Non-Strategy Biography/Sportsbetting Book

I am currently reading Wizard of Odds, a biography of Jack Molinas by Charley Rosen. I am not a basketball fan and don't bet sports, but I am liking this book. Jack Molinas was a great basketball player who got into gambling and fixing games. I knew a little about some of the point shaving scandals in the '50's, but had no idea how widespread it was or how much money was involved. It is interesting to read the book and think of how John McCain's stupid bill figures into the whole equation. I am not done with the book, but would recommend it to anybody interested in this type of thing. It also makes me wonder what is going on now. I mean, in the '50's there were college kids getting thousands per game - Molinas cleared 125,000 his senior year in like 1953. We've had some scandals recently, but I wonder if we'll have another big one.

I read this book about a month ago and I really enjoyed it! I felt bad for Jack and was rooting for him most of the book. I'll try not to ruin it for you, but wait til you get to the point where he moves out to California, he turns into a real scumbag. I would like to hear your opinion when you are through.

what did molinas do:??? go to law school????..

sorry just could not resist..last lawyer joke for awhile...


gl

Yeah, the book is assigned reading for lawyers on how to build a practice.:-)

Actually he did, and was a lawyer until he was sent to Prison and was dis-barred.


But this was way before he moved to California, he became a real scumbag then.


And when I say scumbag, remember I liked him and rooted for him when he was a hustler, cheat, point shaver, pro-athlete dumping games con-artist who ran around with mobsters and two-bit bookmakers.

i was just kidding..lol...yes i was...gl

Yes, you find yourself rooting for Jack. I don't think he turned into a scumbag in California, but there was sure a new edge to his activities there. I think prison had something to do with it. The thing with the insurance policy was unbelievably cold. I also think Jack was doing all kinds of things the author couldn't discover. He talked about all the deals, but I bet there were some interesting ones nobody will ever know about.


My only criticism of the book is the time (relatively little) that the author spends trying to psychoanalyze Jack. It may be an increasingly popular thing to do in books like this. Sampson did way too much of it in his otherwise excellent biography on Ben Hogan. I usually don't trust psychologists or psuchaitrists to do this correctly, let alone authors writing about dead men. At least Rosen disclosed some of his thinking in the epilogue, but I think he should have kept some of his theorizing out. My opinion in this regard is influenced by my experience (usually unsuccessful)in trying to figure out what is going on in the heads of rotten people, so YMMV. Scroll down for what I thought was the funniest thing in the book - I don't want to ruin it for those who will read it and don't want to know.

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When Jack knows the cops are betting the games he is fixing after they listen to the illegal wiretaps. So he talks on the phone about a fake fix and the cops are mortgaging houses to get money down on the game which wasn't fixed and the cops lost huge. ROTFLMFAO.