Thanks, Seussman for posting the 60 Minutes link. I have another link to an article written by Ian Thomsen, a senior writer for Sports Illustrated, telling the story of the computer group. It's a rather lenghy article.
The chapter called "The Computer Wizard" tells how it got started. It turns out that there wasn't a team of programmers crunching the numbers. It all started with a Michael Kent, a brilliant mathematician for Westinghouse back in the seventies. He wrote a program to statistically analyze the strengths and weaknesses of his company softball team and fed it into Westinghouse computers. His teammates loved it but there was no practical application for the information.
Kent moved into college football. Once he thought his program was good enough he started making bets with local bookies in Pittsburgh. He started making money. He quit his job and moved to Las Vegas in 1979 and started making his bets there. He grew very paranoid of the daily task of moving large sums of money into and out of the books.
He got introduced to a Dr. Ivan Mindlin, a not so sharp sportsbettor, but world class at manipulating people. Kent moved his family in on the operation and struck a deal with Mindlin. Kent would be left alone to do the computer work and Mindlin would move the money in and out of the books for a 50/50 split.
Kent, isolated from the hustlers of Las Vegas, thought that he and his family, Mindlin, and just a few others were the extent of the Computer Group. For all his mathematical brilliance Kent was extremely naive, just no street smarts at all.
There was no way in hell a manipulator like Mindlin was gonna keep the information under his hat. It was just way to valuable to him to cut others in on the information, of course, unbeknownst to Kent. Over the years hustlers grew rich on Kent's informaton. Kent made only a small fraction of what they made. It's like Billy Walters said in the 60 minutes interview "You're either the hustler or the hustled."
http://www.offshorebettor.com/images/COMPUTER.htm
If you have any trouble with the link let me know.
