All Bets Are Off Page 3

  I realize today that I needed to gamble like a drug addict needs a high or an alcoholic must have a drink.

  Taking her to a racetrack wasn’t so simple, though. The first night we went to Monticello Raceway in the Catskill Mountains; she had her hair up in a ponytail and didn’t look even sixteen. In those days, the racetracks tried a little harder than today to keep underage kids out. At Monticello, at the first gate we tried, the attendant said Sheila was too young to enter. A couple of other gatekeepers also refused us before we found one who let us in. I had already decided, if they wouldn’t let her in, I was going to tell her to wait in the car while I was inside. I was already there. I could smell the action; I surely wasn’t going to leave when I was that close, even if she had to wait in the car.

  While we dated we set up a joint account to save for our wedding. Sheila put money in, but I wouldn’t. I needed my money for gambling.

  Not surprisingly, I thought the perfect place for our honeymoon would be Las Vegas or Puerto Rico since both places had casinos, but by that time Sheila didn’t think that was a good idea. I suppose she was getting the idea that my gambling was a problem. So we went to Bermuda where we thought there was no gambling.

  I was twenty-three when we got married and I thought I could stop gambling if I wanted to. But I was only fooling myself. I’d stop briefly, but I always went back to it. I realize today that I needed to gamble like a drug addict needs a high or an alcoholic must have a drink.

  In the lobby of our honeymoon hotel, they had a jar of jellybeans, and if you picked the right number of beans, you won a trip to New York. I already lived in New York, so I didn’t have much to gain by winning, but picking jellybeans was action. I spent three days studying the jar of jellybeans and dropping little pieces of paper into the contest box. I didn’t win; a guy we met won after he made only one guess, and I was furious. I didn’t recognize that counting the jellybeans was a form of gambling.

  I can’t explain exactly why I married Sheila at the time. I was not in love, to be honest about it. First of all, I didn’t know what love was. I went out with two girls before I met Sheila. I was hardly a Don Juan. I was a very shy guy. I lived with my grandparents in New York City and I chose to go to an all-boys high school because I was uncomfortable with girls. In that school setting, I wouldn’t have to contend with girls every day. In social situations with girls, I would freeze.

  I did have one significant dating experience before I met Sheila: I took a date to Roosevelt Raceway, which was my home turf at that time. I lost money that night and decided that girls were bad luck. When I met Sheila in the Catskills, when I was twenty-one and she was younger at sixteen, I was comfortable with that arrangement.

  When gambling owns you, it’s the only important thing in your life.

  I don’t think I had emotional feelings for anything but my gambling back then—not even feeling for myself, and certainly not for anybody else. I never saw affection at home from my mom and dad or between them. When gambling owns you, it’s the only important thing in your life. I know I’ve heard people facing the first stages of their recovery say they had lost the love of their life.

  I certainly feel terribly that I disappointed Sheila and hurt her the way I did, but maybe our story together tells the story for a lot of people in love with their addiction.

  Four weeks after we were married I went away to the Army Reserve at Fort Dix, New Jersey. For six months, I gambled every day, fast and furious, shooting craps and playing cards in the barracks and running to the phone to bet with my good old bookmaker.

  Every waking moment I bet. By the time I came home from the Army in December of 1961, I owed $4,000 and didn’t have a job.

  When I later went to summer reserve duty at Fort Drum in Watertown, New York, I left a standing bet with my bookmaker for the Mets to win every game and the Yankees to lose every game. That was in the early years of the Mets organization when they lost almost every game they played—that’s how nuts I was!

  I also left a standing bet on every race ridden by three favored jockeys riding at second-rate tracks around the country. I barely knew the names of those riders. How absurd was that?

  I learned that my platoon sergeant was my kind of gambler. So when the rest of the unit was in the barracks or bivouacking in tents at night, he and I stayed at a motel so we could go to Vernon Downs every night.

  When I came back to civilian life, the first thing I did was ask my trusted bookmaker, “How did I do?” I couldn’t get the daily results from a newspaper at Fort Drum, but all the time I was away I knew at least I had action. I had to have the action, no matter how remote and unseen it was.

  I felt a rush of excitement when I knew I had a bet working for me. When I won, I felt great. I felt so good. I think that was because I didn’t have to run around looking for money to make the next bet and that made it easier for me to feel the high.

  When I won I was high as a kite; I had money to bet tomorrow.

  Most people who buy those $100 million lottery tickets enjoy a few moments daydreaming about what they’d do if they won: pay off the mortgage, buy a new house, a new car, or a fur coat for the wife, take an exciting vacation trip, make a donation to charity, etc. Not me. Nope. I just thought of paying off gambling debts and having some money left over to bet even more. That was my fantasy.

  When I won I was high as a kite; I had money to bet tomorrow. One weekend I won $6,000 from my bookmaker. I told him to hold the money because I was going to turn it in to $50,000; if I lost it, I’d have to find more money.

  Since I was just a teenager when my gambling began, little did I know it would become a problem. I always thought I was a big shot and could pull off a scam. By the time I was thirty, I was looking for help at the twelve-step program when everyone else there was fifty or sixty years old. I was told I’d never make it because I was too young and hadn’t lost enough. But I had already crossed the line to the dream world of addiction. I had been building my addiction since I was seven years old.

  So far I’ve talked a lot about how life was as a gambler, but I couldn’t have done it alone. Sheila came along for the ride, and throughout this book she offers her take on what it was like living with me, being married to me, and the many financial problems we experienced, before I quit the bet.

  SHEILA’S EXPERIENCE

  I was sixteen years old in the summer of 1958 when Arnie came along. It must have been love at first sight, and it was like a sweet scene out of the film Dirty Dancing. We met in rowboats at Avon Lodge, a summer resort bungalow colony in the Catskill Mountains, where New York families escaped the stifling heat of the city.

  I was rowing a boat in the lake with a friend from the bungalow colony and Arnie was rowing one, too. My friend said he was a nice guy and we went over and bumped his boat on purpose. It was as charming as Hollywood could make it. I’d go with friends or my family to see the entertainment, the comedians, the singers, or the dancers that the lodge would present after dinner. The Catskills had some great entertainers. Arnie would be at the pinball machines instead. He loved to play them.

  Everyone would say, “You want to find Arnie? He’s at the pinball machines.” It was a standing joke, but I didn’t mind; we’d just get together later in the evening. Someone who has been around gamblers could say the signs were there, and surely I can say that now, but what did I know? My father played gin rummy with the guys once a week, and that had been my only exposure to any form of gambling.

  On my first date with Arnie, we went to see Damn Yankees at a drive-in at South Fallsburg, the next town over. Our second date was at Monticello Raceway, and I never had another date with him unless it was a sports event, a racetrack, or a casino night—except for an occasional Broadway show. He was as charming as the gamblers are in Guys and Dolls.

  I was painfully shy and here came this outgoing, loveable guy. Everyone who knew him loved him. He was even nice to my grandmother. He was generous and it seemed he always had a few dollars in his pocket. I saw those things and I decided the other stuff was incidental. He says he understands now that he was “bullshitting” people to cover up his own insecurity, but I never saw that.

  It was fun at the track with him. He taught me how to make a “show” bet—bet a horse to finish third or better—a cautious beginner’s bet. I would jump up and down like a lunatic for my $2 bet. What I didn’t see was that while I was placing my little bet, he was betting big money. At times, I would get a knot in my stomach because he would get crazy, screaming and yelling and cursing at the driver or the jockey and banging on the fence, even though he had been the nicest, softest guy I had ever met. I never saw that side of him except at the track and I’d shrug it off. I had no idea about problem gambling; I was in love.

  I was seventeen when we became engaged. My grandmother gave Arnie her stone so he could give me a ring.

  When we were dating he did things I thought were so endearing. One time I was at Avon Lodge for the summer while Arnie worked in North Bergen, New Jersey. He’d leave North Bergen after work and I’d find him in the morning at the resort, sleeping in his car with his feet sticking out. What I didn’t know was that he was losing his money at the harnesstrack before coming to Avon and wasn’t going to waste any more on a $6 motel room.

  He was often late picking me up for dates at home and one time he didn’t show up at all. One time he was in jail on suspicion of bookmaking. His mother covered for him, every time I phoned her, by telling me that he was in the shower. I said, “Ma, how many showers can he take?”

  There were signs Arnie had a gambling problem, but I didn’t see them yet—or I refused to see them. I hope today that parents and young people are more educated about addiction than I was, and the signs they should recognize. The signs should have scared me off. He admitted to me that he owed a lot of money and explained that his father had died at the age of twenty-six, and so he was going to make a lot of money for me in case he died young.

  He gambled like crazy; he was determined to get rich quick. But he said he could quit any time he wanted. And he became so withdrawn sometimes I was afraid he wanted to back out of marrying me. I was happy about getting married, as were so many girls my age in those days.

  We were both working at the time, and set up a savings account for furniture and curtains and other things we’d need when we got married. But when we went to get the money out after the wedding, I found out Arnie had never put his share in.

  He told me about the money he owed. To me it was a fortune. A bookmaker friend of his told me I needed to give Arnie a choice between me and gambling—one or the other—so I got up my courage and actually told him that. He said he loved me and once we got married he was never going to make another bet. I believed him.

  Looking back, Arnie’s sister, who had seen his gambling fixation grow from the beginning, also told me to get out. His grandmother warned me to watch out, too.

  I felt bad for the childhood he’d had—his father died when Arnie was just two years old and he had issues with his stepfather—and I thought that was the root of his problem. I felt sorry for him. I thought that with my help he’d be okay, that I could save him, but I couldn’t. Love is blind and stupid, too.

  I think back to when I was a kid, to a time before I met Arnie. I grew up in the Bronx as an only child. My father was a postal worker and he always worked a second job and sometimes a third so we could escape to the Catskills in the summer. My mother was sickly and I was more the caretaker of her than she was of me. I was going to the High School of Music and Art in New York City, and had hopes of going on to Julliard and becoming a music teacher. A friend of the family had promised to pay for me if I went there.

  I thought that with my help he’d be okay, that I could save him, but I couldn’t.

  What I understand now is that I was waiting for someone I could fix. It was a setup from my early years: I was always in the role of worrying about someone and trying to help them. Nowadays they call it codependency.

  We had a Saturday night wedding at the Concourse Plaza Hotel in the Bronx, which was a really nice hotel. But we had all these wedding gifts and Arnie wouldn’t leave the reception room until all the envelopes were opened. He was looking for cash. So most of my wedding night was spent opening envelopes and looking for money.

  He wanted to honeymoon in Las Vegas or Puerto Rico. They had gambling there. I thought that was not a good idea. We decided we were going to Bermuda instead.

  In Bermuda, he was very uneasy and that made me nervous that something was wrong. That was when he found the jar of jellybeans on the hotel registration desk. Sounded like a sugar high was the greatest danger, but Arnie found it was a way to get the gambling high he craved. If you guessed the number of jellybeans, you won a trip to New York, but the prize wasn’t what he was playing for. We were already from New York. He spent much of our three days studying the bowl, guessing, writing numbers on pieces of paper, and dropping them in a box on the desk. It was action and he needed his fix.

  I remember how he promised he wouldn’t gamble once we were married, so I guess he thought it would be okay beforehand. He couldn’t say to himself that he was addicted to gambling, but he had made his promise and I believe he really wanted to quit.

  While we were still on our honeymoon, a horse he had unsuccessfully bet on twice in the weeks before our wedding was set to run in the Belmont. Arnie had all the facts and figures in his head. A horse named Carry Back had won the Derby and the Preakness and would surely be a big favorite to win the Belmont and complete the Triple Crown. If any horse could beat him, the payoff would surely be great, and Arnie still liked Sherluck, the horse he’d been betting on. To Arnie, “Sherl” meant Sheila and “luck” meant just what it said. How could he lose?

  If he hadn’t made that promise to me to quit gambling, he would have bet $600 on the Belmont because that’s how he gambled—the $200 lost in the Derby plus the $400 he lost in the Preakness meant $600 would have been bet on the Belmont.

  Well, Arnie kept his promise to me and didn’t place the bet, but Sherluck won in a great upset and paid the largest price in Belmont history to that point—$132.20 for a $2 bet. Arnie saw that his winning bet would have been worth $40,000, and he was furious. It was my fault he didn’t win, he said. Look what I did to him. Why did he get married?

  We had a terrible fight and I made him go out on the balcony with me so the chambermaid wouldn’t see us. I was so humiliated. That was the end of my honeymoon.

  I was married to this man and gambling was more important to him than I was. Yes, the honeymoon was over, before it had barely begun.

  In my heart, though, I was still clinging to a newlywed’s dream. I was married and I liked the idea. I felt like I was still a kid with my boyfriend, and I was looking forward to living the daydream of playing house, doing things together, doing new things, doing things I liked—making a home for us far and away from my parents’ house.

  But two weeks after we were married, the circumstance of loving and being married to a gambling addict came home to roost. We had postponed buying furniture and moving into an apartment together because Arnie had been drafted into the Army Reserves and was scheduled to go away for six months of active duty. For a while, we stayed together at a guest hotel in Queens, New York, and when he was inducted into the service I went to live with my mother and father. He wasn’t so far away at Fort Dix, New Jersey. I anticipated being back together with Arnie after those six months and really living as husband and wife.

  We put a deposit down on an apartment that became available a couple of weeks before he was discharged from the Army. With our wedding gift money, we had picked out $1,200 of furniture and the store was holding it all on deposit. I was really excited about fixing up the apartment and assumed we would use our wedding gifts to do it.

  I was raised to think that the man was head of the household, so Arnie managed all the finances even in those first months of our marriage. When he was about to come home from the Army, I went to get money from the bank so I could have the furniture delivered. Somehow the wedding money wasn’t there; I was absolutely stunned and couldn’t understand. The only thing I did understand was that things were not going as planned. It wasn’t going to be such a smooth reunion when Arnie came home. I think I was too bewildered to even cry.

  He had gambled away everything we had saved. We had to borrow from his grandmother to get started. He claimed he played cards a lot in the barracks because he was bored and he missed me. Of course, that touched me; what a foolish romantic I was. But instead of having the money to set up a home, he returned to civilian life in December 1961, married, owing $4,000, and having no job. He told me he had to take out a loan. He cried. He was so remorseful. I believed him.

  Not only were we already in debt, but I had my first demonstration of what a creative liar I was married to. It wasn’t until years later that I recognized just how creative he was. Those were crocodile tears. He told me all the guys in the Army “screw around with broads” or cheat on their wives while they’re apart, or are out at night drinking. He wasn’t doing that. So he made himself out to be the good guy. What he did was gamble. That’s all.

  He told me he gambled because he missed me so much and that gambling was filling the void in his life. He assured me that out-of-control gambling was never going to happen again.

  2

  CRAFT AND GRAFT

  HOW DID I DO it?

  How was I able to finance my compulsion as I got deeper and deeper in the hole? I was very smart, that’s how. And I was a highly creative liar. Researchers and psychologists—smarter than I am—say that’s how compulsive gamblers are. We’re highly creative liars.

  I was also devious and dishonest, which is how compulsive gamblers manage to fool everyone initially. It really has nothing to do with morality. I think I’m a moral person. Of course, my attitude about myself today is practically a whole lifetime after my last bet.