Sports Betting Documentaries to Check Out

These days, you can find documentaries on virtually every subject imaginable. Sadly, sports betting has not captivated filmmakers to the degree we would have liked. Hence, not many docs exist that cover sports wagering despite this entertainment form boasting a vast array of interesting angles. Still, we do our best here to tell you about five documentaries on betting that are worthy of your time. Thus, let us run them down quickly below, and you decide which ones you should seek out and which you can do without ever watching.

30 for 30: The Legend of Jimmy the Greek

Born Dimetrios Georgios Synodinos in Steubenville, Ohio, James George Snyder, better known under his nickname, Jimmy the Greek, was a famed US sports commentator who would occasionally chime in on CBS’s broadcast The NFL Today. The Greek was also a Sin City bookmaker and renowned in sports circles for accurately predicting NFL scores. His pieces of advice featured on The NFL Today program would get used by bettors across the US concerning how to approach spread betting on games from America’s premium football league. However, despite his sports betting acumen, he now mostly gets recognized in pop culture for his ill-advised and racist comments regarding how American slavery breeding practices are the reasons the country’s black population is its race of most superior athletes. Snyder got fired for expressing such views in a 1988 lunchtime interview with WRC-TV producer-reporter Ed Hotaling.

In March 2020, Jimmy the Greek got the 30 for 30 treatment, which tells the story of how this man from a family of Greek immigrants overcame childhood turmoil to establish himself as the most-known name in the US sports handicapping realm. For those living under a rock, 30 for 30 is an ESPN documentary series that highlights interesting events or people in the world of sports history. ESPN’s piece on Jimmy the Greek was part of the series’ initial volume, and it got directed by Fritz Mitchell, boasting a running time of fifty-two minutes. It is available in DVD form on Amazon and can get streamed on various platforms online.

60 Minutes: Billy Walters

While ESPN 30 for 30 has become a super-established TV documentary brand, its reputation cannot match that of the News Magazine 60 Minutes, which debuted in 1968 and contains multiple reporter-centered docu-style investigations. Most of the segments on this show, which enjoys worldwide popularity and has offshoots in different countries, last around twelve to fifteen minutes. That is also the case with the 60 Minutes’ story of Billy Walters, an American entrepreneur who gets labeled as the best sports gambler ever. Allegedly, this Kentucky native had a winning streak that ran for three decades, and in 1987, he sought to return to his business roots. Billy now owns four golf courses, multiple car dealerships, and various commercial properties.

According to some estimates, Billy Walters’ net worth gets guessed at around two hundred million dollars. He was a member of the notorious Computer Group, one of the founders of this collective, which used software to process the probability of sports contests, producing only one losing year within an almost four-decade period. Despite this reputation and legend, Walters has admitted that his software only generated accurate predictions on around 57% of the wagers he made. Still, his gambling story and life are fascinating, and they get depicted in a 60 Minutes segment viewable on YouTube.

Showtime Sports’ Action

What is Action? It is a four-part 2019 docuseries produced by Showtime Sports. It covers the fall of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, or in other words, how the US Supreme Court lifted the US federal ban on sports betting, permitting the rise of this pastime on US soil.

The first episode of this series aired on Showtime on March 24th, 2019. On each subsequent Sunday, three more episodes aired, with the fourth one depicting the end of the 2018 NFL season, and how sharp gamblers and handicappers in America get excited about placing their bets on Super Bowl LIII. Showtime’s Action features various notable names from the gambling landscape, including the self-advertised GOAT of sports betting, Dave Oancea, known to the masses as Vegas Dave. Dave also became renowned as the guy who sold the world’s most expensive baseball card collection in 2020.

Now Place Your Bets: The History of Sports Betting in America

Dennis Tobler is a sports handicapper who has spent most of his life in Las Vegas, Nevada. He began his sports gambling journey in 1971 as a runner in the Midwest, and in 1980, Tobler made Vegas his full-time home. Aside from his expertise in gambling on sports, Dennis has also served as a TV analyst on betting-related topics and is also a local radio personality.

In 2016, he produced, directed, wrote, and edited a documentary that detailed the rise of sports wagering in Nevada named Now Place Your Bets, which got released in 2017. It contains in-depth interviews and archival footage on this topic, showing essential milestones that sharpen the US sports gambling industry into what it is today. Vegas Dave also makes an appearance in this film, as do baseball trailblazer Pete Rose and American mobsters Joe D’Amico and Frank Cullotta. Created with a minuscule budget of only $85,000, you can watch this documentary on Vimeo for $9.99, which gives you a one-week streaming period, or you can purchase a physical DVD copy of its official website for $24.99.

The Bet – In The Grip Of The Gambling Mafia

We found this super interesting documentary on YouTube, which apparently got released in 2013 and uploaded on the world’s top streaming site the year after. Based on our research, this doc on football betting and match-fixing got produced for the German ARD radio and TV organization by Uwe Schwering and Benjamin Best, two journalists who worked for ARD.

To our surprise, The Bet – In The Grip of The Gambling Mafia is a pretty high-end TV documentary where you can watch UEFA higher-ups discussing corruption in football and how gambling affects the planet’s most popular sports. Subjects like bribes paid to referees and players get covered in The Bet, as is how organized crime has negatively impacted youth leagues and senior international events. It is well worth the watch, and you can enjoy it for free on YouTube, so what are you waiting for?

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