Former illegal bookmaker Mathew Bowyer reflects on Nevada’s Black Book and sports betting’s future
On a pleasant, 75-degree day at a golf course in Dana Point, California, with the Pacific Ocean in view, ESPN investigative reporter Tisha Thompson learned from two former illegal bookmakers how to talk potential clients into wagering on sports. Mathew Bowyer and Owen Hanson are felons who have recently been released from prison in separate cases that include, for each of them, operating illegal sportsbooks. Thompson is the ESPN reporter who earlier broke the story that Ippei Mizuhara, Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani’s Japanese-language interpreter, placed millions of dollars in illegal sports bets, using Bowyer as his bookie. In California, where ...
Learn More
Celebrities to compete for cash, get ‘whacked’ in Mob-inspired reality show
A Mob-themed competition show is set to air soon on Hulu and Disney+, featuring celebrity contestants at a luxury Italian…
Learn More
Mob fashion at its finest: The top 5 best-dressed mobsters
Adjectives that come to mind when people think of the most infamous organized crime figures may include ruthless, intimidating, or…
Learn More
Robert Blakey, architect of the RICO Act that crippled the Mob, dies at age 90
No one made life more difficult for the Mob than Robert Blakey. In 1969, Blakey, a Notre Dame Law School…
Learn More
Myth busted: Vietnam War-era drug traffickers did not smuggle heroin in soldiers’ coffins
Fifty years after U.S. officials brought down Leslie “Ike” Atkinson, the claim that heroin was smuggled into the United States…
Learn More
Geraldo Rivera uncovered ‘The Mystery of Al Capone’s Vaults’ on live television 40 years ago
On April 21, 1986, television reporter Geraldo Rivera completed his final on-air shot in a live broadcast from the Chicago…
Learn More
Embattled Montreal Mafia clings to underworld power amid setbacks
After nearly two decades of intermittent unrest in the Montreal Mafia, the Rizzuto dynasty is once again on the ropes….
Learn More
Colombia approves plan to euthanize ‘cocaine hippos’ introduced by Pablo Escobar
More than 30 years after his death, Colombia is still struggling with the consequences of Pablo Escobar’s reign. This week,…
Learn More