Wizard Of Odds Sports Betting
With his financial acumen, extraordinary memory, keen intellect and the kind of charm necessary to win over even his adversaries, Donald J. Angelini had all of the stuff necessary to be the chief financial officer of a major Chicago corporation.
- Assuming you bet randomly, and ignoring ties, betting 11 to win 10 results in a house edge of 1/21, or 4.76%. Sometimes casinos will have happy hours, during which time you only have to 'lay 105,' which means risk $10.50 to win $10. Under the same assumptions, that lowers the house edge to 1/42, or 2.38%.
- Kenny White, the Wizard of Odds. Kenny White has earned a reputation as one of the greatest oddsmakers in the business. He has been featured on 60 Minutes, Fox Sports, and ESPN as well as in the New York Times, Book Maker, the Wall Street Journal, among others.
Some would say he was.
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Mr. Angelini, 74, died Wednesday at his longtime residence in Elmhurst after fighting cancer for years.
Dubbed the 'Wizard of Odds' in the Chicago Outfit, the name organized crime members for decades have given to the city's Mafia faction, Mr. Angelini was viewed by authorities as one of the top money makers in Chicago crime syndicate history.
To those who knew him, the father of three and grandfather of five was simply a generous gentleman.
'He was one of the finest, most wonderful men I have ever met,' said William A. Von Hoene Jr., an attorney at the Chicago firm of Jenner & Block who represented Mr. Angelini during the past decade.
'He was generous, kind, loving, devoted to his family and an extraordinary friend to many, many people,' Von Hoene said.
Mr. Angelini pleaded guilty to federal gambling charges in 1989 and was sentenced to 21 months in prison.
Prosecutors alleged that Mr. Angelini, along with the late Dominic Cortina, reigned as gambling czar over a $20 million per-year sports betting empire.
Mr. Angelini and his attorney scoffed at the government's figures, but government agents insisted their numbers may even have been conservative.
It wasn't Mr. Angelini's first run-in with the law, nor was it his last.
As early as the 1960s, when he was arrested with the late syndicate boss John 'Jackie the Lackey' Cerone, federal agents considered Mr. Angelini to be the brains behind the mob's vast sports gambling operation. They said he set nearly unbeatable 'spreads' on sporting events and controlled the odds for football, baseball and hockey games.
'He's one of the, I hate to say, great minds...within organized crime,' Wayne Johnson, the chief investigator for the Chicago Crime Commission, said in a recent interview.
Assistant U.S. Attorney John Burley, the federal organized crime prosecutor who secured Mr. Angelini's 1989 indictment, said he even grew to appreciate the man's mastery.
'He was a fast study, a very smart man,' Burley said. 'I came to appreciate his wizardry.'
Mr. Angelini recently made headlines again when he became the third organized crime figure to be banned from riverboat casinos here by the Illinois Gaming Board under the 'black book' provision of the state's casino law. According to law enforcement sources who tracked his activities, he was a regular at the Grand Victoria Casino in Elgin, where he wagered huge sums of cash.
Mr. Angelini and Cortina, both considered to be gentlemen by the government agents who tracked them, were never associated with the bloodshed that racked Chicago's underworld in the 1960s, 1970s and even into the 1980s.
Although he was known as a gentleman, Mr. Angelini once led authorities on a short chase along the Kennedy Expressway. They wanted to arrest him. He wanted to board a plane at O'Hare International Airport--not to flee justice, but to take a previously arranged vacation in Florida.
Visitation is scheduled for 3 to 9 p.m. Friday in Salerno Galewood Chapels, 1875 N. Harlem Ave., Chicago. A mass will be said at 10:30 a.m. Saturday in St. Vincent Ferrer Church, 1530 Jackson Ave., River Forest.
Wizard Of Odds Sports Betting Expert
