A wager against Billy Walters
Chad Millman
ESPN Insider
If there were a Bad Idea Hall of Fame, these would be some of the original entrants:
• Germany attacking Russia in winter during World War II (you can include Nazism in general)
• Rob Lowe turning down the role of McDreamy in Grey's Anatomy
• Drafting Ryan Leaf
• Drafting Curtis Enis
• Not drafting Michael Jordan (drafts choices could have their own wing)
• Prohibition
• The White Sox uniforms from the early 1980s
• Trading Lou Brock
• Having that fifth slice of pizza past 3 a.m. when you're loaded
• Calling that girl after you've eaten that pizza. At the entrance you'd be treated to this SNL classic playing on continuous loop. (Hint, if you're too lazy to click: David Spade, Kevin Nealon, Phil Hartman, Mike Myers, Jeans.)
But this week, sandwiched between Shannon Sharpe's brilliant Canton speech and what will no doubt be The Worm's paean to Carmen Electra in Springfield, the Bad Idea Hall of Fame should welcome Ezekiel Rubalcada.
Who is that, you ask. Let me tell you.
Rubalcada had, until this week, worked for the greatest, most frightening, most connected, most respected sports bettor of all time, Billy Walters. This is someone so revered by other gamblers that men in their 50s still refer to him as, "Mr. Walters." He started life as a pool hustler in Kentucky, realized he had a mind for numbers and turned that genius into a betting syndicate of massive proportions in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was called The Computer Group and was the first to use machines and stats and math to break point-spread codes. Now he's got his own plane and, he says, gambles $2 million on an average Sunday.
A guy like Walters doesn't drive himself around the Strip every weekend shopping for value. He sits at home, behind a gaggle of TVs and computers, manipulating the world's lines with a phone glued to his ear. His bets are made by runners, guys he has stationed at sports books all over town whose job it is to make bets on his behalf. He tells them the price at which he wants a game -- for example, the Bears plus-3 vs. Green Bay -- and if the runner stationed at the Hilton sees the game move from plus-4 to plus-3, he'll bet it. Runners also work as market movers, betting one side of a game in heavy amounts at the direction of Walters, or whomever they work for, only so their boss can turn around and bet the other side for even more money (go ahead, keep believing you have a shot to beat the pros on Sunday). Walters might have 20 runners situated around town ready to do his bidding, none of them knowing who their counterpart is in another book, and they're all loaded with pockets of bills.
In the late 1990s, the Nevada Gaming Commission made runners, also known as messengers, illegal. Some of them lingered, sneaking out of the sports books to call their bosses on brick-sized cell phones if a game moved in the direction they were hoping. A few years later, the Internet and offshore books became so popular that wiseguys needed runners, and Vegas books, even less; they could get down anywhere, all over the world, with a phone call to Antigua or a click of their mouse. But some gamblers, like Walters, didn't want to miss any opportunity. They funded shell companies and opened accounts at local sports books under the names of these shells. Then they'd dump cash into the account -- say, $500,000. Meanwhile, they'd offer runners the chance to buy shares in the company. The sharps still funded the corporation and laid out the cash for the bet, but runners making the wagers were now considered partners, because they owned a piece of the company. Wiseguys have even wiser lawyers.
<OFFER>For Walters, one of these companies was called ACME Group Trading. The Las Vegas *************** reported last week that, as of last October, he was listed as president, secretary and treasurer of Veg Corp., the company that managed ACME. One of the investors in ACME was, wait for it, Ezekiel Rubalcada, who owned $2,500 worth of shares. Rubalcada placed wagers for Walters through an ACME account at the M casino. See how this works, my degenerate friends?
Allegedly, and I stress allegedly, Rubalcada didn't. Because he, allegedly, got greedy and began pilfering the account, withdrawing money that he didn't use to bet without notifying the managers at ACME. It began in January and extended through April, in amounts as small as $2,500 and as big as $160,000. Ultimately, Rubalcada allegedly lifted nearly $500K from Walters' ACME account.
How did he get caught? Well, as if stealing from Walters didn't earn Rubalcada immediate entry into the Bad Idea Hall of Fame, this little gem will: Last April, apparently sensing the jig was up, Rubalcada told cops he had been carjacked while pulling away from the valet at the M. Inside the car, Rubalcada said, had been $360,000. But, after months of investigations and interrogations, cops sensed flaws in Rubalcada's story and finally arrested him late last week. According the Las Vegas ***************, Rubalcada fessed up and told one of ACME's private detectives that he had been taking money from the account and was, "trying to make it right."
For his trouble, Rubalcada will be arraigned on Sept. 12. But in court this week he told an LVRJ reporter, "If God is on my side, who can be against me?"
Well, I can think of at least one guy. And he might have more pull than the man upstairs.
Chad Millman
ESPN Insider
If there were a Bad Idea Hall of Fame, these would be some of the original entrants:
• Germany attacking Russia in winter during World War II (you can include Nazism in general)
• Rob Lowe turning down the role of McDreamy in Grey's Anatomy
• Drafting Ryan Leaf
• Drafting Curtis Enis
• Not drafting Michael Jordan (drafts choices could have their own wing)
• Prohibition
• The White Sox uniforms from the early 1980s
• Trading Lou Brock
• Having that fifth slice of pizza past 3 a.m. when you're loaded
• Calling that girl after you've eaten that pizza. At the entrance you'd be treated to this SNL classic playing on continuous loop. (Hint, if you're too lazy to click: David Spade, Kevin Nealon, Phil Hartman, Mike Myers, Jeans.)
But this week, sandwiched between Shannon Sharpe's brilliant Canton speech and what will no doubt be The Worm's paean to Carmen Electra in Springfield, the Bad Idea Hall of Fame should welcome Ezekiel Rubalcada.
Who is that, you ask. Let me tell you.
Rubalcada had, until this week, worked for the greatest, most frightening, most connected, most respected sports bettor of all time, Billy Walters. This is someone so revered by other gamblers that men in their 50s still refer to him as, "Mr. Walters." He started life as a pool hustler in Kentucky, realized he had a mind for numbers and turned that genius into a betting syndicate of massive proportions in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was called The Computer Group and was the first to use machines and stats and math to break point-spread codes. Now he's got his own plane and, he says, gambles $2 million on an average Sunday.
A guy like Walters doesn't drive himself around the Strip every weekend shopping for value. He sits at home, behind a gaggle of TVs and computers, manipulating the world's lines with a phone glued to his ear. His bets are made by runners, guys he has stationed at sports books all over town whose job it is to make bets on his behalf. He tells them the price at which he wants a game -- for example, the Bears plus-3 vs. Green Bay -- and if the runner stationed at the Hilton sees the game move from plus-4 to plus-3, he'll bet it. Runners also work as market movers, betting one side of a game in heavy amounts at the direction of Walters, or whomever they work for, only so their boss can turn around and bet the other side for even more money (go ahead, keep believing you have a shot to beat the pros on Sunday). Walters might have 20 runners situated around town ready to do his bidding, none of them knowing who their counterpart is in another book, and they're all loaded with pockets of bills.
In the late 1990s, the Nevada Gaming Commission made runners, also known as messengers, illegal. Some of them lingered, sneaking out of the sports books to call their bosses on brick-sized cell phones if a game moved in the direction they were hoping. A few years later, the Internet and offshore books became so popular that wiseguys needed runners, and Vegas books, even less; they could get down anywhere, all over the world, with a phone call to Antigua or a click of their mouse. But some gamblers, like Walters, didn't want to miss any opportunity. They funded shell companies and opened accounts at local sports books under the names of these shells. Then they'd dump cash into the account -- say, $500,000. Meanwhile, they'd offer runners the chance to buy shares in the company. The sharps still funded the corporation and laid out the cash for the bet, but runners making the wagers were now considered partners, because they owned a piece of the company. Wiseguys have even wiser lawyers.
<OFFER>For Walters, one of these companies was called ACME Group Trading. The Las Vegas *************** reported last week that, as of last October, he was listed as president, secretary and treasurer of Veg Corp., the company that managed ACME. One of the investors in ACME was, wait for it, Ezekiel Rubalcada, who owned $2,500 worth of shares. Rubalcada placed wagers for Walters through an ACME account at the M casino. See how this works, my degenerate friends?
Allegedly, and I stress allegedly, Rubalcada didn't. Because he, allegedly, got greedy and began pilfering the account, withdrawing money that he didn't use to bet without notifying the managers at ACME. It began in January and extended through April, in amounts as small as $2,500 and as big as $160,000. Ultimately, Rubalcada allegedly lifted nearly $500K from Walters' ACME account.
How did he get caught? Well, as if stealing from Walters didn't earn Rubalcada immediate entry into the Bad Idea Hall of Fame, this little gem will: Last April, apparently sensing the jig was up, Rubalcada told cops he had been carjacked while pulling away from the valet at the M. Inside the car, Rubalcada said, had been $360,000. But, after months of investigations and interrogations, cops sensed flaws in Rubalcada's story and finally arrested him late last week. According the Las Vegas ***************, Rubalcada fessed up and told one of ACME's private detectives that he had been taking money from the account and was, "trying to make it right."
For his trouble, Rubalcada will be arraigned on Sept. 12. But in court this week he told an LVRJ reporter, "If God is on my side, who can be against me?"
Well, I can think of at least one guy. And he might have more pull than the man upstairs.
