Controversial ‘Money Talks’ Premieres on CNBC Prime Tuesday Night (Video)
A reality show about sports betting that some have argued has little to do with reality at all will make its debut Tuesday night on CNBC Prime. “Money Talks” takes viewers inside the world of Steve Stevens, a sports handicapper who runs VIP Sports out of Las Vegas.
The problem: Some of the biggest names in the sports betting scene today say they have never heard of Steve Stevens or VIP Sports, and the little we have since learned has little to be desired.
Famed sports handicapper and the 2008 US Vice Presidential candidate on the Libertarian ticket, Wayne Root, spouted that every executive from CNBC should be fired for spotlighting a sports tout who he claims may not be legit. Stevens was also once convicted of running a telemarketing company that preyed on the elderly.
“I started my career as a national TV anchorman, host of five shows, and Network NFL Oddsmaker for Financial News Network which became CNBC,” Root boasted. “A few years back my life was profiled by CNBC. I later became the first sports handicapper to run for President if United States and won the Vice Presidential nomination.
“Yet when they decided to create a reality show about sports gambling and follow a colorful sports handicapper, CNBC chose a man no one in Vegas has EVER heard of...who was in prison for bilking elderly victims?
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Don Best TV’s Todd Furhman suggested Stevens is part of a “disturbing trend”.
“We’re seeing a disturbing trend start to emerge; the proliferation of docudramas, movies and articles that lead to sensationalizing dishonest personalities within the sports betting industry,” Fuhrman, a former Caesar’s oddsmaker, wrote in a blog post on Monday. “The media consciously chooses to validate the wrong personalities, creating an aura around characters that are no better than modern-day carnies.”
Fuhrman then went on to point out that “no one, and I mean no one” knows Stevens.
Howard Kurtz, the 15-year host of CNN’s “Reliable Sources”, who recently moved to Fox News, comments;
“It certainly doesn’t inspire confidence for CNBC to showcase a man with this kind of checkered history. What I find particularly stunning is that the network is telling viewers to draw their own conclusions as if this were a guy who was merely controversial for his opinions as opposed to his financial shenanigans.”
- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com
