*I don’t know how much SBR ended up shelling out for this, but it certainly wasn’t cheap. I have to say I was impressed by the generosity.
It would be one thing for a bunch of people from a site to kind of informally agree to meet up in Vegas, and then maybe the site kicks in a few T-shirts or something, but this was vastly above and beyond anything like that.
Think about all the SBR powers-that-be spent on this (and this is just off the top of my head—I’m probably forgetting some): Rooms for two nights at a middle-to-above Las Vegas hotel-casino, $300 in travel expenses to various posters who had above a certain number of posts, a dinner, free drinks for two evenings, a professional comedian’s fee, golf fees, golf prizes, thousands of dollars in poker prizes, raffle prizes of merchandise plus two $500 cash prizes (yes, the raffle tickets cost money, but that money went to charity, not to pay for the prizes), various little paraphernalia for all attendees (tote bag, T-shirt, mug, glass, etc.).
It’s not as if anyone would have noticed, or thought less of SBR, if they hadn’t covered so much. But they really stepped up and took care of people here.
*For whatever reason, attendance seemed significantly lower than I would have guessed (and a lot lower than most of the predictions I saw posted).
I don’t know what the official tally was, but for example, that first evening—the “meet and greet” open bar deal—I would say at any given time there were maybe 30 people present, of which about 10 were moderators or others with some official tie to the site, and maybe 5 were spouses or girlfriends or other guests of posters. That’s not to say only 15 regular posters attended, because there were people coming and going throughout the evening, but it’s not like there were hundreds of people milling around.
The next night—the dinner—I’d guess there were a few more people, but still not a huge crowd. I’m told only seven or eight people showed up for the golf. More for the poker, though I’m not sure exactly how many.
*Definitely an older crowd on average than one would have guessed from reading the site—at least from reading the “Players Talk” section of the site since the business decision was made to recruit the people of the backwards hat generation and their girlfriends and turn it over to them.
I’m sure some of the younger posters are terrific folks in their own way, but it’s not my cultural milieu. So to me it was a pleasant surprise that half or more of the attendees were middle aged or older. And for that matter even the younger folks I happened to meet were pretty normal, mature folks. It really wasn’t an atmosphere of wannabe gang bangers trash talking each other and such.
As Ganchrow said to me, people at these things are almost always a lot nicer and a lot better to be around than their posting personae. “I’m the one exception,” he told me, “I’m actually more of a dickhead in person than I am online.”
*Speaking of which, Ganchrow looks nothing like I’ve always pictured him. But I knew going in that he wouldn’t. I’m a big James Randi fan, and Ganchrow had Randi as his avatar when I first became aware of him, so ever since then I’ve always pictured Randi when I read a Ganchrow post. Even though I knew he couldn’t look like that, because from something he posted early on I knew he was at least fairly young.
So no, he doesn’t look like James Randi the way he’s supposed to. Picture instead a very tall, kind of hip, wise-cracking New Yorker type guy.
*I’m a little surprised I haven’t seen any protests about the photos and videos that have been posted. I would have very likely consented because I don’t really care, but I would think a lot of people at an event like this would not want their photo posted on the Internet, and I don’t remember anyone asking for consent to take or post pictures. But heck, maybe I’m wrong and everyone’s fine with it.
*I thought the people who work for the site were consistently good guys. Most I only interacted with briefly (often just enough to annoy them by working Lazerwager into the conversation to see if anyone had any thoughts on how I might ever get my money back from those thieves), but they couldn’t have been friendlier.
Not that that’s a big surprise or anything, because they all treat people well in their official capacity online. I mean, would you really expect bigboydan to be anything other than a class act? But it’s good that he, along with Willie Bee, Bill Dozer, Mr. D, Illusion, SBR John, etc., are every bit as friendly and decent in person as they are as posters.
*Definitely cool meeting The Prick. Like most people I assumed it was one of the moderators or someone at SBR playing a character. But he’s real (and he looks disturbingly like his avatar). And I must say, Mr. Prick is every bit the courteous gentleman you’d expect.
I asked him how he came to be The Prick, and he replied, “Someone just called me one day and asked me if I wanted to do it.”
I left it at that rather than try to get a further explanation, because I rather liked that answer. It made it sound like a person could just be sitting at home, minding his own business, and the phone rings: “Hi, I’m with a website called ‘Sportsbook Review’—it’s an online gambling information sort of site—and we’re looking for someone to be ‘The Prick.’ Would you be interested?” Kind of like they were working their way through the phone book until they got a taker.
*I felt just a little creepy for the hired ladies (two I think) whose function seemed to be just to circulate amongst the guests and make pointless small talk (of the “So where are you from?” variety). Having some woman talk to us for no reason except that she was paid to doesn’t do a whole lot for me.
Though I guess you could say the same thing about the comedian or the bartenders or the waitresses or whomever, that they were only interacting with us because they were paid to do so. But, I don’t know, this felt more like the phoniness of prostitution without even getting the sex.
*From what I experienced, I would say it was much more of a social gathering than an opportunity to exchange information relevant to successful sportsbetting.
As a “business trip,” this was only minimally valuable to me. I had hoped to “talk shop” a lot more with people, especially about things that we’re maybe not supposed to go into on a public forum. Like, what are the pros and cons of the various funding methods that have popped up? How helpful is it to set up a bank account in another country? Going beyond that, is it feasible to set up a fake address in another country to bypass some of the obstacles the U.S. has put up? Are there certain things to be wary of at this book or that book that increase your chances of being booted or of being stolen from? Stuff like that. Or even more purely handicapping stuff that maybe people are reluctant to go into too much in a public forum.
And I’m not saying I’d be merely a taker. I’m more than happy to talk about my own experiences and what little I know in these areas as well.
But it wasn’t that kind of a gathering. (Or maybe there were pockets of people having exactly that kind of conversation, but just not around me.) The entire time I was there, I think only one person—at the most two—ever asked me what I bet, how I made money, etc. People seemed neither curious to pick my brain to see if they could pick up anything of use to them, nor eager to volunteer whatever information or suggestions they’d accumulated.
So more of a “let’s have a few drinks and hang out and shoot the shit” atmosphere than a “let’s talk serious about this sportsbetting stuff and help each other make money” atmosphere.
*I mostly liked the comedian—Doug Stanhope. I’m not a huge stand-up fan, but I also don’t dislike it. Somewhere in the middle. And I would say he was average to above for the stand-up acts I’ve seen in person or on TV in my life.
You have to like a guy with lead-ins like, “You know what’s really funny about child porn?...”
I also liked the way he geared some of his material to the fact that this was a gathering of online sportsbettors. I don’t mean he did some extensive research and really familiarized himself with SBR and its more prominent personalities or anything like that. But in a more general way he worked in various remarks about online posting forums and gambling and such.
I wasn’t familiar with him from before, except right at the end when he told the story about the tranny hooker, that sounded really familiar to me. My guess is at some point I caught a snippet of his act on Comedy Central or somewhere when I was channel surfing.
*By the way, what the heck was that with Mrs. Ganchrow leading into her introduction of the comedian with “The question I’m most often asked is ‘What’s it like for you to **** Ganchrow up the ass with a strap-on?’ Well, for fifty thousand dollars, you can find out!”
That had to be on a dare, or one of those “I’ll give you such-and-such dollars if you go up there and say….”
Plus, I wasn’t even clear on what was being suggested. For my fifty thousand dollars, do I get ****ed in the ass with a strap-on by Mrs. Ganchrow? Or do I **** Ganchrow up the ass with a strap-on? (Or neither. I asked my buddy which role he thought was for sale, and he said, “Oh, I thought she meant for fifty thousand dollars you get to watch her do him. I don’t think you’re actually a participant.”)
*I got a chance to talk to SBR John for a few moments, and I’ll share with you what I told him, since it’s not like it’s confidential stuff or anything.
I told him that to me the two most important things I come to SBR for are the sportsbook ratings and the advocacy in player-book disputes. Every dollar spent, every person hired, every hour devoted to making those two things the best they can be is a positive move. People should be able to be confident that—while it’s unavoidably subjective to some degree—a sportsbook’s letter grade at SBR is based on detailed, ongoing research and is as unbiased as possible. And further, that if you are wronged by a sportsbook, SBR is the best place to go to get results.
Always keep striving to improve in those two areas and SBR will be of huge value in this industry.
Not that nothing else SBR does is of value. The forums have deteriorated to where they’re mostly garbage now, but certainly there are posters one can benefit from reading—mostly in “Sportsbooks & The Industry” and “Handicapping Think Tank.” The contests are very cool. Certainly a bash like this is exceedingly generous. Justin’s videos can be very helpful to people. I haven’t made use of stuff like the blogs or SBRLines, and the various other gewgaws, but obviously SBR provides a great deal of worthwhile stuff.
But never get spread so thin trying to do a million things at once that you lose sight of what I think should always remain SBR’s bread and butter—the most informed and objective sportsbook ratings, and help for players getting screwed.
Insofar as the other stuff makes the site more popular and draws more revenue and therefore actually facilitates those two functions, then that’s great. But if anything ever gets in the way of those two functions, I’d rather see it jettisoned, and have SBR go back to its roots.
*The handful of people I had a chance to exchange more than a handshake and a hello with were all very nice, classy folks. Beyond the folks from the site itself, I spent time with Skidcom, punchmaster, TomCowley, Frank, and a small number of others. (Skidcom is the one person I knew from outside the site—a dear friend of mine. He managed to come in second at both golf and the poker tournament, leading Willie Bee to dub him the “bridesmaid.” “Ol’ Number Two” or “Mr. Sloppy Seconds” could work too.)
But they were all really cool guys. A pleasure to talk with. I even liked Reno Cool (because we didn’t get much into the Kelly Criterion, so I didn’t have to hurt him).
*I would have maybe liked to talk to Justin a little more, but he was virtually always deep in conversation with others. I’m interested in the video stuff. I’ve been pursuing video for a number of years now (which is not to say I’m some big shot professional—think moderate to serious hobbyist level), and if I ever find the time I’ve considered doing instructional sportsbetting videos like that, either on my own or helping out with the ones Justin is doing. I like what he’s doing, but at the very least they could be edited a lot more smoothly.
*There was certainly no guarantee going in that I’d be at all comfortable at this gathering. Aside from my mostly not being social person, when you get right down to it I dislike a lot of how people choose to present themselves on this site.
I’m not talking so much about the generational and cultural differences and such that I alluded to above. I think of that as more neutral than bad. And I’m definitely not talking about looking down on people I perceive as less “sharp” or apt to ask “dumb” questions or whatever. I don’t have a problem with that. (All I have to do to stop myself from feeling all superior to newbies and the like is to remind myself how many people there are who are a lot more advanced than me with this sportsbetting stuff and thus would be at least as justified in looking down their nose at me.)
No, I’m talking about people who—in their own modest little ways—choose to use their posting in such a way as to add their own bit of negative energy to the world. Maybe it’s shilling for a book they know is crap. Maybe it’s ego-driven, attention whore, JJGold type inane put-on posts, designed to take a forum that could in principle actually help people and turn it instead into a house of mirrors where readers—especially newbies—are unable to tell who is serious, who is doing shtick, who is a ghost of whom, etc. Maybe it’s stiffs and con artists, looking for ways to get over on books or other posters. Maybe it’s off-topic, sneering, hate-filled political posts—whiny, woe-is-me, I’m-a-victim-because-it’s-slightly-harder-for-me-nowadays-to-grind-my-boot-into-the-face-of-the-underdog, right wing backlash bullshit. Maybe it’s testosterone-driven flame wars and insults.
Just people who get up in the morning with the attitude “I hope I can find a way to hurt someone today so as to put a couple extra dollars in my pocket or make me feel better about myself.”
I’ve always hated that, and the older I get the more I hate it.
I do little more than skim the forums any more, and I have multiple posters on ignore, precisely because it’s such a downer to be reminded just how many folks like that there are in the world. Do I really want to travel to Las Vegas to be in a room full of them?
But it turned out the vast majority of the people who post like that did not attend, and those that did I happened not to spend time with. (Even though it was a fairly small gathering, I doubt I met more than half the attendees.)
Instead, like I say, what we had at the bash were good guys, having fun, treating each other well, just in general creating a very positive atmosphere. Nothing at all like the worst of what you see online.
*My overall assessment is that having attended one SBR bash, I would now be more inclined to attend future ones, and I’m comfortable recommending to others that they attend.
It would be one thing for a bunch of people from a site to kind of informally agree to meet up in Vegas, and then maybe the site kicks in a few T-shirts or something, but this was vastly above and beyond anything like that.
Think about all the SBR powers-that-be spent on this (and this is just off the top of my head—I’m probably forgetting some): Rooms for two nights at a middle-to-above Las Vegas hotel-casino, $300 in travel expenses to various posters who had above a certain number of posts, a dinner, free drinks for two evenings, a professional comedian’s fee, golf fees, golf prizes, thousands of dollars in poker prizes, raffle prizes of merchandise plus two $500 cash prizes (yes, the raffle tickets cost money, but that money went to charity, not to pay for the prizes), various little paraphernalia for all attendees (tote bag, T-shirt, mug, glass, etc.).
It’s not as if anyone would have noticed, or thought less of SBR, if they hadn’t covered so much. But they really stepped up and took care of people here.
*For whatever reason, attendance seemed significantly lower than I would have guessed (and a lot lower than most of the predictions I saw posted).
I don’t know what the official tally was, but for example, that first evening—the “meet and greet” open bar deal—I would say at any given time there were maybe 30 people present, of which about 10 were moderators or others with some official tie to the site, and maybe 5 were spouses or girlfriends or other guests of posters. That’s not to say only 15 regular posters attended, because there were people coming and going throughout the evening, but it’s not like there were hundreds of people milling around.
The next night—the dinner—I’d guess there were a few more people, but still not a huge crowd. I’m told only seven or eight people showed up for the golf. More for the poker, though I’m not sure exactly how many.
*Definitely an older crowd on average than one would have guessed from reading the site—at least from reading the “Players Talk” section of the site since the business decision was made to recruit the people of the backwards hat generation and their girlfriends and turn it over to them.
I’m sure some of the younger posters are terrific folks in their own way, but it’s not my cultural milieu. So to me it was a pleasant surprise that half or more of the attendees were middle aged or older. And for that matter even the younger folks I happened to meet were pretty normal, mature folks. It really wasn’t an atmosphere of wannabe gang bangers trash talking each other and such.
As Ganchrow said to me, people at these things are almost always a lot nicer and a lot better to be around than their posting personae. “I’m the one exception,” he told me, “I’m actually more of a dickhead in person than I am online.”
*Speaking of which, Ganchrow looks nothing like I’ve always pictured him. But I knew going in that he wouldn’t. I’m a big James Randi fan, and Ganchrow had Randi as his avatar when I first became aware of him, so ever since then I’ve always pictured Randi when I read a Ganchrow post. Even though I knew he couldn’t look like that, because from something he posted early on I knew he was at least fairly young.
So no, he doesn’t look like James Randi the way he’s supposed to. Picture instead a very tall, kind of hip, wise-cracking New Yorker type guy.
*I’m a little surprised I haven’t seen any protests about the photos and videos that have been posted. I would have very likely consented because I don’t really care, but I would think a lot of people at an event like this would not want their photo posted on the Internet, and I don’t remember anyone asking for consent to take or post pictures. But heck, maybe I’m wrong and everyone’s fine with it.
*I thought the people who work for the site were consistently good guys. Most I only interacted with briefly (often just enough to annoy them by working Lazerwager into the conversation to see if anyone had any thoughts on how I might ever get my money back from those thieves), but they couldn’t have been friendlier.
Not that that’s a big surprise or anything, because they all treat people well in their official capacity online. I mean, would you really expect bigboydan to be anything other than a class act? But it’s good that he, along with Willie Bee, Bill Dozer, Mr. D, Illusion, SBR John, etc., are every bit as friendly and decent in person as they are as posters.
*Definitely cool meeting The Prick. Like most people I assumed it was one of the moderators or someone at SBR playing a character. But he’s real (and he looks disturbingly like his avatar). And I must say, Mr. Prick is every bit the courteous gentleman you’d expect.
I asked him how he came to be The Prick, and he replied, “Someone just called me one day and asked me if I wanted to do it.”
I left it at that rather than try to get a further explanation, because I rather liked that answer. It made it sound like a person could just be sitting at home, minding his own business, and the phone rings: “Hi, I’m with a website called ‘Sportsbook Review’—it’s an online gambling information sort of site—and we’re looking for someone to be ‘The Prick.’ Would you be interested?” Kind of like they were working their way through the phone book until they got a taker.
*I felt just a little creepy for the hired ladies (two I think) whose function seemed to be just to circulate amongst the guests and make pointless small talk (of the “So where are you from?” variety). Having some woman talk to us for no reason except that she was paid to doesn’t do a whole lot for me.
Though I guess you could say the same thing about the comedian or the bartenders or the waitresses or whomever, that they were only interacting with us because they were paid to do so. But, I don’t know, this felt more like the phoniness of prostitution without even getting the sex.
*From what I experienced, I would say it was much more of a social gathering than an opportunity to exchange information relevant to successful sportsbetting.
As a “business trip,” this was only minimally valuable to me. I had hoped to “talk shop” a lot more with people, especially about things that we’re maybe not supposed to go into on a public forum. Like, what are the pros and cons of the various funding methods that have popped up? How helpful is it to set up a bank account in another country? Going beyond that, is it feasible to set up a fake address in another country to bypass some of the obstacles the U.S. has put up? Are there certain things to be wary of at this book or that book that increase your chances of being booted or of being stolen from? Stuff like that. Or even more purely handicapping stuff that maybe people are reluctant to go into too much in a public forum.
And I’m not saying I’d be merely a taker. I’m more than happy to talk about my own experiences and what little I know in these areas as well.
But it wasn’t that kind of a gathering. (Or maybe there were pockets of people having exactly that kind of conversation, but just not around me.) The entire time I was there, I think only one person—at the most two—ever asked me what I bet, how I made money, etc. People seemed neither curious to pick my brain to see if they could pick up anything of use to them, nor eager to volunteer whatever information or suggestions they’d accumulated.
So more of a “let’s have a few drinks and hang out and shoot the shit” atmosphere than a “let’s talk serious about this sportsbetting stuff and help each other make money” atmosphere.
*I mostly liked the comedian—Doug Stanhope. I’m not a huge stand-up fan, but I also don’t dislike it. Somewhere in the middle. And I would say he was average to above for the stand-up acts I’ve seen in person or on TV in my life.
You have to like a guy with lead-ins like, “You know what’s really funny about child porn?...”
I also liked the way he geared some of his material to the fact that this was a gathering of online sportsbettors. I don’t mean he did some extensive research and really familiarized himself with SBR and its more prominent personalities or anything like that. But in a more general way he worked in various remarks about online posting forums and gambling and such.
I wasn’t familiar with him from before, except right at the end when he told the story about the tranny hooker, that sounded really familiar to me. My guess is at some point I caught a snippet of his act on Comedy Central or somewhere when I was channel surfing.
*By the way, what the heck was that with Mrs. Ganchrow leading into her introduction of the comedian with “The question I’m most often asked is ‘What’s it like for you to **** Ganchrow up the ass with a strap-on?’ Well, for fifty thousand dollars, you can find out!”
That had to be on a dare, or one of those “I’ll give you such-and-such dollars if you go up there and say….”
Plus, I wasn’t even clear on what was being suggested. For my fifty thousand dollars, do I get ****ed in the ass with a strap-on by Mrs. Ganchrow? Or do I **** Ganchrow up the ass with a strap-on? (Or neither. I asked my buddy which role he thought was for sale, and he said, “Oh, I thought she meant for fifty thousand dollars you get to watch her do him. I don’t think you’re actually a participant.”)
*I got a chance to talk to SBR John for a few moments, and I’ll share with you what I told him, since it’s not like it’s confidential stuff or anything.
I told him that to me the two most important things I come to SBR for are the sportsbook ratings and the advocacy in player-book disputes. Every dollar spent, every person hired, every hour devoted to making those two things the best they can be is a positive move. People should be able to be confident that—while it’s unavoidably subjective to some degree—a sportsbook’s letter grade at SBR is based on detailed, ongoing research and is as unbiased as possible. And further, that if you are wronged by a sportsbook, SBR is the best place to go to get results.
Always keep striving to improve in those two areas and SBR will be of huge value in this industry.
Not that nothing else SBR does is of value. The forums have deteriorated to where they’re mostly garbage now, but certainly there are posters one can benefit from reading—mostly in “Sportsbooks & The Industry” and “Handicapping Think Tank.” The contests are very cool. Certainly a bash like this is exceedingly generous. Justin’s videos can be very helpful to people. I haven’t made use of stuff like the blogs or SBRLines, and the various other gewgaws, but obviously SBR provides a great deal of worthwhile stuff.
But never get spread so thin trying to do a million things at once that you lose sight of what I think should always remain SBR’s bread and butter—the most informed and objective sportsbook ratings, and help for players getting screwed.
Insofar as the other stuff makes the site more popular and draws more revenue and therefore actually facilitates those two functions, then that’s great. But if anything ever gets in the way of those two functions, I’d rather see it jettisoned, and have SBR go back to its roots.
*The handful of people I had a chance to exchange more than a handshake and a hello with were all very nice, classy folks. Beyond the folks from the site itself, I spent time with Skidcom, punchmaster, TomCowley, Frank, and a small number of others. (Skidcom is the one person I knew from outside the site—a dear friend of mine. He managed to come in second at both golf and the poker tournament, leading Willie Bee to dub him the “bridesmaid.” “Ol’ Number Two” or “Mr. Sloppy Seconds” could work too.)
But they were all really cool guys. A pleasure to talk with. I even liked Reno Cool (because we didn’t get much into the Kelly Criterion, so I didn’t have to hurt him).
*I would have maybe liked to talk to Justin a little more, but he was virtually always deep in conversation with others. I’m interested in the video stuff. I’ve been pursuing video for a number of years now (which is not to say I’m some big shot professional—think moderate to serious hobbyist level), and if I ever find the time I’ve considered doing instructional sportsbetting videos like that, either on my own or helping out with the ones Justin is doing. I like what he’s doing, but at the very least they could be edited a lot more smoothly.
*There was certainly no guarantee going in that I’d be at all comfortable at this gathering. Aside from my mostly not being social person, when you get right down to it I dislike a lot of how people choose to present themselves on this site.
I’m not talking so much about the generational and cultural differences and such that I alluded to above. I think of that as more neutral than bad. And I’m definitely not talking about looking down on people I perceive as less “sharp” or apt to ask “dumb” questions or whatever. I don’t have a problem with that. (All I have to do to stop myself from feeling all superior to newbies and the like is to remind myself how many people there are who are a lot more advanced than me with this sportsbetting stuff and thus would be at least as justified in looking down their nose at me.)
No, I’m talking about people who—in their own modest little ways—choose to use their posting in such a way as to add their own bit of negative energy to the world. Maybe it’s shilling for a book they know is crap. Maybe it’s ego-driven, attention whore, JJGold type inane put-on posts, designed to take a forum that could in principle actually help people and turn it instead into a house of mirrors where readers—especially newbies—are unable to tell who is serious, who is doing shtick, who is a ghost of whom, etc. Maybe it’s stiffs and con artists, looking for ways to get over on books or other posters. Maybe it’s off-topic, sneering, hate-filled political posts—whiny, woe-is-me, I’m-a-victim-because-it’s-slightly-harder-for-me-nowadays-to-grind-my-boot-into-the-face-of-the-underdog, right wing backlash bullshit. Maybe it’s testosterone-driven flame wars and insults.
Just people who get up in the morning with the attitude “I hope I can find a way to hurt someone today so as to put a couple extra dollars in my pocket or make me feel better about myself.”
I’ve always hated that, and the older I get the more I hate it.
I do little more than skim the forums any more, and I have multiple posters on ignore, precisely because it’s such a downer to be reminded just how many folks like that there are in the world. Do I really want to travel to Las Vegas to be in a room full of them?
But it turned out the vast majority of the people who post like that did not attend, and those that did I happened not to spend time with. (Even though it was a fairly small gathering, I doubt I met more than half the attendees.)
Instead, like I say, what we had at the bash were good guys, having fun, treating each other well, just in general creating a very positive atmosphere. Nothing at all like the worst of what you see online.
*My overall assessment is that having attended one SBR bash, I would now be more inclined to attend future ones, and I’m comfortable recommending to others that they attend.
. Maybe it’s testosterone-driven flame wars and insults.