Gambling
Folklore
Hey
everyone, good to be High Rollin’, love the little gems you hear every now and
again. Gambling folklore. Proposition bets that make your head spin. The tidbits that make some gamblers
legendary. I like to find them and voice
them, share them with my High Rollers.
I’d like to share a few with you now…if you happen to prefer listening,
visit www.highrollerradioshow.com
for audio versions.
Derrick
Oliver -- Program Director -- High Roller Radio
Kerry Packer
Media
mogul…billionaire….the late great KerryPacker - true gambling legend. Here’s a guy who took the MGM grand for 20
million one night in 1995… 20-million?
Wow. He’s an Aussie, so perhaps we should say 20 million, Oh, oy, oy!
Packer
was actually up 28 million at one point.
He tipped the dealers a cool million.
One
time, he cleared a dealer’s mortgage. He bets a million dollars on the
Melbourne cup…like you and I drink coffee. So many stories about this betting
brain, but the most common and favorite tale is the confrontation he had with a
Texas oil man, happened in Vegas. This Texan was loud, obnoxious, filthy rich
and sure to let everyone know about it.
Packer annoyed by the brash behaviour and politely asked that he tone it
down a little.
The
obnoxious and rich oil man, being an obnoxious, rich, oil man, didn’t take too
kindly to this. He shouted …the old stand by…you know who I am? I’m worth 100 million -Packer very calmly got
out a coin and said “I’ll flip you for it!”
Legend. High Roller.
Kerry Packer.
Hole-in-One Gang
The Hole-in-One Gang
This is how you do it folks…an outstanding
example of a well-calculated value bet.
This is what professional gamblers call ‘getting an edge’, something
that can make okay gamblers good…and good ones great – finding an edge.
Introducing
Paul Simmons and John Carter, couple of dudes who put in the work, studied a
ton of historical data and calculated the odds of a hole-in-one at the British
Open to be roughly 50/50. Even steven.
Were pretty sure unsuspecting bookies would offer considerably higher
odds than the evens, or less, and they were right! Spectacularly right.
So,
they placed a large number of relatively small bets all over the country at
odds up to 100/1 and when Brian Marchbank scored an ace during the major… they
scored HUGE! Depending on who you believe they won between £600,000 and £1 million
– proving once and for all bookies don’t always win!
Good
lesson for all of us…find an edge…be a pro…be a high roller!
Harry Findlay – Britain’s greatest
gambler?
Money
is no object to this High Roller…none whatsoever. He’s made and lost more than most will ever
know. In October 2007, he was convinced New Zealand would win the rugby world
cup…a sure thing, so confident he told anyone and everyone to put everything
they had on it.
His
personal wager? Yikes, a cool $2.7
million. You guessed it, the legendary
all-blacks not only didn’t win the world cup,..they didn’t get past the quarter
finals, lost to France.
Harry
Findlay, owner of Cheltenham great Denman…is a legendary gambler, perhaps
Britain’s greatest ever. After the
France victory he said, quote, “I thought Dan Carter was a god, the dimension
that made them unbeatable…Fundamentally, I believe I was right in my assessment
of the All Blacks but it didn’t work out and I will never again bet on rugby
because I could never fancy a team as much as I fancied that New Zealand side”.
Unquote.
Don’t
feel too sorry for him though – over the years Mr. Findlay has won tens of
millions, much of that on Tiger Woods, Roger Federer and his own horses. “When
I left school at 16” he says, “all my mates went to do jobs and I said, I
wouldn’t work for two grand a week at the jobs you lot are doing. Get up at
seven, leave the kids, go to London, come back tired at eight, too knackered to
enjoy the weekends with the kids, then? do it again Monday to Friday. They said
I was mad, but who’s wrong?”
Life
of a gambler folks…that’s the appeal…the freedom to come and go as you please.
Harry
Findlay…British, or Brit-rich…a guy they tell stories about – a High Roller!
Amarillo Slim – King of the prop
bet
Amarillo
Slim…legend, Hall-of-Famer, pioneer, world champion, prop bet king….his famous
quote still rings with fascination for me…the mindset of this gambling
wizard…”I don’t want to beat a sucker, I want to find a champion and make a
sucker out of him”, that’s Slim in a nutshell.
He
was a great sprinter…pool player…table tennis…yes poker too, get my drift…a
naturally gifted grifter and gabber…he was in a movie once and made up his own
lines….the director had no choice but to use them…ahh…but the real talent…prop
bets…he was the king! Once beat the table tennis world champion (using Coke
bottles as paddles…world champ didn’t know what hit him…slim had been practising
ping pong with coke bottles for months…did it with frying pans too!
Slim
beat Seabiscuit…you know, the champion horse…in a race? WOW! Did it over 100m (50m one way, then 50m
back) The horse had a tough time
stopping momentum and turning around…smart Slim, smart! He even took money off Evil Knievel. Our
favourite bet…or at least the one I like most has to be the golf wager. Amarillo said he could hit a golf ball a mile
any time he wanted…so, someone challenged him, on terms he had a year to do
it. Amarillo waited til winter, phoned
his opponent and said he was ready, that he wanted to hit the ball a mile now. Found a frozen lake and whack! Ball just kept going and going. Hustle!
Amarillo
Slim Preston…legendary gambler….grifter…shark…you know it – High Roller too.
Breast bet ever?
Hey
High Rollers…how far would you go to win a bet???? Would you run naked in the streets? Eat a rat?
What would you do?
I’d
like to introduce you to Brian Zembic…a Canadian pro-gambler …a guy’s who’s done
plenty of crazy proposition bets…once lived in a bathroom for a week, once
spent a week in a box outside his friends’ backgammon club…but his pece de
resistance (did I spell that right???? 2-to-1 I didn’t) his piece de resistance
was having a pair of 36C breasts implanted, on his own person. The dude got breast implants! Had to wear
them for a year to win 100 grand. Oh, he
on the money alright, but at years end…he kept the breasts. Made international headlines too! So,
Mr. Zembic pocketed $100 thousand from the bet, but plenty more from book and TV
deals. He also, get this, claims the
chicks love his boobs.
So
how far would you go to win a bet??? As far as Zembic? High Roller.
No comments:
Post a Comment