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Ken "The Shrink" Weitzner's main rival in the early days of the sports betting portal wars was "shocked" but not "surprised" to learn of his recent death by suicide.
Weitzner and his wife, Jackie, killed themselves with pills and poison gas a week and a half ago in the garage of their Chesapeake, Virginia, USA, residence.
Weitzner, 54, ran sports betting portal Eye on Gambling (www.eog.com) and before that a similar portal, The Prescription (www.therx.com).
His main rival in the early days of The Prescription was Brian Georgia, who ran the Internet's first sports betting portal, Bettor's World (www.bettorsworld.com).
Georgia was unaware of Weitzner's death when contacted this week by Gambling911.com at a Connecticut hospital, where he is recovering from a heart attack.
He had been in the hospital for almost a month, had not been online in that time and thus hadn't heard what happened.
"I don't know what to say," Georgia said, when asked for comment on his longtime rival's demise. "I'm a little shocked, but not totally surprised by the news.
"I knew Weitzner fairly well and had met him on several occasions. Knowing what kind of character he was, with a crazy demeanor, I'm not floored by this."
In a recent interview with Gambling911.com, Las Vegas writer Buzz Daly, who once worked for Weitzner, said "The Shrink" was obsessed with Georgia and Bettor's World.
"I would agree with that," Georgia said.
"At one time Bettor's World was No. 1 and The Prescription was No. 2. Weitzner was obsessed with beating Bettor's World. And eventually he did. Eventually he surpassed us both in posters and advertisers."
Georgia blamed the demise of Bettor's World, at least from its perch as No. 1 sports betting portal on the Net, on censorship he imposed on his site.
"Our big mistake was censoring forum posters who criticized our advertisers," Georgia said. "Our competition wasn't doing that. Eventually it became a free speech issue. Our posters migrated to other sites where their critical posts about offshore sportsbooks weren't censored."
Georgia said if he had to do it all over again, he would do things differently.
"Of course hindsight is always 20-20," he said. "But if I could go back and do it again, I would not have been so heavy-handed when it came to censoring forum posts about our advertisers.
"If someone posted something negative on Bettor's World about an advertiser and the advertiser complained, I would remove the offending post. Our competitors didn't do that. It gave them more credibility and hurt ours."
The rivalry between Georgia and Weitzner reached its low point in 2001, when Weitzner sued Georgia for $15,000 over remarks Georgia made about Weitzner in an e-mail newsletter Georgia sent out to his website readers.
When Georgia threatened to counter-sue Weitzner over remarks Weitzner made about Georgia on The Prescription, including Weitzner writing Georgia belonged in an insane asylum, Weitzner dropped his lawsuit.
Weitzner eventually sold The Prescription to Marty Jensen and then started Eye on Gambling.
Georgia sold his interest in Bettor's World about eight years ago.
By Tom Somach
Gambling911.com Staff Writer
