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Christmas has come and gone but the perfect gift for any sports betting enthusiast doesn't require a holiday to order via Amazon.
"The Bookie: Inside the High-Stakes World of Sports Betting―A Legendary Bookmaker's Tale of Gangsters, Celebrities, and the Art of the Game" is now out, and it is a "must read".
It's by legendary bookmaker Art Manteris.
For those who don't know, Art Manteris is considered among the preeminent experts on sports betting throughout the world. He began his four-decade career at the Fremont Hotel & Casino and infamous Stardust, and later rose to head the sportsbooks at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas Hilton, and Stations Casinos, where he oversaw the company’s 18 sportsbooks. A policy contributor to several national and state gaming associations, he was inducted into the Sports Gaming Hall of Fame. Art retired in 2021.
Matt Birkbeck is an award-winning investigative journalist and author of Deconstructing Sammy, The Quiet Don, and A Deadly Secret. He is also the executive producer of the hit Netflix film Girl in the Picture, which is based on his books A Beautiful Child and Finding Sharon. A former newspaper reporter and correspondent for People magazine, he’s also written features for Reader’s Digest, Playboy, The New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Boston Magazine, among others. He lives in Pennsylvania.
Manteris was in the gambling industry decades before there was such a thing as an online casino games guide. The World Wide Web would be decades away.
Manteris was a bookmaker long before there was such as thing as an "internet bookie".
We almost want to say he was one of the first bookies, but that would make him a little too ancient considering bookmaking is the second oldest profession and will likely still be around after AI takes over.
Synopsis
More than fifty-million people in the U.S. now bet on sports, and the many apps now available have put the excitement of this world at fans’ fingertips. But before FanDuel and Draft King, Las Vegas was where fortunes were won and lost. For more than forty years, Art Manteris was at the center of the action.
Sports betting is in Art Manteris’s blood. From his childhood in Pittsburgh, spent taking bets and collecting debts, first for his uncle Jack and then for his older brother, to his quick rise through the ranks at the biggest and most famous casinos in Las Vegas. Manteris spent his illustrious forty-year career running the largest Las Vegas sportsbooks in the Stardust, Caesars, and the Hilton. He took bets from crazed gangsters, icons of industry, Hollywood celebrities, and sports legends, as well as some of the most duplicitous and criminal figures in sports gaming history. If Billy Walters was the gambler, Art Manteris was the regulator.
The Bookie is a lively tale from inside the sportsbook from someone who has seen the highs and lows of this fast-paced world. Full of marquee names like Donald Trump, Phil Mickelson, Don King, Floyd Mayweather, Mike Tyson, Manny Pacquiao, The Bookie takes readers from the 1970s when Art’s job included handling wads of money stuffed in paper bags for his bosses at the mafia-run sportsbook to his role setting the legal odds for every major professional sports event in the U.S.—Super Bowls, World Series, NBA Championships, Triple Crowns, Prizefights, and Stanley Cups, to the times his sharp instincts knew the fix was in, his many run-ins with the infamous Billy Walters, and the moment when his integrity was brought under scrutiny by the Vegas Gaming Control Board.
Manteris’s job was to make his book big money while also keeping patrons entertained enough to keep coming back. Rife with never-before-told stories, The Bookie will be a primer on the art and science of sports gambling, and entertaining enough to compel any reader who loves a great story.
Reviews
VegasBill writes:
"Full disclosure, I arrived in Las Vegas at about the same time as the author. I worked in the industry for a number years and met many of the people about whom he writes, though he and I never met. That made the book doubly entertaining for me as I could relate to many of the anecdotes he recalls. That being said, this is a highly personal look behind the scene of what goes on and the thinking inside the gaming industry focusing primarily on the sports book. Manteris is very blunt about his feelings toward the people with whom he worked and his customers. He doesn't shy away from naming names or telling his opinion of their character. He viewed his job as a life and death struggle between his sports book and the customer who was trying to win the house's money. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the gambling business, bookies, sports books and casinos. The industry has been and probably will always be filled with colorful characters and fascinating stories. Read and enjoy."
JC writes:
"I couldn’t put this book down. If you’ve ever been curious about what really goes on behind the counter at a Vegas sportsbook, this is the real deal. The author clearly lived it, and it shows in every story.
"The gambling stories are wild, the scandals are crazy, and the celebrity run-ins feel so real. What I liked most is that it doesn’t sugarcoat anything. You see the wins, the losses, and the chaos that comes with that world. It’s entertaining without trying too hard to be flashy.
"Even if you’re just a casual sports bettor or someone who loves Vegas stories, this is an easy, fast read that keeps you hooked. Highly recommend it."
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- Steve Cooper
