Part V

No betting operation had ever controlled the market on such a synchronized and national level, but Billy Walters admits, he didn't always have his way so easily. "There were other times I bet $130,000 or $140,000 just to move the line," he says in his low Kentucky drawl. "One thing about the public, they'll follow anybody as long as you're picking winners."

Because they pay a 10% service fee to the house on all losing bets, professional gamblers have to win 52.38% of their games just to break even. Records of the 1983 college football season seized from Dr. Mindlin show that the Computer Group won an incredible 60.3% of its games against the spread. The Computer Group's main betting pool began that season in September with a $1.1 million line of credit, and concluded Jan. 2 with $5 million cash.

Of course, in those days the official point spread was softer than mayonnaise. The mathematical wizard Michael Kent admits that the Computer Group might never have risen to prominence if not for the removal of Bob Martin, who since 1967 had been making the official line for Las Vegas. However, in 1980, Martin was sentenced to 13 months for the crime of transmitting wagering information across state lines by telephone. If the federal government had not gotten rid of Bob Martin, then the FBI might never have felt compelled to spend six long years investigating the Computer Group.

More often than not, Michael Kent's line was more accurate than the official line in Las Vegas. Linemakers will argue that the only purpose of their official line is to entice betting action on both sides, that they are not responsible for outsmarting experts like Michael Kent. Nonetheless, the people who were making that line in the early 1980's were a particularly feeble lot.

Other gamblers noticed the same weaknesses, but they couldn't take advantage to the same extent as the Computer Group. "They had some amateurs setting the line at that time, and the line was very weak,' says Lem Banker, whose nationally syndicated newspaper column made him perhaps the most famous gambler in Las Vegas. "It was a good opportunity to win, and a lot of people did."

Greater than any individual, the mysterious Computer Group emerged as the prominent voice in Las Vegas, much like a Wizard in Oz. "When a handicapper gets going good, a 'following' phenomena goes into effect," says Michael (Roxy) Roxborough, now the top Las Vegas linemaker, whose services are purchased by 35 sportsbooks. "A game might open at 3 (points), and the followers raise it up to a 5. With these computer guys, every time a game moved, they were the ones credited with moving it, whether they did it or not. Their legend may be larger than they actually were."

The top gambling rings today use the Computer Group as their model. In Las Vegas, a classroom genius like Michael Kent has to depend entirely upon someone like Billy Walters, who was educated in alleys. "There is no gambler's college," Walters says. "Everything I know, I learned the hard way. Now, how do I know when the spread has risen as high as it's going to get? I have to depend upon my years of experience. I use my feel and the information I get from my contacts around the country to decide when I should bet and when to back off."

Sitting at his desk each day, Billy Walters based his decisions upon numbers he wrote on two pieces of paper. On one page was a list of point spreads compiled by Michael Kent's computer. In the case of Wisconsin at Purdue, Ken might have decided: Purdue -1 over Wisconsin. On the second page Billy Walters was keeping track of the official lines at various sports books in Las Vegas. Wherever he could find a difference of 1 ½ points between the Computer Group's line and the official Las Vegas line, he would bet on that game. If the official line decided: Wisconsin -5 over Purdue, then what Billy Walters had here was a massive 6-point difference of opinion. In such a case he might be $1 million on that game. The greater the difference, the more he would bet.

So confident was the Computer Group that its weekly wagers often exceeded the ceiling of its betting pool. According to ledgers seized by the FBI, Michael Kent's group in one week wagered $4,571,050 on college basketball games alone - more than twice as much as its reservoir in the pool at that time. Including the college bowl games and the NFL playoffs, the group bet more than $5.5 million that week, turning a profit of almost $700,000.

And that represented the work of Michael Kent's tiny group. Dozens of other bettors had access to his information. Who knows how much additional revenue they earned?

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV