The world’s four best bettors are cordial with each other, according to Battista, especially considering that The Englishman is essentially a stand-alone. “The Computer, The Chinaman, and Zorba get along for the most part. They argue, they fight, but that’s just business. There were plenty of times where they were betting against each other and trying to play each other—to see if they could get the other to follow bad money to move the lines. They knew I was moving for the other guys, but I would still try to get them each the numbers they wanted. I didn’t care because I was just getting a percentage on the volume of money I was getting down for them. They fought because a lot of times somebody would get out of bed earlier than the others, start moving games, get the best numbers, and piss off the others. As much as I was a mover, I felt like a counselor half the time because they were bitching and moaning about each other to me! That was part of the reason I got so hooked into drugs. I was so mentally destroyed from being on the phone with these guys all the time, dealing with their problems, betting half-a-zillion dollars for them, and hoping I didn’t make any mistakes.
“I think the reason The Chinaman, The Computer, Zorba, and The Englishman all trusted me was because I had worked with Tiger, one of the sharpest guys in the industry, for years. They also knew that I put my work before my family. My family was always second. Yeah, I paid the bills, but I didn’t go on vacations and during the holidays dad was working. I was known as being dependable, whereas most gamblers lived by the seat of their pants. They’d get thirty thousand dollars in their pockets and they were looking to go have a good time. I wasn’t like that. When I was with Tiger and Bull, The Animals were disciplined, hardworking guys. It was three fat guys sitting in an office and all we did was eat and gamble, eat and gamble. That was the nature of it. So, by the time I went out on my own, I had a reputation as a hardworking, honest guy. When I lost, I paid, and I was efficient and on top of things.
“There might have been a few dozen people in the world at my level working at, with, or just below The Chinaman, The Computer, Zorba, and The Englishman. I knew a lot of them, but you didn’t want to be stepping on other people’s toes. I don’t think there was anyone working for all four sharp guys, though.”
* * *
PHILLY’S BEST
Though no one in the Philadelphia market came close to rivaling the likes of the four renowned and feared bettors discussed above, Battista’s long-standing ties to Joe Vito Mastronardo and Mike Rinnier contributed to his rise in the industry. As The Sheep now juggled working with and among the world’s best sharps beginning in 2003, he was still somewhat involved with each of the suburban Philly gamblers, each of whom was his own legendary figure in the area.
JOE VITO MASTRONARDO
“Joe Vito was brilliant, hard-working, and very sure of himself,” Battista says. “He was always in great shape and sharp dressed, would always wear shirts with collars. A lot of people couldn’t stand him because he was very opinionated and outspoken, and Joe would belittle them if they did something wrong. When I worked with him, I learned so much about booking and betting. In the 80s, when I was just a kid in high school, he was betting The Computer’s games and booking those guys. He was already an icon and the wiseguys in Philly were always trying to get into him, but Joe didn’t take any shit because he had the best ally in his father-in-law [former Philadelphia Mayor and Police Commissioner, Frank Rizzo]. We were always told that Rizzo couldn’t stand Joe Vito, and that Rizzo’s family used to get on Joe Vito to be legitimate. But, with Joe, that wasn’t going to happen. I met Joe back when I worked for Mike Rinnier. After we got busted in the early 1990s, Joe got busted, too, and went to prison for a year and a half. Joe Vito set up a meeting at a hotel to arrange for maintaining his clients while he was in prison. I went up with Mike and Tiger, and Joe went with his brother John and another bookmaker from New York. Joe had the biggest book in the city and ran everything out in the suburbs.
“I dealt with Joe Vito a lot, and would tell him what the sharp bets were a lot of times. He had gotten so big by the time I was working with The Chinaman and those guys. Joe pretty much controlled the lines for Philly and New York, and had books in Florida and Alabama, so it helped him to get some of the lines through me. I would tell him what the number for certain games was going to be, so that he could adjust his lines accordingly. It was great for Joe because it meant he was less likely to take a hit with his booking and it obviously helped him a lot with his betting. Joe looked at me as a cash cow. He was getting the moves from me first-hand, so he was saving a ton by having the right numbers. As an agent, he also got a percentage of all the stuff I was moving for my guys. And, as a bettor, he had the right sides on the right numbers. I needed him to help me move games and other things, but he benefitted just as much or more by dealing with me. Any time I considered cutting back on what I was doing, he was like, ‘Whoa. Whoa. Let me help you find somebody to work with you to help you out,’ because he didn’t want to be cut off from me.
“Joe actually came over to my house to look at my setup and was begging me to computerize my records. I didn’t want to do that, though, because I never wanted any record of what I was doing in case I got locked up. Even though I used computers all the time for my gambling, I never kept files or spreadsheets or stuff like that, and I would destroy the hard drives when I had to. Joe wanted to place someone in my office to monitor what I was betting so that he could bet and move his lines without having to call and bother me. The problem with that was that I worked out of my house and I didn’t want other people around my wife and kids. It was one thing for me to be in the office working, but the idea of somebody else in my house all the time bothered me. In fact, I turned down other offers through the years from people who wanted to pay to sit and watch me bet so that they could take the next number.”
MIKE RINNIER
“Mike Rinnier apparently kept betting and tried to re-create the betting office after The Animals left him,” Battista says. “He came to me sometime in 2004 or 2005 after he heard that since I left him I was now betting for these ultra-sharp guys. He wanted me to give him their games. He proposed that I give Seal the games for him, and that they would be another one of my outs. What Mike never knew was that I paid Seal about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars over the next year or so to work for me. I needed The Seal’s outs and information. Mike assumed that because Seal worked for him that Seal would do things in his best interest. Well, me and Seal were good friends, so we worried about ourselves and however that affected Mike, we didn’t care. The thing Mike got out of the deal was my football picks, and I would bet five thousand a game for him. This was in the 2005 season. By October or November of that season, I had paid Mike a few hundred thousand. My guys were crushing. Well, Mike called me and asked if I could make it ten thousand bucks a game. I was like, ‘You are a greedy fucking pig! Here I am handing you bags of cash and you’re still not happy.’ It was typical Mike Rinnier, and I was pissed, so I ended it.”
Footnote
Keyser Söze is a character in the 1995 film The Usual Suspects who was a legendary figure in the underworld.
There’s Someone in Stripes on My Side
A LIFELONG PHILADELPHIA EAGLES fan, Jimmy Battista couldn’t have been more amped up for a game. He was in Jacksonville to see the Birds play the heavily favored New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXIX. Decked out in his Brian Westbrook jersey, Battista had great seats near the twenty-yard line for himself, his wife, and his stepson, and was surrounded by the families of the Eagles coaching staff. The Sheep, who was immediately behind Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb’s family and next to Eagles radio broadcaster Merrill Reese’s wife and daughter, was probably the only person in the section with somewhat divided rooting interests. “The Chinaman had a million-four on the Eagles plus seven and plus seven-and-a-half,” Battista says. “He also had three hundred and eighty-five thousand on the under, which was forty-seven, and we bet the first half.
“The Eagl
es won the first half, and we won our bet so things were looking good. In the second half, New England started taking control of the game. The Patriots were up twenty-four to fourteen late in the game and I thought we were fucked. Then the Eagles scored a touchdown with about two minutes left in the game to make it twenty-four to twenty-one. Right then, I wanted the game to go final. We’d cover the spread and we’d win the total.” After New England recovered the ensuing onside kick, Battista says all he kept thinking was, “No interception, no interception. Just fall down, just fall down!” Battista was satisfied when the Patriots ran the ball three straight times, causing the Eagles to burn their timeouts. Nirvana was at hand as the Eagles got the ball back deep in their own territory with less than a minute to play, and the game ended with a Patriots interception of Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb with nine seconds left. “I was ready to do hand stands, I was so excited,” Battista says, “because I was getting a percentage of his one-point-eight million. As we left the stadium with all the Eagles fans, they were so dejected, and they couldn’t figure out why I was on cloud nine, high-fiving my stepson.”
* * *
A delicate situation developed in the spring of 2005, requiring Battista to schedule a meeting with The Chinaman, who was based on the West Coast. Though the two men had known each other for a few years and had developed a serious business relationship by now, they had never met.
“There were a few times where he wanted to bet on games Timmy ‘Elvis’ Donaghy was reffing and I knew what Donaghy’s bet was, and The Chinaman wanted to take the wrong side,” Battista says. “I would usually just tell him it was a bad bet, or not place the bet without telling him. He was getting pissed at me debating him over some of his NBA bets, because he was one of the world’s best and who the fuck was I telling him what to bet?! I flew out to L.A. and met him in a beautiful, four-star hotel.” Battista was joined on the trip by Chinese John, Ronnie Park’s partner in All-Star Sports who was now a bookmaker in Long Island who controlled a good portion of the Chinatown market. He and Battista had become good friends, and he was one of The Sheep’s more significant outs in New York. Battista recruited Chinese John, who like The Chinaman was actually Vietnamese and spoke the language, for the trip as a potential translator. The curiosity of why a translator would be needed at a meeting where all the participants could easily speak English was exhibited soon after the men exchanged pleasantries in the hotel lobby.
The three gamblers seated themselves in a room just off the lobby floor, and Battista got right to the point. “ ‘I have a handicapper that goes against you a lot,’ ” Battista said. The Chinaman clearly took offense at the notion anyone could hang with him when it came to betting NBA games and replied with bravado, “Well, bring him on!” “You can’t beat this guy,” Battista responded in a serious tone, to which The Chinaman replied, “What are you talking about?” Battista pressed to make his point, saying, “You can’t beat this guy. But, when you’re on the same side, we’re gonna push it.” The Sheep, as would be the case in a similarly touchy situation a few years hence, was trying to tell The Chinaman about his incredible coup without explicitly telling him. The verbal dance frustrated The Chinaman who said, “Sheep, what the fuck are you talking about?!” The increasingly heated exchange prompted Battista to grab a pen and write on a piece of hotel stationery: “There’s someone in stripes on my side.” The Sheep handed the note to Chinese John and instructed John to tell The Chinaman—in Vietnamese—what it said. “I just couldn’t bring myself to say what I knew about Donaghy and what I was doing,” Battista says. When Chinese John told The Chinaman, Battista’s partner looked at him and said, “I knew it! There were so many odd things going on with those games.” A sick look then came over The Chinaman’s face, and he uttered, “Oh my God.” “I think he probably realized how much money he lost before on games Donaghy reffed,” Battista says. “So, having that conversation with him saved him a lot of money, even though the basketball season was almost over.”
Importantly, the men agreed that The Chinaman would continue to handicap NBA games and if he wanted to bet a game officiated by Tim “Elvis” Donaghy, it would be up to Battista to see what Donaghy had selected prior to placing The Chinaman’s wager. On plenty of occasions The Sheep’s client phoned in bets that matched Donaghy’s pick. “If The Chinaman and Elvis were on the same side, there wasn’t enough money in the market for what I would try to get down on the game,” Battista says. “There were a few times when The Computer, The Chinaman, and Elvis were on the same side. I’d be like, ‘Oh . . . my . . . God .’”
* * *
Souderton, Pennsylvania, lies in northern Montgomery County, some thirty-five miles north of Center City, Philadelphia. The borough has a population of less than seven thousand, and its police force consists of five officers and a chief. One can imagine their angst as a few beatings took place in early 2005 involving delinquent payments to what was being described as a “Vietnamese sports betting ring.” The local police soon realized the ring may have been connected to a regional betting operation, and requested the assistance of the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office. The more able Montco D.A.’s Office could provide resources such as wiretaps and undercover operations. In December 2005, a county detective placed bets with the ring, but was soon cut off because he was not betting or losing enough. By this point, however, the investigation involved informants and surveillance, and disclosed a related betting Web site called betroma.com that was ostensibly based in Philadelphia but with ties to an operation in Costa Rica. Of particular importance, it was Joe Vito Mastronardo’s customers who were issued passwords for the site. Armed with this information, detectives obtained court-authorized wiretaps and the investigation ultimately led to Joe and John Mastronardo. More wiretaps were procured, resulting in taped conversations including a cabinetmaker who later told authorities he was hired to build secret compartments in Joe Vito’s home and furniture to hide cash. Authorities soon learned that betroma.com was about to expand to a suburban office and that another was being renovated. Joe Vito didn’t know it, but he was about to make Montgomery County history.
Investigators learned that fifty-six-year-old Joe Vito was planning to bring back a large amount of cash from Florida in late April 2006. He was pulled over in his Cadillac on April 24th when he arrived in Pennsylvania, and a subsequent search of the car resulted in a seizure of five hundred thousand dollars in cash. Authorities then executed twenty-four related search warrants for various properties, including Joe Vito’s home, where they found a million dollars. The searches in total netted an additional two-point-two million in cash, mostly in twenty and one hundred dollar bills. County detectives couldn’t recall a seizure for their office that was larger than the two-point-seven million dollar Mastronardo haul.
During the plea proceedings, each brother described himself as a “professional gambler,” and Joe Vito’s attorney took the occasion to make it clear that Joe only took bets from those “who can afford to lose.” He added that the consequence for not paying Joe was simply not being permitted to bet with him. As for the origins of the impressive investigation, namely the Vietnamese betting ring, authorities explained that a member of the ring was bringing bets to an associate of the Mastronardos. It was a wiretap on the associate’s phone that led police to Joe Vito. With regard to the alleged beatings, the D.A. publicly stated there was no indication the Mastronardo brothers had any knowledge of the incidents. Just like his fellow suburban gambling pal and partner Jimmy Battista, violence being employed on behalf of the self-described “gentleman gambler” was simply never part of Joe Vito’s business model. Authorities also announced they did not discover connections to organized crime.
Montco prosecutors could have pursued felony charges in the case, but said they opted for the less consequential misdemeanors because the brothers pleaded guilty and especially because the Mastronardos didn’t contest the two-point-seven million dollar forfeiture. This state of affairs raised eyebr
ows among some observers, including then-imprisoned Philly mob associate Angelo “Fat Ange” Lutz. Lutz, who was serving an eight-year federal sentence for gambling and extortion, said, “They’ve been booking for the past twenty years . . . For me, they make gambling a federal offense. Maybe that’s because I didn’t have two million dollars to give up.”
Though each Mastronardo brother faced up to ten years in prison, Joe Vito received six months of house arrest followed by more than six years of probation, and John was sentenced to 23 months in prison followed by probation. Given Joe’s leading role in the grand scheme of things, his significantly reduced sentence deeply concerned many of his heavy-hitting suburban gambling confederates. Though the press was preoccupied with the historic asset forfeiture, Joe’s betting pals universally grappled with the likelihood that he had dimed some of them out in lieu of going back to prison. None was more fearful about Joe Vito’s possible negotiations with law enforcement than The Sheep, who was sparring with Joe over a bet-gone-bad just as Joe Vito was negotiating his sweetheart sentencing deal.
“Joe Vito was my money man,” Battista says. “He was my agent; he settled my money. He would guarantee up to five million dollars on a weekly basis, and he got paid a percentage of the money. He would settle through bank wires and cash transfers for my money on the East Coast, and I had another guy who did this on the West Coast. The street rate for moving money, transfers and stuff, was usually one percent. If someone wanted to move a hundred grand from New York to the desert, Las Vegas, the mover would get a thousand bucks for an hour’s work, tops, just to move the money. Joe was bigger than anyone else around, because he dealt with Paramount Sports and all these other places. Joe and I were partners, where I would do the work of getting all the bets down and he would settle all the money. We were getting paid each week by the sharp guys just to bet —win, lose, or draw. It was a cash cow for me and Joe.
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