From four years ago, but for some reason the tweet wasn't very well noticed:
https://twitter.com/TexDolly/status/964268654337519616
Yesterday:
https://twitter.com/TexDolly/status/1498048698592292866
From four years ago, but for some reason the tweet wasn't very well noticed:
https://twitter.com/TexDolly/status/964268654337519616
Yesterday:
https://twitter.com/TexDolly/status/1498048698592292866
Oscar's Steakhouse at The Plaza has a bizarre statue honoring former Mayor Oscar Goodman's legal representation of Tony "The Ant".
Some people don't like this, because it seems to glorify The Ant, who was a brutal murderer and brazen criminal his entire life.
https://twitter.com/VitalVegas/status/1482114971941040128
The statue was unveiled about 6 weeks ago.
Oscar’s Steakhouse unveiled a new statue last night and—despite being an Oscar Goodman fan—we still don’t know how to feel about it.
Don't know how to feel about it???? At best it's highly highly inappropriate.
Don't know how to feel about it. Yeesh, what a bunch of morons.
Save a Cow - Eat a Vegetarian, they're grass-fed.
I asked Sklansky about him many years ago. I had heard he was pressuring/using a young math whiz new to town to somehow take advantage of some situation. Can’t recall the exact details. Seemed obvious from timeframe and what I read it was probably Sklansky. I asked him on his forum and iirc, he pm’d and confirmed it was him, but didn’t elaborate. This is like 15 years ago and it’s possible I’m messing up the details. I recall point blank asking him and there being some type of confirmation. I’ve long lost that account where I could find it.
Yeah I have always wondered what it was like being a Vegas poker pro in the '70s and '80s, when it was heavily under mob influence. I heard so many stories of the mob intimidating poker players, and I wondered how many were either shaken down or scared into being accomplices to some form of cheating. As much as I'd like to have been part of the old school pro poker scene, stuff like that makes it sound unappealing.
I visisted Vegas a lot in that era, and I did notice some of the mob influence around, but I was just a kid/teenager, so obviously I saw it from a different perspective. My parents were just low limit recreational gamblers and weren't part of that scene at all.
Off topic, but in 2001 Betty Carey told me a story about Bob Stupak cheating her at Vegas World in the '80s, and then threatening to have her killed for attempting to out it. She claimed that she played Stupak heads up at Vegas World (the former Stratosphere, which he owned), and he was crushing her, and she later learned that there was a camera installed behind her which allowed her hole cards to be seen.
She tried to sue him, but I don't think she won. Anyway, she told me that he continued to threaten that he would have her killed, so she finally left Vegas and moved somewhere very far away and difficult to reach via crime connections -- Anchorage.
When Stupak died in 2009, I messaged one of Carey's friends and said, "Tell Betty it's safe to come back now." However, she never did. I assume she got used to Anchorage and is happy with her life there.
Lots of fucked up stories from poker in those days.
Yeah, I never knew what to make of that Georgiev guy back in the day. I figured some mixture of truth and lies.
Just a quick search brings up a post with this excerpt. I read similar things elsewhere back in the late 90s/early 00’s. I don’t pretend to know his involvement, just seemed he popped up in a lot of the stories, true or not.
https://www.pokerfied.com/poker/GCA_...nt_621158.html
“Tony Spilotro (also known as Tony Stewart, and a figure who was
portrayed in the movie "Casino") was a member of the Mafia, and Mike
O'Connor (also known as Mike O) ran a team for him.
The time was the early 70's, and Johnny Moss
had opened the card room at the Aladdin Hotel and Casino and, of
course, big games were being played (and cheated).
Two of O'Connor's team members were Tommy Hufnagle and David
Sklansky. (Back then, David was not what he is today -- he looked
like a hippie who hadn't taken a bath in a week, and many times he
wore the same clothes for days at a time.) One evening while Tommy
and David were cheating a game, David got up and called Mike and Tony
to tell them that Tommy was drunk and making mistakes in playing some
of the hands. David calculated that it was costing the team approx.
2.327% per hour (Mike & Tony had a good laugh about the calculation)
from the estimated win rate for the team.David asked that Tommy be
taken off the team for the evening. Tommy, however, was Tony's fair-
haired boy at the time, having won him a lot of money. Tony didn't
like David's asking that Tommy be removed from play, and told Mike to
take David off the team - permanently.
You must know that, as a Mafia member, Tony Spilotro was not someone
to disagree with; however, this matter was far too important to
simply give in. Mike recognized David's importance, not just as a
player, but for the mathematical insight he provided the team as to
how to play hands. After some discussion, Tony finally said, "We're
making lots of money together, so you (meaning Mike) just go ahead
and do what you think is best." David stayed on the team.
I, Russell Georgiev, was also aware of David Sklansky at the time,
because he possessed such a brilliant mathematical mind. After Tony
Spilotro was killed and the mob moved out of Vegas, David progressed
to slot machines and made a lot of money running teams that played
progressive jackpots. He would use his mathematical knowledge to
state at what time and for how much money the machines should be
played.
As far as any of us know, David Sklansky has done no cheating or
scamming in the recent past, for almost twenty years. We do,
however, accuse him of being an EX-cheat. We also accuse him of
trying to cover it up. He was in the know then and still is, although
to a much lesser degree. He knows what went on in the 70's and knows
who the players involved were. “
wow and Spilotro then was a Made man then i believe
Russ Georgiev was an odd character. I never met him, but I read a lot of his claims in the 2000s when I was playing online poker, and he constantly asserted bad things were happening there. Indeed, the subsequent scandals proved the poker sites were often dishonest and sometimes downright fraudulent, but even then a lot of Georgiev's allegations were never proven.
I don't think he made things up. I think he was a combination of paranoid and highly observant. This meant he brought stories forth of cheating which were probably true but not reported anywhere, while at the same time firing out a lot of false positives. I always took everything he wrote with a grain of salt.
Georgiev passed away in 2009, of a heart attack, at age 62. If he hadn't, I bet he would have made it over here at some point.
There used to be a poster at 4, sn Johnny Hughes I believe. He had a lot of good stories from early Vegas days. Think his era was the 60's & 70's. Can't recall the stories other than they were interesting & violent. Painted Vegas as a sleazy city back then. Guy wound up getting banned(imagine that at 4) & eventually passed away.Originally Posted by Dan Druff
Save a Cow - Eat a Vegetarian, they're grass-fed.
Slightly off topic but Dan brought up Vegas World, so here is in my opinion the best story around about it.
http://bigempire.com/vegas/bobstupak.html
Great read and many of us remember the packages Stupak promoted.
Heavily inspired the Pesci character in Casino:
PokerFraudAlert...will never censor your claims, even if they're against one of our sponsors. In addition to providing you an open forum report fraud within the poker community, we will also analyze your claims with a clear head an unbiased point of view. And, of course, the accused will always have the floor to defend themselves.-Dan Druff
I was in Vegas World in 1992 working the daily VIP packages. We bet red and black at the same time. The slot tokens worked only in special machines and got only about a 10% return.
The writer mentioned the tower fire in 1993. I was drinking in the Atomic Lounge between 9th and 10th on Fremont when the bartender went out the back door to dump a garbage can. He came back to the door and said "that damn Stupak tower is on fire." I went out and looked. It was about half built so maybe 500 feet. The whole top of it was on fire. It looked like a giant roman candle.
The writer also mentioned that Stupak started a newspaper in Las Vegas. I met the man who was the editor/reporter. He was running a hotel in Billings, Montana when I met him. He told me Stupak brought him to town to find and publish dirt on all his political enemies. But Stupak gave him express orders to lay off the Horseshoe.
This editor/reporter did his job well so made a lot of enemies. He had a meeting with the Clark County Sheriff. They were in eyesight of his car and saw when someone came up opened the door and threw something in the car. Then a report came over the Sheriff's radio about a car with drugs in it. Since the Sheriff seen it was a setup he wasn't charged. But the Sheriff told him he should probably leave town--which he did.
When Becky took over the Horseshoe she 86'd Stupak off the property. He had a box there with 150K in 5K chips. She wouldn't let him come in to cash them. Stupak had to get Gaming to escort him in to get the chips. But Becky still wouldn't cash them.
Subsequent to that an anti-gambling preacher came to town. Stupak gave him a 5K Horseshoe chip and told him he'd have to go to the Horseshoe to cash it. The preacher raised hell when they wouldn't cash it. He raised a stink about corrupt casinos not cashing chips. It made the newspapers. Stupak probably had a good laugh over that one. He and Becky were mortal enemies.
About that same time Becky's son, Benny Behnen, got in a fight with Stupak at Piero's, an italian restaurant that was very popular with casino people.
My memory has faded but I think Gaming eventually forced Becky to cash the chips.
POKER FAG ALERT! FOR BLOW JOB SEE SLOPPY JOE THE TRANNIE HO.
Benny Behnen was 23 when he beat Stupak at Piero's, back in the year 2000. Behnen is the grandson of Benny Binion, but the similar last name is just a coincidence. Becky Binion married a man named Nick Behnen. Many people around Vegas incorrectly referred to Benny Behnen as "Benny Binion" at the time.
Anyway, somehow neverwin got to know and befriend Benny Behnen in the late 2000s. I think this was when neverwin was in his out-of-control state, and heavily into drugs. I never asked how they got to be friends,. Benny was in his early 30s at the time. neverwin did offer to me that Benny and his friends could assist me in having people beaten up in Vegas if I "had a problem" with anyone, but I didn't ask him to elaborate. I don't know if neverwin was serious, or if he was just shooting his mouth off. I never met or spoke to Benny.
Apparently Benny claimed that Stupak "stole chips" from Horseshoe, and that's why his mom wouldn't let them get cashed. That was the stated justification for the attack at Piero's. By that point, Stupak was 58 and disabled from a motorcycle accident, while Benny was 23 and healthy, so it wasn't exactly a fair fight.
I can't cry for Stupak, though. Between the Betty Carey story and other things I heard, the guy seemed like a real scumbag.
It should also be noted that the Piero's incident occurred just a month after the conviction (eventually overturned) regarding the murder of Becky's sister (and Benny's uncle) Ted Binion. Ted's girlfriend and her side lover were the ones convicted, and this had nothing to do with Stupak. However, highly likely fabricated rumors were spread at the time that the Behnens actually killed Ted, which probably added to the tension, especially because Benny knew it wasn't true.
I do remember Piero's being popular among pro poker players in the early-mid 2000s. I remember Sam Grizzle getting killed on UB in a 300-600 limit holdem game, and a few of the young online hotshots (not me) were mouthing off to him in the chat. Grizzle responded, "I order a $200 delivery dinner every night from Piero's, just for me. Can you afford to do that?"
Benny Behnen's full name is Benny Binion Behnen. When Becky took control of the Horseshoe she made him the manager. He was barely old enough to be in a casino much less run one. From what I heard Doyle and Chip wouldn't go in the Horseshoe when she had it, even during the WSOP. They were solidly in Jack's camp.
POKER FAG ALERT! FOR BLOW JOB SEE SLOPPY JOE THE TRANNIE HO.
That young Benny story reminds me of a kid I knew. I told this story way back on NWP. I grew up with this kid. Tough Italian kid from the west side of Youngstown. Very nice kid. Played sports and knew him passively as a kid.
He wasn’t college material. I’d see him out at a bar or at the gym during the summer when we were all 18 and 19 and had started school when I’d come back for summer. He was kind of aimless and working construction and odd jobs. I see him near the end of summer and he tells me that he’s heading to Vegas and has an aunt who owned a casino and she asked him to come out and work for her.
I can’t recall which casino. I had never even been to Vegas yet at that point. Something like an El Cortez level place or some shitbox downtown. But even those are printing presses and she was wealthy. He had a cousin, her son, who was running the place like Benny who was like 21 or 22.
So this kid gets there, and the son was jealous because this kid I knew was always like his aunts favorite, and he viewed him as a threat. I heard about all this later.
So he gets out there and immediately the Vegas cops pick him up. I can’t recall if he even got there to the casino and had a few days or they grabbed him right when he landed.
They beat him up mercilessly, throw him in a cell for a few days with no medical attention, and somehow put him on a plane back to Ohio. He’s on this plane all beat up and when he lands in Cleveland, they just take him straight to the hospital and he ends up doing inpatient for a few weeks. Knocked out most of his front teeth. Something with his spleen.
I saw him like six months later after this happened and he still looks fucked up, teeth jacked, and he told me the whole story. Kid was very nice but really simple. He was still shook up about the whole thing. More hurt and couldn’t grasp how his cousin did this to him and he had no recourse. Think they said he was under the influence of drugs or some other bs when they grabbed him and the kid barely drank let alone did drugs. I mean this kid was never going to run a casino. He didn’t have that type of head, but this cousin obviously wasn’t taking any chances, and just a glimpse into how corrupt the cops were and how powerful even some young casino owner kid was back in like 1989 or 90 when this happened.
They just took this kid and beat the fuck out of him the moment he hit town and sent his ass home. Have no idea what ever became of him, as within a year or two, I never saw him again. He was mentally fucked by the whole thing.
Interesting story, BCR.
And just in case one might think the corruption has left Vegas since the mob's exit, behold this weird unfolding tale:
https://pokerfraudalert.com/forum/sh...ors-in-casinos
This includes a potentially major update today, courtesty of VitalVegas.
Read the story about Robin Hood 702, if you really want to get a "corruption" feel for the entire matter.
Or just go to the 2:59:14 mark of this PFA Radio episode: https://pokerfraudalert.com/forum/sh...e-Up-Your-WSOP
Mickey brought up Atomic Liquor downtown and I believe Ant was known to hang out there occasionally and Casino had a scene filmed there. The bar had a long history with supposedly people watching the bomb blasts in the desert from there, which is where it’s name came from. I could be wrong and that’s revisionist history I’ve heard.
I was last there under the original owners in either 06 or 07 and the neighborhood was in it’s bad phase before Fremont East because a thing. You had to be buzzed in due to all the thugs and crime in the area. A couple of middle aged white folks like us were quickly buzzed in and had a few of Busch specials they had. It was definitely near the end and Joe & Stella were getting older and it was all local regulars, harmless and semi friendly wondering why we were there. Combined with a trip to the Western next door, it was a great old school Vegas visit.
I believe it soon changed hands a few times before it’s current phase as a hipster bar. Went in a few years ago and while I loved the local craft selection, it’s nothing like the original.
I always just assumed Doyle was protected by Benny Binion and Benny had enough "clout" for that to matter. Respected enough, so it was in everyone's best interest to keep things as they were.
Maybe 10% of what Russ Georgiev wrote was true. He never had any proof/corroboration for any claim he made. I assume most of his stories were originally written for rec.gambling.poker. Trolling and/or looking for payday off some angle.
At first he wasn't. He and Chip Reese succumbed to the Ant and "partnered with him" on their gambling. They grew tired of this so Doyle went to Benny and asked for help. He got it and their partnership ended. Doyle talks about this in some detail in one of his books, all of which are interesting reads.
She actually did Jack a favor in retrospect. Jack moved on to Mississippi and didn’t do too bad. The Horseshoe’s only asset was the WSOP, and once it was sold, not a money maker. Whether Jack would have turned it around is debatable.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote