Word: bets
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...stock index and Japanese government bonds when he got into trouble in the mid-'90s. He was anything but one of the investment banking "Masters of the Universe" made famous by Tom Wolfe in the 1980s. He was a relatively ordinary young professional on an obscure trading desk, who bet the wrong way on the Nikkei's direction; then he doubled down, trying to recoup the firm's money, and lost again. At one point in early 1995, he had half the open interest on the Nikkei futures, along with 85% of the Japanese bond contract that he traded. Those...
Though Manteris now shuns silly prop bets, it didn't take long to get a gambler like him excited about mine. Unfortunately, most of my ideas were illegal, since Vegas has been ruined by lots of laws and regulations over the past few years, none of which seem to have to do with restaurant prices. The law states that you can wager only on statistically verifiable sports events, thus eliminating my bet on whether the first cheerleader shown on television would be prettier than Tom Brady. My second plan, however, seemed promising. While I don't know anything about football...
...there's no way I'm not going to bet on the Super Bowl, the biggest betting event of the year, despite the fact that I hate football and know nothing about it. Luckily, the thoughtful hosts who run gambling establishments don't want anyone to feel left out, so they invented the "proposition bet," which creates wagers based on hundreds of superfluous details, such as who will win the opening coin toss, whether the first missed field goal goes left or right or if the jersey number of the last person to score is odd or even. Somewhere, someone...
...prop bets are based on either luck or sports knowledge. I needed a Super Bowl bet based on my nonfootball expertise, something that would make me feel smart on a day I feel dumb. So I called oddsmaker Art Manteris to see if we could come up with a bet that he would post on all 19 sports books he runs for Station Casinos. Manteris, author of Super Bookie, was responsible for making proposition bets a huge business when, in 1985, he offered 20-to-1 odds at Caesars Palace that an incredibly fat defensive lineman named William (the Refrigerator...
Waiting for Manteris at the Italian restaurant at Vegas' Red Rock resort, I was bummed I couldn't find someone to bet me what he would look like. Because I would have made a lot of money. He had a pinstriped suit, a faint beard, a faint paunch and a not-so-faint gold chain with an Eastern Orthodox cross, a Greek evil eye and a Hindu om. I was not sure I trusted an oddsmaker who wasn't willing to set a line on who would triumph at the apocalypse...