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HOLLYWOOD -- A new movie out this month about professional sports bettors is called "The Best of It" and one of the stars of the two-hour documentary is the late Ken "The Shrink" Weitzner, who created two of the Internet's first sports betting portals, ThePrescription.com and EyeOnGambling.com.
Last week, Gambling 911 spoke with the film's director and producer, Scott Pearson Eberly, and asked him, among other things, why he chose Weitzner as one of the four professional sports bettors that he followed around in Las Vegas during the 2010 NCAA basketball tournament and featured in the film.
Here is a transcript of that interview:
Gambling 911: How did you come up with the idea to make a documentary about sports betting?
Scott Pearson Eberly: I was working as a producer for TVG, a horse racing channel, and had produced about 600 feature segments. I became fascinated with the characters involved in the sport, especially the guys who would be clocking the horses' times and then going over to the $1,000 minimum bet window and placing bets. I started going to Las Vegas, I did some radio appearances, I met some professional gamblers who bet sports for a living and I developed the idea for the movie.
G9: What was your thinking in deciding to include "The Shrink" as one of the four professional sports bettors profiled in your film?
SPE: When I was in Las Vegas, I was on John Kelly's radio show and it was through him that I got to meet Ken. Ken told some stories about gambling and I thought he would make an interesting character for the movie.
G9: How much of Ken's checkered past did you know about?
SPE: I knew a little bit.
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G9: Did you research him? When you started the movie, did you google Ken Weitzner to see everything about him?
SPE: No, I didn't really google him at the time. I just talked to him.
G9: What was it like working with "The Shrink"?
SPE: That was the tricky part of the film. I only had about 45 minutes of footage of him, compared to hundreds of hours of footage each for the other three professional sports bettors featured in the film. In the initial first cut, there were only two scenes of Ken. Then through cutting and kind of building and crafting, there were a couple more scenes.
G9: What was it about "The Shrink" that you found so compelling?
SPE: Really, the nickname. To me, it was a psychological study. I was fascinated with people who thought they could be professional gamblers.
G9: Are you aware that he was not a real doctor and never was and that his calling himself a shrink was a big scam?
SPE: Yeah. But the film never goes there. It's more about the rich rivalry that develops between "The Shrink" and "Boston" (one of the other gamblers in the movie).
G9: Does the film deal with Ken's suicide?
SPE: That happened just a few weeks after Ken's footage was shot, so yes, it's mentioned in the movie. It comes as quite a surprise, because most people who watch the movie didn't know anything about it.
By Tom Somach
Gambling 911 Staff Writer
tomsomach@yahoo.com
