Now I Know Read Online Free
Author: Dan Lewis
regardless.)
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BONUS FACT
In 1999, a New Yorker named Jesus Leonardo was eking out a living doing odd jobs, painting homes, and cleaning windows. On occasion, he’d try his luck, though—not at the lottery, but on the ponies. He’d go to a New York City OTB—off-track (horse) betting—establishment and place a wager or two. One night, like many before, he threw away his losing tickets. But that night, a correction came over the wire a short time after, turning one of his losers into a $900 winner. Unfortunately, the ticket was in the garbage, and without the ticket, he was unable to cash out his winnings. The OTB manager allowed him to sift through the hundreds of discarded tickets that evening, and although Leonardo did not find his ticket, he found two others worth a total of $2,000. He spent the next ten years doing more of the same, turning ticket sifting into his full-time job. It paid him, on average, about $40,000 to $50,000 a year. (Leonardo has since moved on; New York’s OTB shut down at the end of 2010.)
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TURNING YELLOW INTO GOLD
HOW TO WIN AT THE TRACK (KIND OF)
In the book
Bringing Down the House
, author Ben Mezrich recounts the story of a group of blackjack players, many from MIT, who systematically took casinos for millions of dollars. The blackjack team’s system, which requires solid math skills, is designed more to avoid casinos’ rules than to exploit the rules of blackjack itself. If anything, the book best demonstrates how buttoned up the gambling world is when it comes to loopholes, aiming to ensure that you can’t beat the house.
But that doesn’t stop people from trying—and, on occasion, succeeding.
In the 1970s, Barney Curley was a gambler known well in betting circles around Northern Ireland and throughout the Emerald Isle. Looking for an edge, he concocted a scheme that would not only end up working, but worked so well that Irish bookmakers ended up changing their betting rules. It started when he realized that one particular Irish horse racing venue only had one phone line, and it led to a public pay phone.
Curley raised a horse named Yellow Sam and had its trainer prepare it for a specific race at the track in question, Bellewstown, located about a forty-five-minute drive north of Dublin. The decision to focus the horse on this particular race, combined with the fact that the targeted race typically featured amateur jockeys, meant Yellow Sam would have an excellent chance at winning.
But the real money wasn’t in winning the race’s prize purse. Curley could make much more by betting on his horse to win, especially if the bookmakers put Yellow Sam as a prohibitive underdog. Curley’s plan helped make that happen. Before running at Bellewstown, Yellow Sam raced in a handful of events, all under bad conditions, and fared poorly. The gambit worked. The horse developed a reputation as being slow and not that competitive, and when Yellow Sam was entered in the race at Bellewstown, it started as a 20-to-1 underdog.
Under-handicapping horses, as this error is called, is nothing new, and odds makers have a long-standing system to account for it. As bets come in, the odds makers adjust the handicap to reflect the betting activity; that’s why the odds on any given sporting event change over time. Most bookies wouldn’t accept very large bets from unknown gamblers or, even worse, from known professionals such as Curley. He needed a way to get a lot of small bets entered without the bets being communicated back to the odds makers at the track—which is why Bellewstown was selected. In the end, that single pay phone was the key to the operation.
Race day was June 26, 1975. Leveraging his network of friends, family, and even hiring some others, Curley distributed his life savings—roughly £15,000 Irish pounds—to his compatriots. He gave each of them between £50 and £300 and a sealed envelope with instructions. Curley sent them to bookmakers’ offices in their locales.
----
BONUS FACT
In 1999, a New Yorker named Jesus Leonardo was eking out a living doing odd jobs, painting homes, and cleaning windows. On occasion, he’d try his luck, though—not at the lottery, but on the ponies. He’d go to a New York City OTB—off-track (horse) betting—establishment and place a wager or two. One night, like many before, he threw away his losing tickets. But that night, a correction came over the wire a short time after, turning one of his losers into a $900 winner. Unfortunately, the ticket was in the garbage, and without the ticket, he was unable to cash out his winnings. The OTB manager allowed him to sift through the hundreds of discarded tickets that evening, and although Leonardo did not find his ticket, he found two others worth a total of $2,000. He spent the next ten years doing more of the same, turning ticket sifting into his full-time job. It paid him, on average, about $40,000 to $50,000 a year. (Leonardo has since moved on; New York’s OTB shut down at the end of 2010.)
----
TURNING YELLOW INTO GOLD
HOW TO WIN AT THE TRACK (KIND OF)
In the book
Bringing Down the House
, author Ben Mezrich recounts the story of a group of blackjack players, many from MIT, who systematically took casinos for millions of dollars. The blackjack team’s system, which requires solid math skills, is designed more to avoid casinos’ rules than to exploit the rules of blackjack itself. If anything, the book best demonstrates how buttoned up the gambling world is when it comes to loopholes, aiming to ensure that you can’t beat the house.
But that doesn’t stop people from trying—and, on occasion, succeeding.
In the 1970s, Barney Curley was a gambler known well in betting circles around Northern Ireland and throughout the Emerald Isle. Looking for an edge, he concocted a scheme that would not only end up working, but worked so well that Irish bookmakers ended up changing their betting rules. It started when he realized that one particular Irish horse racing venue only had one phone line, and it led to a public pay phone.
Curley raised a horse named Yellow Sam and had its trainer prepare it for a specific race at the track in question, Bellewstown, located about a forty-five-minute drive north of Dublin. The decision to focus the horse on this particular race, combined with the fact that the targeted race typically featured amateur jockeys, meant Yellow Sam would have an excellent chance at winning.
But the real money wasn’t in winning the race’s prize purse. Curley could make much more by betting on his horse to win, especially if the bookmakers put Yellow Sam as a prohibitive underdog. Curley’s plan helped make that happen. Before running at Bellewstown, Yellow Sam raced in a handful of events, all under bad conditions, and fared poorly. The gambit worked. The horse developed a reputation as being slow and not that competitive, and when Yellow Sam was entered in the race at Bellewstown, it started as a 20-to-1 underdog.
Under-handicapping horses, as this error is called, is nothing new, and odds makers have a long-standing system to account for it. As bets come in, the odds makers adjust the handicap to reflect the betting activity; that’s why the odds on any given sporting event change over time. Most bookies wouldn’t accept very large bets from unknown gamblers or, even worse, from known professionals such as Curley. He needed a way to get a lot of small bets entered without the bets being communicated back to the odds makers at the track—which is why Bellewstown was selected. In the end, that single pay phone was the key to the operation.
Race day was June 26, 1975. Leveraging his network of friends, family, and even hiring some others, Curley distributed his life savings—roughly £15,000 Irish pounds—to his compatriots. He gave each of them between £50 and £300 and a sealed envelope with instructions. Curley sent them to bookmakers’ offices in their locales.
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