Jeff Haney reflects on the most memorable high jinks, happenings and scandals of the past year

By Jeff Haney

Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2007 | 6:47 a.m.

Sports betting back stateside

To the dismay of technologically savvy gamblers, officials at Pinnacle, a prominent offshore sports book, opted to pull out of the U.S. market in January largely as a result of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. Las Vegas sports bettor/quipmeister Jeff Jones wasn't fazed. "There will still be offshore sports betting for Americans," Jones said.

"It will just be off the shores of Lake Las Vegas, Lake Mead and Lake Tahoe."

Yet another reason to stick with reliable Caveman Keno

Casinos in Ontario were forced to pull 87 slot machines off the floor because of concerns they were giving off subliminal messages while being played, according to the Toronto Star. The machines - called "Most Wanted," "Sgt. Fritter" and "The Billionaires" - supposedly flashed jackpot symbols, invisible at normal viewing speed but seen when the animation was slowed down, as the screen image was spinning. Regulators thought gamblers could be tricked into playing longer if they subconsciously believed a jackpot was imminent.

Heads-up high jinks

Paul Wasicka of Las Vegas outlasted a tough field of 64 invitees to win $500,000 in the National Heads-Up Poker Championship at Caesars Palace. The most frequently heard phrase at Caesars wasn't "reraise" or "all in," though. It was "Hollywood actress," as in Shannon Elizabeth, who advanced to the semifinals in the tournament. Giving new meaning to the old rock lyrics "Hurts my ears to listen, Shannon," Elizabeth, asked about the key to her performance, responded with a skein of world-class psychobabble about karma and positive energy.

Voice of reason

Of the endless political commentary uttered during the year, it was no upset the most accurate and insightful came from a bright gambler, Las Vegas professional sports bettor Alan Boston. Asked on a conference call to address the government's crackdown on Internet gambling, Boston let loose, using the term "megalomaniacal lunatics" to describe today's political leaders. "It's sad the government is intervening in our lives like that and telling us what we can and can't do," Boston said. "That's the sickening part. The people in power now are completely out of their minds."

Gangster Eddie Kim from that Samuel L. Jackson movie was an unindicted co-conspirator

Two Colorado men were charged in a plot to use rattlesnakes to kill a business rival in a dispute over a $60,000 poker debt, according to a Reuters report. The alleged plot, which was not carried out, entailed cobbling together a wooden box, filling it with venomous rattlesnakes and somehow persuading the intended victim - Matthew Sowash, owner of a company that stages poker tournaments in bars - to step into it.

And the new champion ...

The NCAA men's basketball tournament firmly established itself as the single biggest betting event in Nevada's sports books, surpassing the Super Bowl. The events had been unofficially ranked Nos. 1 and 1A before this year, when the betting handle on basketball in March surged and the Super Bowl handle declined from 2006, according to the state Gaming Control Board. Although betting figures on the tournament are not specifically tracked, as they are for the Super Bowl, the total basketball handle jumped to $228 million in March from $107 million in February. The Super Bowl generated $93 million in wagers, down from $94.5 million.

Little cartoon blurb on back: 'Mike enjoys hunting, fishing and outrunning burly casino security guards.'

Not long after giving a card-counting seminar in Las Vegas, Michael Aponte became the first blackjack player immortalized on a Topps trading card as part of a special set featuring people who excel in various fields. Along with Aponte, former manager of the MIT blackjack card-counting team of the 1990s, boxing's Joe Frazier, Ken Jennings of "Jeopardy" fame, horse racing's Bob Baffert and soccer's Mia Hamm, among others, appeared in the limited-edition set. A fictionalized version of the MIT team is portrayed in the Kevin Spacey movie "21," scheduled for a 2008 release.

Scandal, anyone?

Nevada casinos take about as much betting action on tennis as they do on faro these days, but it's obviously a different story overseas. Allegations of gambling and possible match-fixing this year prompted the governing bodies of tennis to organize an independent panel to investigate any corruption linked to gambling. Betfair, an online gambling exchange, voided $7 million in wagers on an August match between fourth-ranked Nikolay Davydenko and 74th-ranked Martin Vassallo Arguello after Davydenko lost when he retired in the third set with a foot injury. The betting handle on the match was 10 times the usual amount, Betfair reported. Davydenko denied any wrongdoing.

There wasn't this kind of action when Babe Ruth passed Roger Connor

Barry Bonds' 756th career home run was also a milestone for sports bettors who wagered on the particulars of the record blast. Odds were offered at select Las Vegas sports books, including Station Casinos properties. According to Dave Tuley of Viewfromvegas.com, the odds were plus-140 (risk $1 to net $1.40) that No. 756 would come against a left-hander (Washington southpaw Mike Bacsik gave it up). The odds were 9-2 Bonds would break it in the fifth inning, and the odds were 6-1 the historic shot would come with a full count.

This year's requisite Pete Rose item

The Dayton Daily News reported that when Pete Rose was managing the Reds, he bet on his team to win nearly every day - unless Mario Soto or Dennis Rasmussen was starting, in which case Rose usually passed. Soto told the newspaper he wished Rose would just "shut up," and added, "That's sad. It's really, really sad."

Pure Jerry

Jerry Yang, a father of six from Temecula, Calif., won the $8.25 million top prize in the main event of the World Series of Poker after openly appealing to a higher power for specific cards at the final table. "I said, 'Lord, if you want me to win this, put the ace or the 4 on the river,' " Yang said, using Texas hold 'em slang for the final card of the hand. Chris Ferguson, the 2000 World Series champion, speculated afterward that a lot of people are praying at the final table of poker tournaments, even if they don't admit it. Ferguson's longtime poker nickname is "Jesus," referring to his physical appearance.

Oh God, Book II

She made no reference to Yang, but attendees at a World Series of Poker Academy instructional seminar by poker pro Annie Duke a few months later couldn't help but be reminded of the new champ. Duke told the crowd at Caesars Palace that praying "to the Easter Bunny or whomever you choose to pray to" won't help Omaha players who insist on chasing pots as an underdog.

"I don't think the Easter Bunny is that powerful," Duke warned.

Miserable Men Show

In a throwback to the prepoker craze of the '90s, when poker had a reputation of being populated solely by grumpy old men, some participants in the World Series at the Rio complained loudly and often about long lines, restaurants, parking, you name it. Despite the whining, the World Series managed to attract a record 54,288 registrants for a total prize pool exceeding $159 million. The dichotomy drew comparisons to the old Yogi-ism "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded" and to "The Simpsons" scene in which Homer is threatening to boycott the bar but Moe can't hear him over the sounds of his clamoring customers and the ringing cash register.

To the dogs

In a sign of the times, Tampa Greyhound Track opted to discontinue live dog racing after 75 years - although the track still offers daily poker games. (Simulcast wagering on dogs, horses and jai alai is also still available.)

Vegas is next (Yeah, right)

Despite its ardent opposition to all things Las Vegas, the NFL conducted a regular-season game in London, where sports betting is legal, regulated and rampant. In an oh-so-meaningful concession, the betting windows in the stadium itself were closed on game day. It was business as usual, of course, at the hundreds of betting parlors nearby.

Art of the deal

In the wake of the investigation into allegations that NBA referee Tim Donaghy bet on and fixed games, Art Manteris, vice president of race and sports book operations for Station Casinos, said he has served as a consultant to the NBA on sports betting issues for nine years. "I don't see a downside to it," Manteris said. "Protecting the integrity of sports is vital to the Nevada gaming industry." Donaghy reportedly did not bet in Las Vegas but rather with illegal bookmakers.

His new nickname is 'Money,' right?

World welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. rewarded his backers at the wagering windows in the two biggest - and most heavily bet - boxing matches of the year. Mayweather outpointed Oscar De La Hoya as a minus-180 favorite on Cinco de Mayo and knocked out Ricky Hatton in December as a favorite of between 2-1 and 3-1, depending on how many Brits were in queue at the moment. One of Hatton's supporters was David Turner of Manchester, England, who before the fight took exception to my prediction of an easy win for Mayweather. "America's biggest weakness is its overconfidence," Turner wrote in an e-mail. "Trust me, I've dated your girls and know a lot from an outsider's perspective."

And the gamblers' positive image award for 2007 goes to ...

Under the irresistible headline "Crackhead bus driver is a bookie, feds charge," the New York Daily News reported one Frank Cappello, a school bus driver who had been arrested with crack, was also a "foulmouthed bookie for a gambling ring with ties to the Mafia."

Kill me again

The New England Patriots started the NFL season 8-0 straight up and against the point spread, a streak that generated buzz on national sports talk shows about how the "Vegas bookies" were getting "killed" this football season. Miraculously, Nevada sports books somehow managed to win $42.7 million in football wagers during the three-month period from Aug. 1 through Oct. 31, a stretch that includes New England's big run against the spread. That three-month figure, the latest available from the state Gaming Control Board, represents a slight increase from the same period in 2006.

On the WAR path

TV sports prognosticator Wayne Allyn Root of Henderson entered the political arena by announcing a run for president as a Libertarian and quickly became the party's front-running candidate. A former Republican, Root became disillusioned with the GOP as the party's socially conservative wing gained more power. "The word 'gambler' is demonized while a word like 'investor' is respected," Root said. "The issues are personal freedom and personal responsibility, not gambling."

R.I.P.

Longtime Las Vegas poker pro Chip Reese, who died at age 56, was remembered by his colleagues as perhaps the greatest poker player who ever lived. Doug Dalton, director of poker operations at the Bellagio, had been a close friend of Reese's since the 1970s, when Reese ran the poker room at the Dunes. "Since 1978, there was never anything that he hadn't asked me to be a part of," Dalton said. "I just hope he doesn't have anything in the very near future that he wants me to join him in."

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