Gambling is a business for some and entertainment for others. Like many things in life people find pleasurable it can become addictive. For a poor boy from Kentucky who has a gift for numbers and an enormous appetite for risk it became a highly lucrative business which made him wealthy beyond his wildest dreams.
Billy Walters, an admitted alcoholic and gambling addict, fell into every trap there is for the naive and unsophisticated who gamble high. It took the loss of two marriages and untold amounts of money for him to come to his senses. He quit drinking, smoking and changed his approach to gambling pretty much at the same time. Having been successful in business, he decided to approach gambling as a business. In the book he explains not only how he did this but gives insight into the rules of the road to be a successful gambler. He tells the reader how his systems work, how he bets and the tricks he learned to mitigate some of the risk. He explains how he had "branches offices" with employees and partners all over the country and the world in order to take advantage of all the betting lines available, gather information, find the best odds and spread out his bets.
Though this might be considered a gambling primer the book is much more. It is also the very human story of a troubled man from a troubled family who was able to control and conquer his personal demons. It is filled with wonderful anecdotes about the life a high stakes gambler lives and the colorful characters who populate that world. Hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of dollars ride on the turn of a card, the making of a three foot putt or the erratic bounce of a football, all things Billy and his buddies live with on a daily basis.
But there's more. Remember, in gambling when someone wins, some else loses. It is not possible to live in that world without making some enemies. Billy tells how he was constantly pursued and harassed by the law, had millions of dollars confiscated by them and ultimately wound up in federal prison for 31 months, after being convicted of trading stocks on insider information, before President Trump commuted his sentence. It is fascinating to hear Billy's side of this story and learn how our justice system sometimes works, in his opinion, unfairly.
Billy also tells us of the things which he finds most meaningful in his life. Tales of his charitable gifts and untiring work for various charities to help the disadvantaged, something he has been doing for many years, are heartwarming. He does not tell us of this work out of vanity, self aggrandizement or to cleanse his reputation, rather to make people aware of the need to do more. A great read I highly recommend.
Helen Sullivan
Vmazon
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