About this app
About Master Joker
More than a year after then-Houston Astros pitcher Lance McCullers faced menacing threats from an exasperated bettor, questions remain about whether the proposed bans will serve as a meaningful deterrent to agitated sportsbook customers. An investigation later determined that the bettor resided overseas.
Since the Supreme Court’s PASPA decision in 2018, there has been an uptick on harassment against athletes from bettors. The collection of incidents, in the view of the industry, is typically construed as both troubling and prevalent. Against a backdrop of alarming threats in numerous sports, perhaps the most disconcerting occurred at the hands of Benjamin “Parlay” Patz, a California bettor.
Approximately 15 months after the high court’s ruling, Patz sent a series of explicit messages to four members of MLB’s Tampa Bay Rays, threatening to “sever” their necks open. Accused by federal investigators of targeting more than 300 accounts of pro and college athletes, Patz pleaded guilty in 2021 to transmitting threats in interstate or foreign commerce. Although a judge ordered Patz to undergo mental health treatment and abstain from gambling, he did not sentence the bettor to prison.
About Master Joker
Air travel is booming, but Las Vegas isn’t seeing the same lift, as tourism numbers remain turbulent.
Through July, the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority (LVCVA) reported that visitor volume has rebounded only 0.5%. 2026 followed a difficult 2025, where visitation crashed 7.5%.
Far fewer travelers are arriving in the casino town by air this year. Harry Reid International Airport reported 30.2 million passengers through July—a 6.9% drop from the same period in 2025—with international traffic down nearly 9%.
What is Master Joker?
To all of those I met at the handful of conferences I attended before Covid-19 sent everything to digital, and all of those I met over email or Zoom since, it was a pleasure to meet you. I hope we get the chance to meet again when all of this is over, and you can reach me at any of my contact details listed at the bottom if you want to catch up in the meantime.
I’m still not 100% sure what I’ll be doing next, but I suspect it will still be in the gambling industry. This has been my life for more than a decade, and it’s an industry I continue to love and appreciate. No matter if I continue to write about it or throw myself back into an operations setting, it will always be apart of who I am. If you still want to be in touch, you can connect with me on LinkedIn, or you can follow me on Twitter if you to know whatever tangent I’ve gone off on next.
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