Bought this on Sunday night and I'd finished it by this morning (Tuesday), which gives you an idea of how enjoyable this book was (ok, two delayed Easy Joke flights helped). Michael Konik charts his 4 season involvement in a big betting syndicate called the Brains Trust who enjoyed big victories over Las Vegas and offshore bookmakers due to their supercomputer, which gave them a very real edge.
It's based in Vegas and Los Angeles in the late 90's and early 00's, and progresses from when Konik (a sports and gaming freelance writer by trade - makes the book very readable) is approached by "Big Daddy" to join the team as effectively as "runner" (making bets on behalf of the group, who are all feared and despised by the Vegas sports books), setting himself as a mugg ("square" is the term in the US) bettor in the big Vegas hotels.
The sports that he and his team bets on are the NFL and NCAA Football and Basketball, and its mainly the spreads (when a team is given a head start for a 10/11 payback) and the totals (choosing a combined total points result, again paying 10/11) they play, a little different from the sports betting in the UK, where the money line is by far the preferred option of wagering.
To begin with he enjoys himself winning big sums from hotels like the Caesars Palace, and is very convincing to the management of these hotels, who think he's a well researched guy, winning money without outside help. However, after a while he finds his limits cut and then eventually forced to the offshore internet books (where he finds it a lot harder to actually get paid at all).
The bookies begin to link him to the aforementioned Brains Trust and he then teams up with an MIT computer nerd to create his own computer program, attacking the industry from a different direction. However, as the pressure grows and the wins get higher, his personal life suffers and he breaks up with his lady. Reading between the lines on this, it hits poor Micheal very hard and he never really recovers.
Eventually he bows out after 4 very good seasons when he just loses his appetite for it all. He makes good money, but I guess suffers burnout, as he tends to "sweat" a lot of his games (i.e. he watches them through to the end with hundreds of thousands of dollars on meaningless touchdowns etc). Although he begins to suspect that he is being watched and there are numerous punters and bookies alike who would like to find out about some of his information sources.
The book reads very well, and can be enjoyed by experienced gamblers and rookies alike, although I think that readers with no real interest in sports gambling may struggle. I found it interesting how bookies react when they get beat (or in the case of some, the fear that they will get beat). Even William Hill closed Konik's account after a winning streak (I am yet to be offered the same red card, but don't worry, there's time yet!!).
One thing which I found strange was the lack of reference to the internet betting surge that was ripping through the industry at that time. There were one or two references, but some of the books I have read about Vegas from that period clearly point to a marked shift in sports betting power away to the offshore, internet based operations.
Very good book though, one I would certainly recommend.
My rating: 81%
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