Yesterday afternoon I was walking by a Salvation Army Thrift Store. I had been out of reading material for a few days. I have a hard time going to sleep at night if I don't read myself to sleep. I remembered the old days of tramping around the country with a backpack and a sleeping bag. I always kept reading material in the backpack. Mostly paperbacks from Salvation Army Thrift Stores. I love non-fiction and historical fiction. So I cut inside the thrift store to see what I could find.
Low and behold! There on the shelf sat a hardcover edition of "Casino" by Nicholas Pileggi. It still had the dust jacket too. It's almost in mint condition. I loved the movie and always wanted to read the book. I picked it up for a grand total of $2.50.
I got up to page 25 last night before falling asleep. But I already have some great quotes out of the book. I was surprised to find that the book is the true life account of Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal and Tony "The Ant" Spilotro. The movie gave everyone fictional names, but the book doesn't.
Here's a Nicholas Pileggi quote:
"A casino is a mathematics palace set up to separate players from their money. Every bet made in a casino has been calibrated within a fraction of it's life to maximize profit while still giving players the illusion that they have a chance."
Here's a Frank Rosenthal quote:
"I really learned gambling in the bleachers at Wrigley Field and Comiskey Park. There were about 200 guys up there every game. And they were betting on everything. Every pitch. Every swing. Everything had a price. There were guys shouting numbers at you. It was great. It was an open-air casino. Constant action."
"If you were talented , and you had some ego, and you knew the game, you'd be tempted to take them on. You've got money in your pocket and you feel like you can take on the world.. There was a guy name Stacy; he was in his fifties and he had a pocket full of cash. He'd fade anybody. "Hey kid, they gonna score this inning or not?" Instead of passing, your pride gets in there and you make a bet and you pay the price. Stacy always got you to make a price."
"Say Chicage is winning six to two in the eighth and you want to bet they score again, or that they'll lose in the ninth. Or that they'd hit into a double play to end the inning. Or hit a home run to win the game. Or a double or a triple or a flyout. Whatever. Stacy would take the action and he'd lay the odds. He'd make a homer twenty-five to one. Bam! Just like that. A fly ball was twenty to one. An "out" was eight to five. If you wanted acton, you made the bet and he gave you his odds.
I didn't know it at first, but every one of those bets Stacy faded had odds backing them up. A strikeout at the end of a game was, say-I don't remember the real odds now, but say it was a hundred and sixty-six to one, not thirty to one, which was what Stacy was laying.
"A home run on the game's first pitch could be three thousand to one, not seventy-five to one, which was what Stacy was laying. And so forth. If you were betting Stacy, you had to know those odds, or you'd be picked clean."
"After I caught on, I'd just sit and listen to him make his odds and I'd write them all down and keep a record. After a while, I started making proposition bets out there on my own. Over the years, Stacy made a fortune in the bleachers. He cleaned up. He was terrific at getting everybody all around him to start betting. He was a great showman."
Rosenthal learned gambling from someone else, just like I did. I've read all the greats, Dancer, Paymar, Scott, Shackleford, Burke, Cooke, and many more. And thank God for John Scarne who explained gambling math so that even uneducated hillbillies like me could understand it.
And, just like Rosenthal, I went off on my own with it.
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