Latest / The Epstein Chronicles / Howard Lutnick and the Jersey Boys Scandal: The Day Cantor’s Dream Collapsed (Part 1)

Transcript

Howard Lutnick and the Jersey Boys Scandal: The Day Cantor’s Dream Collapsed (Part 1) · The Epstein Chronicles

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  Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
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  Epstein Chronicles. Sometimes when I take a look back at
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  the path that my life has took, it's crazy to
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  think how one decision can throw you straight into the
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  middle of something that you never saw coming. Now. For
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  thirteen years, I lived and breathed the Joint at the
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  hard Rock I was a stage manager, you know, the
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  guy behind the curtain, making sure that the lights hit
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  just right, the sound didn't blow, and the band got
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  on stage before the crowd turned restless. It was high pressure,
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  high stress, but high reward, all wrapped up and won
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  meon package. And let me tell you, it was thirteen
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  years of pure rock and roll chaos. Whether it was
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  out at rehab, whether it was in the Joint or
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  down at Baby's or a body english, the excitement and
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  action never stopped. But after more than a decade of
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  late nights and living backstage, your boy hit the wall.
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  I was burned out and I needed a change. So
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  I did something that shocked just about everyone who knew me.
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  I walked away from the music world and took a
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  pay cut so I could slide into a different kind
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  of chaos. The sports book at the hard rock. Who
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  doesn't want to talk sports all day? Right? Sit at
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  a counter process a few bets, talk ball with guys
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  who thought they were smarter than the lines. It sounded
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  like a breather compared to wrangling egos with the guitars.
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  Little did I know that the break I thought I
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  was giving myself was really just walking into a whole
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  new storm. Now. Look. At first, the job was simple enough.
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  Write tickets, take action, keep things moving. Then came the
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  announcement a big shot operation out of New York was
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  planting its flag in Vegas. Their headquarters sat at the
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  m Resort out on the edge of town, and they
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  weren't shy about who they were or what they wanted.
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  They weren't coming here to compete. They were coming here
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  to dominate. They wanted to own the sports wagering market.
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  And they had the kind of bravado and the kind
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  of money that made the old guards sit up and
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  pay attention. That company was Kenner, Fitzgerald and Canner. Wasn't
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  just another book trying to scrape up handle from Weekend Warriors.
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  These guys came in with ideas that changed the industry forever.
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  They were the first to roll out mobile sports wagering
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  the kind of thing that seems standard now, but back
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  then it was a revolutionary. For the first time, a
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  better could be at the bar, at home, at the
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  pool and still lay down action right from their phone.
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  What we're talking about here is not just convenience, folks.
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  It was groundbreaking and it shifted the entire landscape of
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  how betting worked in Las Vegas. But it wasn't just
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  the mobile side. Canner was willing to take wagers that
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  made everyone else's head spin. Most books in Las Vegas
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  had limits around twenty grand, maybe a little higher. If
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  they trusted you Canner, they were taking half million dollar
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  wagers without blinking. I had regulars who'd walk in on
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  a Saturday morning and lay down one hundred and ten
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  thousand dollars on a college football game like it was
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  pocket change. Then they double that on NFL Sunday Slate,
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  and the risk team at Canner they didn't flinch. These
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  dudes welcomed it. Now, I always wondered in the back
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  of my mind how when the hell they managed to
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  stomach those kinds of numbers. You can't offset that kind
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  of action just by balancing the books the traditional way
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  I figured, Hell, maybe it's the Wall Street money behind them.
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  Maybe the Canter Fitzgerald bankroll was so deep they could
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  take a beating and not even feel it. I chalked
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  it up to New York arrogance married the bottomless capital.
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  Boy was your boy wrong? But before I get to
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  that part, the darker part, I will say this, Working
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  there wasn't all bad. In fact, for a while, it
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  was electric. The place was fast paced, action packed, and
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  every day was a parade of wild characters. You'd see
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  Wells stroll in with entourages, Sharps fly in from New
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  York or Chicago, help Billy Walters himself having his beards
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  lay down, action like it was an art form. It
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  was like being front row to a show that never stopped.
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  The adrenaline that I thought I had left behind at
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  the joint, it was right back in my veins. Still,
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  there was something simmering under the surface, behind the curtain,
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  behind the gloss of Wall Street innovation and Vegas flash,
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  there was another storyline playing out, a storyline that felt
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  less like a corporate success story and more like something
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  Martin Scorsese would have written if he ever set a
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  movie in a sports book. And that story was the
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  Jersey Boys scandal. See, canner swagger didn't just attract whales
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  and sharps, it attracted sharks. And the Jersey Boys, well,
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  they were in some Broadway troop. They were an East
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  Coast crew that turned Canner's wide open playbook into their
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  personal money machine. This wasn't about betting a few games again, Lucky.
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  This was about running an organized ring, wandering millions through
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  Canner's operation and e betting themselves so deep in the
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  system that they practically became part of the furniture. These
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  guys moved action like pros. Bets were funneled through Canner
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  like water through a pipeline East Coast to Vegas, Vegas
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  back to the East Coast. It was seamless, and they
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  weren't shy about it. They'd come into town, plant themselves
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  in the book, and start throwing down wagers so massive
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  that even the most seasoned old timers couldn't believe what
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  they were seeing. But Canner, they didn't care. All they
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  saw was volume. All they saw was numbers that they
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  could brag about back on Wall Street. So now let's
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  talk leadership, because that's why we're all here. Because this
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  wasn't happening in a vacuum. At the very top sat
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  Howard Lutnik, the man who ran counter Fitzgerald. He wasn't
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  in the trenches, but make no mistake, he was the
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  king of the whole empire. His vision, his ambition, his
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  hunger to bring that Wall Street swagger into Las Vegas
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  is what set the whole thing in motion. He believed
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  that Canner could do in the desert what they did
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  with Bonds in New York, rewrite the game and crush
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  the competition on the ground. In Vegas, the face of
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  counter gaming was Leamidas, and Amitas wasn't your typical suit.
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  He had a reputation before he even set foot in town,
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  and not a clean one. People called him brash, abrasive,
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  even CD. He was the kind of guy who thrived
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  in gray areas, who knew how to throw elbows. He
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  carried himself with the aura of a man you didn't
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  want to cross. In a city that's always been built
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  on hustlers and deal makers, Amitas slid right into the
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  landscape like he was born under the neon. And Amidas
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  brought that edge to everything that Canter did. He pushed limits.
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  Garrett regulators and strutted like Cantor was untouchable, and for
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  a while it looked like he was right. But the
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  Jersey Boy scandal changed all of that. When the Feds
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  came knocking, the facade came crumbling down. What had looked
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  like innovation and swaggers suddenly seemed like corruption and complete
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  And of course, the first of the fall weren't the
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  guys in corner offices. It never is. It was ticket riders,
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  the runners, the floor guys, the people like me who
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  were just grinding out a paycheck. They were the ones
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  dragged out in cuffs, first paraded like sacrificial lambs while
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  the executive scrambled to spin a narrative. Yo. It was
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  surreal sitting there realizing that the company you thought was
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  rewriting the book on sports wagering was really just setting
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  the stage for one of the ugliest scandals this town
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  had ever seen. The Jersey Boy scandal was like a
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  mirror held up to Canner. It showed the arrogance, the greed,
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  the recklessness for what it really was. Ludnik at the top,
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  insulated by his empire, his political connections, a Mitas in Vegas,
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  running the show like a street boss in a customed suit,
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  and in the middle a system so hungry for volume,
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  for clout, for dominance, had it let the wolves right
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  through the front door. Looking back now, I realized I
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  didn't escape when I left the joint. I just traded
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  guitars and pyrotechnics for money, lines and mobsters. Canner Gaming
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  wasn't just another sports book. It was the Wall Street
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  fever dream dropped into the Nevada Desert and the Jersey Boys.
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  They weren't just some scandal. They were the inevitable result
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  of arrogance meeting opportunity, and me. Well, I was just
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  a guy trying to take a breather, to step away
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  from the stress of the stage. Instead, I ended up
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  standing right in the middle of a story that could
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  have been ripped straight from a Scorsese script. Rock and
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  Roll might have burned me out, but Canter Gaming, well,
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  that taught me what it looks like when ambition, arrogance,
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  and corruption all rolled the dice together, and in Vegas,
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  even the house loses when they're playing the Feds. The scandal,
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  the Jersey Boy scandal, wasn't just some small time hustle.
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  It was an operation that grew so large and bold
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  it eventually made Canner Gaming synonymous with one of the
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  biggest illegal betting rings and modern sports its history. At
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  its heart, it was an East Coast crew of bookies, fixers,
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  and betters who figured out how to exploit Canner's willingness
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  to take massive wagers without blinking. These weren't your neighborhood
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  corner bookies. These were seasoned operators who had been around
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  organized gambling for decades. And at center stage on the
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  operational side from Cantor was Mike Colbert, who wasn't just
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  some street level hustler, He was actually a Canter Gaming executive.
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  Colbert served as the sports director at M Resort, and
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  his nickname came from his reputation for sharp numbers and analytics.
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  On paper, he was the polish face of the cutting
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  edge sports book. Behind the scenes, though, Colbert was the
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  lynchpin between Canner's legitimate operation and the Jersey Boy's illegal network.
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  Working under Colbert's umbrella were a cast of characters who
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  looked like they walked straight out of a Scorsese film.
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  These Coast faction included Paul Pauli Mazzai, a Pittsburgh, Areia bookmaker,
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  with deep ties to mob connected gambling. Alongside them was
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  Joseph Ochi Sharp, another longtime bookmaker who knew how to
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  move large volumes of money without drawing too much attention.
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  Together they orchestrated the betting side, pushing millions through Canner's
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  books under the guise of legitimate action. The crew's strategy
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  was simple but devastatingly effective. Place massive bets through Canner's
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  no limit system, used Colbert to increase the skids and
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  then funnel the profits back east. What made this operation
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  so powerful was Canner's appetite for volume. Most sports books
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  would freeze up if someone tried to drop six figures
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  on a game Canner they welcomed it. The company bragged
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  about their ability to handle action that nobody else would touch.
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  That arrogance created the perfect opening for the Jersey Boys,
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  and look, the money flowed like a river. Over just
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  a few years, the crew is believed to have moved
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  tens of millions through Canner's books. The wagers weren't small
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  time either. Six figure bets were common and sometimes even bigger.
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  For every Sharp who thought they were outsmarting the system,
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  there was a Jersey boy on the other side. Moving
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  the money with inside connections. It became a closed loop
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  of high stakes and higher risks. But this wasn't just
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  about money laundering. This was about power. By embedting themselves
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  in counter system, the Jersey Boys could operate with the
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  kind of legitimacy most underground bookmakers could only dream of.
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  They weren't ducking in and out of social clubs or
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  hiding from collectors. They were walking right into licensed sports
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  books on the strip, betting and playing sight and cashing
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  out with the blessing of a Wall Street back company.
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  All right, folks, we're gonna wrap up episode one right here,
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  and in the next episode we're gonna pick up where
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  we left off. All of the information that goes with
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  this episode can be found in the description box.