Wednesday, December 1, 2010

A Night Of Betting With The Mayor Of Vegas

As my Twitter followers knew, I spent a few hours shadowing Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman for a forthcoming profile. He officiated at the lighting of menorahs at the Fremont Street Experience and Opportunity Village's gigantic maze of holiday displays about 5 miles west of downtown Vegas, the charity's big fundraiser.

I'll dish some more about that on this weekend's show, but I just loved this too much:

Friess: Do you still gamble?

Goodman: Every night of my life.

Friess: Where?

Goodman: I have somebody who makes my bets for me.

Friess: On sports.

Goodman: Sports.

Friess: What sports?

Goodman: Well, it’s basketball season now. You want to know who my bets are so you can follow them?

Friess: Please.


Goodman takes a piece of lined notebook paper out of his breast pocket, unfolds it and reads the following, written very small in cursive on the paper:


Drexel -8.5

Temple -8

Mich State +11

Pittsburgh -11.5

San Antonio -7.5


Friess: How much do you bet on each?

Goodman: On basketball, $20 or $50. There are just so many games.

Friess: You do this every day?

Goodman: Every day of my life, I’ll have a bet on something.

Friess: What's the most you've ever lost?
Goodman: A LOT.
Friess: On what?
Goodman: Oh, Tony Spilotro gave me a sure thing once. Minnesota v San Francisco. It was not a sure thing.

So three things about this:

(a) Can someone tell me how the mayor did? All those -/+ confuse the crap out of me.
(b) How do I get an interview with the guy who lays bets for the mayor?
(c) I hope nobody lost their fingers or worse on the Minnesota v. SF deal.

3 comments:

MarkD said...

Very impressive betting. Some of these games were minor/obscure games that tell me that he either has some connection to Philly, or an uncanny knowledge of college hoops.

Drexel -8.5 WINNER
Temple -8 WINNER
Mich State +11 WINNER
Pittsburgh -11.5 WINNER

San Antonio -7.5 - LOSER

So he went 4-0 in college games and lost one pro basketball game. If he bet $20 on each game he would have ended up betting $100 and taking back about $150 or so.

Ryan said...

Drexel -8.5 (Drexel won by 12, Mayor wins)

Temple -8 (Temple won by 12, Mayor wins)

Mich State +11 (Duke won by 5, Mayor wins)

Pittsburgh -11.5 (Pitt won by 14, Mayor wins)

San Antonio -7.5 (Spurs lost by 5, Mayor loses)

THE STRIP PODCAST said...

The mayor grew up in Philly, in fact. Thanks guys!