Product Description

A riveting inside look at the lucrative world of professional high-stakes sports betting by a journalist who lived a secret life as a key operative in the world's most successful sports gambling ring.

When journalist Michael Konik landed an interview with Rick "Big Daddy" Matthews, the largest bet he'd placed on a sporting event was $200. Konik, an expert blackjack and poker player, was no stranger to Vegas. But Matthews was in a different league: the man was rumored to be the world's smartest sports bettor, the mastermind behind "the Brain Trust," a shadowy group of gamblers known for their expertise in beating the Vegas line. Konik had heard the word on the street -- that Matthews was a snake, a conniver who would do anything to gain an edge. But he was also brilliant, cunning, and charming. And when he asked Konik if he'd like to "make a little money" during the football season, the writer found himself seduced . . .

So began Michael Konik's wild ride as an operative of the elite Brain Trust. In The Smart Money, Konik takes readers behind the veil of secrecy shrouding the most successful sports betting operation in America, bypassing the myths and the rumors, going all the way to its innermost sanctum. He reveals how they -- and he -- got rich by beating the Vegas lines and, ultimately, the multimillion-dollar offshore betting circuit. He details the excesses and the betrayals, the horse-trading and the paranoia, that are the perks and perils of a lifestyle in which staking inordinate sums of money on the outcome of a single event -- sometimes as much as $1 million on a football game -- is a normal part of doing business.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #62323 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-14
• Released on: 2006-11-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 384 pages

From Booklist
In 1997, gaming journalist Konik joined the Brain Trust, a sports-gambling operation that took in millions by beating the Vegas bookies at their own game. This fascinating inside look at the gambling biz (perfectly suited, incidentally, to fans of the recent movie Two for the Money) reveals so much information that you would swear the author was breaking some sort of Omerta-like code of silence; in fact, the parallels between organized gambling and organized crime are numerous. The book created plenty of buzz in the publishing community well before its release, so expect a great deal of publicity and high reader interest. The author conceals the identities of the principal players behind fake names, but his fictionalized stand-ins are so compelling (especially the Brain Trust chieftain, Rick "Big Daddy" Matthews) that the book feels like a mixture of true-life expose and high-stakes fiction (fans of Puzo's Fools Die may see some similarities but only in a good way). A definite must-read for the gambling crowd. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"You'll search the whole bookstore and never top Konik's gambling writing."-- Las Vegas Review-Journal

About the Author
"The dean of the world's gambling writers," Michael Konik is the author of six books, including the gaming classic The Man with the $100,000 Breasts. He's written for numerous publications, including The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, and Sports Illustrated. On television, Konik has competed in the World Series of Poker and the World Series of Blackjack, and he appears regularly as an expert commentator on FoxSports poker broadcasts. Visit the author at www.michaelkonik.com.

Customer Reviews

A real-life "Ocean's Eleven"
This book deserves an immediate place - alongside "The Eudaemonic Pie" and "Bringing Down the House" - in the pantheon of greatest "Geniuses beat Las Vegas" stories ever written. "The Smart Money" is a true, first-hand account of how one of the biggest, most successful, sports-betting syndicates in history beat the Las Vegas sportsbooks out of millions. It turns out that having a math and computer genius crunch every stat imaginable to find algorithms that successfully predict the outcome of sporting events is only half the battle. The other half is actually getting your bets down, in amounts that will make the biggest vegas sportsbooks cringe, and you and your partners wealthy beyond belief. That's where the author, Michael Konick, came in. Michael was hired by the syndicate to place large bets for them, using his professional status as a Hollywood-based, highly successful author and journalist as cover. At first it worked perfectly: with a little help from Michael's acting skills, sportsbooks managers initially thought they had hooked a "whale," a rich sucker with no clue, who would blow a fortune backing his hunches. But when Michael began consistently beating them for huge money they began viewing him with more suspicion, and the game got a lot tougher. Michael's account of his adventures cajoling and conning the Las Vegas sportsbooks into booking his syndicate's bets, while at the same time exploring some of the other pleasures "Sin City" has on offer, makes compelling reading. I highly recommend it.

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Fantastic!
An exciting tale of the transformation of a humble author into a major "player" in the alien world of multi-million dollar sports betting. As the author's situations became more surreal and as the money grew to eye-popping amounts, I felt my pulse quicken and palms begin to sweat. I don't know how Michael Konik did it! Just READING about the pressure, money & fear made me dizzy & nauseous (in a good way)!

I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in gambling, sports, probability or (let's face it) money! ;-)

A Gambling Rollercoaster Ride
The Smart Money is a detailed, accurate, and surprisingly sensitive look deep within the arcane world -- complex, changeable, cutthroat -- of high-stakes sports betting.

The bookies are well aware of the vulnerability of the odds they offer on sporting events and they're hypersensitive to the big money, which can seriously hurt them. Thus, to try to exploit the weakness of those odds, the high rollers have to go to extraordinary lengths. Konik, in his initial capacity as an operative for a heavily financed sports-betting syndicate, and his later capacity as the head of his own syndicate, dives headfirst into this great cat-and-mouse game with guts, gusto, and a glibness so convincing that for four long years, he manages to bluff and outwit some of the most suspicious people on Earth.

The blow-by-blow of game after game is gripping and Konik's writing imparts all the sensations he experiences -- plumbing the depths of defeat and scaling the heights of triumph, along the way making a fortune, losing a girlfriend, being lied to, cheated, and stolen from, and scamming the scammers in return.

The ending, given who Konik portrays himself to be, isn't a surprise. But it does make The Smart Money not only enlightening and entertaining, but life-affirming as well. By the time you've finished reading this book -- and you should -- you'll see sports betting in a whole new light.