Double or Nothing: How Two Friends Risked It All to Buy One of Las Vegas' Legendary Casinos Read Online Free Page A

representing his childhood buddy and basketball star Shaquille O’Neal.
    You know how Perry met Tim? He sat behind him as a freshman in social studies class simply because Tim’s last name starts with a p and Perry’s begins with an r . Six minutes into the first class, Tim turned to Perry and said, “Hey, buddy, you got 25 bucks?”
    â€œWhat?” Perry asked.
    â€œLook,” Tim said. “The Showboat has this contest. Takes $50 to enter. You pick every NFL game for the whole season. If you have the best record at the end of the year, you win a house. I got $25. But I don’t got $50. You got 25 bucks?”
    â€œYeah,” Perry said, “I got 25 bucks.”
    So they went in together. They got beaten up pretty good that first week, and winning the top prize was out of the question. So Tim said, “I’ve got an idea: Let’s shoot for Fiddle in the Middle!” That was the prize awarded to anyone who could compile a record at the end of the season that was exactly .500.
    They didn’t win that, either. But the consolation prize was the biggest of all. They got to know each other, and after more than twenty years and some million-dollar deals together, Perry is still shaking his head and smiling at the memory of Fiddle in the Middle.
    It wasn’t long before everybody at Bishop Gorman knew Tim. Tim and Little Frank became the school bookies. There was nothing at all clandestine about the operation. “Hey, what’s the line on Baltimore?” other kids would shout as Tim and Little Frank walked the halls or ate in the cafeteria. There were even teachers who bet with them. If this is hard to fathom, you’ve got to remember that gambling is legal in Las Vegas. It’s in the air. At graduation services in the school chapel, casino chips are welcome in the collection plate.
    Sure, you’re supposed to be 21 to bet. But Tim couldn’t help it if he felt 37 when he was 14. And Little Frank had gotten a pretty good education in public relations at the Barbary Coast. The two were thoughtful enough to pass along a book of comp tickets for the restaurants at the Barbary Coast to the dean of students “just in case it comes in handy.”
    Occasionally, a kid would lose his lunch money for a week to Tim and Little Frank, and his mother would go into the dean of students to complain. So the dean would call Tim and Little Frank into his office for a chat to keep them in line and get an idea who was betting what. Tim and Little Frank would pass on a tidbit of information, and the conversation would degenerate to laughter. “What?” the dean of students would say. “Curt Magleby bet the Cubs ?”
    Cubs games were one of the most frequently bet because there were no lights at Wrigley Field back then, and the games started in the afternoon. The two-hour time difference allowed Tim to get in the first action of the day at 11:00 AM . It was hot stuff back then to have a sports pager. In those days a pager was the size of a pack of cigarettes, and it cost about $400 a month to access the constant updates. But classes had a little more juice with the beeper announcing every run scored and change of inning.
    Apparently, one teacher was not at all amused. Mr. Ward taught business just before lunch—exactly the time the games at Wrigley Field started. “I know you’ve got one of those damn beeper things,” he said as Tim approached the classroom one day. “Do you have it on you now?”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?” Tim shot back. With all due respect to honesty, no self-respecting bookie was going to surrender his beeper to his fourth-period business teacher.
    â€œ You know what I’m talking about,” Ward said. “If you have it on you now, I want it. You are not to bring it into my classroom! And if you do bring it into my classroom, I’m kicking you out!”
    Tim had it safely tucked away in his