Never forget Mike Lebron

smiling_Hans

smiling_Hans

Well-known member
One of the reason many said pool is where it is now and before streaming and Matchroom saved pool.

It was once on ESPN but this man supposedly changed it all.

Anyone know this?
 
misterpoole said:
I was thinking of Mike Lebron the other day while watching Capito beat all those 800 players. It was a fleeting thought :)
Hope Capito bet on himself.
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If he does bet on pool, he is subject to being barred from all Matchroom events.
 
It's probably the most overblown thing in the history of pool. Had pool been a thriving sport, it would have drove the ratings UP. Instead, we blame this one-off situation for pool's demise. Make no mistake it was wrong on many levels but sports are full of betting scandals, and it's only going to get worse with how prevalent gambling is now.
 
BasementDweller said:
It's probably the most overblown thing in the history of pool.
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No, it isn't.

To compare it to other betting scandals is to miss the point. The Mirage had just opened and was trying to surpass its next-door neighbor, Caesar's Palace, in sports book handle. One way it tried to do this was by staging sporting events on its own premises, and the biggest beneficiary was boxing. The Mirage built a boxing venue and staged the Buster Douglas vs Evander Holyfield title fight. An unlikely beneficiary of the Mirage's venture into sports was pool, and the staging of the Challenge of Champions at the Mirage gave pool a path to becoming a sport with a significant betting handle.

The actions of a few, that amounted to a very small, but very obvious theft of the sportsbook of the Mirage, erased that chance and almost thirty-five years later, pool has virtually no presence as a betting sport in the Las Vegas sports books.
 
I don’t know all the history of that event and who was in on the take. Every time it’s mentioned, Lebron gets his name attached to it like a patsy. Wouldn’t be more accurate to associate Buddy as the Pete Rose of pool in this story? Threads like this get titled “Never forget Mike Lebron”. Why don’t they get titled “Never forget Buddy Hall”? I’m not trying to tarnish legacies but isn’t that a more accurate framing of culpability?
 
Bob Jewett said:
If he does bet on pool, he is subject to being barred from all Matchroom events.
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One of the more interesting hypocrisies of Emily & MR. In 2019 I made my way to Vegas to see the 1st US Open in MR’s hands. While there I saw Emily rip into a couple of Filipino players after she got wind they were gambling amongst themselves on a practice table, she was right nasty about it.

She had a big problem with that, yet she had just ripped the US Open out of its previous home in Southern Virginia and moved it into a gambling casino in Vegas. So gambling is a problem but she”ll get in bed first with a Casino in Vegas for that event, and then another in Atlantic City where the event is held now. Not to mention deals with Dafabet and BetVictor since then. What a hypocritical clown she is.
 
Colonel said:
One of the more interesting hypocrisies of Emily & MR. In 2019 I made my way to Vegas to see the 1st US Open in MR’s hands. While there I saw Emily rip into a couple of Filipino players after she got wind they were gambling amongst themselves on a practice table, she was right nasty about it.

She had a big problem with that, yet she had just ripped the US Open out of its previous home in Southern Virginia and moved it into a gambling casino in Vegas. So gambling is a problem but she”ll get in bed first with a Casino in Vegas for that event, and then another in Atlantic City where the event is held now. Not to mention deals with Dafabet and BetVictor since then. What a hypocritical clown she is.
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Do you think she had a problem with gambling in general or do you think she had a concern of players gambling on the practice tables of an event hosted in a casino. I know other events hosted in casinos that have no gambling rules because the casino requires it as a stipulation of using their ballroom. They want to be the only ones hosting gambling activities via their casino floors where they get a take and the odds are in their favor. I’ve gambled on practice tables at those events but I’ve been very discrete about it. I would’ve assumed Emily would have been hot about it because if she noticed then they must have been very conspicuous.
 
Mark me down for this supposed dump having had no significance on the popularity of pool. I'm pretty sure from the prior 100 threads on this, that they even held the same event the next year with betting. None of the squares watching the TV from their couches knew anything. Only a few in the inner pool circle knew/suspected (assuming it really was a dump...).
 
What's this about Emily having a problem with gambling? I don't think that is true at all. I recall her saying something to the effect 3-4 years ago she does not care in the slightest if players gamble. All of her pros gamble all the time, and call each other out on FB. Gambling on their matches on WNT events I'd agree would be a problem. But not gambling in the traditional sense on their own arranged matches.
 
iusedtoberich said:
Mark me down for this supposed dump having had no significance on the popularity of pool. I'm pretty sure from the prior 100 threads on this, that they even held the same event the next year with betting. None of the squares watching the TV from their couches knew anything. Only a few in the inner pool circle knew/suspected (assuming it really was a dump...).
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Not just the next year…but a few.

So much bullshit from people that don’t know shit. 🤷🏻‍♂️
 
I thought everyone knew of this.
I remember watching a recording of that match and thinking, "I can't believe Buddy played that poorly."
It was not until after that I learned about the fix.
Shameful.
A bunch of guys set men's professional pool back decades for a quick payday.
IIRC, Earl was told about it and wanted no part of it.
Maybe someone can tell me if that's true.
 
sjm said:
No, it isn't.

To compare it to other betting scandals is to miss the point. The Mirage had just opened and was trying to surpass its next-door neighbor, Caesar's Palace, in sports book handle. One way it tried to do this was by staging sporting events on its own premises, and the biggest beneficiary was boxing. The Mirage built a boxing venue and staged the Buster Douglas vs Evander Holyfield title fight. An unlikely beneficiary of the Mirage's venture into sports was pool, and the staging of the Challenge of Champions at the Mirage gave pool a path to becoming a sport with a significant betting handle.

The actions of a few, that amounted to a very small, but very obvious theft of the sportsbook of the Mirage, erased that chance and almost thirty-five years later, pool has virtually no presence as a betting sport in the Las Vegas sports books.
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The idea that someone in Vegas was taken for a few rolls of cash and it somehow killed pool's chances of making it big time is quite optimistic. Even the idea that sports betting in general was going to all of a sudden turn pool into something resembling a major sport is far fetched in my view. It was always about promotion and always will be. Matchroom understands this. Create a worthy product and sports betting is just gravy on top, it wasn't then and it isn't now the main course.
 
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BasementDweller said:
The idea that someone in Vegas was taken for a few rolls of cash and it somehow killed pool's chances of making it big time is quite optimistic. Even the idea that sports betting in general was going to all of a sudden turn pool into something resembling a major sport is far fetched in my view. It was always about promotion and always will be. Matchroom understands this. Create a worthy product and sports betting is just gravy on top, it wasn't then and it isn't now the main course.
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Much truth here. Pool was never going to get big because of the Vegas sports handle, but that handle would have grown and would have created more interest in pool than otherwise. Certainly, betting on snooker helped that sport. As you say, however, it is more about promotion, but even Matchroom understands that partnering with the sportsbooks helps grow the business. That's why they have, on numerous occasions, had a sportsbook as the title sponsor of both snooker and pool events.
 
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