Personal Foul. Tim Donaghy
that’s why they call it gambling.
Lady Luck was fickle that evening, and I walked out of the club with two golf tees and some lint in my pocket. Sitting alone in my car, tired from the long day and emotionally drained from the nonstop action upstairs, all I could think about was finding another game the next day. Ten thousand dollars gone, just like that. The funny thing is it took me years to realize that it was never really about the money—it was about the risk, the adrenaline, the juice of standing over that four-foot putt or flipping an ace or a king over someone’s two queens. That’s what it was about for us, and Jack and I couldn’t get enough. On to Atlantic City!
Atlantic City, New Jersey, is a quick 80-minute drive from Philadelphia on an expressway paved with hope and lined with greed. Jack and his best buddies had been making the trip for years—sometimes two or three times a week—just to try their luck at the tables. Jack eventually invited me along, and I walked into a world that blew me away.
Jack’s favorite casino was the Borgata, a big, flashy monument to the excesses of the fast life. Everyone was there: the blue hairs playing bingo and nickel slots, the poor folks betting their last dime, and the high rollers indiscriminately dropping thousands in exchange for being treated like royalty by the casino. Jack’s crew fell into the last category. The casino rolled out the red carpet for Jack, giving him complimentary food, drinks, show tickets, luxury suites, and limos. He knew all the names of the dealers and the pit bosses, and they knew his. He strolled in like he owned the joint, waving to employees as if they were lifelong friends. Of course, we were all just playing a big game, but it was intoxicating and I couldn’t wait to breathe it in.
Jack had his favorite table, his favorite dealer, and his favorite seat—it was a ritual he followed religiously. The game was always blackjack and the stakes were usually high. The minimum bet was $100, the maximum bet was $5,000, and I never saw Jack bet the minimum. Our group was loud and we often attracted a large flock of onlookers. After winning a big hand on a big bet we would all scream and curse for joy, and the gathering crowd would multiply. Our table became the real show on the Boardwalk, not the transvestite cross-dresser singing Bee Gees songs in the lounge or the washed-up ’60s folk singer asking, “How many roads must a man walk down, before he knows he’s a man?” Let me tell you, the answer wasn’t blowing in the wind; it was staring Jack and me directly in the face. Should he split those 8s or double-down on a 9 when the dealer was showing a 6? You bet he should! After all, we didn’t come for the buffet; we came to play!
My junkets to Atlantic City with Jack weren’t limited to the summer off-season months. There were occasions when I was working a game on the West Coast and was scheduled to fly home the following morning for a few days off. Instead, I would finish the game and grab a taxi to the airport to catch a red-eye flight to Philly, usually arriving around 6:00 AM. As I strolled off the plane, eyes bleary from the restless flight, my good pal Jack was there to greet me with a devilish grin on his face. “Let’s go, T.D.!” he’d say. “Time’s a wasting and I’m feeling lucky!” Like a shot of black coffee on a cold Philadelphia winter morning, I immediately perked up and was ready to roll. I could already hear the sounds of the casino beckoning me to the Jersey shore for another roller-coaster ride of emotions. An hour and a half later and we would be sitting at the blackjack table, waiting for that ace to fall and our luck to turn.
At the same time, Kim was anxiously expecting me to pull into the driveway at 5:00 PM. Since I was on the road most of the month, living out of a suitcase in hotels across the country, Kim treated our rare evenings together as though it was our first date. My short stops at home were like long layovers in an airport during a winter storm. She probably thought I was still on an airplane, eating a bag of stale pretzels and sipping a ginger ale. But I wasn’t. I was in Atlantic City, drinking beer and playing cards for hours with our good family friend, Jack Concannon. That was where the lies began: secret trips to the casino when I should have been home with Kim and our girls. I always felt guilty, but not guilty enough and not for very long. I had an itch to scratch and no matter how hard I scratched, the itch just wouldn’t go away. I didn’t want it to.
Those trips all ended the same way. With our pockets full or our pockets empty, we jumped in the car late in the afternoon and arrived back in Philly just in time. As I walked into the house, Kim would give me a big hug and the girls would scream, “Daddy’s home!”
“How was your trip, honey?” she’d ask sympathetically.
“It was fine,” I would reply. “Just like all the others.”
I was back home, insulated from the world, protected by my family, and sheltered from my demons. Yeah, right—who was I kidding?
During the NBA season, I was away from home for 26 days of the month. Including the playoffs, I was a traveling nomad for eight to nine months of the year. But whether I was home for a three- or four-day break or the entire summer, gambling had begun to consume my life. The secret trips to the casino became as regular as getting a haircut, gassing up the car, or going to church. When the weather permitted, I played golf all day and cards all night. I invited gambling into my house along with Jack and some buddies for a night of blackjack in my swank subterranean game room. My daughters would take turns sitting on my lap while I dealt cards to the guys. I should have been upstairs, reading Dr. Seuss to the girls until they drifted off to sleep. But no, I was teaching them how to signal for another card by tapping the table or how to stay by waving off the dealer. It was so wrong, but I couldn’t walk away. I justified my behavior in so many ridiculous and silly ways. I actually convinced myself that we were spending quality time together, but nothing could be further from the truth. I was becoming emotionally bankrupt, willing to risk it all for one more crack at the cards. Little did I know that I was just getting started.
I suppose the highlight (or lowlight) of my casino escapades with Jack and the boys came on a beautiful summer day in—where else?—Atlantic City. I told Kim we were playing golf and would be home by 6:00 PM. She told me not to be late, as she would have dinner on the table at 6:00 sharp. But we never played golf that day. Instead, we headed straight for the Borgata, where a legend was about to be born.
Jack and I would regularly play golf with a friend of ours I’ll call George, who, like Jack, owned a company and was master of his schedule, free to jump in the car and head for the shore anytime he liked. George had both of his hips replaced during the previous couple of years and walked with a noticeable limp. Walking down the fairway or strolling through the Borgata, George looked like a toddler in diapers taking his first few steps.
As usual, our game was blackjack, and George wasted no time betting big—at times he was playing three hands of $5,000 or $6,000 apiece—and he was drunk off his ass. With each winning hand, another beer went down and we all laughed like hell. A crowd began to gather and before it was over they were 10 rows deep. He was like a cartoon character, shouting, roaring, and cursing every time the dealer had to pay.
“Winner, winner, chicken dinner! Pay the boys, Mr. Banker!” he cackled. The joint was jumping and people were taking notice, and I’m not just referring to the pretty cocktail waitresses trolling for tips. The floor bosses didn’t think it was so funny, especially when George went up $150,000 for the day. I had just finished reading Bringing Down the House, the story of a group of MIT students who took the casinos for millions by counting cards. When the casinos got wind of their scam, the kids were escorted to a back room and roughed up.
So there I was, watching the whole thing unfold when I noticed the pit bosses whispering to each other. But George kept winning.
“How do you like me now, banker boy?” George barked.
Okay, okay, settle down big guy, I was thinking to myself. But there was no stopping him. As George’s stack of chips grew, he stuffed them into his pockets, giddy as a schoolboy who had just copped his first feel. He leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling cameras, extending his arms and pulling back his sleeves as if to say, “Nothing up here, boys!” He was actually taunting these people.
One pit boss became two, two became three…well, you get the picture. Guys with names like Vincent, Salvatore, and Dominic were staring at us, arms folded across their chests, and I was starting to