicted a win for his seemingly overmatched team Snyder's line brought a lot of action to the game Baltimore which had an incredible defensive record OD in two games had to give up more than 10 points they were incredible team not surprisingly Jimmy the Greek's line did not hold up and it continued to fluctuate up until game time the professional community did not get sucked in there was a lot of money for both sizing that game and fortunately I was on the right side it did have the Jets no I did not think they'd win straight up but certainly I did think that the Colts would not cover and they did not cover the Jets won decisively and everybody talked about that as though it made Jimmy the Greek look like a fool but what they forget is the only reason for establishing a betting line on a game is to try to draw equal amounts of money on either side it has nothing to do with predicting the outcome of the game Jimmy the Greek went on to parlay his new fame a handicapper his borrowed nickname and his distinct gift for self-promotion made him America's handicapper he was the right man at the right time when sports and gambling came together to form a legitimate business frank lefty Rosenthal would make it a sensation in the summer of 1974 the Stardust Hotel was purchased by the Argent corporation the Chicago Teamsters Union backed the sale and within days placed Frank lefty Rosenthal in charge of operations he takes a major position at a major hotel on the strip and has to go through the licensing procedure and all that and all of a sudden here's a sports bettor inside the power structure of Las Vegas Rosenthal's background is a sports handicapper and better had an immediate effect on the Stardust one of Lefty's first actions was to bring a sports book inside his casino our foresight was why not allow those who want to make a wager on a sporting event be able to walk into the casino and do so without any fear with protection for winning a bet collecting a bet for being surrounded by security for being in the first-class operation just like the gold rush it was just a boom town someone might come in strictly to make a bet on the New England Patriots as an example and he or she may win that bet but then they might stroll over to the 21 table or vice versa so it was such a wonderful tool to provide additional cash flow it was really quite quite eventful Rosenthal had shown how sports books could bring in new customers and increase the bottom line of the casinos but various unrelated scandals would bring an end to Frank Rosenthal's reign at the Stardust his Stardust the home of the first casino sports book came down in a firestorm of allegations profit skimming personal problems and power struggles within the Chicago syndicate hierarchy all helped to secure Frank lefty Rosenthal downfall he was banished from Las Vegas for lightning I did what I was told to do by the chairman of our board I accepted my responsibilities as I thought them to be and that was it thanks to the prognostications of Jimmy the Greek Snyder and the four side of the K G brilliant Frank Rosenthal the sports gambling industry became a major windfall for Las Vegas sports gambling it found a permanent home in the games had just begun already entrenched is one of America's favorite sports to fan and gambler alike prizefighting was tailor-made for Las Vegas glamorous shady brutal and lucrative boxing thrives in Sin City the heavyweights of the big attraction bringing millions of dollars into the sports books around town with most sports loyalty takes a backseat to the betting line strangely boxing can turn a play by the numbers gambler in the one that bets with the heart instead of the head never was this more evident than during the 1982 title fight between world champion Larry Holmes and Jerry Killeen the smart money was on Holmes and a lot of the sucker money like mine was on Gerry Cooney Cooney had beat a bunch of bums but he was a colorful kid you know the Irish kid he was the Rocky and here was Larry Holmes this tough basically unbeatable guy and fight went 14 rounds it was a bloodbath and Holmes wanted a decision Cooney quickly apologized to his fans after the fight I remember him in the post fight press conference there were only about 20 riders in the room at the time for some reason they didn't let everybody in yet and he absolutely broke down and cried and apologized all the people have believed in him and lost their heart and money it's the most sincere post-fight apology I've ever seen from a boxer and I always kind of have a soft spot for Gerry Cooney because of that sports and gambling were separate entities that in coming together created a mega industry but the two were not originally designed for one another and coming together a fine line was created that if crossed could spell the end to each sports betting has always enjoyed a shaky reputation because there's always the fear that the athlete will be tainted in recent times Pete Rose's inability to get into the Hall of Fame is directly related to his activities with sports betting the tough thing about sports gambling is that it's gotten so big that the lure for the underprivileged athlete or the one that doesn't have a strong moral code could disintegrate the entire sport and I think sports betting has to be policed so carefully because of that the sports book brought new customers into the casino and gave another option to those that came to gamble on games of chance nowadays entire emporiums are devoted to sports gambling and the Hilton has its own building and Caesars Palace has an entire wing that's devoted to sports gambling and these are places where it's very obvious when you first walk in that this is maybe the most important room in the casino and the science of picking the line and all that has emerged into one of the most popular forms of gambling and I know that the percentage of money won by casinos has gone from a minuscule number in sports betting 25 years ago to a very very significant number today and it seems to only be getting bigger today sports wagering accounts for over 90 million dollars in revenue per year for Las Vegas casinos it is the most human of gambling enterprises where people bet on people but gambling also has a dark side a side that can cause the gambler to lose all judgment in the face of financial and personal ROI at its best gambling offers an exciting diversion to everyday life at its worst gambling is a powerful force that can take the strongest of humans and turn them into slaves to the wager the lure is irresistible just one more back one more rush one more chance at the big payday it can be an addiction like any other all consuming until treated today gamblers anonymous helps millions with their addiction but for some treatment comes only after hitting bottom probably the most well known and notarized compulsive gambler in America is archly ster who was a all-american quarterback at Ohio State it was a high school hero in his small farm town in Ohio and a very very sad story of how far down compulsive gambling can bring someone this is a guy who's about as addicted to sports betting as as maybe anybody on the scene and it's basically costume his entire life when she least herb began his career in the NFL his gambling habit was already interfering with his game his family and his bank account he was powerless by 1992 he was behind bars for writing bad checks to cover his gambling debts the pressure was unbearable for me it was something that I was not in control of and it was very painful in the end it was very depressing and almost into serious depression and it is a disease and it's a very destructive disease it's a big relief to found out that that's what it is and to be able to know how to deal with a little bit better and it's made my life about 100 times better than it's been a long time they become addicted to that high they become addicted to the action and when they're away from the action life is mundane and for those people gambling his advice for archly stir gambling continues to haunt it from his jail cell in Indianapolis five criminal convictions ley testament that gambling addiction is a lifelong battle to those trying to fight the spread of the Weisse compulsive gamblers are human proof of gambling's dark side nobody knows what percentage of all gamblers are problem gamblers it could be anywhere from three to eight percent pick a number the problem is complex and fortunately there is help for those in need gamblers anonymous was formed in 1957 and now has regular meetings worldwide but to the reformists the problem starts in Washington DC the government's involved in in all of it in fact gambling is the only addiction that government promotes we would be offended if we drove down a highway and saw a sign and drink more whiskey have a great time because the government collects funds are or why don't you smoke an extra pack of cigarettes a day and enjoy life a little more but government promotes despite the government's encouragement some progress has been made in controlling the problems that arise from gambling in recent years Las Vegas has made a half-hearted attempt to address the issue of compulsive gambling after all they don't want to see the demise of their customers but as long as the percentage of problem gamblers remains relatively low there will always be a human toll within the industry of legalized gambling the power of gambling has also provided positive contributions to society native-american tribes across America are enjoying a windfall during the current gambling craze our original gambler is possibly the most passionate of all in America's history exploited a loophole in the law and realized that gambling their community-based activity of long ago could offer a relief from the abject poverty that plagues so many North American reservations Gaming has provided really the White Buffalo that's a symbolism of prosperity in Native America and Gaming has been a success beyond our wildest dreams it has given us the resources to really be where we were in Aboriginal times before the arrival of the Europeans because of their self-governing status tribes were allowed to set up gambling houses and states that allow charity bingo the court ruled that unless a state completely prohibits a form of gambling federally recognized tribes in that state can operate that form of gambling and set their own limits their own regulations Congress panicked Congress didn't scrambled and passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory act and their even Gaming Regulatory act basically said this is what tribes can conduct on their land because Congress has the power however Native Americans land and rights in this country with the door opened in the 1980s when he tried to jumped on the opportunity casinos soon appeared on Native American soil throughout the u.s. the public came in droves the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act has been called the National casino legalization Act it wasn't designed to do that it was designed to legalize high-stakes bingo the result however was that tribes everywhere have either with court permission or simply by doing it and not being stopped have opened up casinos throughout the country the action of the Native Americans sparked a flurry of lawsuits as they work their way through the court system Native Americans continue to grow stronger from the success of their casinos it has allowed us to strengthen our tribal governments it has allowed us to diversify our economy it has allowed us to take care of our own people provide housing for elderly we purchased a local community bank which we underwrite loans to so people can be gainfully employed so that they can borrow money to build their own homes instead of on government subsidies our children have been awarded scholarships through the tribe through gaming historically whenever gambling gains the type of popularity it enjoys today the government has gone to work currently the national impact study into gaming is touring the country trying to decide how the gambling pie is to be divided and what can be done to keep gambling in check the federal government really wants to get into this and the states want to keep it on their own and the Indians want to keep it away from the state so it's a constant struggle lobbying and so on at some point somebody's gonna say enough is enough let's keep it we got no further growth it's sort of like a moratorium and how much can you have can you have slot machines in the restrooms and churches you've already got them in the supermarkets where else can you go with them a familiar pattern is emerging as lawmakers scramble once again during a time of gambling prosperity this is the third time in American history that gambling has spread across the nation the first wave started before there was even a country the colonies were funded by lotteries in England the second wave began with the Civil War and the opening of the western frontier the third wave began with the depression 1931 Nevada re legalizes casinos and even in places like Vicksburg where they lynched five people for running gambling casinos a hundred years ago they are now opening riverboat casinos the creation of this national gambling impact Study Commission shows exactly where we are in the third wave we introduced the bill to set up a commission to look at the whole problem and it's a fastest Naurang legal industry in the United States today we simply say let's take a look at how much of a problem we have what we ought to do about what has happened and was unexpected even to the opponents of gambling there's so much legal gambling in this country that it has finally percolated down into the consciousness of the average voter which means into the consciousness of members of Congress and when this bill came up members of Congress said hey you know in fact there is gambling there's commercialized gambling in 47 states and it's a half a trillion dollar a year industry maybe we should study gambling's popularity is forced to change on the political doctrine espoused by American politicians if we peaked we are going to see successful elections to get rid of gambling and we're going to see candidates actually running on anti-gambling platforms and if they start getting elected it does mean that gambling has spread so far that people are now saying hey I don't want this in my own backyard let's go back to Prohibition whatever the outcome of the national gambling impact Commission study gambling will no doubt remain firmly established in the minds and psyche of an American population willing to risk their hard-earned dollars on a good bet at the moment we're in the cycle where gambling is spreading today three-quarters of all Americans live within 300 miles of a casino riverboat swine the Mississippi once again in the new Mid American gold rush lotteries and 37 states in the District of Columbia have made state governments dependent on the additional revenue as prizes reach unprecedented amounts Las Vegas is now run by bottom-line conscious corporations with offerings on the new york stock exchange many of these corporate entities are marketing to families with an emphasis on children Church and charity bingos are commonplace and embraced as a legitimate way to raise money racetracks are installing slot machines and off-track betting parlors the World Series of Poker is now an international event drawing the best of the best to Las Vegas and the Supreme Court has recognized professional gamblers as partaking in a legitimate vocation the gravy train is definitely rolling Americans are on the crest of the most recent wave of gambling hysteria and for the time being there seems to be no end in sight the next unexplored frontier for gambling isn't cyberspace the Internet has brought the gamble into the home and already law makers and operators are scurrying for the payout as they try to regulate this constantly changing venue for the third time in history gambling is legal nationwide in the past such prosperity has signaled the beginning of a national backlash if history does indeed repeat itself one thing is certain it won't be long before the bells are ringing again because the lure of gambling is just too powerful for a people with gambling in their [Music]

Channel: DocSpot

Views: 282,594

Rating: 4.514133 out of 5

Keywords: High Roller, Gambling, Gamble, United States, History, Money, Luck, Slots, Las Vegas, Racing, Bet, Betting

Id: YHkKNCKqczQ

Length: 92min 2sec (5522 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 07 2017