Unsolved Mysteries of Gambling Part 3: Did the Shrink Fake His Own Death?

The date was April 10, 2010, a Sunday--Easter Sunday, in fact.

That morning, rumors started appearing on the Internet, via sports betting posting forums and elsewhere, that a well-known figure in the sports betting world--Ken "The Shrink" Weitzner--had died.

Weitzner, who pretended to be a psychiatrist as his gimmick, created one of the first sports betting portals on the Internet--called The Prescription (www.therx.com)--and then sold it for $2 million and started a competing site, Eye on Gambling (www.eog.com).

The portals contained betting information for sports bettors and ads for offshore online sportsbooks.

The Weitzner death rumors started appearing slowly at first and then picked up speed.

No official reports could be found online--such as an obituary in Weitzner's hometown newspaper--but nevertheless many reports, usually anonymous, were appearing.

There were also many who were pooh-poohing the rumor, saying Weitzner, just 53 years of age, was in good health--how could he be dead?

Scroll Down for More..

Then more concrete details began to emerge.

And then, finally, the next day, an obit appeared in a Virginia newspaper.

The obit said Weitzner and his wife Jackie had both died over the weekend.

The initial obit didn't give much detail, but later reports, mostly by online gambling media, revealed that Weitzner and his wife had killed themselves in the Chesapeake, Virginia mansion they had recently built with profits earned from the sale of The Prescription.

Further reports stated the couple had taken sleeping pills and then lit a gas grill inside their home, causing them to pass out and die from carbon monoxide poisoning, an unusual suicide method in America but common in other parts of the world.

Speculation then ran rampant online as to what really happened, with the most common question being, why?

The speculation appeared in two major waves.

The first wave of speculation wondered why Weitzner, who recently became a millionaire with the sale of his website, would do such a thing.

He had plenty of money, a new home, a new website and plenty to live for.

And why did his wife--who had two grown sons from a previous marriage and a brood of grandchildren--participate in the double suicide?

Did Weitzner, a high-stakes sports bettor himself, get in over his head in debt, and to the wrong people?

Was his new business actually failing and he took the easy way out?

Was someone after him--he did have a lot of enemies--and was this a pre-emptive strike?

No one could figure it out, and a reported suicide note left at the scene of the deaths provided little info about motive.

Then the second wave of speculation hit the Internet.

Weitzner was not really dead, the theories went.

The good (fake) doc had faked his death, and everyone had been fooled.

But why would he fake his own death by an elaborate double suicide?

The most commonly-held theory was that Weitzner had entered the Federal government's Witness Protection Program.

He faked his death, the theory posited, after being threatened with arrest for any number of possible crimes.

In order to save his own skin, he ratted out someone involved in something much more serious, and then had to disappear into the Witness Protection Program to keep from being killed in retaliation.

He couldn't just disappear because whoever was after him had a long arm and might eventually find him.

So he faked his death--his wife's too, so she could come with him into hiding--so everyone would believe he had died and no one would go looking for him.

So just how plausible--or crazy--is the theory that "The Shrink" faked his and his wife's deaths and went into hiding in the Federal Witness Protection Program in order to avoid arrest and retaliation from someone he ratted out?

Gambling 911 can now reveal new information about the controversy--info that was gleaned five years ago from a first-hand source but never reported.

What was widely reported at the time was that Weitzner and his wife were supposedly cremated, which avoids the necessity of a burial and gravesite.

And that the funeral was closed casket.

But now, Gambling 911 can reveal exclusively that a Gambling 911 reporter interviewed the director of the funeral home where Weitzner and his wife were supposedly taken after their deaths and cremated, and the director said he never saw the bodies of Weitzner and his wife before they were cremated.

He usually would see such corpses, he said.

So why would he not see them?

Was it all an elaborate hoax, one which the funeral director may or may not have been a part of?

A few months after the reported suicides, Gambling 911 reported exclusively that Weitzner's mansion had been sold--to a defense contractor who did business with the U.S. Navy, an entity of the Federal government.

Was that just a coincidence too?

All we can report is that it remains an unsolved mystery of gambling.

By Tom Somach

Gambling 911 Staff Writer

tomsomach@yahoo.com