I used a local book for a number of years. The guy was great - whether I was killing him or he was killing me (which happened more often), he was always cool on the phone. He was a big Cardinals fan (and when I say "big" - I mean he was extremely fat). One day I was on the phone with him placing a bet, and there was this big commotion. He came back on a minute later and was all discombobulated ... "huh, whuh happened" ... that kind of talk. He ended up dying of a separate massive stroke several days later.
As I put up with all this
slow-pay tomfoolery with Sportsbetting.com, I reflect on why I miss the "good old days" and why the local book was so much more enjoyable.
- Never a concern about non-payment - I got incredibly hot in baseball one summer. In addition to winning 11 in a row (and betting progressively more on each one), I had winning days (i.e., in the black) for 18 days in a row. I won more than $7,000, and this guy - bless his heart - paid me without so much as a whimper (I ended up giving $4k back the next month, what a jerkoff I am). But nothing better than getting your winnings in cold hard cash w/ in days (as opposed to the black hole processing / deviance that the online books call "doing business").
- The guy liked talking sports - You'd call him up, give your plays, and he'd want to talk about why I liked certain teams that day. The guy wasn't just a book, he was a gambler. Fun to talk to, a real character. Not some robotic asshole working in some call center.
- If there was a discrepancy in the payout, he'd talk about it with you and show documentation - On the very few times that he and I had different numbers at the end of the week, he'd talk through every bet and explain to me why I was wrong in the figure I had. Unlike these online books that obscure your wagering history after the fact, and you're utterly powerless to even approach the possibility that they might have f'd up.
Bless that guy's soul. If he'd been a Red Sox fan, he'd probably still be alive.
Btw: 3 things that I DIDN'T like about the local book.
- He juiced my teams - goddamn it, this guy very quickly identified the teams I liked to play, and fudged the odds against me. Who could blame him, I would've done the same thing. But it definitely cost me over time. And it seemed like every time I took it the other way ("ok, you want to fudge the line -- fine, I'll take the OTHER side then, hah-hah), I ALWAYS lost.
- Local books are conducive to betting money you don't have - I never, ever, failed to make good on what I owed this guy. But when you take a bath on CREDIT, it sure gets a lot uglier than when you have to fund it up front. There were some very awful / depressing Sundays ... chasing on some late game and big time in the hole.
- Paying in cash is a lot more painful - these online books lure you into a false sense of pretend land. When you owe the local guy >$1k in cold, hard cash, and you have to physically go to the bank, withdraw it, then pay him or his runner ... that comes up and slaps you in the face. This wasn't some special purpose credit card where you can float a coupla g's worth of debt to float your gambling fancy. This was cold card cash that HURT to let go of.
3 reasons why my local book was better than online
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