LAS VEGAS — Shortly after 9 a.m. last Saturday, amid the madness of the NCAA men's basketball tournament, a man dressed entirely in black studied the electronic board flashing point spreads at the Palms Casino Resort.
He had already wagered more than $7,000 that morning, placing half a dozen bets on the Internet and in casinos on sporting events large and small, from arena football to college ice hockey to women's college basketball.
By Fezzik's high-rolling standards -- he averages about $60,000 in daily sports wagers -- the day was off to a slumbering start. He was anxious to pick up the pace.
"If you see a guy kicking back, drinking a beer and watching the game after he makes his bet, that guy ... is never going to make serious money. He is a loser," Fezzik said, walking out of the Palms so briskly he was nearly running. "I've been known to sprint to the next betting window."
Fezzik, or Steve Fezzik, as he has called himself in interviews, is not his real name. It is a pseudonym he says he uses for safety's sake. Fezzik is a minor celebrity in the demimonde of serious Las Vegas gamblers. Six years ago, he was an insurance executive who drove the crowded freeways to downtown Los Angeles every morning. Now he is a "wiseguy," the Las Vegas moniker for someone who makes a living trying to outsmart sports books -- the betting parlors inside casinos that take wagers on sporting events.
If the life of Fezzik is any indication, betting on sports professionally is a mentally draining pursuit that has much in common with managing a hedge fund, including a potentially big payoff.
Fezzik, who wagers a large amount of his own money every day along with cash pooled from a small crew of betting partners, boasts that he earns a six-figure salary, largely by predicting the prejudices of "squares," or casual sports gamblers, and betting big the opposite way before other "sharps" such as he capitalize on the public's naivete.
Feats of athleticism are irrelevant to serious bettors; theirs is a game of cold, hard numbers, where actual winners and losers often do not matter.
Fezzik does not spend much time scouting the strengths and weaknesses of teams. Instead, he uses his knowledge of statistics to ferret out betting lines that appear askew. Often, those propositions do not center on the outcome of a game, but on how many points a team will score during the second half or whether both teams will amass a certain combined score.
