$30,000 in 1965

middleofnowhere said:
Nicky Vacchiano I was trying to remember his name the other day. Tell me if this sounds true. Mosconi told me he gave him the 7 ball for like $100.00 a game. In the same conversation he said he also gave Richie Florence weight and beat him as well. Does any of this sound reasonable.
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The story that went around in the pool world is that Nicky trapped Mosconi into giving him the five (or seven?) ball and the break on a ten foot table. They froze up some large sum of money, like $1,000 (500 each), which would correlate to 100 a game. Nicky had a lock or so he thought. Willie always derided the hustlers who played 9-Ball, saying it was too easy a game for him to bother with. Anyway, what Nicky didn't take into consideration was how hard it would be to break and run out on this big table. The story is that in nearly every game where Nicky failed to make a ball on the break, Willie ran out. And if somehow Nicky didn't run down to the five ball, that made it even easier for Willie to get out. Willie won the money and a legend was born. They were still telling that story when I came along 15 or 20 years later.
 
just like in poker entry fees havent risen enough for inflation. the difference is poker grew in size where pool shrunk.
the reason is that almost anyone had some kind of chance to win a tournament not like in pool where the top handful of players take home the bulk of the prize pool almost every time..
 
i knew puggy, jack, and nicky well. they all played close to a top player. nicky more so. few knew that.
all three made tremendous amounts of money at what they did well, but ended up up with little as they still gambled on what they werent good at..
 
garczar said:

Inmate Locator

www.bop.gov www.bop.gov
Says 5/09/2022 He's in what the Fed's call a ' Residential Re-entry Management' center. https://www.bop.gov/about/facilities/offices.jsp#rrm Sounds like a fancy term for a Federal douchebag halfway-house.
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Looks like he was in lock-up for seven and a half years and has less than a year to go in residential housing before he is fully released, although he will probably be serving parole for years. I'm sure he has money stashed and has had a lot of time to plan his next move. Scammers gonna scam!
 
iusedtoberich said:
I just looked it up the pga open paid $4900 for first place in 1965.
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Seems like back then bowlers bowled every week for $10,000 first prizes.

This from the PBA

"The 1965 Firestone Tournament of Champions was the first to offer $100,000 in prize money (including a then-record $25,000 first prize); the 1982 event featured a $200,000 purse, and the 1987 U.S. Open, sponsored by Seagram distillery, offered a $500,000 prize fund as well as the first $100,000 first-place prize in PBA" ...
 
middleofnowhere said:
Seems like back then bowlers bowled every week for $10,000 first prizes.

This from the PBA

"The 1965 Firestone Tournament of Champions was the first to offer $100,000 in prize money (including a then-record $25,000 first prize); the 1982 event featured a $200,000 purse, and the 1987 U.S. Open, sponsored by Seagram distillery, offered a $500,000 prize fund as well as the first $100,000 first-place prize in PBA" ...
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Actually in the 1960's on the PBA tour the first prize each week was $5,000. They did have two or three Major events that paid more though, as you noted above.
 
jay helfert said:
I hate to burst your bubble Karl but that $30,000 was the total prize money for the tournament. Back then the first place in each division was $2,500 and another $3,000 to the All Around champion. Of course, there were five figure scores being made in the back room. In 1968 at the Stardust I saw Puggy Pearson, along with Nicky Vacchiano (they needed his backing) and Jack Perkins take off St. Louis Suts (a big time building contractor) for over 100K in the back room playing One Pocket. They were playing single games for as much as 10K! In fact they covered whatever Suts had in each wad he pulled out of pocket. One game might be for $8,800 and the next game $9,200. It went on like that until he finally pulled up.
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I moved to St Louis in 1968 and am familiar with some building contractors. Do you happen to know his real name? Some of those contractors were dangerous people to get sideways with.
 
alstl said:
I moved to St Louis in 1968 and am familiar with some building contractors. Do you happen to know his real name? Some of those contractors were dangerous people to get sideways with.
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His last name was Sutton, that's all I know. He was mid to late 40's and kind of paunchy and balding. That's all I remember about him. Oh, and he carried LOADS of money on him! They played two consecutive nights and the place was packed watching the game. It was all done completely wide open (60's Vegas)! I was simply astounded by the amount of money being bet on each game. Suts would trhow a big wad on the table and say "Match it!" It might take three or four of them to cover each bet, and they wouldn't start the game until it was fully covered. Oh, Larry Perkins (Jack's brother) did a lot of the playing. Puggy took over for him when Suts pulled up on Perkins.

P.S. Suts didn't lose every game. Every time he won a game, new people would come on board with the coalition playing against him. It was like there was a conference before every game to see who was in and for how much.
 
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