Sportswriter movie review of Two For The Money
stevek
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A Philly sportwriter's article about the reality of the sports betting information used in the new movie, Two For The Money. Every longtime sports fan in Philly knows who Stan Hochman is. Hochman is 100% correct with his analysis here - Steve K
Posted on Fri, Oct. 07, 2005
Not all the numbers add up in betting flick
By STAN HOCHMAN
For the Daily News
You've been betting pro football for years and losing your assets.
So you dial one of those 900 numbers you hear on the radio or see in the newspaper, the one promising to pick winners based on inside information.
The pick is free, usually after they've gotten your phone number and maybe even your credit card number. They give you the winner of the Monday night football game, you bet it, it wins, and you're hooked.
They call themselves "sports service" outfits because tout is a four-letter word in the industry. Tout is one of the few four-letter words that isn't used in "Two for the Money," the new Al Pacino flick that takes a tediously up-close look at the tawdry business.
Hollywood seldom gets gambling right. "The Grifter" was a prime example, botching the way bookmakers handle betting on horse racing.
Even Anjelica Houston couldn't save that one.
Pacino tries here, playing an ex-gambler married to an ex-junkie, running this high-pressure tout service out of the top floor of a lovely brownstone near the Brooklyn Bridge. He lures this handsome ex-quarterback (Matt McConaughey) to New York because the guy seems to have a gift for picking winners. Maybe the movie should be rated ex-ex-ex?
Come to think about it, the plot, thinner than a dime, revolves around picking the winner of Super Bowl XXXX. Huh? Shouldn't that be Super Bowl XL?
That's not the only number they get wrong. Pacino charges his clients a fee and has his salesmen goading the customers into betting big money on a handful of games, with the understanding that if the picks win, the client owes the service 10 percent of his winnings.
That's exorbitant. Gamblers live on the slim edge, needing to win six of 10 bets to show a profit, because they're risking $110 to win $100 no matter which team they pick. Get only five right, you lose $50. Anyone dumb enough to give back 10 percent of his winnings, has to nail seven of 10 to stay ahead of the game.
The boldest touts claim they've picked 75 or 80 percent winners on Monday nights, without telling you they went 4-of-11 on the other games the last two Sundays. There are a couple of monitoring outfits, but even those are suspect.
If a client bets five games and the picks go 1-4, when the guy calls to squawk, they tell him he ought to upgrade from bronze level to silver level because the silver level picks went 6-and-0 last week.
The really devious outfits might give half the callers the Eagles and the other half the Cowboys this week.
There's one scene in the movie where Pacino is fondling stacks of Benjamins. It is a Sunday night and he's screeching about making $2 million that weekend. That means his clients made $20 million betting his picks, and are paying promptly with crisp, new $100 bills.
Unlikely.
There is one tragic-comic scene in the movie where Pacino attends a Gamblers Anonymous meeting, rants about compulsive gamblers preferring to lose because it validates their own worthless self-image.
And then he hands his business card to a couple of guys trying to kick the gambling addiction.
It seems obvious that screenwriter and co-producer Dan Gilroy has an ax to grind here. Too bad he didn't sharpen the ax and swing it more accurately.
Posted on Fri, Oct. 07, 2005
Not all the numbers add up in betting flick
By STAN HOCHMAN
For the Daily News
You've been betting pro football for years and losing your assets.
So you dial one of those 900 numbers you hear on the radio or see in the newspaper, the one promising to pick winners based on inside information.
The pick is free, usually after they've gotten your phone number and maybe even your credit card number. They give you the winner of the Monday night football game, you bet it, it wins, and you're hooked.
They call themselves "sports service" outfits because tout is a four-letter word in the industry. Tout is one of the few four-letter words that isn't used in "Two for the Money," the new Al Pacino flick that takes a tediously up-close look at the tawdry business.
Hollywood seldom gets gambling right. "The Grifter" was a prime example, botching the way bookmakers handle betting on horse racing.
Even Anjelica Houston couldn't save that one.
Pacino tries here, playing an ex-gambler married to an ex-junkie, running this high-pressure tout service out of the top floor of a lovely brownstone near the Brooklyn Bridge. He lures this handsome ex-quarterback (Matt McConaughey) to New York because the guy seems to have a gift for picking winners. Maybe the movie should be rated ex-ex-ex?
Come to think about it, the plot, thinner than a dime, revolves around picking the winner of Super Bowl XXXX. Huh? Shouldn't that be Super Bowl XL?
That's not the only number they get wrong. Pacino charges his clients a fee and has his salesmen goading the customers into betting big money on a handful of games, with the understanding that if the picks win, the client owes the service 10 percent of his winnings.
That's exorbitant. Gamblers live on the slim edge, needing to win six of 10 bets to show a profit, because they're risking $110 to win $100 no matter which team they pick. Get only five right, you lose $50. Anyone dumb enough to give back 10 percent of his winnings, has to nail seven of 10 to stay ahead of the game.
The boldest touts claim they've picked 75 or 80 percent winners on Monday nights, without telling you they went 4-of-11 on the other games the last two Sundays. There are a couple of monitoring outfits, but even those are suspect.
If a client bets five games and the picks go 1-4, when the guy calls to squawk, they tell him he ought to upgrade from bronze level to silver level because the silver level picks went 6-and-0 last week.
The really devious outfits might give half the callers the Eagles and the other half the Cowboys this week.
There's one scene in the movie where Pacino is fondling stacks of Benjamins. It is a Sunday night and he's screeching about making $2 million that weekend. That means his clients made $20 million betting his picks, and are paying promptly with crisp, new $100 bills.
Unlikely.
There is one tragic-comic scene in the movie where Pacino attends a Gamblers Anonymous meeting, rants about compulsive gamblers preferring to lose because it validates their own worthless self-image.
And then he hands his business card to a couple of guys trying to kick the gambling addiction.
It seems obvious that screenwriter and co-producer Dan Gilroy has an ax to grind here. Too bad he didn't sharpen the ax and swing it more accurately.
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Comments
Hollywood is so completely pro-gambling because of their longtime close business connections with Las Vegas. It's always interesting to watch the pro-gambling messages in Hollywood movies even in scenes involving gambling addiction. I'm not a member of Gamblers Anonymous but I know people who are, and that scene where Pacino hands out his business cards in the GA meeting...in real life he would have been very, VERY quickly thrown out of the meeting and not ever allowed back - LOL...Hollywood doing pro-gambling at its best! In my opinion messages like this are exactly what Hochman was talking about in the last few sentences of the review. Hollywood because of their close ties with gambling interests, doesn't like any groups trying to take "customers" away from gambling be it sports betting, casinos, racetracks, etc.
and man is rene russo aging rather bad!!