Gambling on sports hasn’t been high-stakes or more accessible. However, with the invasion of Europe-based businesses in the sport, the pros are feeling getting banned from plying their trade and pumped. Is this the end of this professional sports bettor?
I am not a bookmaker,” Gadoon Kyrollos tells me as we walk throughout the Hard Rock Casino in Atlantic City, playing penny slot machines. “I am a sports bettor.” Kyrollos is actually one of the highest-rolling sports bettors in the USA. He stakes millions of dollars every year to the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, from NFL matches on sporting events. He’s known throughout the gambling world by the name Spanky, also in sweatpants, his hoodie, and backpack, he resembles a 40-year-old variant of the Rascal. His backpack is not carrying school books and snacks. It is full of bricks of cash, almost $150,000 worth.
“Bookmakers hang on a number,” he explains, as he pantomimes holding a gun gearing up to his attention and pulling the trigger. “And that I snipe’em”
Regardless of the bag filled with cash, the penny slot machine transfixs Spanky, pumping one bill into it after the next. On his cellphone he consults a recorder which tells him how to perform with this specific machine so that it is”plus EV,” or positive expected value, meaning the player has an edge over the system over time. “Here is some real insider shit I’m showing you here,” he tells me, speaking to his spreadsheet, which has formulas for dozens of different slot machines plugged into it. “I mean, it is likely an edge of, for example, $12, but in case you were walking down the street and saw $12, you would bend down and pick this up, right?”
It’s important to Spanky that I understand the difference between bookmaking and betting, since a great deal of people don’t know or appreciate the differentiation, such as the Queens district attorney, who billed Spanky with bookmaking at 2012, a charge he says originated from a widespread harassment of the business.

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