Schuetz: Living With Legends

“In the book of life, legends are the unforgettable chapters.”

— Unknown

It has been my good fortune to have attended all five BetBashes. The founder of BetBash, Gadoon “Spanky” Kyrollos, has consistently exceeded expectations by introducing new twists and turns with each event, including golf and poker tournaments, scavenger hunts, and special parties. And the panels and seminars only seem to get better.

Of significant importance, starting in 2023, Spanky added the Sports Gambling Hall of Fame (SGHOF) to dovetail into BetBash. And these two events absolutely belong together.

Prior to this year’s BetBash, I received an email from Vinny Magliulo, a longtime figure of importance in Las Vegas, who is the sportsbook director for Gaughan Gaming and VP of corporate relations for Las Vegas Dissemination Company. Vinny brings over 45 years of sports betting and related experience to the table and is a well-respected entity within and beyond the sports betting world.

Vinny’s email concerned BetBash. He was heading up a panel on “sports betting legends” and suggested that Spanky thought I could add to it, and Vinny asked if I would be willing to participate.

My response was as follows: “I am honored by the request, but I need to suggest that I am not a sports betting legend. I was around many of the legends, but I am better at identifying them than being one.”

An honest self-assessment

Those who know me might be surprised by my somewhat humble response (it is not always my nature), but this stuff is important to me, and I do not consider myself a sports betting legend. My life has been blessed by knowing many of the legends, dating back to the mid-1980s and beyond. Moreover, I had the opportunity to work very closely with some legends, and the most notable example is Scott Schettler, with whom I worked when we were at the Stardust together, back in the day when the Stardust was the nuts. 

Scott paid me the great honor of asking me to introduce him at the inaugural SGHOF dinner, when he was inducted into the very first class. In presenting Scott, I found myself tearing up. He was an honored associate of mine and is a dear friend. We had crossed some deep water together.

At this year’s BetBash, I had the good fortune to be invited to an amazing private dinner party on the Thursday evening of the event. It was held at Barry’s Downtown Prime in a private dining room at Circa Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. The invitation list went to members of the SGHOF and board members of the SGHOF.

I’ll list the attendees of this dinner, and if you know, you know. I doubt there will ever again be such a dinner, and what was interesting about this dinner was that essentially everyone there was aware of what a rare and special night it was:

I entered the gambling business in 1971, working nights at Harrah’s Reno while I attended college. Since then, I have basically played lucky, having been able to travel the world with gambling and meet many of the folks who made casino gambling what it is today. I have entertained and dined with celebrities, industry leaders, known high rollers, politicians (including presidents), and many others. Yet, in the midst of all that, I do not believe that I have been at an event where I had such incredible respect for the attendees as at the dinner at Barry’s. I’m not easily impressed, but I was impressed at this dinner.

In reflecting upon the dinner, I began to deconstruct what made being in that room so special.

First of all, this was a royal court of many of the people who shaped sports betting in the U.S. If one is into the history of the development of sports wagering in the U.S., being in this room was a big deal — a very big deal.

It was also the case that no one got a free ride to this dinner. The people in this room learned betting and the betting business from the ground up, and I believe I can state unequivocally that they had to learn some of the tough lessons time after time after time. They all seem to have an episode in their lives where they had to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and get back into the game.

The people gathered for this dinner all work together to make the get-together enjoyable and share a laugh. It is, as a rule, a funny group, and the humor is even better if the listener is well versed in the massive collection of nicknames that have populated Las Vegas betting over the last 50 years.

This group is also quick to acknowledge the people in their lives who mattered professionally, who carried them while they were learning, and allowed them to make mistakes. In the betting business, people will make mistakes, and some of those mistakes will be big. The people at this table will speak of the Gaghans, Terry Lanni, Warren Nelson, Jack Binion, Jimmy Vaccaro, and a slew of others who taught them the business, helped them pick themselves up when they tripped, ate their mistakes, and encouraged them to stay in the game.

This will be hard for some folks in the modern corporate culture found in the casino industry today to understand. It’s called mentoring, and all of the people at dinner will be able to point to someone who mattered and got them through the rough spots. They all have either stood or at least leaned on the shoulders of giants. 

And I suggest that they are now mentoring folks, allowing them to make mistakes, and to grow into assets for the industry.

The really honest ones in this group will also acknowledge that to get where they got, their families paid a toll. Working in betting often exacts a cost on the family and relationships, which end up playing second fiddle to the bookmaker’s job. Betting events take place seven days a week, and the end of one season is met with the start of another. 

The betting business is a demanding mistress, and in many instances, the demands of the job damaged relationships and families. As many of the “legends” start to age out of the system, they are gaining a deeper understanding of the shock experienced by Dr. Frankenstein, who was trying to create a thing of beauty and life, but the result was something of a monster. The work/life balance is not something that is done well by betting folks.

As I sat at the dinner table, trying to soak it all in, I also came to understand something else about these folks: It was a very honorable group of people. In betting today, the rules are provided by these voluminous documents known as terms and conditions. Back in the day, the person stood in front of the bookie, and the bookie’s word meant everything. The transaction needed to happen quickly, be sustainable, and be binding. If a person could not be trusted to honor their word, the old betting model was not going forward.

It was nice to be invited to hang out with such a group of honorable people. That, and the humor, made for an absolutely wonderful evening.

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Richard Schuetz entered the gaming industry working nights as a blackjack and dice dealer while attending college and has since served in many capacities within the industry, including operations, finance, and marketing. He has held senior executive positions up to and including CEO in jurisdictions across the United States, including the gaming markets of Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Reno/Tahoe, Laughlin, Minnesota, Mississippi, and Louisiana. In addition, he has consulted and taught around the globe and served as a member of the California Gambling Control Commission and executive director of the Bermuda Casino Gaming Commission. He also publishes extensively on gaming, gaming regulation, diversity, and gaming history. Schuetz is the CEO of American Bettors’ Voice, a non-profit organization dedicated to giving sports bettors a seat at the table.