A Conversation with Billy Baxter -- Part I

Billy Baxter has been one of the most successful gamblers in Las Vegas for decades. To honor his career Baxter is featured on the cover of the current issue of Card Player Magazine. The feature story dives into his life as a career gambler and offers advice that Baxter has learned over the years. Baxter sat down with me to breakfast at Commerce Casino one morning to conduct the interview for the article and the stories rolled off his tongue for close to an hour.

The problem with a magazine story is that it is always edited for length, and some good stuff is left out of the final draft. The beauty of the internet is that the pages available are endless. So thanks to that advantage, featured below is the full transcript of the Baxter interview. Due to the length of the transcript it will be released in two parts. This first edition focuses on the life story of Baxter in his own words.

The Early Years

Ryan Lucchesi: Take me through the early years of your gambling exploits. How did that shape your life?

Billy Baxter: The way I really started playing poker is that in my hometown of Augusta, Georgia they had a little bar. I really wasn’t old enough to get in there. I was right on the border line, but I found out that they let the businessmen play poker there. I started going in there, but it wasn’t a cut game, they just allowed a table in the back part of the room. They ordered drinks and all. These were all prominent businessmen. They were bankers, lawyers, or whatever downtown, and they would come in the evenings and play two hours before they would head home. All that the guy serving drinks got out of it was that he was selling them drinks.

They said, bring us a deck of cards over here, it would be like me and you coming into here and we just start playing [laughs]. I have to admit that for a bunch of businessmen they were all very good players It was a country club crowd around there; they were all tough, tough players at anything they did. Anyway, so I got in the game and they break me. I had to go back to pool and make some more money and I would come back and they would break me again. But I got better; before it was over with I was beginning to take the money down pretty regularly.

RL: What game was played primarily in Augusta while you were learning?

BB: Back then they were playing just the regular games that people play. Seven-card stud, and different things, it was almost like dealer’s choice. Draw poker, jack’s or better, so I didn’t learn really any of the games that I got really good at until I got to Vegas.

RL: Is it true that you won enough money off of one of these businessmen that you were able to get half of his casino?

BB: Actually, what happened with that is they had a little illegal gambling going and I beat the guy that owned the place out of enough money that he took me in as a partner. We had a small casino and we also had betting on ball games. Then I got in trouble with that so I decided that I should move to Vegas where it was legal. When I got out there was when I really started playing a lot of poker. The first thing I found out is that the people that owned the casinos in Vegas were the people who liked to play poker. Where the Bellagio is now, which was the Dunes back then we had Major Riddle and Sid Wyman, who were the principal owners. They were both around 70 and they loved to play poker. And because they owned a casino they fancied themselves to be gamblers.

Trust me when I tell you they all played OK but not very well. So a lot of people, Doyle [Brunson], myself, Sarge [Ferris], we had a pretty tough crew that played around there. The game that they fancied, the game of choice for big money in those days was deuce-to-seven no-limit, so we played a lot of that. That’s one reason I boycotted hold’em for years. You notice I never played in the World Series during the early years when it wouldn’t have been as difficult to win any bracelet. I wouldn’t play because I didn’t want to encourage anybody to play no-limit hold’em. Doyle always wanted to hustle hold’em so I was trying to keep the game deuce-to-seven. We just wanted to keep our game in the mix. I was gambling to make money, I wasn’t gambling for any other reason.

RL: You first came to the Dunes on the way back from your honeymoon. Is that correct?

BB: We went to Hawaii and I wasn’t exactly planning to move to Vegas, we were just thinking about it. So we went to Hawaii and came back from the honeymoon and checked into the Dunes. We stayed there nine months without going home. I started playing poker there, which is what they did everyday. And that time was probably the greatest time there ever was in the history of poker, because the money was so big then. We were playing $500 ante with $1,000-$2,000 blinds, no-limit deuce-to-seven in the 1970’s, when you factor in the inflation that is much bigger than the $4,000-$8,000 game that runs today.

It was just huge and we had really tough players that played in there. We had Doyle, Sarge; Chip [Reese] came in two-three years later. [Johnny] Moss was around. We had Major Riddle and Sid Wyman, and Bobby Baldwin was in the game. We had one of the biggest drug dealers that ever existed, Jimmy Chagra. So there were big bucks floating around in that game. It was quite a poker game. We had three guys that had pretty much unlimited bank rolls. They didn’t mind losing it and they couldn’t play either, so that makes for a good poker game.

RL: A Sports Illustrated issue in 1984 stated that you were going to move back home to Georgia and retire from gambling. Did you ever attempt the move back home?

BB: Believe it or not I did do that. I moved back there in ’87 and I was back there about two years because I wanted to get my kinds out of Las Vegas. I got bored so I started betting sports and lo and behold the doors came down again. The FBI, and this that and the other, and I wound up with another case back there. So I said, “It’s just not going to work for me to live back here,” so I moved back to Vegas in 1990 and basically I just bet sports. I didn’t play any poker from ‘86 to about ’95, ten years where I didn’t play at all. I was right in Vegas and a lot of people didn’t even know I was there. I moved back into the same house that I lived in before because fortunately it didn’t sell while I moved away. It was a lucky break to move back into that same house. But then around ’96-’97 poker began to come back a little bit and they made people quit smoking. I started back playing, but I always just played here and there. I never devoted all of my time to poker because I was always pretty good at betting sports, better than anything else. If I hadn’t bet the sports I’m sure I would have played a lot more poker than I did.

RL: Was the new money flooding into the game the thing that ultimately brought you back?

BB: Well actually, I enjoy playing poker, like I said it’s kind of like going to the golf course. Now there’s a lot of money around. I still shut down poker when football season begins. I will probably not play any poker other than the big tournament at Bellagio for one week I won’t play any poker until after the football season ends, about 5 or 6 months. The reason I played a lot of poker this summer is because I chose not to bet baseball this year, which I did for about 40 years in a row. I’m passing time with poker and I enjoy it.

William E. Baxter vs. The United States of America

RL: Tell me about your court case William E. Baxter vs. The United States of America. You won in Nevada, and then you won again in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and then the government threatened to take it to the Supreme Court, but they held off. What was that experience like from your perspective?

BB: They wanted to take it to Supreme Court because they figured if they bluffed it we would make some kind of a deal, but we called their bluff. We were ready and said let’s go. They backed down then finally and returned all the money with interest. The one bad part about our legal system is that I didn’t get any legal fees covered. They kept my money tied up for 4-5 years for nothing. I believe lawsuits and litigation is a bad thing. I think if you bring on a lawsuit and you don’t win it you should have to pay for all of the legal fees.

RL: Your victory in that court case has been a huge benefit for all poker players in this country. How important was that victory for someone that wants to make a career from playing poker?

BB: I had a retirement plan and everything back in those days, and they said that it wasn’t earned income. Back in those days the maximum tax was 50 percent, and they wanted to add another 20 percent. They tried to make poker winnings the same thing as winning the lottery. I had documented poker tournament winnings, but I had paid the taxes on them. They were saying it was like putting a dollar in a slot machine and all of this money falls out, it’s just luck, just passive income.

So we compared me to Jack Nicklaus, he enters a golf tournament, wins it, and its earned income. I entered a poker tournament, won it, but to them Billy Baxter didn’t even have a job. Something was wrong there. The judge, one of the beautiful things that he said, I remember the words to this day. He told the lawyer that handled the case for the government, “I’ve heard your arguments and I’ve listened to them, and I have to tell you I find your argument completely ludicrous. I just wish you had some money so you could sit down and play with Mr. Baxter to see just how long you would last, and we’ll see just how much luck there is involved in this.” That was in Reno.

RL: Your defense successfully argued that it was your skill applied at a poker table that earned your poker winnings, making it earned income. A lot of people are referencing that case once again in response to UIGEA legislation. Does it mean a lot to you that the stand you took many years ago still has resonance?

BB: They just don’t want anything to do with gambling to be legitimate. That’s why they held on so hard; they didn’t want to give up the larger issue.

RL: It seems like there are a lot of parts in the country where people can’t get past the moral question with gambling, even back where you grew up in Georgia. Tell me about the casino you were running during the Masters Golf tournament that led to one of your arrests?

BB: The State, the IRS, and the Feds showed up. We had craps, roulette, blackjack, and everything. It was during the Masters Golf tournament. That was another one of my little episodes that I did time for prior to coming to Las Vegas, which is one of the reasons why I came here. I did a year for that one. I never felt bad about that, I didn’t want to go, but I always felt like first off, I only gambled with rich people, those that had a lot more money than me. I had no moral conscience that I was doing something wrong. I always felt like what I was doing was another thing, it was almost like robbing the rich like Robin Hood. To this day I still feel that way. And now poker has come into the main stream, they’ve brought it out of the back rooms and made it something you don’t have to feel ashamed about doing. I was just ahead of my time I guess. All of my kids knew what I did; I was up front about everything. I tried to run it like a business.

Lessons Learned

RL: Was there ever a real low point where you thought you might not be able to make it as a gambler?

BB: I was really fortunate and I got off to a good start. I have had a lot of ups and downs due to my involvement with the government over certain issues. Overall, I had a pretty steady life and one thing I chose to do early in life was I chose to pay taxes. That is one thing I would recommend to all gamblers. Money doesn’t do you a whole lot of good sitting in a box, it’s nice to have but in the end you want to be able to buy a nice home, or invest in stocks, or whatever you want to invest in. Not a lot of people wind up with a lot of money just putting money in a box.

In this country you’ve got to legitimize yourself, which is the way I ended up with all of the different tax issues, because I was paying a considerable amount of taxes. The government always takes the position with gamblers that whatever they’re paying it’s probably not enough. I know in my case I think they realized they were better off with me working for them, than them working against me.

RL: What are some of the biggest ways you’ve seen poker change during your career?

BB: I guess the biggest change is the fact that TV got interested. Poker used to be thought about as a sleazy sort of game…played in the back rooms, against the law. It had a bad reputation just because it was against the law. But now you have people that have been very successful in other businesses, and they have made a lot of money. They become bored with their lives and so they get into poker. It’s amazing, there are very high quality people coming into poker and it’s really made quite a change. Poker is really on the upswing and it’s only going to get bigger. Any time you have people with money and they like to do something it gives it more credibility, it gives it more respect.

I used to never recommend gambling to anybody, even though I was successful at it. It was tough coming up, you could go to jail, and you got robbed. We went through everything back in those days. So it wasn’t something you would want your kids to have to do. Some of these young kids coming up today though…you could pick a worse profession [pause] but only if you’re good! If you’re not really good, at the top of the food chain so to speak, it’s not really a good life either. It’s like any other thing; you’ve got to be one of the best in that business in order for it to be lucrative for you. You’ve got to be able to do it and you’ve got to avoid a lot of the pitfalls, like gambling in the pits around the casinos and that sort of thing. Overall, there are a lot of kids out there now that are making a lot of money. It’s given poker a better face so to speak.

RL: What is the legacy of your seven WSOP bracelets?

BB: People look back and say, “Oh the fields were smaller than.” They were a lot smaller but they were against the best players. The Doyle’s, the Chip’s, every one of those people played in every event that I ever won. The truth of the matter is I didn’t play hold’em back early on. I might have won a lot of tournaments, but the bracelets didn’t mean nothing really then. I didn’t play hold’em because deuce-to-seven was my main game and I wanted to keep everybody playing that. So I kind of boycotted hold’em.

RL: What did it mean to join the poker hall of fame and affirm the fact that you have successfully gambled for a living over the course of a lifetime?

BB: I think everybody likes to be recognized, although that was never my goal, because my goal was to make money to pay the bills. Now, looking back in terms of bracelets and how that affects your legacy in poker it would have been a good thing to play more. I’m sure if I would have known that I would have started to play all of the games. Me being the business man that I am, I only played my specialties in poker because I didn’t have to play anything else. I had the best clientele on earth playing my game, so why change it. I could show up any day I wanted to play and play with the people that owned the casino who weren’t very good players. My mindset was to make money.

RL: What has been your ultimate goal during the course of your gambling career, whether it has been poker or sports betting?

BB: I can honestly say from the very beginning my goal was to make money. I started out when I was very young. I mowed lawns; I worked in a grocery store…only because my parents made me. You couldn’t hang around my house and not work; you had to be doing something. I got a work ethic from my parents, and even today when I’m 69 years old I’m still an early riser at 6:30 in the morning. If I’m not doing something I’m bored to death. I’m a worker; it’s what I like to do. To me playing poker now is like people that like to go to the golf course and play with the boys. I enjoy getting around the guys and playing a little poker and it seems to keep me younger too. The fact that I’m around younger guys, you have to listen to their B.S. all day and it keeps you right there in the mix.

Whatever they’re talking about you’re a part of the conversation, so it keeps your mind working and keeps you sharp. At all times throughout my career I gambled to make money though. That was my sole job. My wife didn’t work, she ran the house and took care of our three kids and she gave me a lot of freedom to get out and work. That’s what I am, I’m a worker….There were times early on when Major Riddle and those guys were playing and the games were so good that there were birthdays that I would miss and I might play two or three days straight. I don’t do that anymore. We used to play there at the Dunes and there would be cold towels around our necks just to keep awake. Major would leave me at the table for four or five hours to go to meetings. If you ever left or quit him he wouldn’t play with you no more. That’s why I think he liked me, because I never went home until he dismissed me. When he dismissed class, that’s when I went home.

RL: What still drives you to keep playing and gambling after you have won enough money to support yourself during the course of your lifetime?

BB: I enjoy playing, and it keeps me young. I really think that. Keep in mind that I’m 69 and about to be 70, I have seen in my lifetime that people, whether they made it or didn’t, once they start retiring or just wanting to sit on the front porch, the next thing you know they’re getting the box ready for them. I’m convinced that staying active and keeping your mind working and competing may be the best thing in the world to keep a guy going when he’s older. It keeps the juices running so to speak. I think staying in the game is a big thing for your overall health.